There Is Lots Of Joy In Mudville, For ONT, Mighty ONT, Has Come Out

Hi everyone! Time for Thursday's ONT! Let the festivities begin!

City Living

The death of the great American city

Until recently, cities like London, New York, San Francisco and Chicago seemed to be on the up. They were widely hailed by academic researchers as presaging a high-tech economic future. Urban advocates like former New York City mayor Michael Bloomberg described the city as ‘a luxury product’, designed around the needs of wealthy elites and professionals. Some even imagined a world controlled by these cities and their mayors.

Yet reality was undermining the great ‘urban renaissance’ even before the pandemic. Office occupancy has actually been declining since 2000. By 2019, the construction of new office space had dropped to one third of the rate of 1985 and half that of 2000. Meanwhile, wealth and educated people continued to shift to the periphery.
The pandemic clearly accelerated this process, greatly impacting dense, public-transport-dominated urban centres like New York, with higher population-adjusted Covid fatalities than car-dominated suburbs. It prompted millions to move from dense urban areas to the suburbs, exurbs and beyond. Demographer Wendell Cox has found that virtually all the migration gains since 2020 have been outside the dense cities, which have lost population.

Yes, all of this is happening, and the article talks about how the pandemic accelerated the process, but other than two sentences that mention the riots after the death of George Floyd, it misses what I think was the real reason cities started to lose population, and the reason they won't get it back: After decades of one party rule, most cities have descended into such an utter morass of filth, crime and violence that nobody has any reason to WANT to come back. What do cities even offer anymore? Last time I visited Baltimore, I remember thinking “Was it always this dirty and I just didn't notice?” (Answer: No) My head was on a swivel at all times looking for gangs and other criminals. Harborplace, the 1980s era inner harbor renovation that started the downtown renaissance and served as a model for other similar cities across the nation, is empty. No, really, it's EMPTY EMPTY.

So those of y'all that still live in or around big cities, what does the city offer you that you can't get elsewhere? Major league sports teams? The only time I go to center city Dallas is to watch a Flames/Stars game (and Dallas is still pretty nice down there). I'd really be curious to know, because if y'all don't come up with anything substantial, I'm having a hard time seeing how cities can come back from this.

Today's Tip: How To Sit In A Chair

Tonight's Question

1: No person may serve more than 12 years total in Congress
2: Congress may never exempt themselves or any government employees from any laws
3: Congress may pass no bill longer than 4500 words
4: Regulations may be proposed by departments, but each must be voted on by Congress (subject to #3) before they take effect
5: Ditch the preamble to the 2A
6: Spend more time on Article III. Role of courts must be more strictly defined and limited to prevent them from becoming defacto legislators.
7: Requirement that every 5th Amendment must be a word for word copy of the 10th
8: Make sure that to include language that precludes the 16th or 17th from being adopted. (Possibly impossible, but the attempt should be made)

What have you got, Horde?

Changing World

10 Paradigm Shifts that Shatter Establishment Illusions

(1) Good vs. evil

Not long ago, it was common for conservatives to see the Marxist left as foolishly mistaken — a collection of young and inexperienced troublemakers who would eventually "snap out" of their common delusions once forced to confront reality.
Now people understand that the left's real mission is to reject reality.  Castrating boys so that they can pretend to be girls is not "healthy."  Perpetuating racism as social policy is not "justice."  Imposing a "woke" State religion over personal conscience is not "moral."  Aiding and abetting child sex–trafficking and drug-smuggling at our borders is not "compassionate."  Stealing property is not "equitable."  Just as with Leninism and Maoism before, today's leftism is evil.

(2) Parties vs. uniparty

There has been a seismic shift in the way Republican voters see political parties.  After Obama forced government-controlled health care on America, the Tea Party movement began a desperate fight against socialism's advances.  From the energy of that movement, Republicans eventually took back the House and Senate.  Despite those triumphs, Paul Ryan rubber-stamped Obama's budgets, while refusing to build Trump's border wall.  McConnell's Senate Republicans, who had run on repealing Obamacare, cemented socialized medicine with McCain's decisive betrayal.
Grassroots voters finally rejected Establishment Republicans and catapulted outsider Donald Trump into office.  In response, Republicans quietly assisted Democrats in their attempt to remove Trump through the Russia hoax.  In the space of a decade, most Republican officeholders were outed as RINOs, before voters properly concluded that they were actually part of a single D.C. Uniparty all along.  

I agree there is a shift occurring, but how much of one? That is the question.

Not For Little People

The Bidens' Existential Threats to the American Rule of Law

Our tax institutions, of course, are based on the real deterrence of a disinterested, uncompromised Internal Revenue Service. Without it, the income revenues of the United States are existentially threatened. So far, any negative reputation of the IRS has rested with natural complaints that it is too zealous in hounding out American taxpayers in all walks of life. Or citizens often object that the IRS must enforce a tax code that is innately unfair. But not until now, has the IRS itself ever been under a shadow of such corruption? Has it been in the past ever found to have applied so blatantly and deliberately one standard of tax enforcement to elites and quite another to everyday Americans? Again, if that charge of unequal treatment in tax compliance were to prove true, then Humpy-Dumpty like, the entire American system of revenue collection would shatter. In other words, millions of Americans might shrug, “If Joe Biden, President of the United States and his criminally minded son, can get away with avoiding millions of dollars in taxes, then should not I, a nobody, at least have the right to avoid hundreds of dollars in taxes?” So the Bidens, along with Attorney General Merrick Garland and the FBI, are treading on dangerous ground in imperiling a hallowed American tradition — one vital to the very governance and operation of the United States.

Rule of law? It's been years since I heard that name mentioned. * puffs cigarette *

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posted by WeirdDave at 10:00 PM

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