It's very interesting.
I'm thinking that the people of Detroit are now kind of like America's Palestinians. This is a group of people that has no interested in weaning itself of dependency and welfare. It has grown used to paternalistic government taking care of things and I can't see them taking care of themselves.
The woes, in my opinion are not all economic.
I think that there are very clear signs of spiritual and intellectual decline that preceded the economic troubles.
If the spirits of the population are broken, unconnected to living a moral life, then there can be no physical progression in a city.
I posted this article earlier in the year. It is a devastating portrait of the decline of the American family, and the unraveling of previous shame of being a single mother.
It's written about Connecticut but I am sure that the picture is quite similar in Detroit.
Babies having babies, not getting married and not finishing high school-sure fire ways to remain mired in poverty.
The physical decline of Detroit has been documented and lamented in the mainstream media. But little has been written about the spiritual decline of the city.
Why should we lament the rotting buildings? We need to examine the corrupted souls of the city. Steyn is right-union greed, government greed, dysfunctional and bloated bureaucracies-are the city's Scarlett Letter.
The physical structures are merely a reflection of the decline of the American spirit in Detroit. The physical structures reflect the moral decline, and show us exactly what happens when people give up on their children and abandon their own individual responsibility to govern their lives to their highest potential-waiting for others and government to pick up the dirty, fallen pieces.
I'm reminded of this piece by Barbara Kay in the National Post. She refers to a teacher in Ontario and the absentee parents, but isn't it likely it is the same case in Detroit?
Detroit is shooting the messenger.
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