Demorat (and two Independent) Senators more than willing to cede your very precious Second Amendment rights to the United Nations.
Take that as a clue.
On the other hand, it’s great to have to list in order to know just whom to vote OUT today, election day.
BZ
Water is apparently a human right, according to residents in Detroit, Michigan.
Deadbeat residents in Detroit, Michigan, can’t pay their water bills. All roughly 17,000 of them. However, no one quite knows how many of those bills represent persons still living in Detroit, and those who have abandoned their homes. Because, in general, Detroit looks much like this:
That said, the city of Detroit is now doing its worst: actually turning OFF water to those who haven’t made their payments. This is, clearly, beyond evil. So sayeth those whose presence still exists.
From WSJ.com:
by Matthew Dolan
DETROIT—In this bedeviled city struggling to convince residents to pay their bills, a slash of blue spray paint on front lawns serves as a kind of scarlet letter of debt.
“I was really embarrassed. I started to cry,” Carol Ann Bogden, a 68-year-old retired emergency-room nurse told a federal judge Monday, describing how city water department officials marked her home before shutting off service in July.
During the last two years, the city’s water and sewerage department has put its mark on tens of thousands of residences. With the help of advocacy groups, some homeowners are suing to restore service and stop future residential shut-offs for at least six months.
Your problem, madame, is that you still live in and believe in Detroit. I’d have guessed you’d understood that basic conundrum from its establishment because, as a nurse, you are clearly not stupid.
People in the rest of the United States laugh out loud at the so-called “predicament” of Detroit. They predominantly ignore you because they perceive you as too stupid to understand your plight. They readily compare Detroit to Hiroshima.
And your expectations of some kind of deus ex machina.
But wait. Aren’t those blacks? Protesting the decisions of blacks? Because blacks are mostly in charge of Detroit?
Urban experts see Detroit’s dilemma as a result of the city’s inability to cover the expense of an outsize infrastructure system built when the city’s population approached 2 million. As of 2013, the city had about 688,000 residents.
“Detroit is a bit like a teenager who has inherited an expensive sedan—the car may have been free, but he doesn’t have the income to cover the insurance or maintenance and maybe not even the gas,” Harvard University economics professor Edward Glaeser said in an email.
But here’s where it gets even better:
The utility cutoffs in Detroit amid its municipal bankruptcy have drawn international criticism, including from a United Nations group that alleged the city was violating basic human rights for water.
There you go. The United Nations now involving itself in Detroit.
Let’s go a bit deeper into the topic, shall we?
Now AlJazeera.net weighs in.
A large-scale water shutoff is underway in Detroit, a move that advocates say is taking its toll on the poor
by Amel Ahmed
A United Nations team of experts said Wednesday that Detroit officials’ decision to shut off water service to thousands of residents who are late in paying bills is an affront to human rights.
“Disconnection of water services because of failure to pay due to lack of means constitutes a violation of the human right to water and other international human rights,” the U.N. officials said in a news release. “Because of a high poverty rate and a high unemployment rate, relatively expensive water bills in Detroit are unaffordable for a significant portion of the population.”
The U.N. assessment comes days after a coalition of welfare rights groups — including the Detroit People’s Water Board, Food and Water Watch and Canada-based Blue Planet Project — pleaded in an open letter for the world body to intervene.
A wonderful way to invite the United Nations into the once-sovereign country formerly known as the United States of America.
Here is one amazing thing: the Detroit Water and Sewerage Department (DWSD) actually expects to try to acquire a minimal percentage of its bills due.
How onerous to think that DWSD should have to maintain an ancient infrastructure heretofore unaddressed. How terrible to think that the DWSD should attempt even briefly to recoup costs it had to place up front. That it had to attempt to replace pipes and motors and systems once ignored? Hello, anyone? Infrastructure?
That said, however: should these bills be dismissed summarily due to the overall goodness of the UN?
But wait. It gets better.
The No. 1 scofflaw isn’t a business but the State of Michigan, which the department said owes more than $5 million. Dave Murray, deputy press secretary for Gov. Rick Snyder (who is sheparding Detroit through the largest municipal bankruptcy in U.S. history) said the bills have been disputed for the last five years over a possible broken water main near the old state fairgrounds in the city limits, which was mothballed several years ago.
And, with UN intervention, should not everything in Detroit simply “get better”?
With that, the UN is invited.
The UN weighs in, as per AlJazeera.com:
The large-scale service shutoffs risk being inequitable, according to Leilani Farha, one member of the U.N. team. “If these water disconnections disproportionately affect African-Americans they may be discriminatory, in violation of treaties the U.S. has ratified,” Farha said in the press release.
She urged the U.S. government to ensure due process guarantees in relation to water disconnections.
According to international human rights law, states are obligated to provide urgent remedial measures, including financial assistance, to ensure access to essential water and sanitation. “The households which suffered unjustified disconnections must be immediately reconnected,” the U.N. experts said.
UN intervention.
Further, in consideration of the UN, I have a suggestion.
Remove the UN from US shores.
Then, further, turn the UN buildings into either 1) expensive condos or 2) low income apartments.
My my my.
Nothing better than that.
BZ
Leftists have always been about what’s “fair” and “equal,” except that little in Life is either fair or equal. Additionally (and logically) “fair” and “equal” exists in the eyes of the beholder.
That in mind, let’s examine what the UN believes to be “fair.” From FoxNews.com:
By Cheryl K. Chumley (Washington Times)
The United Nations slammed Israel for possibly committing war crimes in its fight against Hamas — and then backed that accusation by suggesting the Jewish nation ought to be sharing its Iron Dome defensive technology with the very terror group it’s fighting.
U.N. High Commissioner for Human Rights Navi Pillay said to members of the media at an “emergency” meeting of the U.N. Human Rights Council that Israel was falling short in its duty to protect citizens in the Gaza Strip from getting killed by its rockets.
Yes, that’s correct — the UN believes the same missile system the US provided to Israel for its defense should be equally provided to Hamas in Gaza. See more here.
I have written this final paragraph three times, and what I had previously written wasn’t kind to either the UN or to Hamas. However, I suspect you inherently know what I’d written but have now redacted for the sake of kindness and civility. But in essence: can the UN be any more idiotic, useless and annoying?
BZ
P.S.
I still believe the UN, once kicked out of New York and with US funding stopped, would make a wonderful set of condos overlooking the river.
From SHTFPlan.com:
by Mac Slavo
It’s no secret that the United Nations, with assistance from members of the Executive and Legislative branches in the United States, has been actively working to reduce Americans’ accessibility to firearms. In 2012 President Obama, along with then Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, spearheaded a backdoor move that would have imposed gun control on the United States through foreign means by signing a global disarmament initiative known as the Small Arms Treaty. Though that attempt failed, mass shooting incidents at Sandy Hook and elsewhere have kept the pressure on gun owners with the President having made repeated suggestions that he would mandate gun restrictions through Executive Order should state and federal legislatures fail to act.
With that in mind, you can now apply for the position of DISARMAMENT, DEMOBILIZATION AND REINTEGRATION OFFICER on the United Nations website, as documented here.
I am not kidding. Please click the link. Now check the job requirements:
According to the United Nations information page on ‘DDR’ operations, the New York post will involve various aspects related to the process by which a governing organization would confiscate firearms, all of which target what the U.N. calls “small arms.”
Therefore, now, you too can help America to disarm itself for the greater good of the United Nations.
Only Leftists may apply.
By the way, a current debate topic in Leftist Land is: “Should the Second Amendment be repealed?” One salient comment:
Think of Sandy Hook Elementary. Think of the Boston Marathon Bombing. The explosion of the Twin Towers? People who stand FOR this amendment… Are you saying these don’t matter? Because of this amendment, people are killed every day of the week! My opinion is that any rank above a state cop is allowed to bear weapons such as guns. Local police should have their regular bats and tasers. Any citizen of the U.S. Who has a weapon by ANY reason should immediately be subject to deportation!
“Regular police” and deputy sheriffs should only be armed with “bats and tasers.” Perhaps they could also wield sarcasm, frowning glances and sinister miens. Harsh language could be utilized but only to the degree that it doesn’t denigrate the emotive processes of criminals.
Deport those heinous gun owners and Second Amendment adherers.
Vanity Fair has already advocated for the elimination of our Second Amendment.
Another interesting comment:
I look to our closest allies for the right way to do it. Look at England and Australia. Both countries have banned guns, and the amount of gun violence and suicides from guns have gone down. Look at Israel, where they have strict gun laws. The Israeli soldiers are not allowed to take their arms home and the amount of military suicides from guns has gone down. We should make gun laws stricter. Any criminals using guns get the max. A law like this would take care of the “only criminals will have guns” argument. Make guns highly illegal with severe punishments. This country, much like countries in the Middle East, is too in love with guns. They are not a toy. They are really not even a tool. They are a killing device.
First, England and Australia are armed nations. Their governmental authorities are armed. Armed UK authorities are endemic in London. Their citizens are purposely not armed.
You do not yet see armed officers in US airports carrying fully automatic weapons, as the UK gent is here, to the left. Plus, he needs to get a closer shave. He would not pass the muster of my team.
And what about Switzerland?
The Swiss are an issue.
From, of all places, Time.com:
The country had one mass shooting in 2001, but a resulting anti-gun referendum failed to pass. The Swiss will not give up the gun. Can their system work in the U.S.?
Even as the gun-control debate rises again in the U.S. in the aftermath of the horrific school shooting in Newtown, Conn., the gun-loving Swiss are not about to lay down their arms. Guns are ubiquitous in this neutral nation, with sharpshooting considered a fun and wholesome recreational activity for people of all ages.
Even though Switzerland has not been involved in an armed conflict since a standoff between Catholics and Protestants in 1847, the Swiss are very serious not only about their right to own weapons but also to carry them around in public. Because of this general acceptance and even pride in gun ownership, nobody bats an eye at the sight of a civilian riding a bus, bike or motorcycle to the shooting range, with a rifle slung across the shoulder.
Switzerland? A Gun Culture? Who would have thought?
Plus, as the person above would have us enact, “Any criminals using guns get the max.”
Do criminals now get the proverbial “max”? No, they do not. That would be racist to attach a “max” penalty to gun possession/use charges upon conviction.
BZ
P.S.
