I have been railing on the consequences of democratic rule for years. I have dedicated at least 10 posts to Detroit and Stockton California alone. I was reading a post over at Ace’s who highlighted an article by Mark Steyn and I wanted to share. With a judge overturning the bankruptcy filing to save bloated un-funded pensions, which is what buried Detroit in the first place, others are now saying that “White Flight” has caused all of the ills of the city, you can disregard the 50 years of democratic failed policy.

With bankruptcy temporarily struck down, we’re told that “innovation hubs” and “enterprise zones” are the answer. Seriously? In my book After America, I observe that the physical decay of Detroit — the vacant and derelict lots for block after block after block — is as nothing compared to the decay of the city’s human capital. Forty-seven percent of adults are functionally illiterate, which is about the same rate as the Central African Republic, which at least has the excuse that it was ruled throughout the Seventies by a cannibal emperor. Why would any genuine innovator open a business in a Detroit “innovation hub”? Whom would you employ? The illiterates include a recent president of the school board, Otis Mathis, which doesn’t bode well for the potential work force a decade hence.

Given their respective starting points, one has to conclude that Detroit’s Democratic party makes a far more comprehensive wrecking crew than Emperor Bokassa ever did. No bombs, no invasions, no civil war, just “liberal” “progressive” politics day in, day out. Americans sigh and say, “Oh, well, Detroit’s an ‘outlier.’” It’s an outlier only in the sense that it happened here first. The same malign alliance between a corrupt political class, rapacious public-sector unions, and an ever more swollen army of welfare dependents has been adopted in the formally Golden State of California, and in large part by the Obama administration, whose priorities — “health” “care” “reform,” “immigration” “reform” — are determined by the same elite/union/dependency axis. As one droll tweeter put it, “If Obama had a city, it would look like Detroit.” Read enitre article here.

With the proven failures of liberal/socialist/progressive policies affecting more cities across the country, you would think some would pull their heads out of their collective arses, but obviously the indoctrination of these elected officials has blinded them to the facts of their governance. It’s astounding they can look at Detroit and turn a blind eye to their own situation, instead blaming middle class flight for all of the ills that have befallen them. Case in point the high speed rail to be built from San Francisco to Los Angeles. This absurd waste of money, (68 Billion for Phase 1), is just another reason why

California cities will be falling like dominoes as the politicians tax business and citizens to pay for something they don’t need. Politicians fatten their wallets off federal funding and crony kick backs from the construction companies awarded contracts to build this fiasco. As with Amtrak, the cost to build it is one thing, the cost to run it something else completely.
In January 2012, an independent peer review panel published a report recommending the Legislature not approve issuing $2.7 billion in bonds to fund the project.^[38] The panel of experts was created by state law to help safeguard the public’s interest. The report said that moving ahead on the high-speed rail project without credible sources of adequate funding represents a financial risk to California.