Posted on 07/23/2013 3:38:02 AM PDT by Kaslin
The agonizing death of Detroit is cause for celebration. It’s the first of the liberal-run big cities and states to fall, and we should welcome its collapse with glee.
Yeah, liberals, eventually you do run out of other people’s money.
The blue state model is a terminal disease, and Detroit is its poster child. Only this is one telethon where we should pledge that we won’t pay a single dime to keep the progressive party going a single minute longer.
Detroit represents the epitome of the blue state, Democrat machine liberalism that Barack Obama represents. Well, not one damn cent for Barry’s Kids.
Liberal media mouthpieces like the New York Times are all in a tizzy because the consequences conservatives have been warning America about for years are finally arriving. “We have to step in and save Detroit,” it cries.
We don’t have to do any such thing.
Steven Rattner, writing in the Times, says “But apart from voting in elections, the 700,000 remaining residents of the Motor City are no more responsible for Detroit’s problems than were the victims of Hurricane Sandy for theirs, and eventually Congress decided to help them.” And apart from the iceberg, the Titanic’s maiden voyage went swimmingly.
This is a problem created by the people of Detroit. It’s their problem to solve – without our money.
If you listen to the hand-wringers, you’ll never hear an honest examination of why Detroit is imploding. Nor do they offer any evidence that the half-wits who elected the quarter-wit Democrats governing them have learned anything at all from this trip to the precipice.
The most hilarious arguments are the ones where liberals whine about the middle class fleeing from the city, taking jobs and the tax base with them. Sure, regular folks took a look at the well-governed, stable, crime-free Utopia that was Detroit and thought, “Yeah, we need to get the hell out of here.”
Liberalism and the political, economic and social pathologies it spawned drove everyone out of Detroit who wasn’t feeding at the municipal trough, whether through some form of government job or some form of government handout.
This isn’t a chicken and the egg brainteaser. It’s simple cause and effect. Liberalism turned Detroit into a hideous dump that milked those who contribute to society to pay off the Democrat machine’s constituents who don’t. People didn’t feel like living in a pig sty while serving as piggy banks for corrupt Democrats. The productive decided that while the non-productive might win by voting at the ballot box, the productive would win by voting with their feet.
Yeah, Detroit had some hard knocks. The auto industry collapsed, which is not surprising since it was the blue state model in corporatist form. But every city takes hits. Dallas and Houston have been slammed again and again by the energy sector, and they keep coming back.
Not Detroit. It keeps milking the “GM went bye-bye” excuse, with its apologists never mentioning that GM didn’t just disappear. GM just went to places that didn’t suck.
What did Detroit do about it? Nothing. The auto industry started changing decades ago, but liberals act as if that change somehow excuses Detroit’s legacy of corruption and incompetence. Detroit’s most significant export in decades was Eminem. That’s reason enough to want to see a stake driven through its metaphorical heart.
But, of course it’s all the Republicans’ fault…for some reason. Rattner says, “If I thought it could pass Congress, I’d happily support a special appropriation, but the politics of any spending are toxic in Washington these days.” Yeah, it is toxic to suggest that those of us who didn’t vote in a succession of criminals to run our governments give our money to morons who did. And, in any sane universe, no one would ever suggest doing so.
But this is the Times, the voice of Big Liberalism. It opines that, “America is just as much about aiding those less fortunate as it is about personal responsibility.” Except, America isn’t about “aiding the less fortunate.” It’s about the “less fortunate” working to make themselves “more fortunate” – understanding that liberals think people become financially stable not through hard work but by dumb luck.
Not surprisingly, in a Times article referring to the miserable condition of a city run by a liberal Democrat machine for half a century, there is no mention of either liberalism or Democrats. That’s like writing about obesity and not mentioning food.
The liberal elite, which loves root causes, absolutely refuses to admit that the root cause of Detroit’s woes is liberalism itself. Liberals are like a drunk who wants the benefits of sobriety while continuing to hoist highballs. Step One is admitting that their ideology has a problem.
Fat chance. For liberalism, the answer is “5,” and it’s the “2 + 2” that’s somehow screwed up.
We conservatives should sit back and giggle as liberalism hits bottom. No, Detroit’s collapse won’t teach liberals anything. The big cities and the blue states will fail no matter what. Liberalism is the locust of political ideologies; it will eat everything in sight and then starve.
But Detroit may serve a useful purpose once again as a cautionary example for future generations, so for that reason as well we should welcome its passing. And as it dies, the last words ringing in its ears should be the voices of laughing conservatives saying, “We told you so.”
Poor and incompetent representation and management is fixed at the ballot box, not the public trough.
If the federal government keeps bailing out cities and municipalities then they’ll keep perpetuating the problem.
I don’t expect you to understand. You only know what you’re told.
I actually go and talk to the people on the street and I’m finding more real conservatism there than most rural “conservatives” display. Thousands of people taking part in a thriving underground economy because going Galt was their only way of escaping the corruption and they know that no conservative rescue is coming. They don’t want your money, all they want is moral support and workable ideas.
The saddest thing is the fact that those FReepers who agree feel the need to tell me about it in FReepmail because they don’t want to be seen stepping out of line.
LLS
During the 1930s places like Oklahoma turned into a dust bowl. Residents tied all their worldly possessions to their old jalopies and pickups and left for areas where they might be able to get work. These were to poor and lower middle class...saying the residents of Detroit can't do the same is either racist or Marxist. .
The same has been happening in the North East. All that is left there now are the loyalist residue that worships Europe. The good folks have all left
It is right to assign blame.
In a democratic republic, ultimate responsibility for failed government rests with the citizenry.
Sorry, I was meaning the United States, not just some locality within.
Here’s what is frightening.
In a normal and realistic society, Detroit is the textbook example of what NOT to do if you want your city to remain prosperous and viable. It OUGHT to be the most dramatic and indelible warning to everyone.... individuals, cities and the country!!!
Everything that could be done to ruin the place and its prospects, WAS done, and done as if by necessity-like they had some crying NEED to croak the place.
They couldn’t help themselves and clung to their BS Liberalism... even when (VERY long ago) it was apparent that it was the wrong direction.
I especially loved/love the way Liberals beat us over the head for what they call our Conservative greed and lack of compassion. I loved/love the way they cast these insults in our face AS IF Conservatives would condemn any city to this kind of thing, JUST because they are Liberals.
A failed city hurts ALL America... but Liberals made political capital out of what THEY called the Conservative ‘uncaring and greedy’ demands for accountability and responsible management.
However, this catastrophe didn’t happen overnight.
So there has been AMPLE time to consider the future and there is a tremendous amount of blame to go around. But no, the spoiled children were shamefully indulged.
Blame must be laid at the feet of the Liberals in Detroit who screamed like spoiled children for what they wanted and GOT! ... (continuously, for decades). Blame must also be laid at the feet of Congress and the MSM which never once challenged this in a way that would even impede the process.
I agree with you for the most part. We should not be laughing at an atrocity like this.
But I also believe the best solution for Destroit is to raze it and turn it back into pristine Michigan woodlands. Put a plaque somewhere in it to memorialize what happens when the takers drive out the makers.
This is the kind of column Ann Coulter used to write before she started humping Christie’s leg.
I grew up in a time when I knew neighborhood blocks like the one pictured.
One of the most convenient of living situations.
If you look in the back ground, you see what appears to be larger middle class houses, at one time single family.
And the row of storefront may have been, corner candy store ala Doc's place in West Side Story, a laundry, maybe a small neighborhood bar, a small five and dime, laundra-mat ... etc.
I remember places like that ... in the 50's.
And it was a piece of America that, for a while anyway, was a good place to live.
I dunno, can you think of a more apropos time to engage in a little Schadenfreude.
A tool we can use when people ask "what can I do?".
“Put a plaque somewhere in it to memorialize what happens when the takers drive out the makers”
Well that would sure show the rest of the country Conservatives are brimming with ideas...;)
Detroit still has potential and if Conservatives cannot see that and cannot offer solutions to harness that potential then I guess modern Conservatism is just as much of a failure as liberalism....
Rush had the stats from Detroit yesterday. It's been 37 years since any (R) was elected it that city and over 60 years since an (R) mayor. I am afraid 0 bumbler will bail Detroit out again.
Oh, they were offered a chance to fix things, but their skin color or party affiliation wasn’t ‘correct’.
Laugh THEN bull-doze it to the ground. Salt the Earth, and setup a museum to show how Socialism fails EVERY TIME.
The solution for Detroit IS its agonizing death. That’s the way out. That solves everything.
Cities aren’t people. They don’t have immortal souls. It’s OK to laugh at their ‘deaths’.
We’re laughing at Detroit because it’s funny to watch socialism crash and burn.
We also laughing because the unbelievably stupid voters of Detroit need to hear our laughter and to realize what their sloth, envy and causal racism have won them - lasting shame and ignominy.
Don’t apologize! Detroit is dying and needs to completely die before its toxins can be purged. This is creative destruction. There will never be a New Detroit until the Old Detroit is dead. The current train-wreck is just the first step towards the rise of a new city.
After a divorce I spent every weekend in Detroit for 2 yrs
10 yrs ago
I saw many things that were beyond my understanding no one here in minnesota believed the stories I told them.
Travel between windsor and detroit is upsetting for anyone with a brain.
I met a family of young white girls who were not hookers.they lived in an abandon house with 2 kids.I took them to dinner when I could.They were sisters and cousins,2 worked at mcdonalds and shared with the others.
There is nothing to laugh about...only a fool would laugh.
about detroit.
no offense but what an idiotic post..
Then perhaps you care to explain why 4000 years of humanity having the ‘courage’ to call a spade a spade and hold feet to the proverbial fire is a bad thing.
Sorry CC, we often agree but you are well off the rails here. There is nothing whatsoever cowardly about us giving the proper reaction when it’s due. and the proper reaction is to shame the holy hell out of the people who destroyed an entire city and uncounted lived with their political philosophy.
Or do you prefer we just let them slide? AGAIN???
Reality check. Letting them slide results in further emboldenment...a fact that the forementioned 4000 years of human civ has demonstrated time and time again.
No one said we just mock’em and call it good. No. We must also fix what they broke with conservatism and it’s principles. Because no one else can. And that fix is to spread our success to those who lack it....those willing to learn from it.
Now if you can find a logical or historical flaw with the above, and you won’t, do tell.
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