Legislative Proposals Revealing of Michigan's Plight
One of the methods historians use to discover the social or other problems of past eras is to examine the laws that were proposed at a particular time. So for example, if Charlemagne promulgated a law prohibiting knights from killing rich widows and taking their land, we can infer that there was a whole lotta widow-killing going on back then.
Future historians will find this proposal for a new Michigan law to be revealing about problems existing in this state, from MichiganVotes.org:
2009 Senate Bill 1015 (Promote "urban agriculture" )
- Introduced by Sen. Gerald Van Woerkom, R-Muskegon, on Dec. 10, 2009, to revise the 2003 law that created local "land bank" authorities empowered to assemble and dispose of abandoned tax reverted property, so as to include "promote urban agriculture" among the things they are supposed to accomplish (along with "revitalize the economy, promote economic growth, and foster development"). Promoting "urban agriculture" that involves raising "livestock, poultry or other animals for profit" would be prohibited, however. [Comments on this legislation]
A discerning future historian may conclude that, if they were breaking up the concrete and planting corn, the state appears to have gone backwards in the six years since the original law in its stated intentions of "revitalizing the economy, promoting economic growth, and fostering development."
He or she will seek causes, and may turn to the economic historian for guidance. The latter is extremely unlikely to conclude that the economic sclerosis was due to too few taxes, regulations or government "economic development" schemes, and will point to the dominance of legions of politically powerful special interests who defended and sought ever more of these with every sordid instrument of influence and manipulation imaginable.
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"Inner Cities" & "Federal Reservations"
The demise of the City of Detroit, like many others, was hastened by the massive increase in social services of the "Great Society" which paid people to be poor and dependent of government. By itself the subsidization of out of wedlock births resulted in a subcultural, Matriarchal society, out of step with and unable to stay in sync with suburban and rural communities. ( No worry, the cultural decay of the country in general- is helping to even things out) Add to that, the influx into cities of millions of non-European immigrants after the 1965 Immigration act and you had further complications to social order by a mix of people of numerous cultures and languages, with most ( at least for a while) dependent on government for survival. Thus was the genesis of the violent, poverty stricken, incoherent "inner city" that has decayed physically and whose inhabitants seem to be imprisoned if not by economic poverty, psychological poverty and government dependency. This is Detroit.
The only thing keeping cities like Detroit from completely ceasing to be is Federal and State tax dollars. Municipal, State and Federal employees, Federal and State Grants, Federal and State subsidies and tax abatements, and of course the myriad of social welfare programs. Despite the hundreds of billions of dollars directly injected within the city limits of Detroit since 1965, the violence and misery that results from social engineering has driven more than half of the population ( all races included) away. Detroit is primarily left only with people that are prohibited from leaving (city workers), those too poor or elderly to leave, those whose world views are so limited, that they tolerate their wretched environment, and of course, the criminal element which seeks cover, customers and victims throughout the many square miles of burned-out houses, commercial buildings and abandon industrial facilities.
And of course, the Leftist will neither recognize that it was their Socialist agenda that created the mess, nor the folly of trying to remedy the horrendous condition with more of the same. Indeed, their distaste for Capitalism and the Private Sector makes them embrace policies that that entrap people both financially and psychologically as it serves an unspoken purpose: The "Inner City" voter is essentially an occupant of a "Federal Reservation" that has been shaped by 40 years of Socialism and is the most reliable voting block that delivers the power necessary for Marxists to continue its attack on Capitalism.
I must have been on a different planet for the past 4 decades. I could have sworn the biggest cause of the demise of Detroit and other Michigan manufacturing cities was the elimnation of hundreds of thousands of FAMILY-SUPPORTING jobs which were moved to other non-union states, but mostly to Asia, Mexico and other Third World countries. I think that shows the attack has been BY Capitalism ON the Middle Class and poor of America!