Posted on 07/23/2014 6:35:31 AM PDT by Kaslin
There’s nothing in the United States Constitution stating Americans have the right not to pay their bills. In fact, the Declaration of Independence, which gave birth to our nation, notes the only unalienable rights we have are life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness.
Yet thousands of Detroit residents think they have the right not to pay their water bills and demand their water remain on. About 80,000 residential water accounts are past due to the tune of $43 million. The audacity of freeloaders!
Detroit is an $18 billion bankrupt mess, struggling quite literally to keep the lights on and provide basic services to residents like police protection and emergency services. A year ago, about 40 percent of the cities 88,000 street lamps didn’t work and half of the cities 78,0000 abandoned buildings were declared dangerous.
All this thanks to decades of liberals mismanaging the city, growing its debt but not its revenue. Clearly, every penny the city’s Emergency Manager Kevyn Orr can find is critical.
The Detroit Water and Sewerage Department shut off service to a fraction of the non-payers, about 7,000, triggering hoards of protestors to storm Detroit declaring the shutoffs racist and that “water is a human right.”
Having access to water in your home,like owning a home, is only a right when you pay for it. It’s not a human right, neither is owning a car or a cellphone or having Internet access. But it’s no surprise under the presidency of President Barack Obama that many Americans feel entitled not to pay their bills. Since his election in 2008, Obama has engaged in class warfare, vilifying the rich and people who work hard to pay their bills so others don’t have to.
The most obnoxious and ridiculous response has been from the attorney who filed the class action lawsuit on behalf of freeloading residents who haven’t paid their bills and the NAACP. Both cry that the water department is racist because mostly black people have been affected.
NAACP Legal Defense Fund Veronica Joice cried the shutoffs “are being done in a discriminatory fashion; and they should at least take a look at whether there’s a better way to do this that doesn’t affect the most vulnerable citizens — the majority of whom are African American here in Detroit.”
The class action lawyer, Alice Jennings, took things a step further and alleged white owned companies owing huge water bills weren’t paying their bills either but also didn’t get their water cut off. Contrary to this race baiting bluster, according to Detroit’s water department, corporations like Chrysler received shut off notices and ponied up “millions in overdue bills.”
If more blacks aren’t paying their water bills than whites, how is it racist for the water department to demand the bills be paid? Sounds to me like black residents of Detroit expect to be treated differently when they break the rules solely because of their race. How is this fair?
Many black liberals are taking their cues from President Barack Obama and his US Attorney General Eric Holder who always seem to blame racism on the president’s inability to work with Republicans in Congress and get his agenda done. They think, “If it works for them, it can work for us.”
Obama’s policies also have eviscerated any notion of personal responsibility or self-reliance. From mortgage forgiveness programs to student loan debt, if Americans have a financial obligation they don’t want to pay, Obama seems to have a program for it. Policies like these encourage irresponsibility and the idea the government is always there as a back stop to walking away form one’s obligations. That isn’t the American way, where we all are created equal to have equal opportunities, not equal outcomes.
According to the Wall Street Journal, the Detroit Water and Sewerage Department was forced to increase the water rate by 8.7% due to customers refusing to pay their bills. For those people who genuinely experience financial hardship, the Water department offers a Water Affordability Program to help them pay their bills.
I bet the majority of people in Detroit not paying their water bills aren’t delinquent on their cable and cellphone bills. It’s called priorities. The cold hard truth is someone always has to pay for the people who don’t. That’s what a government subsidy is, money taken from working taxpayers to support others who don’t work as hard or not at all. Compassion and charity should be reserved for people who truly need it. Not every Tom, Dick or Harry.
At least. Saw a TV show recently that followed Detroit fire fighters around.
Was quite surprised to see they were, by a considerable majority, white. At least at the station shown.
“Throughout history, poverty is the normal condition of man. Advances which permit this norm to be exceeded — here and there, now and then — are the work of an extremely small minority, frequently despised, often condemned, and almost always opposed by all right-thinking people. Whenever this tiny minority is kept from creating, or (as sometimes happens) is driven out of a society, the people then slip back into abject poverty.
This is known as ‘bad luck’.” - Robert Heinlein
Pretty much does, de facto, now.
I’ve come to understand the “80/20” of “liberalism”.
The sheeperals think the “80” is helping people.
The ruling class libs understand that the “80” is punishing those opposing them.
She’s kidding, surely. You can’t ask them to give up their $200 Nikes for a mere basic like water.
I seriously doubt your theory about Malthusian collapses of the past. They did indeed occur, most notably probably in the recurrent “Changes of the Mandate of Heaven” in China.
But there simply was no past society in which the weak/lazy/stupid were kept alive to reproduce in the way they are today in western societies. Even at the peak of population in China before a dynasty collapsed, the weak/lazy/stupid were not supported by others. They just died.
The dysgenic policies of modern societies are a completely new thing.
I think Malthus had it exactly right. Without modern technology and drops in birth rates, populations grew at a geometric rate whereas food production could only increase at an arithmetical rate. A eventually exceeded B, famine ensued and the population crashed.
One of the classic examples is Ireland before the Famine. I don’t think there’s much evidence the Irish population was largely composed of the weak/lazy/stupid, or that productive members of society had been supporting them.
...AMONG THESE are life, liberty, and the purfuit of happinefs.
...AMONG THESE...
Well-said. Now, who is in better shape? Not the Europeans/Russians nor the feckless Arabs, that’s for sure. Perhaps the Japanese/Chinese/Koreans, though they are busy joining the Western Civilization. Probably the S. and Central Americans.
Water is a human right. That must be the mantra.
Great quote.
“Water’s free, man!”
Put an old-fashioned water pump every 3 blocks or so. Give everyone a bucket. Free water. You pump it and haul it, you can have it for free. Anyone who pays can have it pumped to their home or apt. Simple solution.
Sounds like the whites are the minority here not the blacks.
We have a boat with a 100 gallon water tank. Since the water sits so long I won’t drink it. Just use it for doing dishes, etc.
Every morning I take my 1 gallon jug off the boat and to the closest faucet and fill it up. Then take it back on the boat to make coffee, etc.
Doesn’t kill me.
Where did this assertion come from?
Until very recently, food production was always a labor-intensive activity, so it should rise proportionately with population, which was rising exponentially, according to you. Ergo......
To a minor extent.
However, the best land is put into production first. Production, especially back then, before modern fertilizers, etc. dropped off really rapidly as marginal land was put into use.
And, of course, there's only so much land. Doubling the number of workers on a 40 acre wheat field will not double production. Might increase it somewhat, but not proportionately to the number of workers.
You won't believe all the corruption and graft that comes out of this little city.
As Dr. King put it so eloquently, “I have a dream that one day, my little grandchildren will live in a nation where they can send whitey their water bill.”
Not for nothing, but how the hell do you get $540 past due on a water bill?
Most places I have lived shut you off at 10 or 15 days late.
How does one read beyond a comment suggesting the contrary as above?
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