We shouldn't have to live like this. We need a Lee Kuan Yew or Bukele type of leader to step up in these cities and say enough. This
passive acceptance of crime and disorder under some misguided sense of compassion or that putting criminals in jail is immoral is pathetic and will lead to ruin. This is not how civilization functions.
I don't know California, but this reads like a classic & simple cry to suppress people, to take hard lives & make them worse.
You talk about a misguided sense of compassion. But what have we really tried except liberalism? Except allowing whatever happens to happen to people? What have we tried to help, to build possible lives? Even for those not living in homed, what have we tried to keep them from sliding off the edge?
It's May Day. This cry for dispassion & accusation & intolerance, for jailing each other, should not be the go to plan for when situations get bad. Maybe doing nothing hasn't worked, but rather than resort to striking out against those we are afraid of, we should be trying to make possible paths forwards.
You talk about a misguided sense of compassion. But what have we really tried except liberalism?
The city of San Francisco spends $70,000 annually per homeless person! <https://abc7news.com/sf-homeless-plan-housing-all-san-franci...> The homeless there are homeless because severe mental and addiction issues cause them to reject help, not because resources aren't available.
Because normal funcitoning people want to conduct commerce and experience a crime free life visiting these corporations, or any other place, within the cities that they live.
We should put criminals in jail and mercilessly shame and make fun of people like you that construct some nonsense rationalization for all of us accepting allowing our homes, our towns our streets to turn into shitholes. You are a LOSER and the rest of us are getting real sick of putting up with your type.
I was going to mention in my original post, but I'll add here.. that the misguided moralisms are only part of the problem. There is a not insiginificant portion of the voting (or non voting) population, and political activists, that support and enable this nonsense not out of a misguided sense of compassion but similar to parent comment here, because they have a bitterness and ressentiment towards this or that other part of society and want to see orderly civilization destroyed.
In some ways this may even be a subconcious motivation, but it is there. There's been way too much explicit crime and degredation for many to just be fooled by good intentions for this to continue unabated..no, it's something else as well. Many are thrilled with these trends.
So..
>You think people are shoplifting from Whole Foods for fun?
Yes, absolutely this is a part of it. They do it because they want to and they can. Some may want to stick it to the man like you want them to do. But it doesn't matter, because some sob-story claim of being poor "therefore crime" is untenable even if true and should be rejected out of hand. It's bullshit.
Nice places are expensive. The whole world cannot nor should they assume some right to live anywhere just because. Politicial dysfunction does play a part of economic pain, but some people will not be able to make it in expensive places. They do not have a claim to tear down these places just because they can't afford to live there. They deserve jail for that. I want to have nice clean orderly crime-free streets. And this is entirely achievable and has been achieved in many times and places throughout history, in the US as well. The moral position is to take anyone trying to destroy this or inflict crime on people and businesses and put them in prison.
The personal attack in this post is totally unacceptable and clearly a bannable offense on HN. Moreover, this has been a problem for years (see links below).
Also, it looks like you've been using HN primarily for ideological battle and that's also a line at which we ban accounts (regardless of the ideology they're battling for). Past explanation about that: https://hn.algolia.com/?sort=byDate&dateRange=all&type=comme....
I'm not going to ban you right now, but it's a close call; if you keep abusing HN in these ways, we're going to have to. If you'd therefore please review https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html and stick to the rules when posting here, we'd appreciate it.
We need your type of work ethic and desire to maintain a healthy community, along with discipline to be a stickler for enforcement of law and order in public office in some of these cities... they'd be maintained well like Hacker News is maintained well...
And yea, if only we all could just keep our heads down and just code & do software, not worry about politics crime and social issues and be left alone & unaffected by their consequences.. Those were the days not long ago huh dang. I miss them too.
I'll heed your warning and back off the politics posting going forward
> if only we all could just keep our heads down and just code & do software, not worry about politics crime and social issues [...] Those were the days
Rich and powerful no longer fear prosecution and jail. You can destroy economy, do wage theft in billions, war criminals go free without even a tap on the wrist. People see this and such disregard for law trickle down on them. Including law enforcement. And some said that trickle down economy doesn't work. There are only two rules, don't steal from the rich and obey my authority. From this perspective poor stealing from each other is not a problem, as no real law was broken(see above). And in the end poor will eat each other not the rich.
Coat of living, dominated by housing costs, is being driven you by owner occupiers and mom & pop time landlords like the self avowed socialist on the board of supervisors more than any other factor.
