"Detroit Sold For Scrap." The Onion
- Several days ago, I wrote a piece on Detroit {"Another Corpse In The Wake Of Progressive Policies"}. By now, most of us know all the statistics regarding the city's death from crime five times the national average to almost 80,000 vacant structures. More recent reports include 80% of the children in Detroit grow up without fathers, 50% of black males drop out of high school and a staggering 60% of black males have done some time (NY Post, Rich Lowry).
- And as Lowry notes: "The city was the pioneering edge of urban liberalism and discovered that all of the social spending in the world doesn't deliver order, family stability, education, economic dynamism or effective governance." In other words, progressives believe government is the solution to all our problems. We've learned it's not. If it was, cities like Detroit would now be flourishing instead of collapsing. In fact, Detroit was flourishing decades ago when industry and the free market led their prosperity.
- Detroit should serve as a warning to many other cities governed by progressives---many of which are also failing including, but not limited to, Stockton, CA, Flint, MI, Youngstown, OH, Cleveland, OH, Camden, NJ, Chester, PA, (that had seven shootings this past weekend. Chester has a population of about 35,000, mostly poor and mostly black) and Chicago, Ill.
- Yet, time and time again, voters in these cities keep voting in progressive politicians. One is left to ask: Are progressives masochists? When a city like Chicago literally has blood flowing in the streets, when will Chicagoans wake up? Why do many of those good people living in such deplorable and dangerous conditions ever decide it's time for real change not the phony change that's always promised (as we've seen coming out of Washington)?
- Why do so many people turn to the same politicians- who caused most of the problems in the first place--again and again? It's a phenomena I struggle with and have difficulty wrapping my head around. It's undeniable that kind of behavior makes absolutely no sense.
- Over two decades ago, NYC experienced almost 2000 murders per year. After Republicans took over, murder rates have fallen to about 400 per year in a city of over 8 million people. In fact, Forbes ran a piece last year summarizing the best cities to live in and for businesses and all were run by conservatives. In fact, Texas, a conservative run state, reclaimed 100% of the jobs lost during the recession while the rest of the country reclaimed about 36% (Politifact).
- In Texas and other prosperous cities and states, they walk the talk. Time for "conversation" is over. It time to act.
- Perhaps John Adams summed it up best when he said, "Facts are stubborn things; and whatever may be our wishes, our inclinations, or the dictates of our passions, they cannot alter the state of facts and evidence."
