Sorry, but I think New Orleans wins hands down.
With a life threatening hurricane bearing down on them (with plenty of warning),
people dependent on gov't for decades couldn't even save their own lives.
Posted on 11/02/2009 9:28:15 AM PST by Exmachina
One of the most important things to remember about socialism – or coercion of any kind – is it fails eventually because human beings have an innate desire for liberty and a strong need for personal property rights. In fact, the origins of government lie in the need of agricultural communities to protect themselves from violence and theft. So it is particularly ironic that in more recent times, it is government itself that has more frequently played the role of bandit. When you start taxing people at extreme rates to pay for socialist "benefits," when you start telling them which schools their children must attend, when you start giving jobs away to people based on race instead of ability... you quash human freedom, which bogs down productivity... and if continued for long enough, leads to social collapse.
I find it perplexing that only 20 years after the collapse of the Berlin Wall, the West continues to implement laws that mimic all of the failed policies of our former "communist" foes. In fact, our current president won the election by promising to "spread the wealth around." But... truth be told... we don't have to look to Eastern Europe or the Soviet Union to find a society destroyed by coercion, socialism, and the overreaching power of the State. We could just look at Detroit...
I just talked to a friend of mine involved in some minor movies being made. He states, "They are making a post nuclear holocaust movie, and they chose to film in Detroit."
I asked him "why Detroit" He said, "Because they don't have to do anything to the set."
The state of Californis OUGHT to instruct Americans as to how badly democrats can manage any economy. Detroit is too clear an example of democrap unionized socialism results for the media to admit it and report it extensively.
To me, Detroit is a classic example of a small scale “Atlas Shrugged”.
Interesting and sad links here:
http://www.boingboing.net/2009/03/13/haunting-photoessay-1.html
The apologists want to make all the excuses they can, but the bottom line is the corruption and greed of the unions destroyed the industry in Detroit, and all the other things that followed, exodus, violence and such were predictable.
I think of it as an example of what happens when the parasites (unions+Big Government) finally kill the host (The auto companies). In California the sheer weight of government coupled with the consequences of illegal immigration is having a similar effect. Vast numbers of government employees need pink slips and illegals (and their “anchor babies”) need to be deported. The former government parasites can then fill the jobs that illegal aliens used to hold. It’s really the only way out of the mess we’ve created for ourselves.
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