Is looting ever OK? Maybe right now, in New Orleans, at least with respect to some basic necessities. Even if you're on vacation, like me, you must know the gruesome backdrop. Thousands are feared dead from Hurricane Katrina, the city is being evacuated, and may have to stay evacuated for months. Damages total some $75 billion, and the impact on oil and thus gasoline prices, may be pronounced. Desperate residents are hijacking cars to escape, and the Superdome has turned into a Hell On Earth for the 20,000 refugees inside. Finally, many people are lacking food, medicine, and basic necessities. AP has more:

As New Orleans has descended into chaos, desperate residents have stolen ramen noodles, loaves of bread, cases of soda -- basic survival needs in a painfully empty city. Others have taken jewelry, TVs and even guns.

The devastation left behind by Hurricane Katrina has raised difficult questions of ethics: When, if ever, is looting OK? When is it acceptable to break the law -- and what happens when law itself breaks down?

In New Orleans on Thursday, Monica Laguard sobbed almost uncontrollably as she placed items she had taken from a store's shelves into plastic garbage bags to take them to her shelter in a nearby school. She was taking children's clothing and snack foods. She could not find water. "I've got to get back to my children," she said. "I've got to get back to my children."

....Outside a Rite-Aid pharmacy where thieves had commandeered a forklift and used it to push up the storm shutters and break the glass, a woman on a bicycle rode up Thursday and asked whether police were making arrests inside. Told no, she said, "I'm a diabetic. I need test strips. I'm down to two. I don't know if my insulin's any good. It hasn't been on ice." Carrying toothpaste, toothbrushes and mouthwash, Earl Baker walked up to a reporter and said: "All of this is personal hygiene. I ain't getting nothing to get drunk or high with."

In the first days after New Orleans flooded, local police took a relatively relaxed attitude toward refugees stealing food, water and other necessities. The police chief and mayor said they understood people were trying to survive.

But as the looters have grown more brazen, law enforcement has begun to crack down, especially when thieves have taken guns or preyed upon innocent people with food and water. By Thursday, National Guard, state and local police were deployed from search-and-rescue operations specifically to restore order to the city.

.....Some of the looters marauding through the city have clearly gone beyond survival needs. On New Orleans' Canal Street, dozens of looters ripped open the steel gates on clothing and jewelry stores and grabbed merchandise. At a Wal-Mart, looters brazenly filled shopping carts with microwave ovens, coolers and knife sets. Some walked out of a sporting goods store with armfuls of football jerseys.

And, most terrifyingly, looters have been breaking into stores all over New Orleans and stealing guns. New Orleans' homeland security chief said gangs of armed men are moving around the city, in some cases shooting at police.

Jonathan Haidt, a social psychologist at the University of Virginia, said some people might see widespread looting and not want to be left out -- to "feel like a sucker."

Triage is the right approach to looters now. Those taking non-essential items, and roaming the streets shooting, and robbing other storm victims, deserve whatever rough justice is meted out to them by authorities.

I have to wonder. If a natural disaster such as a tsunami or severe earthquake devestated my hometown of Seattle, would locals respond in a more civilized fashion than in New Orleans, putting mutual aid above fear and greed? How about in a European city of today? I believe, yes, in both cases. Even before Katrina, New Orleans has suffered from a lawless atmosphere and rampant municipal corruption. This ugliness will stain the city's soul for decades to come.

TO COMMENT: The regular comment feature is not in operation now. However, you can e-mail me your comments on this post, at the address accessed under "Contact," at the top of my "Main" page. I'll add them, here.

Mike Purcell, Port Orchard: I myself feel that if it had happened in Seattle, prior to New Orleans, you would see close to the same type of behavior and human suffering. I really do believe Seattle is not ready in any way for a huge disaster such as an major earthquake. From the mayor on down all you see is flippancy, a city that continues to ignore major problems, gangs, drugs, etc. What makes me feel that it may not go as far as the terrible situation in New Orleans is the close proximity of the military bases in our area. Perhaps some good will come out of this horrible disaster. Washington state goverment should take a good look at what is taking place; one can now see first hand just how fast a society can turn into utter chaos with in a few short days when you think your ready and your really not. With out the military to bring quick order, your out of luck, unless of course, your a tough city like New York and you have a tough no nonsense police department and mayor like Rudy, something Seattle lacks in all departments.

Tom Rekdal: Hobbes makes the basic point early on in The Leviathan. In the state of nature every man has a natural right to everything he judges to be necessary to his own existence. Everything. Since everyone possesses this "right," the situation is one of universal war, leaving everyone's life "poor, solitary, nasty, brutish and short."

If Seattleites and Europeans would cling to the illusions of mutual aid longer than those poor bastards in New Orleans--a dubious supposition, at best--that would only imply a greater capacity for denial, or a greater capacity to imagine themselves rescued back into an orderly state.

What we are witnessing in New Orleans is not merely a breakdown in morality (although it is that, too, of course), but a breakdown in the governmental contract. After spending hundreds of billions of dollars to create a new cabinet department of Homeland Security to anticipate just such an urban crisis as we are now witnessing, one can only despair at the pitiful result. No one at the top saw anarchy coming to Baghdad, and now no one at the top saw it coming to New Orleans.Please, no more commissions to investigate what went wrong. I think we can see what went wrong.

Posted by Matt Rosenberg at September 1, 2005 01:00 PM

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