"A human being has no natural rights of any nature...": Will the United Nations (UN) Intervene on behalf of 83% Black Detroit and the Water Shutoffs to People Who Can't Pay Their Bills?

Lt. Col. Jean V. Dubois, though a fictional character from the book Starship Troopers, is a smart man. 

But before we get to his lesson from the History and Moral Philosophy Class highlighting Robert Heinlien's science fiction classic, let's delve into the horror of 83 percent black Detroit. 

It's not fiction. 

CBS Detroit, with more than half of 83 percent black Detroit's citizens unable - or unwilling - to pay their water bill, calls water a "basic human right." 

It's not even a tragedy. 

It's just a reminder of the immutable laws of nature, with the regression of the city to the black mean a provable scientific fact. [Nearly Half Of Detroit Water Customers Can’t Pay Their Bill, Detroit CBS, 6-23-14]: 

 It’s a basic human right: water. But could the United Nations soon help the Detroit Water and Sewerage Department provide the service to struggling customers?Water department spokeswoman Curtrise Garner says it’s a possibility — but for now, the water bills must be paid.

“We do have programs that do help those that are just totally in need; can’t afford it — but we also know that there are also people who can’t afford it would can not pay and we know this because, once we shut water off, the next day they are in paying the bill in full. So we do know that that has become a habit as well,” said Garner  

“At the DWAS Department — it’s not our goal to shut off water. We want people’s water on, just like they do; but you do have to pay for your water…That’s the bottom line.”

Garner said the reality is that nearly half of Detroit Water and Sewerage customers can’t pay their bills; and that has led activists to lobby the UN to step up and take action.

“If they do contact us we are willing to speak with them,” she said, adding “We owe it to the customers that are paying to collect from those that aren’t. Somebody has to pay for the water.”

And while Garner says water is “a God-given right,” she says there is a cost to move water from the water resource to the customer and that the infrastructure costs money.

According to the Free Press, the average Detroit water bill is now $75 a month — much higher than the nation’s average rate of about $40.

A basic "human right?" 

Potable water is no more a human right than race is a social construct.

Civilization is fragile, the aggregation of seemingly insignificant lives amounting to the tens of millions of people whose primary contribution was their ability to create an environment where the concept of "community" could flourish: all the hard work of prior generations is negated simply by the addition of black people to the mix and the subtraction of those who made civilization possible (remember: Detroit was almost 99 percent white in 1914).

What we've dubbed "regression to the black mean."[Protesters claim Detroit water shutoffs unfair to residential customers, Detroit Free Press, 5-30-14]:

The water department announced in March it was resuming efforts to shut off water service to more than 150,000 delinquent customers in order to collect about $118 million in outstanding bills. The department said it would target customers whose bills are more than two months late and would shut off about 3,000 customers a week. 

For the month of April, the department sent out about 44,200 shut-off notices and cut off water to 3,025 properties, including residential and commercial dwellings, Latimer said, adding that 65% of residents come in to make a payment after their water is shut off. The city said it did not have shutoff numbers for May. 

The average monthly water bill in Detroit is about $75. Customers with late bills can avoid a shutoff by entering into a payment plan. Typically, it takes a payment of 30% to 50% of the amount owed to start such a plan. About 17,000 of the water department’s 323,900 customers are on payment plans, officials said. 

David Sole, a Detroit retiree who helped organize the water protest, harkened back to the effectiveness of Vietnam War-era demonstrations to mobilize people to fight the water shutoffs and other social issues related to the city’s bankruptcy. 

“If they make life unbearable for people, we need to shut down the building,” Sole said. “How can you cut people’s access to water?”

That's an easy question Mr. Sole: "Because water is not a human right. It comes with a price tag, as does civilization."

It's funny: black people made life so unbearable for whites in Detroit that the latter group completely abandoned the city their ancestors built and allowed it to become the perfect manifestation of the former groups collective footprint in America. 

Detroit is black America's footprint. 

Now, back to the lesson of Lt. Col. Jean V. Dubois. When answering a question about the rights expressed in the American Declaration of Independence (it should be noted here Starship Troopers is set in the future, when democracy and the American experiment has failed), Dubois notes the folly of the concept of life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness:

"Ah yes, [life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness]... Life? What 'right' to life has a man who is drowning in the Pacific? The ocean will not hearken to his cries. What 'right' to life has a man who must die to save his children? If he chooses to save his own life, does he do so as a matter of 'right'? If two men are starving and cannibalism is the only alternative to death, which man's right is 'unalienable'? And is it 'right'? As to liberty, the heroes who signed the great document pledged themselves to buy liberty with their lives. Liberty is never unalienable; it must be redeemed regularly with the blood of patriots or it always vanishes. Of all the so-called natural human rights that have ever been invented, liberty is least likely to be cheap and isnever free of cost. The third 'right'?—the 'pursuit of happiness'? It is indeed unalienable but it is not a right; it is simply a universal condition which tyrants cannot take away nor patriots restore. Cast me into a dungeon, burn me at the stake, crown me king of kings, I can 'pursue happiness' as long as my brain lives—but neither gods nor saints, wise men nor subtle drugs, can ensure that I will catch it."(p. 119)

Which brings us to a reality CBS Detroit isn't willing to face when confronting the questions of "rights" and the availability of free water. Dubois notes, continuing the lesson from the he History and Moral Philosophy Class : 

“The basis of all morality is duty, a concept with the same relation to group that self-interest has to individual. Nobody preached duty to these kids in a way they could understand — that is, with a spanking. But the society they were in told them endlessly about their ‘rights.’ 

“The results should have been predictable, since a human being has no natural rights of any nature. … 

Mr. Dubois then turned to me. “I told you that ‘juvenile delinquent’ is a contradiction in terms. ‘Delinquent’ means ‘failing in duty.’ But duty is an adult virtue — indeed a juvenile becomes an adult when, and only when, he acquires a knowledge of duty and embraces it as dearer than the self-love he was born with. There never was, there cannot be, a ‘juvenile delinquent.’ But for every juvenile criminal there are always one or more adult delinquents — people of mature years who either do not know their duty, or who, knowing it, fail. 

“And that was the soft spot which destroyed what was in many ways an admirable culture.  

The junior hoodlums who roamed their streets were symptoms of a greater sickness; their citizens (all of them counted as such) glorified their mythology of ‘rights’ . . . and lost track of their duties. No nation, so constituted, can endure.”

Detroit. 

An 83 percent black city, where civilization - created and only capable of being sustained by whites - was supplanted by the regression to the black mean. 

Though many will assert water is a basic human right, the reality is this resource is no more a right than is the right of a citizen to enjoy safe streets in their community. 

A community is only a reflection of the people who call it home. 

Who work hard to make those streets safe and a place where responsible families can flourish. 

It doesn't just happen naturally any more than water is naturally supposed to come pouring out of your faucet when you put it into the "on" position. 

You have to pay for it. 

Detroit, an 83 percent black city, is not that place. 

It's an unnatural place, kept alive merely by federal and state grants. 

Class dismissed.