{"id":58145,"date":"2016-03-30T11:30:38","date_gmt":"2016-03-30T16:30:38","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/?p=58145"},"modified":"2016-03-29T08:35:00","modified_gmt":"2016-03-29T13:35:00","slug":"the-suicide-cult","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/?p=58145","title":{"rendered":"The Suicide Cult"},"content":{"rendered":"

The quote “democracy can only survive until the majority discovers they can vote themselves largesse from the public treasury” gets attributed to a lot of people; over the years, I’ve seen De Tocqueville and Jefferson, among may others (it’s actually Alexander Tytler<\/a>).<\/p>\n

But what matters at this juncture in history is not so much who said it, or even that it was said. \u00a0What matters is that we’ve hit that point.<\/p>\n

The “Blue Model” of government – first vote to provide goodies at public expense; then turn them into “entitlements” granted by the force of law that can’t be reasonably undone – holds sway in much of this country (including Minnesota); it’s done so for so long, entire generations think it’s the norm. \u00a0Much of the American populace can’t imagine government that\u00a0isn’t\u00a0<\/em>in the entitlement biz; it’s the same part of the populace that seems to think that these “entitlements” are funded by gold coins borne down from heaven on the backs of unicorns (or “taxes on the 1%”, which are about the same thing).<\/p>\n

It’s unsustainable. \u00a0And that which can not be sustained, won’t be. \u00a0 The next case? \u00a0Illinois<\/a>:<\/p>\n

The Supremes\u00a0have spoken: The Illinois state constitution is a suicide pact. Less than two\u00a0years after invalidating<\/a> an adjustment to state workers\u2019 budget-busting healthcare benefits, the highest court in Illinois\u00a0has ruled unconstitutional\u00a0the City of Chicago\u2019s last-ditch efforts to stabilize its woefully underfunded pension system.\u00a0The Wall Street Journal<\/em>reports<\/a>:
\n“The Illinois Supreme Court\u00a0on Thursday\u00a0rejected a plan to cut future retirement benefits and boost employee contributions for Chicago city workers, undercutting a pillar of Mayor Rahm Emanuel\u2019s strategy to stabilize one of the nation\u2019s most troubled pension systems.<\/span><\/p>\n

The justices ruled the changes would violate the rights of city workers and retirees protected under the Illinois constitution. The Emanuel administration had argued that the changes came as part of an agreement under which the city would increase its annual contributions to two of the city\u2019s four pension funds to ensure they remain solvent.”<\/span><\/p><\/blockquote>\n

So to pay for the golden contracts of generations of retired city workers, the City of Chicago is going to have to raise taxes, cut spending on services (like police, fire, and education – and can you imagine an exquisitely expsensive and utterly failed system like the Chicago schools, with\u00a0less\u00a0<\/em>money?) or, most likely, both. \u00a0 This will drive out established businesses (but for corporate headquarters, of course; CEOs love the urban amenities and are willing to pay the taxes on\u00a0one\u00a0<\/em>building; not the one where the blue and pink-collar proles work, naturally) and inhibit new ones, and worsen the plight of the city’s poor.<\/p>\n

It’s called “the Blue Model”.<\/p>\n

It’s also called “Detroit, Chapter 1”.<\/p>\n

Detroit is in Chapter 4, now. \u00a0There is no Chapter 5.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The quote “democracy can only survive until the majority discovers they can vote themselves largesse from the public treasury” gets attributed to a lot of people; over the years, I’ve seen De Tocqueville and Jefferson, among may others (it’s actually Alexander Tytler). But what matters at this juncture in history is not so much who […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[69,255],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-58145","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-socialism","category-the-racket"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/58145","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=58145"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/58145\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":58146,"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/58145\/revisions\/58146"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=58145"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=58145"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=58145"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}