I’m really curious what the libertarian response is to the Governor of Michigan seizing a town, firing the elected officials, and then handing it over to private enterprise. I’d like to hear about how this adheres to the Randian vision of Atlas Shrugged. Bonus points if you can throw in some Burkean principles or a quote from the Road to Serfdom.
The reason I ask this, of course, is that the glibertarians who serve as mouthpieces for the corporatists who run this country are fond of talking about how corporate cronyism is as big a threat to FREEDOM as socialism, yet I’ve seen nothing about this from the usual libertarian suspects. Seems to me this is light years more egregious than Kelo v. the City of New London, which sparked much outrage.
This? Not so much.
Hermione Granger-Weasley
Its just freemarket theory in action.
The invisible hand fisting the poor to get their prime lakefront property.
Villago Delenda Est
They can’t object too much, because they’re all actually neo-feudalists at heart. If they were really, truly in favor of maximum individual liberty for all, and not just a select few, they’d be advocating the redistribution of wealth from the rich to the poor hands over fist.
Dennis SGMM
It’s only a coincidence that the first place that Snyder chose to exercise his newly-minted gubernatorial super powers just happened to have a bunch of poverty-stricken black people living on prime lake front real estate.
No, really.
Tom Levenson
Because everyone knows that waterfront property not subject to global-warming induced tidal surges are simply the natural right of the Right.
MobiusKlein
Libertarians believe your freedom isn’t free – it comes at a price.
So logically, the rich can get more of it, since they have more money. QED.
Comrade Javamanphil
Our Galtian overlord producers are the only ones with the skill and daring to steal a town and develop it in a manner that will make them very wealthy. We should be grateful when they hire us to carry the golf clubs of their producer friends. Next stop, Grand Canyon Time Shares!
Culture of Truth
Whiffle ball!
Because government is bad and evil and corrupt and wasteful and so getting rid of an entire layer of government and turning it over to private, for-profit, efficient accountable businesses is good.
Yeesh.
Zifnab
FREEEEEEEEDDDDOOOOOMMMMMM!
Dave
Why? Simple…because Benton Harbor is a predominantly black community.
Edit – I see Dennis already pointed this out.
Dennis SGMM
@Zifnab:
More like: BRAAAAAAAAAAIIINS!
Bob
Winning! Duh.
piratedan
well after all, it’s one of THOSE communities, mostly populated by THOSE people, besides, THOSE people don’t even know about libertarians.
sublime33
Do the new managers get to decide how many voting machines will be up and running on Election Day 2012?
WyldPirate
But those were activist judges, Cole.
This Benton Harbor thing is regime change by an elected Republican majority over people that don’t count. It’s OK as long as we get the right dictators in place to run things.
Think of it as our own little domestic version of Libya–just a non-violent version of it.
kindness
Actual libertarians will be pissed but the ones in the media aren’t actual libertarians. They are nothing but republican pirates parading around in someone else’s suit.
The right wants a shooting civil war and they are doing everything they can to provoke it.
rea
Well, naturally, the law permitting this was only intended to operate against black communities. Benton Harbor is just the prelude to the big one–Detroit.
Turgidson
They just say they hate corporatism to be able to seem consistent. They hate poor people an order of magnitude more. Sockulism will always be the existential threat to them, no matter how Galtian or corporatist this country gets.
zmulls
You know, I’m not prone to hyperbole. But this feels like a declaration of war….
Poopyman
@sublime33: Voting? That’s so old fashioned.
HyperIon
Benton Harbor, Michigan…isn’t that where ChickenMan was from?
ruemara
poor blacks. Nothing to see there, nothing to care about there. Just the lice, the worthless, the takers.
Nick L
It makes sense to me. Every time I tried golfing in Benton Harbor, MI, some poverty-stricken black family always got in the way, with some typical liberal nonsense like “hey, my taxes paid for that park” and “I really like having elected officials.” How am I supposed to enjoy my freedom to golf where I choose (PATRIOT Act, read it) if these annoying black people keep insisting that they have a right to democratic representation?
4tehlulz
I look forward to the reappearance of the sundown town in American life.
Old-school racism needs to represent better.
The Moar You Know
I don’t know what the libertarian response would be, but I can tell you what this is, plain and simple.
It’s the practice run for Detroit.
MGB
You know, I’m really curious how this is going to go over in Detroit. I’m a native (though left in 2000 because of jobs). Anyways, I really don’t see the city of Detroit just rolling over and letting the gov. appoint a manager. Talking to friends (and parents) back home, people are pissed off about this law. I hope Detroiters start protesting, but with the way MI politics works; I doubt, but hope that Oakland and Macomb counties support Detroit. That’s just my 3 cents.
Joel
If I were a resident of Benton Harbor, I’d be tempted to dump battery acid in the soil right about now…
MGB
I wrote a longer comment, but it’s in moderation. This is all a trial run for Detroit. The difference is that, I hope, Detroit will fight this law, and fight the gov. Talking to friends and family from back home (Detroit native here), people are angry about this law, and everyone realizes exactly what city this law was written for. I will be curious to see the reaction in Oakland and Macomb counties though.
Hart Williams
You don’t get it, do you? We are Ayn Rand Supermen (mostly men) and like John Galt, the rules don’t apply to us! Why else do you suppose that we find that an imaginary baby’s potential freedom is more important than the freedom of a woman to make her own choices about the next 18 or so years of her life?
They are looters and parasites. Therefore we MUST dissolve their collectivist government to preserve their freedom. If we have to put in a luxury resort or two by seizing a public park or two, well, they weren’t making good use of it! We had every right to seize it from them (like the Indians, who weren’t using their land, as St. Ayn pointed out to the West Point cadets in 1974).
When you’re a rugged sovereign individualist, the rules don’t apply to you. Now, we’ve got to get back to blowing up housing complexes for the poor.
Damn their parasitic eyes.
feebog
Rachel Maddow laid out the entire shady plan on her show last night. What is so shccking about this is that it is so blatant and in your face. No attempt at subtrafuge at all, they are simply going to take the most valuable piece of property this town owns and turn it into a private golf course.
JordanRules
@The Moar You Know: Sadly, I think you and rea are right.
But, I think Detroit is ready. Like in Wisconsin, they underestimated the pushback…I don’t think the bastards in MI understand the sleeping giant has a bigger cousin who has been napping for a long time.
Bob Loblaw
Shoot, it’s just like the plot of Parks & Recreation. And what a funny and charming show that is! You guys are just being dour cynics.
Tja
I still don’t think you quite get it, John: “The Road to Serfdom” and its ilk are all blueprints, not cautionary.
Violet
The poor people should be glad the rich, important people are taking care of them by getting rid of that non-job-creating park and building a golf course where (a minuscule fraction of) the poor people can work (for minimum wage).
Morbo
White people around where I grew up referred to Main Street as the shortest bridge to Africa (but not within earshot of any black people). I’m sure they’re gravely concerned about this development.
rikyrah
them stand up for a town of POOR BLACK FOLK?
G-T-F-O-H
you must have lost your natural mind.
Dennis SGMM
It’s small thing I know but it just frosts the hell out me that the libertarian supermen are so fond of characterizing people as “takers.” The rat bastards have just taken peoples’ votes, their city government, and now they’re going to take their land. And I’m more than positive that the fair haired sons-of-bitches will figure out a way to make the people of Benton Harbor pay them for their efforts.
I will be hugely disappointed if Obama doesn’t sic the DOJ on these people.
gene108
I know the State of New Jersey manages parts of Camden’s local affairs, because the city doesn’t have the money / resources to do this.
These aren’t private folks, but people in the state government, if that makes a difference.
I don’t think the state government taking over a distressed city is unusual. Replacing elected or government officials with people from the private sector is very unusual.
Anyway, when it comes to trampling people IOKIYAR or at least that’s how the media sees things.
What’s really sad is the Republican governors turned down government investment in things like rail and other infrastructure projects, which would’ve brought jobs to their states and maybe kept a few towns from needing to be taken over by the state in the first place.
Morons.
Agoraphobic Kleptomaniac
I’ve been hearing about this plan for weeks and weeks on RM, but have yet to see the story anywhere else. blah blah media sucks, but honestly, the lack of focus on this story is astonishing and even a little creepy.
Felonious Wench
I met white cousins of Mr. Wench last week; they came in from Detroit. The racism that came out of their mouths really stunned me. The racism of whites towards blacks in Detroit (and I suspect Michigan as a whole) is not something I was ever aware of. I am now.
Davis X. Machina
@rea:
Think of it as ‘annexing the Sudetenland….’
Loneoak
Well, why would anyone need that park anyway? We all know black people don’t swim and poor people don’t look good in swimsuits.
piratedan
@Agoraphobic Kleptomaniac: you mean creepy like the lack of MSM coverage of thousands of protesters in streets all across the nation regarding the stripping of workers rights, like collective bargaining or the ability to form and keep a union?
the MSM has been co-opted, they just haven’t published the memos yet
MGB
@Felonious Wench:
I was born and raised in Detroit and can tell you that the amount of racism towards Detroit would shock most people. The most open racist people I’ve ever met were suburban Detroiters, who wouldn’t ever set foot in THAT city. THOSE people are south of 8 Mile road. They don’t associate with THOSE people. Hey, let’s take the city’s water treatment plant and force a regional council!
Sanjuro
I read this and the words Omni Consumer Products, Delta City and ED-209 flashed thru my brain. As Moar You Know stated it looks like a practice run. Although I think Detroit has quite a few areas that are vacant that could be grabbed without the hassle of this path to the end.
alwhite
Libtards, like the Koch, er excuse me, CATO Institute will be performing the world famous pretzel maneuver in which they twist themselves into tiny knots around some obscure bit of bullshit and inflate it to explain the whole deal.
Ultimately what they are really doing is setting the stage for the next communist revolution. When people no longer have anything left to lose, and nothing to gain from capitalism, there is a better than average chance for a new Trotsky/Lenin to bring about a change.
gene108
@Comrade Javamanphil:
Though construction on these Time Shares* was halted, when the Grand Canyon got turned into a National Park, I’m sure the private sector would love to get them cranking again.
*More like high end hotels, but GC was being developed by private for-profit interests, once upon a time.
Max Peck
Reminds me of District 6 in J-berg South Africa. They even made a movie about it, metaphorically.
Original Lee
Don’t forget Benton Harbor is where the woman who managed to save enough of her welfare check to buy a car so she could get a job and get OFF of welfare was sued by the state for welfare fraud (because she obviously didn’t need welfare if she had anything left at the end of the month).
Dennis SGMM
@Sanjuro:
A couple of years ago one commenter linked to a Detroiter’s blog that compared aerial photos of the city taken in the forties and Fifties with satellite photos of the same areas today. It was disturbing to say the least. Large sections of what were once residential neighborhoods have simply gone back to prairie. I’ve never been able to find that blog again although I sure wish that I could.
El Tiburon
Well, the golf course will need janitors and such. Job creation!
Felanius Kootea (formerly Salt and freshly ground black people)
Pennsylvania finally figures out that the free market isn’t going to take care of that poisoned drilling wastewater.
I’m surprised the governor hasn’t found a way to dismantle the state EPA.
MonkeyBoy
Isn’t this just akin to the “frontier mentality” that justified the killing or driving away of red-skins because white people could make more productive use of the land.
Daulnay
Facts are important.
1. Joseph Harris, the EFM of Benton Harbor, was appointed in April 2010 by Jennifer Granholm’s (D) administration, not by Rick Snyder a few days ago. This severely undermines the meme of “Republican wingnuts threaten elected government in Michigan”. Crain’s Detroit Business, April 2010
2. Harris’ actions have been controversial, and opposed by Benton Harbor commissioners. WNDU, Sept 2010
3. Harris did use the new law to strip local government of its powers, but did not dissolve it. Michigan Messenger, April 2011
There is no evidence that Harris did this at Snyder’s prompting. Harris was appointed under the old law, by a Democratic administration. He’s simply using the new powers that Snyder’s new law gives to him, probably to remove the power of people who’ve opposed his past actions.
What the incident does show are the bad effects of the new law, but it certainly doesn’t qualify as a racist attack by Snyder’s administration.
The Political Nihilist Formerly Known as Kryptik
Any running bets on whether any “serious” newsfolk will cast a light on this at all? I mean withoutnthe glbertarian lauds and applause for such “grown up” governance?
Yeah, didn’t think so. They just don’t care any more about being csught or held accountable n
The Political Nihilist Formerly Known as Kryptik
Any running bets on whether any “serious” newsfolk will cast a light on this at all? I mean withoutnthe glbertarian lauds and applause for such “grown up” governance?
Yeah, didn’t think so. They just don’t care any more about being csught or held accountable now, do they?
Scott
So what’s the solution to this?
All I see is the Rethugs pulling some scheme that’s blatantly anti-democratic and shamelessly corrupt, and I have no idea what can be done to stop it.
Is there anything that can be done?
Sideshow Bill
@Joel: Salt is cheaper and last longer
WyldPirate
@Felonious Wench:
Why do tell, FW. You mean it isn’t just white folks in the southern US that are racist? I guess you can be excused for this oversight given that you read this blog.
In fact, I’m surprised that in the last few days we haven’t had a 2,000 word spittle-flecked screed–complete with rhetorical contortions– from a certain front-pager insisting that the southern US was the soul bastion of racism remaining in the country.
/sarcasm
Silver Owl
Synder is eligible for recall in July. I’m gonna be busting ass to see that it happens.
The Political Nihilist Formerly Known as Kryptik
On an OT note, the touch typer in me weeps at trying to comment from an iPhone without tactile response as noted by the botch post above
Joel
@Daulnay: Agreed; especially with this part:
Which is the most relevant. Whatever Snyder’s intentions, and I imagine that they’re not good, his new law is the road to hell for most…
OzoneR
@Scott:
beat them in 2012 and 2014 and beat them hard.
’bout it.
At least if we had a parliamentary system, we could push for votes of no confidence and new elections. We are kinda doing that in Wisconsin.
jimmiraybob
Maybe Benton Harbor was operating with an oppressive garbage-collection system. The righteous lifting of such tyranny and villainy would maybe justify the move. They, the libertarians, apparently have a lot of sorting to do.
Chad N Freude
NoNoNo! You’ve got it all wrong. The most maximum liberty is to grab whatever you can, by any means, legal or illegal or unethical, and keep it all.
FeFiFo
Free Republic had a thread on this over the weekend; the consensus was that Benton Harbor is too dumb for democracy and they need a dictator (their words) until they can get themselves back on track.
Direct quote: “Sorry, dictators have been used from time to time since the Roman Republic to the summer of 1781 in Virginia. The trick is for otherwise freedom loving people to step back once the emergency is dealt with.”
Dennis SGMM
@Daulnay:
Good information. I would observe that the attack is not so much racist as it is greedist. In today’s America as long as you’re poor you can get fucked over no matter what your skin color.
stormhit
@WyldPirate:
You’re really missing the point. SE MI has long been one of the most segregated places in America. We’re talking a special level of racism here, and in part it’s why things got so bad. And then things getting so bad only made it worse.
Although, I will add that it’s not typically overtly stated. But despite that it’s still something that’s obvious by the behaviors of populations and politicians in the area.
Martin
This wouldn’t have happened if the other 5 and 6 year-olds had been armed.
licensed to kill time
@WyldPirate:
kind of funny in an unintentional way
Comrade Colette Collaboratrice
Want coverage? Go to Google News, search on Benton Harbor, and click ever’ damn story you see. (Except maybe the Fox local affiliate ones.) Clicks = money, and the news coverage will go where there are profits.
Jay Schiavone
I must have misjudged the Randians. I would have expected them to love the Kelo decision. Surely they must have been gratified when Pfizer left town shortly after the judgment.
WyldPirate
@stormhit:
I don’t think I’m missing the point at all, stormhit. I’ve been to the area in question and have lived in the NE US, the Rocky MTN region and the South. Racism is alive and well all over the US. That was the point I was making with the sarcasm in reply to Felonious Wench.
piratedan
@Daulnay: well facts are important…
didn’t eliminate the political positions, just stripped it of any power, as TRMS pointed out last night, they can meet, take minutes and adjourn. A castrated steer is still cattle, but you’ve kind of removed its reason for being, right?
as you mentioned, the guy was in place before the law, naturally he couldn’t pull the crap that he did until Snyder and his folks “enhanced” the law. All this means is that he’s a corporatist taking advantage of wingnuttia. The threaten local government part doesn’t happen until Snyder (and his ilk) modify the law, this hardly absolves wingnuttia of any blame tyvm.
facts are important, so is context
kdaug
@Dennis SGMM:
Yup. This is class war, people. Please pay attention.
WyldPirate
@licensed to kill time:
you got me there, LTKT. ;)
Citizen_X
@Daulnay:
True, and thanks for the info. BUT, specifically wrt the park-turned-golf-course: after looking over the videos on ABL’s site, it’s clear that a) this thing has been in planning for years, and b) there’s a real racial divide in that area. So there are definitely some nasty racial politics involved.
Also from the activist video at ABL’s site: the agreement calls for the golf course owners to pay the town $40,000 a year in rent for this massive, prime beachfront property. If that doesn’t count as theft of public property for private profit, I don’t know what does.
Tuttle
@Joel: I think Whirlpool beat you to the battery acid in the Benton Harbor soil thing by a few decades.
Linnaeus
I was going to point this out too. EFMs have been around in Michigan for quite some time, but it was under the new Republican-majority legislature and the new Republican governor that EFM powers got so expanded. Benton Harbor then became a convenient target.
Linnaeus
We should keep in mind, though, how race and class often intersect in American society. Comparing Benton Harbor and the mostly white and much more affluent St. Joseph just across the river illustrates that.
Dennis SGMM
@kdaug:
As concerned as I am with turning into an old, paranoid fuck (I have the old part nailed), America seems to me to be moving toward the acceptance of the notion that poor people don’t deserve to have anything nice and if they do it’s perfectly acceptable to take it away from them.
Citizen_X
@FeFiFo:
Hmm, who else was that that talked about a “temporary” dictatorship? Some guys named Karl and Friedrich…something. Can’t remember their last names. Anyway, I’m sure Freepers would agree with ’em!
Sanjuro
@Dennis SGMM:
I think I probably saw that same blog from the commenter that posted it here. It was a revelation at the time. I did a quick search myself and found some links that show the decay and decline of Detroit. I will attempt to attach them here.
jayjaybear
@WyldPirate:
So far.
jomo
There is not even the pretense that this is to benefit the people of Benton Harbor. It is simply to grab their goodies and sell memberships.
jayjaybear
@FeFiFo: Didn’t it occur to the person you quoted that 1781 was before the Constitution existed?
Dennis SGMM
@Citizen_X:
The study of History reveals dozens of dictators who, once the emergency was dealt with, willingly relinquished their powers and returned to private life. There was… um, well, you can always point to… or take the story of…
Aw, fuck it.
Linnaeus
I grew up in Michigan – southeast Michigan to be more precise – and I moved away for graduate school some years ago, which I’m now finally finishing up. I’ve thought about going back to Michigan not just because of family and friends but because I thought I could be a part, in some small way, of helping the state to recover. Then I see stuff like this and I think there’s no way I can help.
"Serious" Superluminar
Well, I assume this post is “snark”, and frankly, I do not normally respond to such hostile quasi-trollery, but I shall indulge on this occasion. Sometimes it becomes necessary for the adults in politics to wrest control of a situation from those who are insufficiently serious, and this is one of those times. The council of Benton Harbour (and I think you’ll find it’s not really a “harbour” if it is not adjacent to the sea) have spent too much time attending to the needs of their local community, when it is clear this violates the intent of the Founding Fathers who explicitly ruled that such a “community” was only worth 3/5s of the neighbouring WhiteyTown community. At some points in time, it is necessary for the reasonable man to say “Enough! No More!”, and the situation in Benton Harbour is one of those times. As Hayek might have put it, had he lived to see the travesty of a black-majority town, “the state clearly fails where it gives most people the vote”. Join hands with me and stand athwart History and together we can yell STOP!
Sanjuro
@Dennis SGMM: I think I probably saw that same blog from the commenter that posted it here. It was a revelation at the time. I did a quick search myself and found some links that show the decay and decline of Detroit. I will attempt to attach them here.
Egypt Steve
Where’s the US DOJ on this? How is this not an egregious voting-rights act violation? Basically the people of Benton Harbor having been deprived of their right to vote in local elections.
Bob L
@Dennis SGMM: At the very lest against inherited wealth. Want to be rich, earn it, don’t be given it. Then again Taggart in Atlas Shrugs is born rich so I guess Libertarianism is just old world nobility dressed up for a republic.
Davis X. Machina
@Dennis SGMM: One guy, and they named a city after him.
That’s how rare it is.
roshan
The tyranny only exists when a democratically elected gov’t hands off trash collection contracts in an open bid.
Egypt Steve
@Dennis SGMM: I think you mean Cincinattus. But that was Ohio.
edit: looking up thread I see Davis X. Machina beat me to the punch!
Bob L
@feebog: So the rich can come have their car jacked while they play gulf? If I understand correctly the town is quite poor. Not only is it’s evil its doomed to failure from the start.
Jay in Oregon
Clearly, the governor is concerned about the proper role of government in peoples’ lives and the confiscatory tax policy in this country.
Aaron Krager
Response = shoulder shrug
The contradiction does not register.
Dennis SGMM
Thanks to all who responded to my last. In ancient Rome a Dictator could be appointed but his term (In the early and mid Roman Republic) was typically six months. Dictators were appointed to deal with perceived emergencies and granted extraordinary powers. It’s interesting to note that Sulla, who was appointed Dictator to rewrite the Roman constitution, did so in such a way that it ended the Roman Republic.
Southern Beale
Well, along those lines let me re-post here a comment I just left at Gin And Tacos because I’m still trying to wrap my head around it:
Well, today I spoke to someone who said he’s interested in the idea of a Trump presidency and wants to hear more.
Yeah my head just about blew up.
But here’s the thing with folks like this. He believes that ALL politicians are lying scumbags, he thinks the Republicans are in bed with big money and corporate interests but he thinks the Democrats are too, and he thinks Obama is crooked and he thinks the Republicans are crooked. He thinks it’s ridiculous to pretend you can balance the federal budget without raising taxes, he thinks corporations should pay their fair share, he liked Sarah Palin because of the Down’s Syndrome kid (his own son is autistic) and he thinks the Tea Party is nuts. He watches Fox News AND MSNBC but says the only news he believes is the BBC.
I would normally label this guy a conservative but he’s disaffected with both parties so I guess he’s that “mushy middle.” And I suspect a whole ton of middle America is like this guy. He’s not happy with anyone and he’s mostly just pissed off about cultural changes like political correctness and not saying prayers in schools even though he’s not religious himself. And I said, how would you feel if there was a Muslim prayer in the public school? Well he woudln’t like it of course.
Basically what it boils down to is that the last 25 years have seen a shitload of change in the country, and the human animal can’t tolerate change. So this has created a deep feeling of fear and mistrust in the American psyche and NO ONE will pacify or please this group.
I mean really. Donald Fucking Trump.
sukabi
@sublime33: They’ve already laid out EXACTLY their position on voting — there WON’T BE ANY. Period. Full Stop.
Why do you think they’ve relieved ALL ELECTED OFFICIALS OF THEIR JOBS.
And it comes down to the people of the town / state … will they lay down and accept this or will they run the bastards out of town? This is a trial run to see how much resistance there will be. Next up, your town USA.
Bob Loblaw
@Bob L:
Yes, because all black people are carjackers and felons.
Hermione Granger-Weasley
@sukabi:
Only if your town is on a lake.
@Cole
I predict….crickets!
Meanwhile in more deficit poutrage both-sides-do-it Dr. Manzi weighs in.
His advice?
Move to France Like I Did.
;)
Chris
@FeFiFo:
It really does all boil down to “the right people” – whether it’s power, money, welfare, pork or what-have-you, all that matters is that you give it to “the right kind of people.”
Which kind of negates the entire philosophy under which the United States was built, but it wouldn’t be the first time they’ve done that.
ThresherK
Talk about your dry runs: “Kelo” was preordained the moment the City of New London’s “local” board got staffed by Fat Fascist (Before That Was Popular) John Rowland’s cronies from two counties away.
(In Connecticut, two counties distant counts as “you’re not from around here” territory.)
Stillwater
@kdaug:
In my view, it’s class warfare justified by racism. For too many people, this makes it honky-dory.
tokyokie
When the cronies of Sani Abacha seized parkland in Lagos on which they built mansions, they were called kleptocrats. In the U.S., apparently, such people are considered entrepreneurs.
Barry
@Daulnay: “Harris did use the new law to strip local government of its powers, but did not dissolve it.”
Oh, big difference.
Elizabelle
I don’t watch cable news.
Has the Benton Harbor story gotten much play on cable or network news?
I ask because I caught about 3 minutes of Candy Crowley on CNN yesterday (TV on in a restaurant) and she was asking CNN consultant/former Republican operative Alex Castellanos why President Obama was so unpopular.
(I also saw some footage of Donald Trump on a bad hair day, even for him. No audio.)
gex
@Jay Schiavone: The people who lost property in Kelo were probably white. That’s how you can tell that the decision was wrong.
gex
@kdaug: Yes, true. But many of the people participating in this battle are on the wrong side because they think it is a race war.
Martin
@Bob Loblaw: Don’t forget crack dealers and gang-bangers. It’s entirely possible to have a city that is 100% black and therefore 100% crack dealers. They just sell crack to each other over and over again.
"Serious" Superluminar
OT don’t know if anyone else has posted a link yet, but regular commenter here Elia Isquire has a guest post over at the LoOG that’s pretty good.
celticdragonchick
@zmulls:
I agree, and I think we are the stage of needing serious civil disobediance and more besides. Wreck any construction equipment coming to the new “development” and destroy the construction supplies. Disrupt and undermine anything the appointees want to do, including their meetings. Make the town utterly un-fucking-governable.
If they build their golf resort, pour herbicides on the greens and landscaping. Put sand in the golf cart gas tanks, whatever. Make sure that the developers get the message real goddamned loud and clear that they will be run out on a rail.
demz taters
@Comrade Javamanphil: You joke but back in 2008, right wing billionaire Philip Anschutz bought Xanterra Parks & Resorts, which happens to be the main concessioner in Grand Canyon National Park and Yellowstone.
Mnemosyne
@Stillwater:
Exactly. It’s the kind of thing that lets white people go, “Well, it’s not like they’re going to do something like that to us, so why should we care?”
Of course, as long experience has shown, the plutocrats practice on “them” so they can use the same techniques to do it other places. And they don’t give a shit if the people whose land they’re stealing have the same skin color the plutocrats do.
(And I don’t know if you deliberately put “honky-dory” instead of “hunky-dory,” but it’s much more appropriate that way.)
Hermione Granger-Weasley
@superluminar
read Kowal’s posts while you’re there too.
both of the JAFI ones are awesome
gex
@Bob L: Wow. Such an enlightened opinion of the black people in that community. You should probably add that the cars will be jacked by someone who needs to pull up their pants. ‘Cause that’s what “those people” do.
kdaug
@Stillwater:
Forest for the trees. It’s a fucking distraction.
maus
This seems pretty much exactly what the teabaggers want. Why would they rebel against this?
Hermione Granger-Weasley
@kdaug: agree. if it was poor white trash living on Lake Michigan shorefront property, same same.
The Market is pretty much colorblind.
norbizness
A 120-comment thread about a Michigan town and privatization, and a CTRL-F search finds no evidence of the terms “Robocop” or “OCP” or “Dick Jones”? For SHAME.
kdaug
@celticdragonchick:
You are now on the terrorism watch list.
Enjoy your stay.
Chris
@Mnemosyne:
An appeaser is one who feeds a crocodile, hoping it will eat him last.
“When they came for the […], I did not speak, I was not a […]” is also appropriate here. Yay national suicide.
kdaug
@Martin:
Where are they getting their raw materials?
James K Polk, Esq.
Life imitates Robocop?
Anyone got some Nuke they can spare?
Hermione Granger-Weasley
@superluminar: wallah. Don’t miss this one either.
The Wingularity is Near. And it has a sideblog at the LoOG.
Temporarily Max McGee (soon enough to be Andy K again)
@”Serious” Superluminar
And I think you’ve never seen the Great Lakes. Benton Harbor is not Rotterdam, but there’s a harbor there. Whirlpool began there rather than in, say, Kalamazoo, because of the lower shipping costs- it’s cheaper to get steel from US Steel in Gary over the lake than over the rails.
And the Edmund Fitzgerald wasn’t a tugboat. The St. Lawrence Seaway and the Soo Locks handle a lot of big ocean-going ships.
celticdragonchick
@kdaug:
Because nothing says “terror” like pouring herbicides on a putting green.
Judas Escargot
@feebog:
Joel’s idea up above is sounding pretty tasty, actually, though battery acid (as a toxic chemical) would get you prosecuted.
Anything organic and legal that can cause mischief? Grubs? Locusts? Kudzu?
Comrade Scrutinizer
@norbizness: See 44.
"Serious" Superluminar
@Hermione
I’m pretty sure I pointed you in the direction of those complete turds of posts the other day. Yeah I read them and wept. I think I also mentioned that EDK pushed back against them – does that change your assessment of him in any way though? JK also attacks the OP in comments, FWIW. Alsotoo, don’t drag E.I. into that debate, it’s not right as he wasn’t involved.
sukabi
@Hermione Granger-Weasley: waterfront of almost any kind… oh, and property with a view… that’s always good…
my point was, that if they don’t get any real push back, this will become THE PREFERRED land grab method and any land / town deemed “desirable” will be at risk.
celticdragonchick
Invasive insects can get you into as much troublem (if that concerns you) as toxic chemicals. Easier to just dump used motor oil in conspicuous places and force them to do the hazmat cleanup.
Mnemosyne
@Chris:
I don’t think they’re appeasers. They genuinely don’t think that “their kind” will turn on them … until it happens, and then they run around wailing about how unfair it all is.
They think they’re part of the in-group, but they ain’t and they never will be. Letting the rubes think that they’re safe from being mistreated the same way Those People are is part of the con.
"Serious" Superluminar
@Temporarily Max McGee (soon enough to be Andy K again):
Oh, there’s a “harbor” there is there? Even though it doesn’t meet any kind of definition of “harbor” that I’ve ever seen, but call it what you will. I guess this is just another example of that tiresome prattle you people call “snark”. Just because a lake is a body of water doesn’t make it a sea, motherfucker.
Temporarily Max McGee (soon enough to be Andy K again)
@Mnemosyne:
“First they came for….”
Yevgraf (fka Michael)
@norbizness:
I’ve been trying to point that out for weeks, and nobody’s bitten on it yet. I like to think that when the townspeople surround the Emergency Manager’s home, the police will be conveniently short-staffed as he’s dragged outside his house and flayed.
Temporarily Max McGee (soon enough to be Andy K again)
@”Serious” Superluminar
And the last time you were on the Great Lakes? In a storm?
Gravenstone
@celticdragonchick: Yeah, I expect there will be a lot of green expended on security once those condos and houses (all part of the new golf course as proposed a few years ago) get burnt down in the dead of night. Regularly.
Linnaeus
@Temporarily Max McGee (soon enough to be Andy K again):
I think Mr./Ms. Superluminar’s original comment at #88 was snark from the get-go.
Chris
@Mnemosyne:
And when it does, they’ll find a way to blame it all on the liberals, or the unions, or “big government,” or the unpatriotic minorities, or some combination of the above, all conspiring behind the scenes to stab them in the back. You just watch.
You’re right. I stand corrected: they’re not appeasers, just stupid people.
Although I still think the “First they came for…” poem is still perfectly appropriate.
Yevgraf (fka Michael)
@piratedan:
Wingnuts love them some local government until it does something they don’t approve of. Also, wingnuts hate them some big central government unless it is used for important things like prosecuting homos, funding their filthstain of a religion, or providing military employment for their slackjawed, talentless sons.
kdaug
@celticdragonchick: Destruction of property. Look it up.
Bill Cole
@Felonious Wench:
Reporting from Eastpointe, the inner suburb formerly known as East Detroit…
The racism you refer to isn’t in Detroit, it’s around Detroit. The racism *in Detroit* is a different sort of thing. Both sides of that are rooted in a largely shared simplistic (and wrong) synopsis view of what has happened in and to Detroit since the late 60’s. It can be very ugly, very pointed, and very hard to respond to if (like me) one is not from around here. It is indisputably true that there has been a nasty low-intensity civil war here for decades with the main battle lines drawn by race, and there’s no such thing as a clean side in a civil war. The intensity of the conflict has dropped in the dozen years that I’ve lived here, and I’m in an area (south of 9 Mile) which is part of the spreading cease-fire, but there are still a lot of people who are not subject to reason on matters that they link to race. I’ve worked with people whose families have had edicts that they never go south of various ‘mile’ roads, because they see everything below those lines as likely to be unsafe for white people. Even having lived for nearly all of my prior life in St. Louis (which has stark geographic and cultural segregation as well as some old-fashioned southern-fried racism) I am still often surprised by the style of the racism I run into in the Detroit area.
Outstate is mostly something different. I have family and roots in the rural and tourist-heavy northwestern lower peninsula, and the racism I’ve seen there is a low-intensity, subconscious, cultural stereotype racism. A lot of people I’ve known in that area have strong anti-urban prejudices, and the tinge of racism is secondary. The few local black people (some with local roots back to the Underground Railroad) aren’t city folks, so they aren’t really seen as black… Unfortunately, those people send some pretty reactionary reps to Lansing who are more than happy to team up with the race-warrior GOP’ers from the Detroit ‘burbs in sticking it to Detroit, Benton Harbor, Flint, etc.
JonF
I’m almost 100% sure that any of these overthrows will be blocked by a federal judge. There are states/cities which allow for emergency leadership in dire financial situations, but they have an expiration date(NY state for instance has a similar law, but the leadership brought in has to leave in a set period of time).
But the silence from McMegan, Weigel, Sully et al…the libertarian blumpkin society….is deafening.
Libby
Guess it’s Benton Harbor Day. I posted about this at my Detroit News blog this afternoon too. The response from my conservative “fan club” can be summed up by this comment.
“Grandstands, implies racism, implies class-warfare, completely missed the point, and is largely absent of relevant data.”
They make their own reality. Always. IOKIYAR.
Temporarily Max McGee (soon enough to be Andy K again)
@Bill Cole:
THIS!
Although I’ve got to say that the ‘burbs vs. the core city thing is also true in the rest of the industrialized cities of the lower third of the Lower Peninsula, too. When you write about the northwestern part of the state, I assume you mean Petoskey/Traverse City or the U.P., where all they have to go on is stereotypes.
Temporarily Max McGee (soon enough to be Andy K again)
@Libby:
The Detroit News? Really?
I mean you blogging there, not the responses you get there- I’d expect those.
"Serious" Superluminar
@Linnaeus
Well people keep on using this non-existent snark word, but I think we would be better off declaring it as dead as the Dodo as it is clear that whatever “snark” may be, it is indistinguishable from regular commentry in this cesspool. But I look forward to Mr Andy-whatever-his-name-may-be not understanding anything at all, as is demonstrated by his multiple posts or should I say, “bullshit”, about Harbors…
Linnaeus
@Bill Cole:
It can be difficult to respond to even if you are, like me, a native of the area and have read enough about the region’s recent history to be able to question the oversimplified narrative about race and class in Detroit that you get steeped in while growing up.
That said, the tension is starting to slooowly decline, and likely for two reasons:
1. Some folks – not nearly enough – are starting to get the picture that the communities of the region are more strongly tied together than they thought. Flight and isolation doesn’t work as a survival strategy anymore.
2. There’s a generational change coming. Folks around the age of 40 and younger are much more likely to cross the city-suburban divide than their parents and grandparents.
MGB
@Bill Cole:
That sums it up well, for those of us who grew up there, and have trouble explaining it to others what type of racism exists in Detroit.
@Linnaeus:
Slowly, slowly things are starting to change. The younger generation still has some of these latent issues, I know, I’m of that younger generation. But the fact that people white and black are starting to live in downtown Detroit again amazes me.
mclaren
@James K Polk, Esq.:
Robocop was not fiction. It was prophecy.
I’d buy THAT for a dollar!
Hermione Granger-Weasley
“Serious” Superluminar
EDK made a fine attempt to push back against ONE post. I am not assessing him….i am assessing the blog.
But I guess I can question EDK’s wisdom in hiring a JAFI and mainsteaming him, or in elia’s sharing a masthead with Kowal and some of the other troglodytes there.
It would be irresponsible not to, right?
Have you visited Notes from Babel? 90% anti-islamic bigotry posts.
But surely its a sign that the Wingularity is near when a fuckin’ islamophobe gets a sideblog at the LoOG.
Linnaeus
@MGB:
Yeah, it’s going to take a lot of time and a lot of work. But the boundary lines (in multiple senses of the term ) are more permeable now than I remember them being when I was a child.
mclaren
@Linnaeus:
TRANSLATION: Everyone who hits age 18 gets the hell out of the center of the country and flees for the East or West Coast as soon they graduate high school. ‘Cause there ain’t no jobs in the dying center of the Benighted States of Amnesia.
Temporarily Max McGee (soon enough to be Andy K again)
@”Serious” Superluminar
Harbor: I don’t think the word means what you think that the word means. I think the word you’re looking for is port.
And even then, Benton Harbor has a small port facility- as do Muskegon, Gary, Ludington, Frankfort, Sheboygan. And then there are the cities with larger port facilities, like Superior, WI, Detroit and Cleveland…Chicago, Milwaukee…Toronto…
Linnaeus
@mclaren:
Actually, I was talking about the city-suburban divide within metro Detroit. And call me silly, misguided, naive, etc., but I think even the “benighted” states are worth saving.
rea
@ “Serious Superluminar
It’s a bloody harbor, dude:
http://www.flickr.com/photos/mlavander/3395775693/lightbox/
"Serious" Superluminar
@Temporarily Max McGee (soon enough to be Andy K again (if that is your real name?!)
yes but you don’t define what a ship is. It is clear to me that any functional definition of a ship would, in fact, rule out calling Benton, MI a harbor.
Temporarily Max McGee (soon enough to be Andy K again)
@rea:
B…b…but there’s no salt water! (Except in the bilge tanks, which I’m sure are full of zebra mussels and/or gobi- yay!).
Caz
Read The Cato Institute’s blog daily and you will hear about the libertarian view on these things. I seriously doubt that inquiring from within your own little blogosphere at Balloon Juice is the best way to get libertarian responses to issues.
Don’t be so lazy. Go out and seek it from libertarian sources, the best of which is Cato. I just read an article about a municipality that privatized a lot of stuff and is in great fiscal shape, so libertarians are well aware of this phenomenon. All you have to do is check out THEIR blogs, instead of asking for answers from the comfort of your own blog. Afraid to get a little dirty, lol?
Temporarily Max McGee (soon enough to be Andy K again)
@”Serious” Superluminar
Is rea’s photo good enough for you?
BH can’t handle the bigger ships as can Muskegon, but the Great Lakes have plenty of “salties” on ’em, and they aren’t just making pleasure cruises. No, the Great Lakes/St. Lawrence system can’t handle modern super-tankers, but the Soo Locks and the Weiland Canal are plenty big to handle ocean-goers a grade below that.
I know of that which I speak. My great-grandfather was a steward on the Cleveland Cliffs Mining docks in Kipling (suburban Gladstone) back in the day. My parents were born and raised in Muskegon, where ships like the Edmund Fitzgerald were constantly dropping loads of taconite to be smelted into steel at the foundries there. That steel would be used to make piston rings at Sealed Power which would be put afloat and shipped around the world.
Hermione Granger-Weasley
@Temporarily Max McGee (soon enough to be Andy K again): ore barges usta come into Grand Traverse Bay too.
This is hilarious.
superluminar started this because he wanted to smush me when I said I had sailed out of Pier 1000, the marina there, and it was really nice.
at this point, he cant win the argument, but he can’t back down either.
Temporarily Max McGee (soon enough to be Andy K again)
@Hermione Granger-Weasley:
Heehee…Thanks, m_c. Needed the chuckle before work. Ta!
"Serious" Superluminar
wow, what a surprise something else that’s not actually a Harbor. I have to give you some credit Hermione, marina is in fact a perfectly valid description of what the ignorahmbusmeas are talking about on this thread ::sigh::
Deb T
I just can’t believe this is legal. How can the state disenfranchise the people who voted for elected officials? The people have to go through a complicated process to throw out elected bums. Why is the governor different?
Hart Williams
@Caz:
Ah, so you ADMIT to your trollery.
Not that one couldn’t tell beforehand.
Generally when one evinces a contempt for the readers of the fora in which they are dispensing their “wisdom” that’s the polite word for it.
Did you get kicked off Free Republic and can’t snoot on them anymore?
The Populist
I promise this, if Obama seized a state (Texas is in debt so I will use them), fired all the righties and replaced them with liberals how would these tards feel?
So basically a poor black town that has prime public park on the beach space is being taken over by the governor who then appoints a man who wants to develop said property into a 5000 per play golf course.
I can’t understand wingnuts… just got done arguing with one on another site (not your usual place btw – a site for business) who loves to remind us that the founders were not liberals (then uses the argument to compare to today) and that the constitution doesn’t allow for taxation (it does due to an AMENDMENT).
Argh…I hate these people and their bizarre logic.
I say we call their bluff, end medicare and Social Security and see how many of them start crying they can’t survive without it. THEN I get the last laugh and we reinsitute them.
LOL.
The Populist
@Deb T:
They will take it to the supremes and they will side with the state…sigh.
Mnemosyne
@“Serious” Superluminar
You’d better prepare your nasty letter to the city of Chicago, because they seem to be under the impression that they have several harbors.
Bill Murray
@The Populist:
so Article 1 Section 8 doesn’t count?
Elia Isquire
@The Populist: If only most of them weren’t relatively comfortable white dudes.
That’s part of what made Dana Milbank’s “I’m not enjoying being F’d by the banks over my mortgage” column so remarkable.
Libby
@Temporarily Max McGee (soon enough to be Andy K again): I just celebrated my 7th anniversary on the DetNews politics blog. Very unglamorous. It’s the “citizens” blog but no one has been then longer than me except George Bullard, who’s one of the DetNews editorialists and now has his own featured blog too. The two of us basically built my blog in 04. Been through at least 100+ co-bloggers since then. (BTW, if you get curious and look at it, I don’t look nearly as bad in person, as my headshot would suggest. It’s very embarrassing. Really need to do a new one.)
ABL
@Martin: And the award goes to…
skippy
@norbizness: norbizness, as much as i love your work, may i respectfully suggest you eschew ctl+f in favor of reading the thread. you’ll not only find what you’re looking for (@ 44, as stated above), you’ll get lots more snark and laughs.
The Populist
@Bill Murray: Good catch dude, this is what I get when I am frothing vs. thinking.
Hermione Granger-Weasley
Hey Cole….they’re heeeeeere!
the glibertarians respond at the LoOG.
Hermione Granger-Weasley
Now is this just breathtakingly dishonest or what?
Not odd at all. NCLB is a market-based solution. Schools receive funding based on standardized test scores.
Busting teachers unions and firing “bad” teachers is a market based solution. Merit pay is a market-based solution. Vouchers are a market-based solution.
Let me fix this for you EDK.
Your dishonesty is really quite breathtaking.
But I guess the juicers won’t notice.
They haven’t so far.
Hermione Granger-Weasley
“serious” superluminar.
well….now we know why elia is posting at the LoOG.
I read the comments.
Elia Isquire April 19, 2011 at 12:37 pm
Elia is a JAFI. That is why Kain is mainstreaming Kowal, a known islamophobe. The LoOG is going full frontal christian.
It is my hypothesis that in the run up to the 2012 election the Wingularity will eventually engulf all three legs of the conservative stool, socons, fiscal cons (freemarketeers), and neocons.
We will see such sights…monsters and demons and undead wights will roam the land of Lincoln and Jefferson.
That pen1s measuring is what got America into A-stan and Iraq.
10 years and a trillion dollars later even the glibertarians haven’t learned a thing.
Hermione Granger-Weasley
/giggles behind hand
When glibertarians attack….
anoNY
You guys obviously don’t read a lot of libertarian commentary if you think that libertarians (yes, even those “media” libertarians) actually support this use of eminent domain.
Luke
Not a single libertarian was involved in what happened in Michigan – yet they are somehow at fault.
The comments on this blog baffle me.
steve
@Villago Delenda Est: “They can’t object too much, because they’re all actually neo-feudalists at heart. If they were really, truly in favor of maximum individual liberty for all, and not just a select few, they’d be advocating the redistribution of wealth from the rich to the poor hands over fist.”
this one takes the cake. so… to have true liberty you must take from one individual to give it to another? what do you think the definition of liberty is?
most of the posts on this site make even less sense.
Juice
@Martin,
That would never happen if we had laws against 6 year olds bringing guns to school. O wait.
ceanf
dude you are such a douche bag. what this like the tenth time you’ve tried this angle. really, get a life bro and stop yearning for attention from reason writers. and i also would like to know where all your righteous outrage is at all the illegal and unconstitutional eminent domain seizures over the past few years? couldn’t find much in your archive…
Syndicalist
John, if you dislike “glibertarians” for being pro-capitalist and pro-deregulation, then why do you and your fans continue to support the pro-capitalist and pro-deregulation Democratic Party?