Wednesday, November 26, 2014

We gather together

Hot Air: "Ohio could host both political conventions in 2016."

I like Kevin Williamson's suggestion that the Democrats should pick a city to match their politics:
The Democrats, if they had any remaining intellectual honesty, would hold their convention in Detroit. Democratic leadership, Democratic unions and the Democratic policies that empower them, Democrat-dominated school bureaucracies, Democrat-style law enforcement, Democratic levels of taxation and spending, the politics of protest and grievance in the classical Democratic mode — all of these have made Detroit what it is today: an unwholesome slop-pail of woe and degradation that does not seem to belong in North America, a craptastical crater groaning with misery, a city-shaped void in what once was the industrial soul of the nation. If you want to see the end point of Barack Obama’s shining path, visit Detroit.
The GOP can take Texas.

7 comments:

Anonymous said...

Nah, the GOP should have its convention in the Villages, Florida.

Paper or craptastic? said...

Kevin Williamson enjoys typing the word “Democratic.” These are the five states with the most Chapter 9 municipal bankruptcy filings:

1. Nebraska
2. California
3. Texas
4. Alabama
5. Oklahoma

Anonymous said...

"The main difference between Nebraska and its larger brethren is the kind of government bodies that file for bankruptcy. All 45 of Nebraska's Chapter 9 cases were by the special tax districts, most of them owned by residential subdivision developers who used property tax revenue to pay for streets, sewers and other infrastructure."

Paper over the crap said...

Kevin Williamson enjoys typing the word “Democratic.”

As if somehow that's irrelevant, since he's talking about Detroit?

To which subject the rest of your comment is indeed irrelevant.

Irrelevant never forgets said...

By all means, let's put the details of Nebraska's financial woes into context. As thoughtful people, we must always consider the bigger picture.

Example: when it comes to Detroit's collapse, it’s big picture analysis to cite "Democrat-dominated school bureaucracies" but not de-industrialization.

And obviously “the politics of protest and grievance in the classical Democratic mode" have been far more crucial to Detroit’s fiscal history than, say, the creation of suburbs.

So in conclusion, Democratic. It’s what killed Detroit, and it's why Boston, New York City and San Francisco are in the same economic shambles.

Eric said...

Really?

The "creation of suburbs" is not the cause of social collapse, it's the reaction to social collapse in Detroit, where workers didn't want to support the city model.

Where were the most violent protests against forcing school systems to merge together? Oh yeah, it was in the socialist paradise of Boston.

In terms of economic shambles, look at the future of American cities. All the fastest growing economies are in Texas and the South.

Really. said...

The "creation of suburbs" is not the cause of social collapse, it's the reaction to social collapse in Detroit, where workers didn't want to support the city model.

In a word, no. Detroit’s political shift from Republican dominance to Democratic upsets to Democratic dominance followed suburbanization, it didn’t cause it. Except for a two-year gap, Detroit was under Republican leadership every year from 1933 to 1962, exactly the period when it became a union town. Over half a million whites moved out of the city of Detroit before its government turned Democratic. (Spoiler: It’s why it happened.)

Where were the most violent protests against forcing school systems to merge together? Oh yeah, it was in the socialist paradise of Boston.

The infamous flag attack photo was taken in 1976, when Greater Boston's population was 3.9 million. In 1986, it was 4.1 million. In 1996, 4.3 million. In 2006, 4.5 million. Today the Boston area has 4.7 million. At the same time, Detroit's population (both city and suburbs) increased by... no, on second look, it’s gone down by more than 100,000.

Within city limits, Boston’s population is up a tick (5,000) since 1970. Detroit city’s is down 825,000. The numbers above tell us that most of Detroit’s not-citizens haven’t relocated to Grosse Pointes or Rochester Hills.

Relative to Boston and other U.S. cities’ spread and proportional growth patterns, the Detroit metro area is behind by 2 million people. Where’d they all go? They’re not in the city and most are not in the suburbs. Most of them are just gone. Why didn’t the same exodus happen in and around Boston, where a more entrenched liberal gulag is just as destructive to the taxpayer and the human spirit? Why haven’t Bostonians voted with their feet the way Detroiters have? Why is Boston’s economy going up, while Detroit’s is going down?

It’s almost enough to make a person stop wallowing in reflexive schadenfreude over self-evident Democratic craptasticalness. It’s almost enough to make a person focus on other factors that had a much greater impact on Detroit. Don’t be scared; I said “almost.”