OPINION:
ANALYSIS/OPINION:
Anyone who wants a glimpse of America’s Third World future can just take a gander at Detroit.
Things have gotten so bad that Detroit residents are fighting over the only thing more urgently necessary than food and weapons when nature reclaims its authority over civilization.
Water.
Even gasoline and fire can be lived without. But not water.
Wars have been fought over it and civilizations have ceased for the lack of it. And so the battle rages in Detroit as the once-great civilization slips into chaos.
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It is kind of odd to think that a city named for water, nestled along a great river with access to the world’s largest supply of fresh water would be fighting over — water? How is this possible?
Answer: Government.
For over 150 years, the City of Detroit has operated one of the largest water filtration systems in the country with grand pumping facilities drawing hundreds of millions of gallons every day from the Great Lakes. It sells water at cost to residents and neighboring governments.
It has been enough water to supply Detroit during all of her booms and busts — smelting iron, logging timber, building stoves and carriages. Arsenal of Democracy. Motown.
Then, the biggest boom of all: the auto industry. Followed by the biggest bust of all. Now the city is in bankruptcy.
Sorting through the bills, a new generation of forced realists learned the hard way Margaret Thatcher’s maxim about socialism. Eventually, you really do run out of other people’s money.
Turns out, for decades, the grand and generous city has been just giving water to residents for free. If the Koch Brothers had done this, environmentalists would freak out and picket their headquarters accusing them of wasting precious water. But it’s all cool in the name of welfare.
Who is the ultimate loser here? Not you and me. We have never been told the water is free. We keep on paying our water bill and fixing leaky faucets. And the water keeps coming.
In Detroit, something shocking happened. As the city desperately tries getting its books in order before the whole place comes under the hammer of the auctioneer, the free “stuff” dried up. Literally.
Out of the blue, lifelong water scofflaws got billed for the water they used. Residents were stunned. They didn’t know what they were looking at. And then came the stark warnings: If they didn’t pay for the water they used, the water would be shut off. And it was.
Animals are treated better than this. In parks, the signs say, “Do not feed the bears.” That’s because we don’t want the bears to become dependent. And then starve to death. Or get hauled off in cages after they turn to crime because the free “stuff” ran out.
But the Welfare Barons have no problem treating humans like this. They give them all the free stuff they can. Until they run out.
Then they scream, “Humanitarian crisis! Racism!” As if they weren’t the authors of this cruel, sick, twisted game to begin with.
“These companies are basically Caucasian companies. The folks who are being cut off are almost one hundred percent African-American,” explained NAACP Legal Defense Fund lawyer Alice Jennings. She is suing the City of Detroit for discrimination. Don’t try to understand it.
“Thirsty for Justice,” “Water is a human right,” read the signs protesters carry defiantly declaring their entitlement to free water.
The United Nations Human Rights Council declared the City of Detroit guilty of human rights violations. For cutting off the free water.
Just goes to show that nothing is so expensive as when it is “free.”
• Charles Hurt can be reached at charleshurt@live.com, and on Twitter @charleshurt.
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