A Commentary on the News by Nevada Jack

Blogger photos doesn't seem to be working this morning so I was unable to post Nevada Jack's mugshot. Nevada Jack's commentaries are guaranteed to be politically incorrect.

This morning on NPR Radio, the Michigan edition, I learned that the city of Saginaw is applying for a federal grant to tear down eighty houses in an attempt to deter arsonists. Something just doesn’t seem right about using tax dollars in this manner. Of course, the houses are abandoned and dilapidated and probably need to be removed. I can think of a variety of valid reasons to remove them: to make the neighborhood safer for kids who play in them, to cut down on rodents who live in them, to create park space, or to prepare for redevelopment. All of those reasons seem valid, but to tear down a building as a way of fighting arson sounds a lot like eliminating banks to deter bank robbers, removing speed limit signs to end traffic violations, or making women wear tents as a way to keep men from being tempted by their curves and softer features. There is no way we can remove every temptation and sometimes we need to be responsible for our own actions. Now, in Saginaw, if someone is looking for a house to torch, they’ll have 80 less houses to choose from and may do something ever more terrible like burning down an occupied house or dropping a match on the fur of a hibernating bear.