Now even the dead are leaving Detroit

It sounds like something out of one of those “Night of the Living Dead” movies. The news story headline:

Flight of the dead: Suburban families move loved ones from Detroit cemeteries

The reason is that violence is so pervasive in Detroit that families no longer want to go even to the cemeteries.

Before my parents retired to Arizona, they went to see my grandparents’ graves in Detroit. When some hoodlums jumped a fence and began approaching them, they retreated to their car and got out fast. Even though my father, a retired district judge, had a conceal-carry permit and was packing a pistol.

That was in 1987. It’s even worse now.

My parents grew up in Detroit and loved the city. They moved to the suburbs only because my father’s law firm posted him there, a few months before I was born in 1955. So I grew up watching Detroit get destroyed.

It was destroyed by leftist and big-business “urban renewal” fanatics. Detroit, much like Chicago, Philadelphia, Boston, and other Eastern big cities, was a patch-quilt of ethnic groups, not just blacks but others in such areas as Poletown, Greektown, Corktown (Irish), and other areas with Germans, Belgians, Jews, Yugos (Yugoslavs), etc.

The urban renewers destroyed around 22% of the city’s housing stock, most of it in black neighborhoods, to put up freeways and high-rises for the rich. Eminent domain was used to steal the homes of Detroiters, especially the blacks. The blacks were forced to move into “the projects,” instant slums, or into the other ethnic neighborhoods. It was called “integration,” but really was white liberals and business interests socially engineering the city into destruction. First the white ethnics, then most of the blacks moved to the suburbs.

In 1955, the city’s population was nearly 2 million. Now it’s around 800,000 and dropping fast. Instead of “integration” the urban renewers produced a city 90% black, the most segregated big city in the country.

Things are so bad that houses in Detroit are selling for $1.

I didn’t drop any zeroes.

Keep that in mind when our presidential candidates, both Obama and McCain, offer up their housing polices. Click on the links to their names and you’ll see that both are connected to dubious developers that profit from government manipulation of housing and mortgages.

Government should just get out of housing entirely. But it won’t.

There will be more Detroits. Given that something similar might be in the future for your city, here’s a tour of the Fabulous Ruins of Detroit.

(h/t to Karen DeCoster of Lew Rockwell’s blog.)

Maybe the government will just seize your house and give it to a government worker

It turns out government pensions heavily invested in real estate — before it crashed. So you, as a taxpayer, are on the hook to make good on those bad investments. Reports Forbes:

If the setbacks for pension funds are severe enough, it could force state governments to raise taxes to cover shortfalls…

Well, many states, including California, allow “eminent domain” — seizing your property — not only for government uses (such as schools), but for private uses. Led by Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger, last month the government tricked voters into voting against Proposition 98, which would have banned the seizures.

So maybe the government workers will just send a SWAT team to your home, kick you out, and install the government worker whose pension collapsed. He has to live somewhere, doesn’t he? He worked for us all these years, didn’t he? Providing excellent, efficient government service at a low cost?

And besides, government workers are better than the rest of us. That’s why they’re in government: They’re better. So they deserve your house.

Start packing.

Californians abolish their own property rights

It is clear to me that the Republic no longer functions.– Queen Amidala, Star Wars I

Neither does the California Republic function. Today state voters, in their foolishness, abolished their own property rights by voting against Prop. 98. I would have banned using eminent domain (seizing private property) for use for other private purposes. Gov. Steroid opposed it because, as I noted, he’s a developer himself and his big pals are developers.

California voters, whose IQs average ocean temperatures in January, also approved Prop. 99, which ratifies the status quo in which the government can grab anybody’s property to use for any purpose, including private ones.

This continues Gov. Steroid’s long-time plans, as I often have noted, to turn once-free California into the socialist Austria of his youth. His blabbing about coming here for freedom — as in his 2004 Republican Convention speech — was so much blather to lull us into tyranny. Here’s what he said then:

As a kid — As a kid I saw socialist — the socialist country that Austria became after the Soviets left. Now don’t misunderstand me: I love Austria and I love the Austrian people. But I always knew that America was the place for me. In school, when the teacher would talk about America, I would daydream about coming here. I would daydream about living here. I would sit there and watch for hours American movies, transfixed by my heroes, like John Wayne. Everything about America — Everything about America seemed so big to me, so open, so possible.

Now America is not open, but closed. America of 2008 has become the Austria of 1958: controlled, regulated, tyrannized, enslaved.

Prop. 98’s defeat and Prop. 99’s victory are but the latest episodes in the tragedy.

Kalifornia’s Tuesday primary: Gov. Steroid vs. “Animal House” property rights

Otter: I think that this situation absolutely requires a really futile and stupid gesture be done on somebody’s part.

Bluto: We’re just the guys to do it.

— Animal House

Speaking of animals, the voters of Kalifornia are about to foist their wisdom on 37 million Kalifornians, most of whom are too sensible to vote at all.

There are two measures on our primary ballot: Proposition 98, which would protect property rights. and Proposition 99, which looks similar but would assault property rights the way Dean Wormer kicked the Frat Rats out of Animal House. If you seek a rational explication of the initiatives, my former colleague Steven Greenhut provided one here.

So —— guess which one Gov. Steroid and the state’s ossified political leadership is supporting? Prop. 99, of course.

This is what Gov. Steroid calls “post-partisanship” and “re-branding” the Republican Party. That is, turning Kalifornia into a facsimile of the socialist Austria he grew up in. In his paunchy, post-steroid old age, the Terminator has turned into Dean Wormer.

So Prop. 98 is failing in the polls and Prop. 99 close to victory.

For reasons I can’t explain because I haven’t had enough bourbon, I’m going to vote on Tuesday instead of sleeping one off. So, if you’re also foolish enough to live in the Pyrite State, join me and vote for Prop. 98 and against Prop. 99 to make a really futile and stupid gesture.

Like Bluto said, “We’re just the guys to do it.”

Gov. Arnold assaults property owners by opposing the great Prop. 98

Not just in California, but in the rest of America and the world, Gov. Arnold has a PR-primed reputation of working for the “people,” as he always says. He’s the “post-partisan” governor who only wants to “terminate” our problems, and supposedly “right-wing” Republicans need to “re-brand” themselves in his image.

It’s all nonsense. Arnold’s political philosophy is: Government of Arnold, by Arnold, for Arnold.

I got in the mail today what’s called a “Slate mailer” for the June 5 election. These are half-sheets of cardboard that urge one to vote a certain way. They look “objective,” but are in fact paid for by special interest groups.

This slate mailer opposes Proposition 98, a crucial reform to protect our property rights by banning government seizure of private property — what’s called “eminent domain” — if the property is given to another private person, such as a developer. (Eminent domain still would be allowed for public purposes, such as building a road or school.)

It also would get rid of rent control, long an insidious way to destroy the housing stock. (If owners can’t raise rents, they let their buildings fall apart, or convert them to another use, thus cutting the housing supply and raising rents.)

A great book describing how abusing eminent domain destroys property rights is “Abuse of Power,” by my former Register colleague Steven Greenhut.

The slate mailer I got is by a group called “Continuing the Republican Revolution,” but isn’t associated with the GOP. It’s also not associated directly with Gov. Arnold. But it boasts that he opposes 98.

It uses the No on 98 slogan, “Stop the Landlords’ Scheme” — that is, their “scheme” to end rent control and restore their own property rights.

The slate mailer shamelessly writes, invoking not only Ronald Reagan but God:

President Ronald Reagan will be forever remembered. His ideals of limited government and personal freedom have been passed on to President Bush and future Republican leaders. God bless him and God bless America.

Reagan, of course, would have supported Prop. 98. But such is the confusion of the Republican Party today under such leftists as Bush and Gov. Arnold that a lot of folks don’t know that.

The anti-Prop. 98 campaign also came up with a gimick: They put on the ballot Prop. 99, which seems to protect property owners, but doesn’t. It’s a fake. If both props get a majority but Prop. 99 gets more votes than Prop. 98, then it will become law and Prop. 98 will become like one of the victims killed in Gov. Arnold’s ultra-violent cartoon movies.

Why Gov. Arnold opposes property rights

So, why does Gov. Arnold oppose Prop. 98? For an answer, we should look to Public Choice Theory. People usually think their public officials are mostly well-meaning, although sometimes misguided. Public Choice Theory, as Wikipedia describes it, is more realistic:

Public choice theory is often referred to when discussing how individual political decision-making results in policy that conflicts with the overall desires of the general public. For example, many special interest and pork barrel projects are not the desire of the overall democracy. However, it makes sense for politicians to support these projects. It may benefit them psychologically as they feel powerful and important. It can also benefit them financially as it may open the door to future wealth as lobbyists (after they retire).

Let’s apply the theory to Arnold. He’s worth more than $100 million and invested most of it in real estate. He’s also friends with other real-estate big shots. What if they want to grab some little guy’s house or small business to put up a shopping mall? Then they can abuse eminent domain to do so. What if it ruins the little guy’s business and life? Tough. He’s just a dumb schlub — who probably even voted for Gov. Arnold. He doesn’t count for the “post-partisan” governor.

Prop. 98 would protect the little guy’s property, forcing Gov. Arnold and his friends to pay the little guy more money — a fair market value — to get his property. The little guy might even be stubborn and just refuse to sell his home or business, no matter what the price. It’s called ownership and freedom.

Prop. 98 is essential to every Californian’s right to own property. So it’s typical that Gov. Arnold, who’s spent his almost 5 years in office doing little but destroy this state, opposes it.

If Gov. Arnold wins and Prop. 98 loses, he’ll be putting California property rights in a coffin and burying them.