In his weekly address to the nation, Barack Obama explained his radical new citizen relocation program (euphemistically called "Affirmatively Furthering Fair Housing") by declaring "in this country, of all countries (presumably including Kenya and Indonesia), a person's zip code shouldn't decide their destiny."
Actually, we had no idea that a person's zip code had that kind of power - or why such an important tool of success and empowerment would be entrusted to an organization as poorly run as the post office.
But Barry may have a point. After all, his own political destiny was going nowhere until, with a little wink-wink nudge-nudge financial help from convicted felon Tony Rezko, he moved into the same prestigious zip code as political activist and occasional terrorist Bill Ayres.
According to the president, "we’re using data on housing and neighborhood conditions to help cities identify the areas that need the most help." And because he uses "help" twice in the same sentence, it sure sounds helpful. What he doesn't mention is that once his administration has identified neighborhoods that "need help," a punishing range of federal funds will be withheld from state coffers until racial and economic quotas - oops, goals - have been met.
Of course, all of this has been tried repeatedly since the passage of the Fair Housing Act half a century ago, and it has always failed. Adults transplanted from poorer communities don't end up getting better jobs, and their kids don't end up performing better in their new schools. Because in this country, of all countries, destinies are decided not only by where you are, but by how you managed to get there.
A lesson the World's Smartest Man might do well to think about when he's finally forced into a non-Washington zip code.
According to the data I have, the neighborhoods that need the most “help” are places like Beverly Hills, Pacific Heights and Palm Springs, California. Then add Kennebunkport, Maine, Martha's Vineyard, Mass, and Kailua, Hawaii just for starters. They can move in a bunch of the poorer people in need and some homeless folks then these places will soon look like most of Detroit, Chicago, and East Los Angeles. Thus improving the conditions everywhere.
ReplyDeleteI’ll be holding my breath.
That sure sounds like a computer dating service only the criteria is an even distribution. Wasn't this tried in a vague way by Clinton's Community Reinvestment Act?
ReplyDeleteI am unfortunate enough to see first hand what "Section 8" housing can do. Those who should be grateful are usually abusive at worst and indifferent at best.
"When everybody owns something, nobody owns it, and nobody has a direct interest in maintaining or improving its condition. That is why buildings in the Soviet Union -- like public housing in the United States -- look decrepit within a year or two of their construction..."
~ Milton Friedman
Only these are not constructed. They are already in an established neighborhood.
I live in the hill country of Appalachia (moved here from the Bay Area). So now I can look forward to the gubbermint seeing to it that I can live in another hill country? Beverly Hills, that is. Swimmin' pools & movie stars...... yuk, I think I'll just stay here. In our town a traffic jam is four cars at one of our three traffic lights. I pray for my grand children and great grand children. It's going to take a hundred or more years to clean up this mess.
ReplyDeleteThere goes the neighborhood!
ReplyDeleteYa know, Stilt, I have an approach/avoidance situation here; I always look forward to your pithy Hope n' Change observations but that almost invariably triggers my Tourettes while trying to hide under my bed. Love your work - keep it up!
ReplyDeleteI remember when there weren't any zip codes. Of course we didn't call these
ReplyDeleteidiots "liberals" back then either. "Commie" was the universally accepted
term if I remember correctly. Welcome back Mr. J.
Obama discovered that there are a lot of Red States that need surplus Democrats. 40 million illegal aliens ought to do it.
ReplyDeleteAs an electrician, I have done a lot of work in the many exclusive gated golf communities in the Flagstaff, Az. area. I am sure those wealthy multi-million dollar home owners will have absolutely no problem having the back 9 removed in favor of low income housing. Yeah, right. They won't even allow us lowly skilled tradesmen in without written permission and proper identification.
ReplyDeleteAll this latest BS from Der Führer will succeed in creating is further division and racial unrest in our country. Which, according to his Cloward and Piven plan, is exactly his intent. Keep us at each other's throats so that we will not notice that we lost our country in the meantime. The left will not be content until the entire country is run as efficiently, and offers as many opportunities to get ahead in life as does their model community which I happened to be born in - Detroit, Michigan.
"It’s our job as citizens to make sure we keep pushing this country we love toward our most cherished ideals --"
ReplyDeleteAnd we all KNOW what Øbama's cherished ideals are.
". . .where people live determines what opportunities they have in life."
I guess that is why I chose to be a working cowboy, and not a Silicone valley billionaire.
"They go to different schools, play in different parks, shop in different stores, and walk down different streets. And often, the quality of those schools and the safety of those parks and streets are far from equal – which means those kids aren’t getting an equal shot in life."
So are all kids going to be admitted to the Øbamaspawns scholl, or are those two going to be put in some inner city slum school? Without SS protection of course.
". . .we do strive to guarantee an equal shot at opportunity – in every neighborhood, for every American."
Well as far as I know EVERY American has the equal opportunity to be hard working, honest, have a father and mother living together, etc.
"These actions. . . keep this a country where kids from every background can grow up knowing that no matter who you are, what you look like, or where you live, you can write your own story."
In other words, "I want what you have, and you had better damned well give it to me or I will use the gubmint to force you to give away what you worked for, to me so I can sit on my lazy ass and watch it fall down around my ears before I move on to my next target."
Just come take a drive through Northwest Indiana, specifically Gary, East Chicago, Hammond. All 3 were once prosperous until they were racially 'improved'. Now Gary became the 'murder capitol' for a few years, has 7-11,000 abandoned buildings where bodies can be hidden in. East Chicago isnt doing to much better but its corrupt like Chicago and its not even in the same state. Used to be a Polish immigrant (all came legally) now full of other immigrants that didnt come legally and spill over from Gary. Hammond is trying to keep its head above water. But its slowly failing. Shockingly (or maybe not) surrounding towns do not have a huge 'racial diversity' (those that are here work their butts off to afford to live here) dont have the crime or problems that the other 3 do. My town's high school is consistantly in the top 10 for the state as the best.
ReplyDeleteI'm hoping the 'racial equality' doesnt creep farther South and run me out of town and the ability to visit my family in the cemetery or bury my father when the time comes, next to his wife.
OK pepples! Juanita is here to school ya, as they say in bluesie songs.
ReplyDeleteBonnie was on the right path but the CRA predates Clinton the Cigar Poker. But Clinton the Cigar Poker put it on steroids.
Read these two books if you want to understand 2007/2008 (one will suffice though):
Hidden In Plain Sight
Fragile By Design
And they are doing it all over again even before buffoonBama spoke.Clinton the Cigar Poker called it "The Third Way". It is "the third way" of income redistribution and it is, like the other two, a fraud. Grand theft wealth. This is what socialists do - they steal. They are no different than the banana republic dictators I fled from - And Sanders is the biggest self-acknowledged thief out there.
Forced neighbor hood diversification, will make those folks have a better life, be more productive citizens, etc? Among other results all ready mentioned. I smell a deeper long range plan, disillusion of the conservative voter blocks. No matter where these people live that are on the government sugar tit (entitlement/ welfare programs) they are going to vote Democrat. Once again another plan to fundamentally change America.
ReplyDeleteGRW - Republic of Texas
Strikes me the primary goal here will be to steer more federal money to neighborhoods with demographics that vote Democrat, while creating excuses to withhold funding from Republican leaning communities unless they bow to pressure and find ways to attract more Democrat voters.
ReplyDeleteActually @Doug Rink, I think the agenda is the opposite; it is to get more federal money and services into neighborhoods that currently are not highly subsidized by the Federal government. The goal is to get all communities economically dependent upon Federal subsidies, which would further erode local and state control and authority.
ReplyDeleteAfter a generation or two of this, local & state governments will become irrelevant.
@Joseph ET- As I pointed out a couple of days ago, Obama could kick this program off right by spending his (our) federal vacation dollars someplace that has already achieved the desired economic/racial quotas. This would rather pointedly NOT be Martha's Vineyard, where he's vacationing in a $12M mansion next month - and having an on call manicurist for his family for 3 days.
ReplyDelete@Bonnie Houghton- In my neighborhood (which, by the way, is ethnically diverse) it's not hard to tell which houses are inhabited by renters: the yards grow wild and the house falls into disrepair. People simply don't seem to take care of what they haven't actually worked to buy. And I know too many examples of Section 8 type housing in which the structure is basically destroyed.
@Fred Ciampi- It is striking that Barry doesn't plan to move any middle class types up into the zip codes of the rich and famous. Why should they have opportunities that we don't?
@Anonymous- I believe that's actually the slogan HUD is using now.
@Bobo the Hobo- I feel the same way. I'm glad to be able to coax some comedy out of all these shenanigans, but longterm exposure to the news erodes my bone marrow.
@Chish McFicken- Life was simpler then.
@Cat Whisperer- I believe you're connecting the dots accurately.
@Geoff King- Well said.
@American Cowboy- Good points throughout. And I'll also mention that one of the reasons those kids in disadvantaged zip codes are going to godawful schools is because the Democrats fight school choice or meaningful school improvement tooth and nail to please the teachers' unions.
@Amy H- I'm a born Hoosier, as is Mrs. Jarlsberg (who hails from South Bend). We're all too aware of the conditions you're describing.
@Juanita the Icon- Interesting looking books; I'll take a look. And you're right that this is all about redistribution of wealth and all the political ideologies that go along with that central conceit.
@Glenn Wilson- I think this is fully intended to destroy neighborhood unity, just as other liberal initiatives are eroding families, marriage, churches, medicine, respect for law enforcement, and every other social structure which might help people stand firm against the government.
@Doug Rink- This is definitely a way to funnel additional money to Democratically controlled areas, but I think that's just the standard pork. The real emphasis, as John the Econ points out, is to make sure that zip codes which aren't currently dependent on government handouts are changed demographically to become dependent.
@John the Econ- Exactly.
have been too busy to comment (even to READ comments) all day so apols if this is a re-post -
ReplyDeleteBut "Because that worked out SO well LAST time..."
Note - article is dated 2008...
http://www.americanthinker.com/articles/2008/09/obama_and_south_chicago_slum_d.html
Another attempt to equalize outcomes. Everyone has to have a high school diploma because high school grads make more money. Can't graduate? No problemo, we'll just dumb high school down so that everyone can graduate. Now it's college. If they can't graduate, then the obvious solution is to dumb everything down so that they can graduate. So the diploma is now worth less than an elementary certificate. A Bachelor's is worth less than a diploma. A Master's is the new Bachelor's and on it goes. Never try to lift people up, just tear everyone else down. Crabs in the bucket syndrome.
ReplyDeleteIf they just lived in nice neighborhoods they would be nice. Yeah, right.
Just found this little nugget of un-castrated male bovine excrement in the text of the AFFH:
ReplyDeleteThe US Supreme Court, in one of the first Fair
Housing Act cases it decided, referenced the Act’s cosponsor, Senator
Walter F. Mondale, in noting that “the reach of the proposed law was to replace the ghettos ‘by truly integrated and balanced living patterns.’” Trafficante v. Metro Life Ins. Co.
The Act recognized that “where a family. . .is allowed to live, is inextricably bound up with better education, better jobs, economic motivation, and good living conditions.”
"The precise outcomes of the proposed AFH planning process are uncertain. . ."
"HUD has created a new provision listing goals and priorities a program participant may take to affirmatively further fair housing, which may include, but are not limited to, place based solutions and options to increase mobility for protected classes.
So there it is in black and white that the intent of this act is to relocate protected classes of people into areas that they otherwise would not be able, on their own, to infest. If that doesn't meet quotas then it will be up to government to decide where people will be allowed to live.
How many hard-working people who have succeeded, moved into a nice neighborhood, and are living the "American Dream" will now be forced into the ghettos, or be subjected to having their living areas turned into crime ridden trashed ghettos?
Well, this may be a step in the right direction for a democrap. Willie Clinton seemed preoccupied with his own "zipper" code, so at least lamont wears "pull-up panties" that don't have one.
ReplyDeleteIt IS curious, though, how easily "affirmative" rolls off the forked tongue of the first "affirmative action presidunce". I'm just wondering when this maggot is going to turn into a fly.
@Juanita the Icon,
ReplyDeleteThanks! They look like good reads.
Yeah, I know the Peanut Farmer started it, but Clinton sicced Janet Reno on the lenders and she was enough to scare anybody! :)