Posted on 03/04/2013 4:23:24 PM PST by lowbridge
An unbroken series of Democratic mayors followed, all of whom had a hand in implementing the full panoply of progressive policies, highlighted by the giveaways to public service employees. Their outlandish salaries and benefit packages, coupled with highly inefficient work rules, killed the golden goose: the auto industry, and its attendant industrial community headed South, where lower taxes and right-to-work rules kept their businesses afloat.
The same swath of progressive policies destroyed the public school system as well. Perhaps nothing illustrates the corrupting influence of those policies better than the Detroit Federation of Teachers’ success in scuttling a $200 million offer by businessman and philanthropist Robert Thompson to build 15 charter schools in the city in 2003. Ten years later, the Detroit Public School (DPS) system remains a cesspool of failure, corruption and bankruptcy, all of which is chronicled here.
Considering some of the men who have run this city, Detroit’s descent into socialistic ruination should surprise no one. From 1974 to 1993, Coleman Young, who was subsequently revealed to be a member of the Communist Party, was mayor of the city. He failed to stem Detroit’s descent into chaos, and in 1992 his police chief was convicted of stealing $2.6 million from city taxpayers, even as Young defended him. Michigan’s hard-left U.S. Senator Carl Levin was Young’s chief supporter, serving as Detroit City Council president.
Kwame Kilpatrick, who served as Mayor from 2002 to 2008, represents the epitome of corruption. In 2008, he pleaded guilty to two felonies and no contest to a third one, receiving a sentence of 120 days. In 2010, he received a five year sentence for probation violations stemming from his obstruction of justice conviction.
(Excerpt) Read more at frontpagemag.com ...
Go read the comments to the article. WOW! Tell it like it is. No political correctness there.
Most everyone who wants to work and have a life not dictated by the government have left.
“One of them mentioned that Detroit is 80% black. I knew the black population was high but was surprised it is that high.
And therein lies, IMHO, the big difference between Detroit and the rest of the US.”
More importantly, the headline misses the fact that it was Black RAT “leadership” since 1972, when Coleman Young started his twenty year “tenure” as the Mayor of Detroit, that has brought the city down.I don’t believe that there is a non-Black on the city council today.
Whatever tricks that the would be tyrants will use or have used on the free is up to the free to be prepared for.
It is their freedom afterall.
Those who would rule plot endlessly, while those who are free stop plotting as soon as they are free it would seem.
Once one is free, one must then stay free or one will not be free.
That is the way of man, and to assume anything else will result in being a subject.
If a free man is aware of plots against his freedom, there really is only one effective answer to such plots.
(Pictured, L to R, are: City Council Member Sheila Cockrel, Council President Kenneth Cockrel Jr., Council President Pro Tempore Monica Conyers, Wayne County Clerk Cathy Garrett, Secretary Land, City Clerk Janice Winfrey, City Elections Director Daniel Baxter, Council Member Joann Watson, Council Member Brenda Jones, Council Member Kwame Kenyatta, Council Member Martha Reeves and Council Member Alberta Tinsley-Talabi.)
We know “how”. They “why” is a more important question to my mind.
Criminals (mostly Democrat) Destroyed Detroit. We are still awaiting the verdict on the greatest criminal in Michigan history...
The damage they have done is incalculable.
I read that Martha Reeves (Martha from Martha and the Vandellas) used to be on the Detroit City Council. Now they have a retired NBA player (Bing) as mayor.
Yup, not a white male in the bunch. And I virtually guarantee that it isn’t by accident.
A particular subset of democrats destroyed Detroit. If liberalism alone could destroy a city Portland would be a wasteland rather than one of America’s most livable areas.
BUMP! BUMP! for Mark Scott mentions in a great thread. (RIP, sir)
Correct me if I’m wrong, but in constitutionally aren’t municipal governments creatures of the States? If so, the State can limit the authority of elected officials in terms of what they can regulate, how they can raise revenue and under what circumstances they can go into debt. A good start would be to eliminate the power to tax income and to restrict borrowing to capital projects only. The cities here have all prospered under those conditions.
“Kwame Kilpatrick, who served as Mayor from 2002 to 2008, represents the epitome of corruption.”
Yet if he could legally run in the next election, the typical Detroiter would vote for him! I’d bet a paycheck that he would win by 60% or more.
One potential solution is to let them live with the results of their choices. Detroit is the way it is simply because we keep subsidizing their idiocy with federal and state funds....
“There would never be such a study conducted, but if there was,”
Actually, a study has been conducted and it absolutely proves your assertions. It is titled “Detroit.”
Sad part. Bing’s the best mayor of Detroit in my lifetime. He’s also powerless with the council.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.
