Detroit – A.K.A. A Cautionary Tale for the Rest of America

By Parrothead Jeff, on 21 December 2009

Detroit. Motown. Home to the American car industry and culture.

Well, at least it used to be.

These days, the average price of a home in Detroit is only $5,700 which might sound nice until you find out why. Sure, you’re kids will have more money lavished on them for their education than you’d ever think you might be able to afford to do yourself, but so what? The national average for spending on a K-12 is $9,600, but Detroit students can expect $11,100 in spending on their education. Again, that sounds good until you discover that the graduation rate is 25% and that the students are more likely to go to prison than to graduate.

Detroit is now a city where the unemployment is officially 28%. That’s before you start counting the people who’ve quit looking for a job. There’s so much in the way of decay and so much newly reopened space that there are not only wild dogs running in packs, but bears have been seen in downtown Detroit.

To say the place sucks would be an understatement of grand proportions, even for me. Just think about this – the murder rate in Detroit is five times higher than the national average (despite nasty gun laws) and only three out of ten murders are even solved.

I was emailed a link to a video by Steven Crowder at Pajamas Media and this is what I’ve learned. It’s the legacy of decades of government handouts and entitlements. I guess I really shouldn’t be surprised that the legacy of decades of Socialism in Detroit mirrors the legacy of Socialism in Europe so closely. It’s truly a very sad sight.

Click here or on any of the screen grabs from the video below to watch it. Please, really go and watch it. Let it soak in. Get a good grip on it.

And then remember that this is exactly what Obama and the current crop of criminals in D.C. are promising. No, they won’t tell you that this is the end result. They’ll sweeten it up with sugar and cover it with cotton candy. They’ll dress it up in a tuxedo and say how nice it will be. Hell, they’ll tell you it’s better than central air conditioning. But it will only lead to ruin.

Detroit - December 2009 - Click for the video

For some reason, I feel a bit like I’ve been visited by one of the Ghosts of Christmas as envisioned by Dickens all those years ago.

Please, don’t let this happen. Fight back. November 2010 is less than a year away. Do what you can and I’ll do what I can. But don’t quit. Don’t give up. Never surrender.

America’s better than this and we’re the only ones who stand between the greatness we know we’ve had before and the tragedy that awaits us.

Buck

December 22nd, 2009 at 1346 · Reply

I saw Crowder’s vid earlier today at one of my daily reads. I’ll just repost what I said over at Morgan’s House, rather than re-invent the wheel:

Things surely do suck south of Eight Mile. But Detroit remains a beautiful place north of Eight Mile. Scroll down to my first post this past Sunday for a recent (2007, I think) Google Earth street view of my old neighborhood… and Ferndale ain’t Bloomfield Hills… it’s a working-class sorta ‘burb where life was pretty danged good 15 years ago, and looks like it still might be.

But as for the City of Detroit? I weep, and with good reason.
– bpenni | 12/22/2009 @ 13:04

December 22nd, 2009 at 1349 · Reply

BTW… my blog-bud Morgan spent time in Dee-troit, so he understands my cryptic use of “Eight Mile.” Eight Mile Road is the boundary between the city of Detroit and the near burbs. I thought maybe I should do some ‘splainin’.