On June 28, 2018 at 19:32, Dean Roddey said...
The government, just like all other public organizations, is the way it is because we make it the way it is. This is a fundamental truth that so many people just don't seem to get. Everything that that schools and governments and so forth do, they do because we force them to do it. Here I'm talking about the POLITICAL part of the government that we complain so much about, not the army or the NSA and so forth.
Not only do we force them to be that way, we let them stay that way by not changing the way we/they vote.
Milwaukee, as an example, has a helluva lot of problems and nothing that is being done works. The city is paying millions in lawsuits, the infrastructure is crumbling, people are dying, the known problem of lead water feeder pipes from the mains was ignored for decades, inner city houses still have problems with lead paint and the damage it causes. The roads are in terrible condition, the public school system only works in a few locations and the Mayor wanted Federal money for a freaking trolley, so he got it. The city modernized (a bit) in the early-'60s by switching from trolleys to buses and got rid of the Third World-looking cables over the streets and here we are, with NEW overhead cables, in 2018. Anyone who drives North along I-43 from downtown will see a three mile blighted stretch of properties and they do nothing about it- some of the houses have burned and the windows are boarded, but nothing changes. The judges let criminals off with a minor fine and a slap on the wrist, then people die because of it.
MKE hasn't had a Republican Mayor since the 1916-1918 term and he was considered a 'Hybrid- Democrat/Republican'. MKE is also the last major US city to have a Socialist Mayor, from 1948-1960 and since 1960, only three full-time Mayors have been elected- John Q. Norquist left office early after he was found to be nailing one of his aides, so an interim was used for a few months.
