Urban decay might as well be called Democrat decay. Democrats rule every major city in America and the more power the Democrats have in the city, the more likely the city will be a complete mess.
Enter Detroit, Michigan.
Detroit might be the second worst example of unchecked Democrat policies in the United States today and that's saying something. The first would be New Orleans. Close behind would be Philadelphia and Chicago. Remember New York City before Rudy Giuliani? No? That's because the city was too dangerous to visit before the Republican mayor cleaned house.
Economic chaos precedes sociological anarchy and that's where Detroit finds itself. For years, Michigan rolled along fat on car manufacturers tax gouging. Communities sprung up like neat little lines of boxes all around the cities. There were indulgent public school programs (my own high school had a beautiful, full-service planetarium thanks to the local Oldsmobile plant).
Taxes continued to increase as more public services were offered. Then, a confluence of events turned Michigan on its head and the state has yet to find its footing. Union demands outstripped the companies' ability to increase production adequately to continue increased profits. The car companies grew top-heavy with layers of innovation-killing management. Good ideas would get stifled in layers of play-it-safe-bean-counting management. The states and cities weren't and continue to be undiversified economically. The equivalent of a seaside fishing town, Michigan got swept along whatever the economic weather. And when sales dropped, tax revenue dropped. And when income fell far enough, jobs were lost but not until after years on furloughs (being paid to do nothing) and lay-offs which drained profits from struggling companies.
And what did Detroit and the state of Michigan do? Raise taxes, of course! Loathe to cut companies or their employees slack, the government continued to hike taxes on those working to help those without a job. In Detroit these days, that's nearly 25% of the working population. Can you fathom that number? One in four people languishing while Democrats fiddle.
So what destruction does Democrat policy produce? This post from The Urbanophile from August shows, literally shows, that it ain't pretty:
In most cities, municipal government can’t stop drug dealing and violence, but it can keep people with creative ideas out. Not in Detroit. In Detroit, if you want to do something, you just go do it. Maybe someone will eventually get around to shutting you down, or maybe not. It’s a sort of anarchy in a good way as well as a bad one. Perhaps that overstates the case. You can’t do anything, but it is certainly easier to make things happen there than in most places because of the hand of government weighs less heavily.
What’s more, the fact that government is so weak has provoked some amazing reactions from the people who live there. In Chicago, every day there is some protest at City Hall by a group from some area of the city demanding something. Not in Detroit. The people in Detroit know that they are on their own and if they want something done they have to do it themselves. Nobody from the city is coming to help them. And they’ve found some very creative ways to deal with the challenges the result. Consider this from the Dowie piece:
About 80 percent of the residents of Detroit buy their food at the one thousand convenience stores, party stores, liquor stores, and gas stations in the city. There is such a dire shortage of protein in the city that Glemie Dean Beasley, a seventy-year-old retired truck driver, is able to augment his Social Security by selling raccoon carcasses (twelve dollars a piece, serves a family of four) from animals he has treed and shot at undisclosed hunting grounds around the city. Pelts are ten dollars each. Pheasants are also abundant in the city and are occasionally harvested for dinner.
This might sound awful, and indeed it is. But it is also an inspiration and a testament to the human spirit and defiant self-reliance of the American people. I grew up in a poor rural area where, while hunting is primarily recreational, there are still many people supplementing their family diet with wild game. Many a freezer is full of deer meat, for example. And of course, rural residents have long gardened, freezing and canning the results to help get them through the winter. So this doesn’t sound quite so strange to me as it might to you. The fate of the urban poor and the rural poor are more similar than is often credited. And contrary to stereotypes the urban poor often display amazing grit and ingenuity, and perform amazing feats to sustain themselves, their families and communities.
Think about this for a moment. Here is a writer triumphing the human spirit in the face of dissolution of the urban social fabric. The scenes described could be a bombed out, war-torn city but they describe a city, a city controlled by Democrats.
Should the Democrats get their way nationally policy-wise, the whole fate of America will be a slow devolution into anarchic utopian, agrarian ideals. So, the benefit will be local farming coupled with lawlessness. Homes will be worth nothing, stripped even, but cheap! The downside? Only rich people will be afford to live in them, because the poor will be renting or homeless. The upside? Less energy usage!
The Democrats push forth policies that work against human nature. They reward bad behavior which begets more bad behavior. They triumph irresponsibility and malign achievement. They indulge cronyism which allows corruption to flourish. Lawlessness ensues. Anarchy results. Decay is inevitable.
Conservatism isn't just about conserving values, it's about conserving and preserving what has gone before--economic, spiritual, architectural, etc. A conservative values law and justice. Only in a free society can the economy grow. (Note that grocery stores can't service these areas in Detroit--it's not safe to be open there.) In New York, when rational law and order returned, the economy could be unleashed. Punitive taxation had to be removed. Success needed to be rewarded.
The Democrats in Washington are going down the exact opposite road. They are taking America down the failed road that ends in a city like Detroit. Their agenda must be stopped. The legacy of Democrat policies is abject failure. America as we know it now, will be a long distant memory.
It only took a generation to destroy Detroit. America could easily fall that quickly
Melissa Clouthier's Bio
Dr. Melissa Clouthier blogs on her own website and RightWingNews.com . She also hosts a new online radio show on RFC Radio . Owning her own medical business means that what happens in Washington is not theoretical to her or her family.
Posted
10-27-2009 9:20 AM
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