Living lawlessly in Flint, MI

So get this: the folks in my neighborhood have started writing about the infidels in the neighborhood that drive too fast. They are beginning to flood the listserve with alt means of stopping the "growing problem." The first post I ignored, though a little sheepishly.

You see, they are talking about me.

Some have even written about those who do not stop at stop signs or blow through red lights. And while that is not EXACTLY me, I HAVE joked that all laws have been suspended in Flint due to the budget cutting our enforcers. The truth is, I rarely see a police car any more. When I do, I automatically think it is serious trouble in this wild-western town, that they are chasing after some cattle-rustlers or bank robbers.

It could happen!

What has the listserve jumping is a pretty serious accident occurred yesterday along the main drag. In fact, it was an entrapment that involved kids that were apparently just picked up from the neighborhood school. I saw the two little ones who looked a bit confused. I took the liberty to fill in the gaps on information and assumed that their mom was in the ambulance. That had to be confusing for those two kids...

Life can change so quickly.

Good Lord, now they are talking about installing speed bumps on the listserve!

So my guilt is getting the best of me here. The funny thing is I thought no one noticed how I drive! It's not like I have a memorable car - or do I? Could it truly be that as these folks are posting their passionate thoughts on this listserve they are envisioning ME nearly missing them as I pulled out of the neighborhood?

Dear God!

And so I am thinking about this principle I have long held with a fair amount of self-righteous pride. If left to their own accord, will people do the right thing? If suddenly there were no laws, would the goodness of people instead reign civilly and therefore create a safe, hospitable environment? After all, the law of our hearts is stronger than any law of the land! I mean, right?

RIGHT?

Oh great, now I'm thinking about that Edmund Burke line, ‘The only thing necessary for the triumph [of evil] is for good men to do nothing.’

I think I've been playing for the wrong team...

And so how in the world do we apply this concept to the greater problems of Flint, MI? Can we? Is this now tested and failed personal principle indicative of an impending collapse as our hired enforcers become fewer and fewer? Do we even stand a chance with civility?

I'm turning myself in to the listserve! We may not be needing those speed bumps after all...

Detroit News gets it right with identifying Flint's aura

She's so mean but I don't care
I love her eyes and her wild wild hair
Dance to the beat that we love best
Heading for the nineties
Living in the wild wild west
The wild wild west
         -Escape Club

Well, so it isn't the nineties, but I am telling you I SAW the mean chick and "her wild, wild hair" as I drove down Grand Traverse the other day. I'm telling you, she was packing heat! 

Heck, we ALL are! 

The Detroit News got it right today with their piece, "Rampant crime gives Flint aura of wild West." My only quibble - and I mean quibble - is what took them so long??

Francis X. Donnelly opened her the insightful piece with "Nine abandoned homes were torched Monday and Tuesday, and a dozen burned in a four-hour period last month. The week before, a civil rights pioneer was killed in his upper-income neighborhood. Two weeks earlier, one of the police mini-stations erected as a solution to rising crime was burglarized. 

"Once upon a time, these things shocked residents," Donnelly said.

She got that right!

Yippee ki yea!

We're not shocked any more - most people I know are locked and loaded, no longer waiting for our 124 police officers to respond to our 911 calls for help. Yup, that's 1.2 officers per 1,000 residents.

"Vehicle City, the nickname given Flint as the birthplace of General Motors, has become the state's version of Dodge City," Donnelly writes.

DODGE CITY!! Is that GREAT writing or what??

Donnelly's piece noted, "With all of the other troubles faced by Flint, manhole covers have been disappearing. Some 80 covers have been stolen in the past few months, probably for scrap, police said. For residents, the lowly metal objects are an example of how nothing is safe from thieves. 

"A feeling of lawlessness has seeped into the city's psyche, they said."

It's the seeping that has likely led residents to take matters into their own hands. The Detroit News piece described one man who bought two Magnums, calibers .22 and .44; and owns FOUR pit bulls.

Listen, he's not the only one!

Mandy's in the backroom handing out Valium
Sheriff's on the airwaves talking to the D.J.'s
Forty-seven heartbeats beating like a drum
Got to live it up live it up
Ronnie's got a new gun.

Living in the wild wild west
The wild wild west