In Darryn Beckstrom's Sept. 1 column, she boasted a "riveting defense of the War on Terror" met by "petrified looks" among her peers. After six weeks of such unending hubris, I have been petrified far more often than riveted.

This week, Beckstrom portrays the victims of Katrina as incompetent toddlers spoiled at the teat of the welfare state, left helpless in the face of adversity: " … it should have been anticipated many would have cried foul when the federal government did not immediately provide the handouts and assistance they were accustomed to." But this is backward. It doesn't rain because people wear raincoats; people wear raincoats because it rains. Inequality is not a product of individual failure — or a spoiling of the poor — but is owed to a system based on profit and private property, where a handful of people own society and the rest of us scramble to work for them simply to make ends meet.

Further, Beckstrom seems to forget that rather than being the helpless, whining welfare queens she envisions looting jewelry shops when the levees broke, the poor of New Orleans rose to a level of heroism unmatched by any of the real looters Beckstrom celebrates in Iraq. Regular people saved thousands of lives precisely because they held such contempt for the individual ownership that Beckstrom reveres. Cars, boats, fresh water and food were stolen, and more people are living because of it. If you really want an ownership society, then everyone should have a stake and democratically run the economy … or is that just thinly veiled socialism.

Chris Dols is a UW alumnus.