How San Francisco Hazed a Tech Bro (backchannel.com)

An anonymous reader writes: In December 2013 San Francisco's tension with its surging tech class reached a breaking point. Protesters swarmed Google buses. They stood in front of Twitter carrying a coffin labeled "Affordable Housing." Google glassholes were on the rise. In the midst of this, the CEO and founder of AngelHack posted a rant about the homeless. "In downtown SF the degenerates gather like hyenas, spit, urinate, taunt you, sell drugs, get rowdy, they act like they own the center of the city," Greg Gopman wrote. He thought he was becoming a thought leader. Instead, the entire city turned against him. Reviled and suddenly unemployable, Gopman spent a quixotic year spinning up businesses to solve homelessness. His journey is weirdly emblematic of today's startup-fueled San Francisco.

Comments

Re: Those Republicans...

[Anonymous Coward]

That's how they be.

Re: Those Republicans...

[Anonymous Coward]

And the rulers of SF here are anti-tech which makes them pro-people.

Screw San Fran

[p51d007]

Best thing could happen to that "sanctuary" city would be "the big one" that would drop it into the ocean. My aunt & uncle lived there for over 20 years until about 10 years ago. They had enough of what was once a nice city, that has turned into a bunch of hipster idiots, along with a TON of bums (I deter the term homeless), drug users, illegal aliens. They sold their house and moved to the midwest were you can still walk down the street at night, leave your doors open and prices WON'T blow you out the door! You look at any major city, that has been run (into the ground) by liberals for over 20 years, and you will find it is a diseased cockroach infested city, in a bad state of decay, with social programs (ie:taxpayers) paying these bums to do nothing but sit on their ass, smoke dope all day long, then BITCH that they don't have any money, and it's all someone else fault.

Re:Screw San Fran

[x0ra]

Don't worry, it's the same in Canada metro areas, and the same shit in Europe, though, there whole countries have been ran by liberals over the past 40 years...

Re: Screw San Fran

[Anonymous Coward]

Tell us how you really feel. :-)

Re:Screw San Fran

[Daemonik]

Hmmm so 'liberals' are responsible for urban decay.. has nothing to do with conservative 'job creators' creating all those jobs in China that used to be here..

Not to mention when I think of hellholes these days it's Kansas, Mississippi.. conservative led and falling apart because surprise surprise you can't cut taxes to nothing AND afford even minimal government. Let's not even talk about how they destroy their teachers.

Re:Screw San Fran

[Berkyjay]

Your partisan rancor does nothing but make you sound stupid and petty. So your aunt and uncle moved in 2006. So what? Old people tend to get tired of city life. Big deal. The homelessness and dirt in this city is just like every other city in the world. When you concentrate money into a small area, you tend to attract some not so nice elements. San Francisco's problem is wealth, avarice, and extreme narcissism. But whatever. You sound like someone who is not interested in discourse or open minded dialog. You probably just like ranting. So I'll leave it at that. But I will say, if you haven't ever lived in any major city much less a so called liberal liberal one then you need to STFU about it because you don't know shit.

Re:Screw San Fran

[Anonymous Coward]

In Canada we got Harper, who then proceeded to sell everything off to the highest bidder and give corporations and the elites all the rights while the people got the shaft.

Libs stealing from you to give to poor people. Cons stealing from you to give to the rich.

What's a working class peon to do?

Re:Screw San Fran

[Anonymous Coward]

Seems legit.
Liberals and minorities also dominated Chicago's local government. Yet they now want to blame white people and the new republican mayor for the decades of liberals erosion of the city into ruin.

Re: Screw San Fran

[Anonymous Coward]

Stop voting the loons into office?

Re:Screw San Fran

[Anonymous Coward]

Wait. Who is the one who is randomly bitching at some amorphous group of other people for allegedly turning the city into a "diseased cockroach infested bad state of decay"? And accepting zero personal responsibility for either having caused the problems, or helping find and implement solutions?

You are.

Re:Screw San Fran

[Applehu Akbar]

The homeless problem is really a mental health problem. We need to open a new generation of mental hospitals to give them the treatment they need.

Re:Screw San Fran

[Anonymous Coward]

It's true, there's brown people in Canada too! They're not threatening or extremist but it sure scares the heck out of ordinary white folk like x0ra!

Re:Screw San Fran

[__aaclcg7560]

Best thing could happen to that "sanctuary" city would be "the big one" that would drop it into the ocean.

I've been told two things over the last 30 years: the BIG ONE is coming and BART is coming to Silicon Valley. Of the two, BART is going to happen first. As for the BIG ONE, scientists are still predicting in the next 30 years.

Re:Screw San Fran

[__aaclcg7560]

When you concentrate money into a small area, you tend to attract some not so nice elements.

During the Gold Rush era people were complaining about Native Americans.

Peter Burnett, California's first governor, declared that California was a battleground between the races and that there were only two options towards California Indians, extinction or removal. The State of California directly paid out $25,000 in bounties for Indian scalps with varying prices for adult male, adult female, and child sizes. It also provided the basis for the enslavement and trafficking of Native American labor, particularly that of young women and children, which was carried on as a legal business enterprise. Miners, loggers, and settlers formed vigilante groups and local militias to hunt the Natives, regularly raiding villages to supply the demand.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/California_Gold_Rush

Re:Screw San Fran

[__aaclcg7560]

We need to open a new generation of mental hospitals to give them the treatment they need.

California voters will elect another Ronald Reagan for governor and close the mental hospitals again because it's socialism to provide for the less fortunate.

Re:Screw San Fran

[ooloorie]

Hmmm so 'liberals' are responsible for urban decay..

Yes. You may notice that cities are overwhelmingly run by liberals.

it has nothing to do with conservative 'job creators' creating all those jobs in China that used to be here..

Except for a couple of small short term dips (in 1992, 2002, and 2009), the number of jobs in America has been steadily going up, from 90 million in 1980 to 145 million in 2015. So the idea that there "used to be jobs here" that are now in China is delusional.

Not to mention when I think of hellholes these days it's Kansas, Mississippi.. conservative led and falling apart because surprise surprise you can't cut taxes to nothing AND afford even minimal government. Let's not even talk about how they destroy their teachers.

Kansas is doing a lot better in terms of education than, say, California. And the high cost of living in places like California means that people tend be a lot better off elsewhere. For example, Alabama, Wyoming, Kansas, and Georgia come out ahead of California in terms of average salary once you adjust for cost of living.

It's people like you who simply don't want to face the facts about the failure of progressive and liberal economic policies and advocate more of doing something that keeps failing in practice.

Re:Screw San Fran

[Anonymous Coward]

Your "above it all" argument is weak.

The truth is the economic war is between nationalists (who tend to be overwhelmingly republicans) and internationalists (who tend to be overwhelmingly liberals and neocons).

The nationalists (like Trump) are a minority, and it is the majority to blame. It's not liberals shouting down suicidal pro-immigration policy and saying, "Let's make it so Mexico and Syria aren't such shitholes so people don't have flee their countries in the first place". Nope, Nationalist Republicans are. Liberals are nearly universally anti-nationalist and thus put the needs and wants of all other nations peoples before their own. Guess what happens when you do that? You become more like the 3rd world you import.

Re:Screw San Fran

[Daemonik]

Yes. You may notice that cities are overwhelmingly run by liberals.

I also notice that when the conservative led state governments cut all the budgets, those cities crumble.

Except for a couple of small short term dips (in 1992, 2002, and 2009), the number of jobs in America has been steadily going up, from 90 million in 1980 to 145 million in 2015. So the idea that there "used to be jobs here" that are now in China is delusional.

Yet our middle class is vanishing. Perhaps because the well paid manufacturing jobs that were shifted out to China were replaced with part time Wal-Mart jobs and public assistance.

Kansas is doing a lot better in terms of education than, say, California. And the high cost of living in places like California means that people tend be a lot better off elsewhere. For example, Alabama, Wyoming, Kansas, and Georgia come out ahead of California in terms of average salary once you adjust for cost of living.

Kansas is bleeding teachers. They've had so many teachers move out of the state they can only keep schools open by hiring unlicensed teachers to fill the gaps. The Kansas Supreme Court found the state's funding of schools to be unconstitutional. If that's your metric for "pretty good", don't bother replying, you have nothing worth saying.

Conservative economic voodoo policies have created the greatest wealth disparity this country has seen in it's entire history. Welcome to the Oligarchy you conservatives sold us into, but hey as long as we have cops doing genital checks outside public restrooms it was worth it for you I guess.

Re:Screw San Fran

[Brett Buck]

The very worst thing about leftists is their unwarranted and highly-practiced smug sense of superiority. People believe that being liberal marks them as more intelligent - when in reality liberal ideas are stupid, fail in every single case. And the solution is alway to *double down*.

      And, of course, the reason manufacturing jobs are fleeing overseas is because crippling taxation and regulation - hallmarks of the liberal agenda - make the cost of employment grossly excessive. San Fransicso just raised the minimum wage - AGAIN - and thus increased the speed of the death spiral. And you idiots are all clapping yourselves on the back for it. Enjoy people crapping in the streets!
 

Re:Screw San Fran

[Anonymous Coward]

> creating all those jobs in China that used to be here

You can blame the unions for pricing American labor out of the market.

Re: Screw San Fran

[Anonymous Coward]

Go to bed, Bernie. You're drooling.

Re: Screw San Fran

[Anonymous Coward]

No, you fucking liar.

The liberals felt that mental institutions were cruel, and set an entire generation of lunatics loose, who promptly became homeless.

You're an ignorant piece of shit rewriting history because the truth doesn't align with your agenda.

Re: Screw San Fran

[Anonymous Coward]

In 1980 we had 226 million people in the USA. Now we have 320 million. So of coruse job growth has incrased since 1980. We have record high number of people on foodstamps government assistance and a middle class that is vanishing. We are also letting legal and illegal immigrants in this country like there is no tommrrow.

Re:Screw San Fran

[Anonymous Coward]

Wow, that sounds ridiculous. Move to the places where there a no jobs. OK. Liberals caused these problems? I guess that is true to a point. The bums (which means "butt") you talk about would probably be dead if the Conservatives were in charge. But I guess that's fine; then you and your parents wouldn't have to look at them. Maybe rethink your life just a bit?

Re: Screw San Fran

[__aaclcg7560]

No, you fucking liar.

Citation, please?

The liberals felt that mental institutions were cruel, and set an entire generation of lunatics loose, who promptly became homeless.

Citation, please?

You're an ignorant piece of shit rewriting history because the truth doesn't align with your agenda.

Citation, please?

Re:Screw San Fran

[Daemonik]

God Bless your confused little conservative heart!

In case you're wondering, yes that was said in the voice reserved for 'omg this retard is eating his own shit again' but nice.

It's always about taxes TAXES!! with conservatives. If it was taxes, then why are Mississippi and Kansas going bankrupt? They've lowered their tax rates to the point they don't exist (if you're rich already). Why didn't all those jobs gravitate to them instead of all the way over to China?

If only Americans weren't so privileged, what with expecting living wages and being able to have shelter. If only we didn't have a work ethic that allowed our corporate overlords to work us 7 days a week, 15 hours a day like China (and Kansas!). If only we allowed slave labor like China!

Oh the irony that true conservatives had to turn to a communist nation to find labor that understands it's place in the scheme of things.

Re:Screw San Fran

[ooloorie]

I also notice that when the conservative led state governments cut all the budgets, those cities crumble.

If that is true, it is because progressive state governments force rural communities to subsidize cities. It is a good thing to put a stop to that.

Yet our middle class is vanishing. Perhaps because the well paid manufacturing jobs that were shifted out to China were replaced with part time Wal-Mart jobs and public assistance.

The middle income group has shifted from about 61% in 1970 to about 50% of US households in 2015. That isn't exactly "vanishing". But what it means is that the income distribution is getting longer tailed, mostly towards higher incomes. That is, the middle class is shrinking because more people are getting wealthier. That is a good thing.

Kansas is bleeding teachers. They've had so many teachers move out of the state they can only keep schools open by hiring unlicensed teachers to fill the gaps. The Kansas Supreme Court found the state's funding of schools to be unconstitutional. If that's your metric for "pretty good", don't bother replying, you have nothing worth saying.

No, my metric for "pretty good" is actual student performance, dropout rates, test scores, and graduation rates. That's the metric that matters.

The metric you advocate, namely teacher credentials and increases in spending has nothing to do with student performance, and everything with the financial interests of powerful political groups like teachers' unions. Thanks for demonstrating how fucked up progressive priorities actually are.

Conservative economic voodoo policies have created the greatest wealth disparity this country has seen in it's entire history.

Good: it means more and more people are getting richer. And economics is not a zero-sum game; the fact that more people are getting richer and inequality is increasing doesn't hurt people at the bottom of the income scale.

Welcome to the Oligarchy you conservatives sold us into, but hey as long as we have cops doing genital checks outside public restrooms it was worth it for you I guess.

That "Oligarchy" is precisely what people like you are advocating, with your Keynesian stimulus programs, intrusive social justice programs, and massive support for police and teacher unions. Fiscal conservatives like myself would love to see federal spending massively cut back and control be returned to local government and the people.

Re:Screw San Fran

[dristoph]

Having lived in both San Francisco and now back in my hometown of Wichita, KS, I always enjoy when I can talk about both places within the same topic.

As far as urban decay, guess where you'll find it? You'll find it in urban areas 100% of the time, per the very definition of "urban decay". To claim that local phenomenon are a direct result of local political leanings is to play very fast and loose with cause and effect. I can think of ten other hypotheses off the top of my head about the cause of urban decay, many of which don't factor politics in at all, and some of which actually involve inverting the cause-and-effect relationship of your own hypothesis that liberal politics cause it (maybe urban decay causes liberal politics?). To put it generously, it's utterly obtuse to say, "urban environments often include blighted environments, urban environments often have liberal-leaning voters, thus liberal politics cause urban decay, case closed."

I should also mention that these same urban areas do not consist completely of blighted, impoverished neighborhoods. Every city has it's good parts and its bad parts. But I'm sure the devoted partisan will find some way to assign a city's bad aspects to whichever wing of politics they don't like while simultaneously claiming that the good parts are actually somehow proof of the correctness of their preferred politics.

So on to Kansas. Right now in Kansas, yes the cost of living is very low, but the lower average income from what I see does not at all work out to the advantage of most people. The only people who can really take advantage of the low cost of living are the few people here such as myself who can work remotely and thus take advantage of the sorts of incomes offered by industries which don't even tend to locate here. Here in Wichita alone, in the midst of Governor Brownback's conservative libertarian "business friendly" policies in full swing, Boeing just up and packed its bags and left the state entirely, leaving huge swaths of longtime residents suddenly jobless. Where did those jobs go? Many places, including the supposedly anti-business liberal hellhole of Seattle. So it seems your simplistic reasoning falls apart at the slightest examination.

Kansas is a fairly deep red state, and right now Governor Brownback has a lower approval rating here than President Obama. That takes a lot of fucking up to achieve. Even my grandma and my great aunt are posting to Facebook with calls for his resignation at this point, and they both tend to espouse strong conservatism both socially and economically.

Re: Screw San Fran

[Anonymous Coward]

productive overlords

Never met one. Overloads don't produce anything. They merely take the credit.

Re:Screw San Fran

[Daemonik]

During the Gold Rush era people were complaining about Native Americans.

Has there ever been a time when people weren't complaining about the Native Americans? It 'is' how we justified taking all this land after all.

As for the rest of your statement, 9 out of 10 conservatives would say the Native Americans were better off being used as slave labor in capitalist endeavor rather than allowing them to remain in their tribal communist communities. They were improving their lot in life!

Re:Screw San Fran

[sumdumass]

You do realize that the reason for closing them in the first place was because the ACLU went to bat and won a case for a patient of one of those hospitals. This is the same case that only allows people to be hospitalized against their will if they are a threat to themselves or others. Once people could check themselves out and the courts called it unlawful detainment, there was little left to do other than stop the spending.

People act like this hasn't already been hashed out. You cannot open a mental hospital and just put people in it. You cannot declare someone mentally ill and force them to get treatment. You cannot even force people getting treatment to take their medications. People act like this never happened because they have some boogeyman to blame and think all will be magically different if we spend money again.

Re:Screw San Fran

[Anonymous Coward]

> The very worst thing about basement dwelling Libertarians who've never been hungry or worked with their backs instead of their backisdes is their unwarranted and highly-practiced smug sense of superiority.

Fixed That For You.

Re:Screw San Fran

[PopeRatzo]

Kansas is doing a lot better in terms of education than, say, California.

Kansas is in a state of total collapse, including their education system. The entire state is in a freefall into the shitter, and it's been entirely run by conservative Republicans.

http://nymag.com/daily/intelli...

https://www.salon.com/2015/06/...

http://www.politicususa.com/20...

http://www.rollingstone.com/po...

Re:Screw San Fran

[KGIII]

I'm pretty damned left on the political spectrum but let's try to be honest here. The jobs moving overseas were touted as the whole "rising tide raising all ships" thing by the Left. I know - I was there when they started talking about it at length in the late 1980s and getting progressively more public about the benefits to the poor and impoverished people (of Indochina, for one) who were living on just a dollar a day.

To be fair, the jackasses on the Right, those who happened to be business owners (quite a few businesses are run by left-leaning people, I hope you didn't think we'd not know that), thought about it for a moment and said, "Wait, you want us to do what?" And the rest is pretty much history. That is what basing policy on feelings and not logic gets you. It's entirely revisionist to try to place the blame on the Right. You're one of those people who complaints about the Republicans using Free Speech Zones and ignores that it was the Democrats (1988 at the DNC in New York) who got that started, aren't you?

Re:Screw San Fran

[KGIII]

Those statements easily apply to both sides of the aisle. Zealots at either end of the spectrum are idiots. In fact, zealots on any subject are idiots. The Law of Diminishing Returns plays no favorites.

Re: Screw San Fran

[Anonymous Coward]

My people were fighting the Cherokee for at least 3 centuries before white people came.

Re:Screw San Fran

[KGIII]

Just some additional information... Many of those Natives would have been what we'd call Hispanics today. There are a few really good documentaries on the subject.

Re: Screw San Fran

[sexconker]

Overlords provide control. Larvae provide production. Zergling rushes provide QQ.

Re:Screw San Fran

[Applehu Akbar]

"California voters will elect another Ronald Reagan for governor and close the mental hospitals again because it's socialism to provide for the less fortunate."

Alternatively, as indicated below, the villain was a guy names Milo Forman. They both hit California at the same time. Hence, the homeless problem.

Re: Screw San Fran

[KGIII]

They're kind of correct. What I can suggest is that you start here and work your way out:
https://www.aclu.org/aclu-hist...

Look for unbiased sources and actual documents. The Left wanted (and keep in mind the political spectrum was a bit messier at that point with lots of Southern Democrats and Compassionate Republicans at the time) to, you know, stop fucking abusing the mentally ill. It's a just idea.

Except, the States were pretty broke. They couldn't really afford to house all of them AND give them the treatment they deserved. So, they kinda, sorta, basically let anyone go who was able to say they wanted to be free and showed they understood the concept of freedom. It really wasn't much more precise than that unless they were an obvious danger to themselves and the community and they sometimes let them go too.

This kept going until a bunch of suits throughout the 80s and even into the very early 1990s.

And yeah, you need to keep in mind that the spectrum was a bit more muddled then. When I was younger we had Democrats, elected ones, on television saying that the niggers didn't need belong in school with the whites. (I'm part black.) And, to make it more salient, the citizenry was largely cheering them on. No, it really wasn't the majority who were wanting equal rights, that's another myth. It was a very vocal minority who were tearing shit up and making the white people look bad. It should be noted that some of that minority (that was tearing things up) was also white.

I was not born a full-class citizen of your country.

Re:Screw San Fran

[Notabadguy]

As a non-republican conservative, I read these with interest. There are two sides to every story - and prior to reading these, I knew neither side. Now I know one, but am curious about the other. I hope you understand that with credentials like, "Paul Rosenberg is a California-based writer/activist, senior editor for Random Lengths News, and a columnist for Al Jazeera English. Follow him on Twitter at @PaulHRosenberg" - these articles paint a venomous picture of conservatives. If a governor has failed - and managed to do so on such a massive scale that he has single-handedly bankrupted a state, overthrown its' courts, and closed its schools (as explained in these articles) - then lambast and castrate him.

But I'd prefer to read something with less of a poignant agenda.

Re: Screw San Fran

[Beeftopia]

The liberals felt that mental institutions were cruel, and set an entire generation of lunatics loose, who promptly became homeless.

One Flew Over The Cuckoo's Nest was the film that did it.

There was only one de facto media back then, not the heterogeneity we have today.

Re:Screw San Fran

[x0ra]

First act of Trudeau as a PM: sell Canada gold reserve. So much for blaming Harper...

Re:Screw San Fran

[x0ra]

Yeah... we call them "natives" .

Re:Screw San Fran

[x0ra]

Yes. You may notice that cities are overwhelmingly run by liberals.

I also notice that when the conservative led state governments cut all the budgets, those cities crumble.

At least, they don't put children in debt at birth over the next few generations...

Re:Screw San Fran

[ooloorie]

As far as urban decay, guess where you'll find it? You'll find it in urban areas 100% of the time, per the very definition of "urban decay". [...] Kansas is a fairly deep red state, and right now Governor Brownback has a lower approval rating here than President Obama.

You're missing the point and thinking in false dichotomies. Democrats and progressives say that higher taxes, more spending, and more progressive policies improve the lives of people. Yet, they are in charge of large numbers of cities and states, and they are not doing well there, even when they have very large majorities and don't have to compromise with anybody, like in San Francisco and California. Pointing out that Democratic and progressive policies are a dismal failure isn't an endorsement of Republicans.

Re:Screw San Fran

[ooloorie]

Kansas is in a state of total collapse, including their education system. The entire state is in a freefall into the shitter, and it's been entirely run by conservative Republicans.

Daemonik gave Kansas as an example of a failing education system. I simply pointed out that in terms of student outcomes, Kansas is doing better than California and many other Democratic states. And I would respond to you that Kansas is also fiscally in much better condition than California.

Furthermore, pointing out that Democratic and progressive policies are utter failures doesn't translate into an endorsement of Republicans. In fact, partisan fools like you on both sides are responsible for the massive dysfunction of government.

Re:Screw San Fran

[Anonymous Coward]

Why should the fact I'm a threat to myself be considered grounds for hospitalisation? I'm sovereign over my own body thank you very much, so if I decide that I've had enough of living, that's my right.

Re:Screw San Fran

[Gussington]

It's people like you who simply don't want to face the facts about the failure of progressive and liberal economic policies and advocate more of doing something that keeps failing in practice.

Er... wait.. what?
The state of any democracy is a combination of both liberal and conservative policies, since they've all had both sides in power during recent decades. And even if they haven't(extremely rare), opposition rhetoric still has influence on public policy and perceptions.
As you say in general, across the board, jobs and wealth are going up over time. The place is actually getter better while the complainers seem to getting louder. Maybe it's the Internet, or maybe it a flaw with prosperity that people get bored and turn to moaning for entertainment. But blaming side A or B for all of your problems comes across as a little stupid.

Re:Screw San Fran

[Gussington]

when in reality liberal ideas are stupid, fail in every single case.

Every single time? Sound legit...

Re:Screw San Fran

[ooloorie]

Well, I don't know why Brownback is liked or not liked, and fiscal conservatism isn't necessarily politically popular because it causes short term pain even if it helps long term growth. Statistically, Kansas does better in terms of educational outcomes and fiscal situation. In terms of happiness, economic growth, and per capita GDP, they also seem comparable. I suggest looking up the statistics.

Unlike Kansas, California really is at some risk of collapse, with its dire fiscal situation and failing education system.

Re:Screw San Fran

[Anonymous Coward]

Yes. You may notice that cities are overwhelmingly run by liberals.

I also notice that when the conservative led state governments cut all the budgets, those cities crumble.

Yea, like those conservative bastions of Chicago and Detroit right?

Re:Screw San Fran

[dryeo]

Well Harper did leave the treasury empty after 8 or 9 years of mismanaging the countries finances. Wasn't one of his first acts to blow the surplus that he inherited from the Liberals and then borrow $65 Billion?
If the country was a car, the Conservatives attitude was to sell the snow tires, never do an oil change, little well flush the anti-freeze or do a tune-up and then when someone else had to borrow money to spend on the car, scream about wasting money. The Cons did buy some nice dingle balls for that car though.
Shit the Conservatives did the impossible, made the Liberals look good.

Re:Screw San Fran

[Anonymous Coward]

Says the party that just passed a very generous trade agreement that China happily endorsed. Why are you guys giving them everything they want? I guess President Three Wood still hasn't found a Communist dictatorship he won't bow and scrape to.

Re:Screw San Fran

[ooloorie]

The state of any democracy is a combination of both liberal and conservative policies

The state of many cities and some states, however, is not a combination of both liberal and conservative policies, since they have been in the hands of Democrats and progressives for decades. So we can look at places like San Francisco and California to see what the long term effect of Democratic progressive government is. And what we find is that these governments simply fail to deliver on their promises.

This is just an illustration. Economic studies have shown again and again that more economic freedom and smaller government translate into increased growth and wealth.

Re:Screw San Fran

[sumdumass]

I really do not care if you harm yourself. In fact, I think the world might be better off if you did. It was the courts in the 60s and 70s that decided it was enough to detain you against your will. Evidently they still do because you can be detained for 72 hours under that condition.

Re:Screw San Fran

[dryeo]

Yes they do. They always cut taxes faster then cutting spending, thus creating debt on the theory that if we're far enough in debt then the idea of spending money doing something about that hobo shitting on the street will be unthinkable. Of course they honestly seem to believe that hobo is there due to gods will or something and he deserves to be at a point where he doesn't understand why we don't shit on the streets.

Re:Screw San Fran

[Anonymous Coward]

bulk of it was sold before election.

Re:Screw San Fran

[x0ra]

nop... http://globalnews.ca/news/2508... Trudeau sold about 1T in January this year, or about 2/3 of what was left.

Re:Screw San Fran

[x0ra]

Not anywhere close to King Obama rate, who increased debt about $1T each years of his mandate. Oh, and don't get me started about the GM / bank bailout, these were loan (which have been repaid since), not free money.

Re:Screw San Fran

[Livius]

The homeless problem is really a mental health problem. We need to open a new generation of mental hospitals

What's really needed is recognizing that "mental hospitals" are overkill. Mental hospitals are for those unfortunates who are a danger to themselves and others, but they are not the right solution for the mildly mentally ill.

There are people who simply can't cope with basic adult responsibilities like following a budget or reliably showing up to a job. Their lives are not happy and they deserve our compassion, but a more creative solution is needed. They don't need hospitalization but they do need some amount of help.

And they are not the same people as the few who are homeless as a lifestyle choice.

(Unless all that is what you meant by "new generation".)

Re:Screw San Fran

[Falconhell]

Tell that garbage to the residents of Flint Michigan, you might get a dose of reality rather than you usual Fox news fantasy.

Re:Screw San Fran

[KGIII]

Wait... What? You've been here as long as I have. Did you just insinuate that you want honesty, objectivity, and factual sources and information? I'm not sure if you're crazy or trolling 'cause this here is a political thread. We ain't got time for no facts here. This here's mud slingin' and mud slingin' what we're gonna do. At least half of us a drunk or high on something.

It's Saturday night in the US and a political thread. You don't usually get those things in these sorts of threads and there's not much you can do about it. Oh, you can try to change it. I have tried. Not a chance. At some point, you realize that the objective is to sit and laugh your ass off at the insanity of it all and realize that humans are awesomely stupid. Then, you can throw in a witty barb and collect cheap karma - or burn it, it's up to you. Either way, if you're not having fun then this is not the right thread for you.

I find it best to take in small doses, most of the time. I meander off and do other things during the middle of the thread. Then I come back and read some more. It's like "SJW Friday." This thread could have gone either way. I'd say it's pretty good baiting on behalf of the editors. I'm impressed and amused. And, if you're not having fun, why do it?

It's perspective. Don't get me wrong, he's bound to have some facts. They've often got someone to quote and a few statistics that can be interpreted any way you want. Off all the things to blame, the political party affiliation is probably the last thing that would make me curious but, what do I know?

Re:Screw San Fran

[ooloorie]

Tell that garbage to the residents of Flint Michigan, you might get a dose of reality rather than you usual Fox news fantasy.

The residents of Flint Michigan? People who were robbed blind by their local government? Who were poisoned by their local water monopoly, their city government, their state government, and their state regulatory agencies? The people who were the victims of vindictive infighting between different government departments? The people who are unable to sue the responsible government workers or the state for damages because of qualified immunity?

Yeah, I think they would be happy with lower taxes, lower fees, and the option to buy from sources that aren't going to poison them.

Re:Screw San Fran

[dryeo]

So your argument is that someone who is barely economically left of Romney and whose biggest legacy is a massive gift to the medical insurance industry (based on Romney's similar gift) also increased debt as fast as any other right winger?
Though the Americans do have an advantage in that they can tax the whole world to support their debt and are willing to destroy any country that disagrees.

Re:Screw San Fran

[KGIII]

To go a step further, I'll go so far as to say that I strongly support PSA (Physician Assisted Suicide). I think PSA should be legal and that we need to work on the social stigma of suicide. Yes, I have had close friends who have killed themselves. It would have been a lot better if they could have prepared, done it in a humane fashion, and retained their dignity throughout.

That said, not all people who were released were a danger to just themselves. I agree that strict oversight needs to be maintained on involuntary commission and that we need to treat our patients rather than incarcerate them. We need to do what we can to give them the aid to remain in safe from harm AND from harming others in the community. I have to say that, other than the lack of PSA, the system is not that bad at this current time. I'm sure many will disagree but, before doing so, I ask them to look at history - not even very distant history, and then judge again. I did not state that we're perfect - in any nation.

However, we're not actually doing that bad as compared to what we were doing. Things take time and there's many reasons to seek improvements and to continue to observe the process and practice to reduce the risks of additional harm coming to the patient. Yeah, I know... That's not a crazy, spittle-flecked, outlandish thing to say that demands adherence, affirmation, and attention. I'm sorry but it needs to be said. If you'd like, you can blame the continued problems on your least favorite political party, if that will make you feel any better.

Re:Screw San Fran

[whoever57]

And I would respond to you that Kansas is also fiscally in much better condition than California.

I don't believe those charts. California is running a budget surplus, yet according to the author, is only "Moderate" on short term solvency.

Re:Screw San Fran

[Anonymous Coward]

Having lived in both San Francisco and now back in my hometown of Wichita, KS, I always enjoy when I can talk about both places within the same topic.

As far as urban decay, guess where you'll find it? You'll find it in urban areas 100% of the time, per the very definition of "urban decay". To claim that local phenomenon are a direct result of local political leanings is to play very fast and loose with cause and effect. I can think of ten other hypotheses off the top of my head about the cause of urban decay, many of which don't factor politics in at all, and some of which actually involve inverting the cause-and-effect relationship of your own hypothesis that liberal politics cause it (maybe urban decay causes liberal politics?). To put it generously, it's utterly obtuse to say, "urban environments often include blighted environments, urban environments often have liberal-leaning voters, thus liberal politics cause urban decay, case closed."

I should also mention that these same urban areas do not consist completely of blighted, impoverished neighborhoods. Every city has it's good parts and its bad parts. But I'm sure the devoted partisan will find some way to assign a city's bad aspects to whichever wing of politics they don't like while simultaneously claiming that the good parts are actually somehow proof of the correctness of their preferred politics.

Urban decay is a liberal policy problem. Having lived in NYC from the 1980s to the end of the 1990s I can tell you that NYC under Koch was a cesspool. Dinkins made it worst. It took Giuliani to clean up NYC. Pre Giuliani, Time Square was not a place that anyone who lived in NYC want to visit. It was full of adult movie theaters, adult book stores, prostitutes, drug dealers, drug users, muggers, and other liberal supporting criminals. Rudy made it a family place where companies like Disney would actually want to be. I've been back to NYC since I left in 1999 and it has declined under the rule of Bloomberg and DeBlasio.

Re: Screw San Fran

[Mashiki]

Stop voting the loons into office?

Good luck. Live in Ontario or California, the major cities are effectively voting blocks that say "fuck you" to everyone else as long as they get what they want. Corruption? Don't matter, a dozen police investigations into the political party that's the front runner? Doesn't matter. Involved in several billion dollars of broken contracts and graft? Doesn't matter.

Re:Screw San Fran

[ooloorie]

California is in deep trouble long term due to its high unfunded pension liabilities and other obligations. Several cities in the state are also in serious trouble. Even if California's small budget surplus were real, it wouldn't seriously address these issues. To the degree that the Californian budget situation has improved over the last few years, it's due to tax hikes and a windfall from the stock market; those aren't going to last.

Re:Screw San Fran

[dryeo]

California is really at a disadvantage compared to Kansas. Everyone wants to live in California due to its climate while people live in Kansas because they do. Someone in Kansas who is mentally ill and homeless is going to have a tendency to move to California, more Liberal and a better climate. Someone in California who is down and out will not move to Kansas. Kansas ends up with a more mentally stable population that is not so demanding on services.
 

Re:Screw San Fran

[dryeo]

Maybe it's just an impossible situation. Progressive policies do help people but require higher taxes and with a couple of higher levels of government also competing for those taxes there is a limit. Then there is the problem of progressive policies attracting the down and outs. If your down and out in Kansas, moving to California seems like a win, win. I doubt that anyone who is down and out moves from California to Kansas.

Re:Screw San Fran

[x0ra]

Where did you get the "increased debt as fast as any other right winger" ? He pretty much increased debt more than any other president combined... Assuming a steady growth, that's 8% per year...

Re:Screw San Fran

[Anonymous Coward]

"Except for a couple of small short term dips (in 1992, 2002, and 2009), the number of jobs in America has been steadily going up, from 90 million in 1980 to 145 million in 2015. So the idea that there "used to be jobs here" that are now in China is delusional."

Nicely ignoring the growing number of people working multiple low paying jobs (pumping up the jobs figures), when they used to work a single medium job.

Also misleading, with some carefully chosen dates. The increase between 1980 and 2015 is roughly the same as the drop between 2000 and 2015. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/...

The US has had an increase, and then decrease (59.2 (1980)-> 74.1 (2000) -> 66.7 (2010) -> 67.4 (2013)), at a time when the OECD varied by less than 3.

To somebody in 2015 it will very much feel like the jobs, and particularly full-time jobs, have been drying up.

Re:Screw San Fran

[Anonymous Coward]

IIRC the mental institutions were closed as recommended by the drs who said it was better for the patients.

Re:Screw San Fran

[Anonymous Coward]

There are two sides to every story ...

Sometimes there are five different sides from that many different people each having their own understanding. Very often there is just one side which is the truth.

Re:Screw San Fran

[blind biker]

Every city has it's good parts and its bad parts.

I agree with your comments, but wanted to point out that Finnish cities don't have bad parts. I guess it may have something to do with us being socialists over here.

Re:Screw San Fran

[Anonymous Coward]

Why did you put "is" in single-quotes? Was there some doubt as to what 'is' is?

Re:Screw San Fran

[Gussington]

This is just an illustration. Economic studies have shown again and again that more economic freedom and smaller government translate into increased growth and wealth.

Which studies are those then?
Just a quick grab at some examples tells me you at talking shit. Eg New York and California are wealthy and are blue, the middle of the US is poor and blue.
If you also go outside the US, we see countries like Qatar or Norway leading the GDP PPP but they are hardly 'liberal'.

Re:Screw San Fran

[DerekLyons]

Except for a couple of small short term dips (in 1992, 2002, and 2009), the number of jobs in America has been steadily going up, from 90 million in 1980 to 145 million in 2015. So the idea that there "used to be jobs here" that are now in China is delusional.

No, the delusional ones are the nutjobs like yourself who look only at raw numbers - and miss that millions of good paying jobs (especially factory jobs) have vanished, to be replaced by minimum wage service jobs and McJobs.
 

It's people like you who simply don't want to face the facts

I'd put down that sack of stones and start looking to move out of that glass house if I was you.

Re: Screw San Fran

[Anonymous Coward]

Sure, then you look at Europe's social infrastructure and your argument goes to shit. We have other problems out here but your view on liberals causing the decline of society isn't the case. It's actually extreme conservatives (insane extremists) here causing some decline.

Re:Screw San Fran

[Gussington]

second blue should say red obviously...

Re:Screw San Fran

[LIGAFF]

I suggest you post links to the statistics.

Re:Screw San Fran

[Plus1Entropy]

The President does not control the budget, Congress does. The President is Constitutionally obligated to spend the money that Congress allocates.

Re:Screw San Fran

[serviscope_minor]

No, my metric for "pretty good" is actual student performance, dropout rates, test scores, and graduation rates. That's the metric that matters.

Hello from the UK. The last Labour government tried that. Actually they were obsessed with measurable metrics and installed them everywhere with severe penalties in terms of funding for failing. Sounds good, right? No it sucked, because the simplistic metrics that you and they proposed don't actually match the real world, and of course large-scale gaming went on.

So, no, those matrics you propose suck. And here's why:

1. Test scores ignore how hard the test is. An A-level in sociology is not the same as an A-level in further maths. An A-level from the "easy" exam board (this is what happens if you apply the free market to exams) is worth more to the school (better grades) but is worth less to the person that matters (the pupil). It is in the school's financial interest to direct the pupils to stuf that is bad for the pupils in order to optimize the school's metrics. That happened a lot.

2. Even if you can do proper scores, absolute scores are not the correct thing to optimize, because externalities dominate the results, not the schools themselves. The schools can make a difference but only so far. Definding all the "bad" inner city schools as punishment and giving the money to the successful suburban schools actually makes things worse even though you're diverting money from poorly performing places to better performing ones.

So, no, the world is vastly, vastly more complex than your excessively simplistic metrics. You think you have the solution, but trust me, you do not. It's been tried before and it failed. The only thing you want to improve is "quality of education". You cannot measure that easily. Any proxy measure is subject to gaming.

So now you need to change your metrics to "test scores on good subject with sufficiently informative tests". Suddenly you've gone from something simple, easy and wrong to something much much harder to measure. And you've still not corrected for external factors.

I also think your post is deeply foolish because you're trying to distill a complex and nuanced problem into one with simplistic solutions with an emphasis on "progressives" versus "conservatives". The world is so very much more complex than that.

Re:Screw San Fran

[Anonymous Coward]

You have it absolutely spot on.

Re:Screw San Fran

[ChrisMaple]

The President is Constitutionally obligated to spend the money that Congress allocates

Please quote the exact clause(s) that create that obligation. My understanding is that the legislature and the Supreme Court have limited the president's discretion, not eliminated it - otherwise the wall along the Mexican border (already funded) would have been built.

The President takes an oath to "preserve, protect and defend the Constitution of the United States." That would include preventing the spending of money for unConstitutional purposes.

Re:Screw San Fran

[Sax Russell 5449D29A]

They had enough of what was once a nice city, that has turned into a bunch of hipster idiots, along with a TON of bums (I deter the term homeless), drug users, illegal aliens.

You pretty much described the original hippie movement there. It came and went, and like the hippies, so will this era be gone one day with most of its problems.

Re:Screw San Fran

[ChrisMaple]

When Boeing tried to expand to "right to work" states, unions stuck and threatened to shut down Boeing permanently. Boeing caved. Without left-wing government support of union thuggery, this would not be possible.

Re:Screw San Fran

[ChrisMaple]

slave labor in capitalist endeavor

Does the word "oxymoron" mean anything to you?

Re: Screw San Fran

[Kokuyo]

I'm not sure that has much to do with cities. Quite a few presidential candidates raise some eyebrows and I don't see Hillary being declared persona non grata.

I'm starting to think Dwayne Elizondo Mountain Dew Herbert Camacho would be a better alternative here.

Frankly, I'm more inclined to blame our collective bowing to our one god (the economy) far more than any political side anywhere. "Wesayso knows best" does not lead to a healthy population. Now there's a kids' show many an adult could learn from.

Re:Screw San Fran

[PopeRatzo]

Statistically, Kansas does better in terms of educational outcomes and fiscal situation.

Are you not paying attention?

http://www.theatlantic.com/pol...

By "statistically", do you mean over the course of modern history? That's ridiculous and you know it. California is an economic powerhouse. Do you mean over the course of the past five years? That's nonsense and the article cites why.

Re:Screw San Fran

[DarkOx]

has nothing to do with conservative 'job creators' creating all those jobs in China that used to be here..

You know NAFTA was a bill Clinton thing, and "liberals" have in general been highly supporting of all these economically ruinous free-trade agreements. Sure there are notable exceptions, but there are on the conservative side as well.

Its also true that is widely been liberals who have favored pro-emmigration and visa policies that have allowed foreigners to come and compete with Americans for education opportunities and then go back home taking their knowledge with them. At least conservatives sensibly try to keep the boarder closed down a bit and don't make it so easy for people to over stay etc.

Face facts you have been sold out by folks on both sides of the political isle, and will certainly continue to be. Government isn't working for you and isn't going to start in the near future. Which is why the sensible long term self interesting thing to do is vote GOP. You might as well enjoy the tax cuts. As long as government is going to undermine you economically and otherwise abuse us, at least we can pay a little less for it.

Re:Screw San Fran

[Plus1Entropy]

Please quote the exact clause(s) that create that obligation.

The budget is a law passed by Congress. From Article II, Section 3, Clause 5: "he shall take Care that the Laws be faithfully executed"

otherwise the wall along the Mexican border (already funded) would have been built.

I assume you're talking about the Secure Fence Act (2005), which authorized 700 miles of fence to be built. It was all but finished years ago. Subsequent plans to expand it have died in Congress.

The President takes an oath to "preserve, protect and defend the Constitution of the United States." That would include preventing the spending of money for unConstitutional purposes.

The President can't refuse to enact the budget simply because it runs a deficit.

Re:Screw San Fran

[DarkOx]

The number one rule to remember with social / business performance metrics of any kind is be really careful what and if you decide to measure because you will get it!

The GPP is correct though, metrics used by the American political left are deranged. I hear often there is a teacher shortage (meaning licensed teachers), or look how many of these charter schools are not accredited, blah blah. We don't have enough social workers...

Nobody has ever first demonstrated that "licensed professionals" get any better results over those of lay people in these fields. There is even evidence to the country. Many private schools for example don't require teachers to be licensed. Yet these schools consistently produce better outcomes. Is that scientific not at all, there is a lot selection bias in the attendees of private schools. Still it at least proves that being a "licensed teacher" isn't a necessary condition for being a successful educator in modern society.

Programs like teach for America work. The union cartels and their leftist elite voting block can't stand that!

The point about big US cities is also true. We have a lot of rural poverty in this country but major concentrations tend to be in the cities. So yes big cities are depending on state governments to redistribute wealth from the more productive country side (incidentally where the auto factories, distribution and shipping hubs, agriculture, other manufacturing operations, have mostly migrated) to support a bunch of 47%ers and hippies running pointless tech start ups.

Lets keep cutting.

Re:Screw San Fran

[dbIII]

So the idea that there "used to be jobs here" that are now in China is delusional.

The manufacturing sector crashed, so there used to be a lot more of that sort of job instead of a few hours a week as a greeter at Walmart.

Re:Screw San Fran

[DarkOx]

The President does not control the budget, Congress does.

Yes that is how its supposed to work but King Obama decided he did not like that, and if he could not get the debt ceiling raised so that Congress could fund his insane programs where to bad for the country then. Face it Congress and the President played a game of chicken and Obama won. That isn't virtuous behavior.

Before the Constitution was enacted there was real fear from the rural public that the stronger federal government was going to be able to use its taxing and money raising capabilities to abuse them. Its one of the things that lead to actions like Shay's rebellion.

One of the compromises to make the Constitution work was to put the power of the purse in the hands of the lower house, so that the nations rural population would in face have a greater representation when it came to appropriations and taxation than the population centers. People whine about the House not representing the majority by population, its not supposed to, the system is working as expected. The power of the purse was supposed to be a major component of the checks and balances system.

  Its really supposed to be the case that the House can hold a gun to the Presidents head by not making money available The President does not control the budget, Congress does. for policy initiatives, inclusive of funding the military to put down a domestic rebellion or prosecute a foreign war! What Obama did is flip the script. His behavior (and that of many presidents on both sides of the isle before him) truly is tyrannical! If you think otherwise, than I highly suspect you are making excuses because "he is your guy" or you are willfully ignorant of our history and civic system.

Re: Screw San Fran

[Applehu Akbar]

I'd rather have rich, intelligent, productive overlords than stupid, diseased, ignorant, lazy super predators getting my money.

Mod this one up!

Re:Screw San Fran

[serviscope_minor]

The GPP is correct though, metrics used by the American political left are deranged.

No idea what metrics are proposed by the so-called "left". I was however claiming that this post's GGP's metrics were also deranged, or, if not deranged then demonstrably useless.

Lets keep cutting.

That's also deranged. What is it with people proposing simplistic, one dimensional solutions to incredibly complex problems?

Re:Screw San Fran

[dbIII]

But I'm sure the devoted partisan will find some way to assign a city's bad aspects to whichever wing of politics they don't like

I'll take the extra step and blame an entire level of government. Concentrations of funding in tiny little local governments seem to be driving a feedback loop where some areas have everything, others not enough, so people and businesses move to the areas with greater services. Faced with a loss of revenue from people and businesses moving out the poor areas are forced to tax the utter shit out of whoever is left and try get rich quick gimmicks like casinos and monorails.
When the road turns to dirt at the edge of the government boundary you know that things are fucked up to the point of uselessness.

Re:Screw San Fran

[west]

This is bad because the government should be in the business of gold speculation?

Next up: outrage over the government selling the armed forces cavalry horses...

Re:Screw San Fran

[khallow]

Hmmm so 'liberals' are responsible for urban decay.. has nothing to do with conservative 'job creators' creating all those jobs in China that used to be here..

The hollowing out of cities preceded job creation in China by about a couple of decades (1960 versus 1980). I don't think modern liberalism created the situation, but it certainly did not make it better.

Not to mention when I think of hellholes these days it's Kansas, Mississippi.. conservative led and falling apart because surprise surprise you can't cut taxes to nothing AND afford even minimal government. Let's not even talk about how they destroy their teachers.

You have yet to explain why your perception of things matters here. It's worth noting that Utah has the lowest spending per pupil in the States, but an average to somewhat better than average educational outcome (IIRC, about the same spending per capita as Finland with a slightly weaker educational outcome). There are other factors than just the amount of money spent.

Re:Screw San Fran

[Anonymous Coward]

If that is true, it is because progressive state governments force rural communities to subsidize cities. It is a good thing to put a stop to that.

You'll find most of the tax base in this country is found in urban economic areas, and that states often have quite unrepresentative governments, even after Baker v. Carr and Reynolds v. Sims FORCED them to revise their electoral practices.

That's right, it's not what you think, not what you insist, but go on, keep on believing.

Re:Screw San Fran

[Big Jason]

Even more interesting is that Finland has very high gun ownership.

Re:Screw San Fran

[ooloorie]

The manufacturing sector crashed,

Bullshit. The size of the US manufacturing sector has grown steadily since 1947.

so there used to be a lot more of that sort of job instead of a few hours a week as a greeter at Walmart.

Again, bullshit. The people who have moved out of manufacturing have generally moved into better jobs, resulting in increased wealth and increased income inequality (that's the "vanishing middle class").

And it should hardly be surprising that this happened either. In 1947, college graduation rates were somewhere around 5%, today they are nearly 30%. That means that a huge number of people whose only job options were mind numbing, menial work on assembly lines now have university degrees and demand better jobs that "manufacturing jobs".

Apparently, in your imaginary ideal world, we all get free college degrees courtesy of the government and then, after graduation, get good manufacturing jobs assembling iPhones. Thanks, but no thanks.

Re: Screw San Fran

[cyber-vandal]

Guns of course are magic wands you wave and the crime disappears. That's why widespread gun ownership in South Africa has made it such a paradise.

I'd imagine that the real reason Finnish cities are so safe is because they don't take a shit on people for being poor.

Re: Screw San Fran

[Mashiki]

I'm not sure that has much to do with cities.

It has a lot to do with cities. Let's take Ontario for an example roughly 1/3 of the entire population of Canada lives there, roughly 13m people. Nearly 9m people out of that 13m live in an area called "the golden horseshoe" which is from Niagara through Hamilton up to Oshawa. That's an incredibly huge voting block, and it leads to policies that are for big urban areas only while leaving the rest of the province to suffer. That includes smaller urban areas and country areas.

It means that the golden horseshoe will get lots of infrastructure funding, lots of pet project money for hospitals and so on. While the rest of the province suffers at not having enough money and decaying infrastructure. Here's a good example, in Oxford County they had been trying to get a new hospital built since the 1970's. The new hospital was eventually built ~8 years ago, and was mainly built using private donations from people and businesses in the county. The old hospital had been built in the 1930's(on the site of the previous hospital from the 1800's) and had been renovated over and over again, and had problems ranging from serious roofing leaks and mold to asbestos everywhere in the building.

Roads, failing bridges, take your pick. The money to build new roads, bridge repairs and so on? Ear marked for that particular area. There are bridges in use along the 401 that have been there since the highway was built back in the 1960's and are in terrible shape.

Re:Screw San Fran

[Anonymous Coward]

I'm pretty damned left on the political spectrum but let's try to be honest here. The jobs moving overseas were touted as the whole "rising tide raising all ships" thing by the Left. I know - I was there when they started talking about it at length in the late 1980s and getting progressively more public about the benefits to the poor and impoverished people (of Indochina, for one) who were living on just a dollar a day.

You were there 20 years too late, if you were looking for the start of "the rising tide lifts all boats" slogan. Possibly 30 if you count the Marshall Plan.

Not to mention the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade.

You're off by decades in your understanding of the principles.

To be fair, the jackasses on the Right, those who happened to be business owners (quite a few businesses are run by left-leaning people, I hope you didn't think we'd not know that), thought about it for a moment and said, "Wait, you want us to do what?" And the rest is pretty much history. That is what basing policy on feelings and not logic gets you. It's entirely revisionist to try to place the blame on the Right.

The revisionism on the Right is what lets them complain about the abuses of the Civil War while simultaneously blaming it all on Liberal Democrats, so please spare us the feigned outrage about feelings over logic. That is the kind of premise that the right lives on, portraying itself as the responsible and reasoning party, while the feel-good emotionals of the LIBERAL LEFT are just pandering to get a reaction. As if nobody noticed what was going on with their rhetoric.

Seriously, you might as well give us that list about Presidential assassins where they tell us John Wilkes Booth and Charles Guiteau.

You're one of those people who complaints about the Republicans using Free Speech Zones and ignores that it was the Democrats (1988 at the DNC in New York) who got that started, aren't you?

Well, 1988 in New York, huh?

Funny, how it was actually in ATLANTA and that Free Speech Zone was an outdoor stage just across the street where people were encouraged to participate, rather than a closed off and isolated corral.

Really, what were they supposed to do, let everybody into the Omni? Or was it reasonable to adapt to the changing times, and give people an outlet to express their positions?

In contrast, the Bush-era FSZ were not quite the same thing.

But you don't care about that, do you? You can just present yourself as an authority, because you were around at the time.

Thus you know. You know.

Oh wait, you don't.

Re:Screw San Fran

[ooloorie]

Are you not paying attention? http://www.theatlantic.com/pol...

Did you read the article? The only thing that article says is that Brownback couldn't cut education; it says nothing about educational outcomes. In terms of K-12 educational performance, Kansas does better than California, which has dropped to near the bottom of all states.

As for the fiscal situation, that depends a lot more than on whether the current budget is balanced. The fiscal situation of all US states is negative, the question is whether and what they are doing about it.

As for tax cuts in Kansas, cutting taxes without being able to cut spending is problematic. And while Brownback may have declared his tax cuts as a "real live experiment", the reality is that for tax cuts to have a beneficial effect takes many years, because the way tax cuts increase revenue is by people and businesses relocating (and Kansas isn't very attractive to begin with).

Finally, although I actually looked at The Atlantic article, its articles can generally be safely ignored: they are uninformed and misleading political hit pieces. You need to upgrade your reading.

Re:Screw San Fran

[Anonymous Coward]

We do have slave labor, its euphemism is "For Profit Prisons", that oddly make a lot of stuff for the military.

Re:Screw San Fran

[Anonymous Coward]

You know NAFTA was a bill Clinton thing, and "liberals" have in general been highly supporting of all these economically ruinous free-trade agreements. Sure there are notable exceptions, but there are on the conservative side as well.

You'd be more honest if you acknowledged how NAFTA was negotiated under George H. W. Bush, after the CUSFTA was signed during the Reagan presidency, and that it was a part of the 1992 Elections. Practically why Perot was running.

You can complain about Bill Clinton not opposing it, and going along with it, but calling it a Bill Clinton thing?

C'mon, be a little more honest.

Re:Screw San Fran

[ooloorie]

Then there is the problem of progressive policies attracting the down and outs. If your down and out in Kansas, moving to California seems like a win, win. I doubt that anyone who is down and out moves from California to Kansas.

Indeed. But that mechanism doesn't just operate at the level of moving from/to states, it operates at the level of everyday life decisions. If you subsidize alternative energy, you get more alternative energy. If you tax sugar or gasoline, people tend to consume less of it. If you subsidize joblessness and tax wages and earnings, you get more joblessness and less industry. Encouraging negative behaviors and penalizing positive behaviors is one of the major problems with progressive policies.

Re:Screw San Fran

[Applehu Akbar]

Edit: That's "Milos Forman", with a hacek over the S. My keyboard can do it, but Slashdot's crappy Unicode implementation eats the character.

Re:Screw San Fran

[ooloorie]

http://bfy.tw/5C3g

http://www.heritage.org/resear...

http://journalistsresource.org...

Just a quick grab at some examples tells me you at talking shit

If you think you can prove economic relationships by cherry-picking some examples, you are an idiot, and the four examples you cited don't even support your point, such as it is.

Re:Screw San Fran

[Anonymous Coward]

You're missing the point and thinking in false dichotomies. Democrats and progressives say that higher taxes, more spending, and more progressive policies improve the lives of people. Yet, they are in charge of large numbers of cities and states, and they are not doing well there, even when they have very large majorities and don't have to compromise with anybody, like in San Francisco and California. Pointing out that Democratic and progressive policies are a dismal failure isn't an endorsement of Republicans.

Waxing eloquent over the evils of progressive liberalism and leftwing Democrats, however, is pretty much par for the course for Conservative Republicans. Even absent an accurate and complete portrayal of facts.

That you are also defensive towards the purported position of the small-government types is yet another indicator that maybe you aren't actually unbiased in your partisanship.

I suggest you focus more on pointing out Republican failures to balance out your lambasting of Democrats, this will probably advance your cause more effectively than continually harping over California, while ignoring things like their expensive 3-Strikes policies, their previously hamstrung legislature due to a super-majority budget requirement, and their payments to the Federal coffers well in excess of any other state that combines with a lower amount of spending back.

Otherwise, I fear you will have the baggage of coming across as a partisan for the right-wing, hating on those evil Commiefornians yet again.

Re:Screw San Fran

[ooloorie]

No, the delusional ones are the nutjobs like yourself who look only at raw numbers - and miss that millions of good paying jobs (especially factory jobs) have vanished, to be replaced by minimum wage service jobs and McJobs.

The size of the manufacturing sector has steadily increased since 1947. The only thing that has significantly decreased is the share of manufacturing jobs. That's because we have added a lot of new jobs in other sectors. That shouldn't really be surprising either, since the percentage of college graduates has gone from about 5% in the 1950's to around 30% today. But in you and Bernie's world, apparently, we should all get free college degrees so that we can then work on assembly lines, right?

Re:Screw San Fran

[ooloorie]

I already have, but here we go again:

http://mercatus.org/statefisca...

https://wallethub.com/edu/stat...

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/...

(Note that many education rankings consider amount of funding or student/teacher ratios as part of the score; that really isn't valid, but even that doesn't rescue California's poor showing.)

Re:Screw San Fran

[Anonymous Coward]

Please quote the exact clause(s) that create that obligation.

Besides the already mentioned Constitutional Clause, when it comes to specific laws, I believe it started with the Anti-Deficiency Act, but more recently the Impoundment Control Act.

My understanding is that the legislature and the Supreme Court have limited the president's discretion, not eliminated it - otherwise the wall along the Mexican border (already funded) would have been built.

The Secure Fence Act only partially funded such a wall, you'll have to check the border if you want to see how much they could afford to build.

Re: Screw San Fran

[tigersha]

Here is another example: the down and outs if Syria are moving to Europe. In the other direction? Not so much

Re:Screw San Fran

[Anonymous Coward]

Since you clearly didn't take advantage of your Finnish education system, buy a ticket to socialist France.

Re:Screw San Fran

[ooloorie]

Hello from the UK. The last Labour government tried that. Actually they were obsessed with measurable metrics and installed them everywhere with severe penalties

Daemonik started comparisons between educational systems and then implicitly proposed measuring the quality of an educational system by how much money it spends. I consider that idiotic. If you are going to measure the quality of an educational system at all, you should do it by test scores, dropout rates, and graduation rates. Those are not useful metrics for managing public educational systems, but they can certainly tell us whether the California school system is generally delivering on its promises.

So, no, the world is vastly, vastly more complex than your excessively simplistic metrics. You think you have the solution, but trust me, you do not. It's been tried before and it failed.

I fully agree: the world is "vastly, vastly more complex than [these] excessively simplistic metrics". What you are recognizing there is an economic calculation problem. That is, a public educational system (i.e., a centrally planned educational system) requires vast amounts of information about the details of every locality, student, family, and subject to function. You still suffer from the delusion that this problem is solvable. A couple of centuries of experience have shown that it is not. Thanks for making my point for me.

Re: Screw San Fran

[ooloorie]

Yet, when the economic windfalls of the welfare state fail to rain down, people move back:

http://www.wsj.com/articles/so...

Re: Screw San Fran

[hublan]

Without "union thuggery" you wouldn't have weekends, vacation or sick days, among other things.

Re:Screw San Fran

[Anonymous Coward]

omg you guys are insufferably pleased with yourselves.

of course how's that refugee thing working for you?

Re:Screw San Fran

[Anonymous Coward]

Perhaps you should cool off, Rusty Harris from Springfield MO, lest you find yourself reviled and suddenly unemployable

Re:Screw San Fran

[ultranova]

Still it at least proves that being a "licensed teacher" isn't a necessary condition for being a successful educator in modern society.

It is, however, a sufficient condition or can be made so by tweaking the conditions of the license. Yes, Joe Random Stranger may well be a great teacher, or he may be a complete incompetent. Joe Licensed Teacher is, or should be, guaranteed to be at least mediocre.

Gamble with your own life.

Re:Screw San Fran

[fluffernutter]

Hey it's you guys that keep moving there to work.

Re:Screw San Fran

[ultranova]

What is it with people proposing simplistic, one dimensional solutions to incredibly complex problems?

They're zero-dimensional monomaniacs, so one-dimensional solutions seem enlightened to them, and more-dimensional ones are incomprehensible.

Re:Screw San Fran

[Anonymous Coward]

You listen to talk radio and watch Fox News every single day and you've heard these arguments told over and over again, so they must be correct. 'K.

Manufacturing jobs in mature industries eventually flow to regions or countries with lower standards of living. That's been true for over a hundred years. When your city or state's standard of living rises, one of the negatives will be that some of the manufacturing and backroom service jobs will migrate out to lower cost regions. Then the demagogues will blame it on the other political party. Yeah, it sucks, but anybody who said that life is all peaches in cream was either mistaken or lying.

Re:Screw San Fran

[Anonymous Coward]

Trade agreements have been pushed by:

- the farm belt (which is solidly Republican)
- corporate America (mostly Republican, though liberals dominate Silicon Valley and Hollywood)
- administrations of both parties (Democratic and Republican)

Another important argument in favor of trade agreements (aside from the "rising tide"/GDP arguments) is that they are an extension of our national security/defense policy. NAFTA is a way of tying most of the countries of North and South America (with outstanding exceptions including Cuba and Venezuela) together with hundreds or thousands of private business arrangements. TPP purports to do that between the US and many countries of the Far East, with the important exception of China. Those tight economic links make military cooperation a lot easier to arrange, because all the countries in these trade deals have skin in the game when it comes to protecting these trade routes. We know that Russia, China, and Islamic terrorists would love to make inroads into the developing world by offering economic assistance and trade deals, followed by an infusion of their ideologies. NAFTA and TPP help us beat them to the punch, making their deals much less attractive.

Re:Screw San Fran

[ultranova]

If you subsidize joblessness and tax wages and earnings, you get more joblessness and less industry. Encouraging negative behaviors and penalizing positive behaviors is one of the major problems with progressive policies.

The problem is, joblessness is not a behaviour but a circumstance. Bad economy is not the fault of those with no economic power but those with lots. So who's bad habits should we be more concerned about, Joe Bum or Joe Businessman? And who, then, requires more encouragement and penalization - in other words, regulation - and also deserves to pay for mitigating its negative effects?

Re: Screw San Fran

[HornWumpus]

If S Cal ever gave up on taking N Cal's water and the cities just got together things would be just as you describe in CA. But even SF knows it can't turn it's back on LA when it comes to water.

Even as it is, the 'west of the coast range' vs 'everyone else' fight almost always goes to 'west of the coast range'. Specifically San Diego, LA and SF for those who want to get pedantic about mountain range names.

Re:Screw San Fran

[HornWumpus]

How long did they hold that gold? 'Speculation' has a definition...

Re:Screw San Fran

[ooloorie]

The problem is, joblessness is not a behaviour but a circumstance.

There are plenty of jobs people could take and that are hard to fill, including skilled trades (electricians, carpenters, masons, plumbers), drivers, manual laborers, meat processing, nursing and others. People don't take those jobs because it's not rational for them to do so.

Bad economy is not the fault of those with no economic power but those with lots.

People get economic power primarily by producing and selling stuff other people want. So, any problems with the economy are clearly not due to people with economic power. They are due to people with political power.

Joe Bum or Joe Businessman ... And who, then, requires more encouragement and penalization - in other words, regulation - and also deserves to pay for mitigating its negative effects?

"Joe Bum" chooses not to work not because he is lazy, but because government encourages him not to work and penalizes him if he does. That's not a moral failing of "Joe Bum", it's a moral failing of government and people like you who vote for that kind of government. And regulating "Joe Business" more is not going to improve things, because Joe Business isn't responsible for any of this.

Re:Screw San Fran

[Anonymous Coward]

You mean, a town run by exclusively Democrats, that dealt with a city run by exclusively Democrats, that went bankrupt (again), and had a Democrat appointed to make decisions for them?
And a Democrat run EPA that suppressed finding about the water at the same time the Democrat run city government was shipping bottled water to its employees?

Re:Screw San Fran

[HornWumpus]

Your poor freeze or move south every winter. Duh.

Climate prevents 'urban camping'. Barrow Alaska doesn't have a bum problem ether.

Re:Screw San Fran

[HornWumpus]

California is in deep trouble BECAUSE of it's last budget surplus. Spending only goes up in good times, never ever down. That would be putting starving children on the street.

Re:Screw San Fran

[Anonymous Coward]

Complain about Keynesian programs, when trickledown economics is actually what put us here.

Now the intrusive social justice programs, that's an issue. Unfortunately no one is going to see it for what it is, and that's oppressive doubleplusgood think imposed on the middle and lower classes to keep us murdering eachother over superficial things such as skin color and preferred pronouns.

And that's the thing about SanFran. Landlords stay afloat because the rich can afford to place the black sheep of the family into cushy apartments and have them spout Social Justice hate at people.

Re:Screw San Fran

[Dogtanian]

Conservative economic voodoo policies have created the greatest wealth disparity this country has seen in it's entire history.

Good: it means more and more people are getting richer. And economics is not a zero-sum game; the fact that more people are getting richer and inequality is increasing doesn't hurt people at the bottom of the income scale.

Increasing wealth disparity in itself (emphasis intentional (#)) doesn't necessarily indicate mean that "more and more people are getting richer".

Basic logic suggests that it's quite possible for a relatively small number of super rich people to have an increasing percentage of the same amount of money while everyone else gets poorer.

You say that economics is not a zero-sum game, which is quite true; this implies that everyone benefits, which seems to be the exact opposite of the fact that you think increasing wealth disparity is a good thing and synonymous with economic prosperity.

Finally, the assumption that people at the bottom of the income scale aren't hurt by this is dubious. When those at the top have an increasingly large advantage, this is invariably going to be used to magnify and skew society and how it's run towards those same people. And it's quite likely that price increases driven by those who *can* afford certain goods with no difficulty are going to affect those at the bottom.

That's before we get to the social implications of what it would be like to live in such a society. (Hint; I would *not* like to live in Brazil with its high levels of crime massively exacerbated by income inequality).

(#) I'm replying to this in the same context that you stated it- i.e. without any qualifying context- so if what you meant was more nuanced, that's not what you actually said.

Re:Screw San Fran

[Anonymous Coward]

First comparing how a state is doing on education or public education is silly. here is why. A school system is only as good as the children they get. Childtren of parents who don't participate in thier childs education will always do worse than a school system that parents participate in thier childs education. The more two parent loving families, the more the childen learn. Here in NYC, the catholic and jewish private school turn out more productive children than the average public school. Yet the quality of what is taught and the quality of the teacher is subpar as compared to public schools.. Why do the kids turn out better? Loving caring mostly two parent families.

Publlic schools have fewer loving two parent families thus lower school performance. Public subsidized communities have fewer two parent familes thus lower student performance. Been teaching nearly 15 years, parents don't encourage student to achieve, students does not acheive . Our school uses "Pupil Path" online class website and gradebook. Failing kids parents never even set up the accounts for them to get automatic updates on what work thier child is doing. Then they call a week before report cards a due and complain to the principal that thier child is missing 15 assignments. This is despite the 5 phone calls and muliple promises that they will sign thier childs HW each night.

Liberal blame the authority crap is killing this country . Stong work ethic, productive child adult. Weak blame everyone else attitude = welfare recipient .

Here in NYC we have every resourse avaiable for parents and children to succeed. ALL FREE. Free tutoring, Free after School, Free Pre School, Free child Care. Free everygthing. No parents who care, children does no work. To make matters worse these unattended children participate in high risk behaviors, have children young, attempt suicide, cut themselve etc. Very sad. Keep blaming the republicans that helps these kids

Re:Screw San Fran

[ooloorie]

Increasing wealth disparity in itself (emphasis intentional (#)) doesn't necessarily indicate mean that "more and more people are getting richer". ... I'm replying to this in the same context that you stated it- i.e. without any qualifying context- so if what you meant was more nuanced, that's not what you actually said.

There is a "qualifying context": we are talking about the US. You quoted it. In the US and similar economies, increasing wealth goes along with increasing inequality.

You say that economics is not a zero-sum game, which is quite true; this implies that everyone benefits,

No, it doesn't mean that. It simply means that wins and losses don't balance out to zero overall, and that one man's gain isn't automatically another man's loss. Obviously, a lot of people get hurt by free markets; they just happen to be the people who ought to get hurt, like inefficient businesses, incompetent investors, and people who make their money through crony capitalism.

which seems to be the exact opposite of the fact that you think increasing wealth disparity is a good thing and synonymous with economic prosperity.

Nowhere did I say that "wealth disparity is synonymous with economic prosperity". Wealth disparity is simply an indicator that happens to grow along with economic prosperity in developed nations like the US. The causes and relationships are anything but simple.

Finally, the assumption that people at the bottom of the income scale aren't hurt by this is dubious. When those at the top have an increasingly large advantage, this is invariably going to be used to magnify and skew society and how it's run towards those same people.

Quite right. We call that skewing "rent seeking". Rent seeking isn't something that happens in a free market, it happens when you give government the power to intervene in the economy, for example, for the nominal purpose of "reducing inequality".

That's before we get to the social implications of what it would be like to live in such a society. (Hint; I would *not* like to live in Brazil with its high levels of crime massively exacerbated by income inequality).

Well, yes: Brazil is a developing country run by socialists. They came to power on the promise of addressing inequality and injustice, utterly failed, and have instead been running the economy into the ground. Brazil is 122 on the index of economic freedom ("mostly unfree"). Of course, it has high inequality and poverty, what do you expect?

Look, all things being equal, more economic equality (of outcome) is a nice thing. But when you try to achieve economic equality through government intervention, the outcomes are rent seeking, crony capitalism, and economic stagnation.

Re:Screw San Fran

[Cyberax]

But what it means is that the income distribution is getting longer tailed, mostly towards higher incomes. That is, the middle class is shrinking because more people are getting wealthier. That is a good thing.

No, it's not. Please, do check the BLS statistics - former "middle class" overwhelmingly moves only in the downward direction.

Meanwhile the income both for "middle class" and for pretty much everyone in 90% has stagnated.

So yep, oligarchy coming soon.

Re:Screw San Fran

[Cyberax]

Unlike Kansas, California really is at some risk of collapse, with its dire fiscal situation and failing education system.

Unlike Kansas, California has been running a budget surplus for 4 years straight now. It now has a healthy "rainy day" fund and its financial situation is pretty much assured for the next 10 years or so.

Oh, and even California teachers are better than no teachers in Kansas.

Re:Screw San Fran

[Anonymous Coward]

"I also notice that when the conservative led state governments cut all the budgets, those cities crumble."

That's becasue all the money these cities wasted on corruption and overpaying for city services could have been used to create an actual sustainable economy.
NJ gave raises with the stimulus money that was to be used to keep teachers employed duirng the downturn. Next year they had to lay off 10% of teaching staff harming kids.

In the School system I see just how money is mispent on a daily basis. Well beyond what is needed to properly educate the children.

1) After overtime (much of it sleeping or watching netflix) the custodian and his cleaning crew make more than the teachers with masteres degrees.
2) Politicians earmark money for pet projects that sound great in a press release and end up costing a ton, and we get 10 cents on the dollar worth of actual usage for the kids. Lets go through a few
                  a) In the 90's it was a "computer in every classroom" . No training for the teacher. No software to use. Just 4 Macs that collected dust. The cost per computer amounted to about $20,000 per computer because union electricians had to run new power cables (even though there were power outlets plus $30 for a power strip would have done)
2) New renovated auditorium $1 million dollars. The principal requested a new sound system and an updated lighting array. We got new flooring, new seats(of lower quality that original and they already look worse after 2 years than the 30 year old former chairs, new wall covering, new curtain(

You guessed it , our parents are a key voting block.

Second all those "affordable housing" projects of people who don't work hard and have the skills to live in the city should just move to where they can afford. subsidizing people to live in a place where they don't have the skills to make a living holds everyone back and hurts those people. There will NEVER EVER EVER be millions of factory jobs in NYC or San Fran for the uneducated. Why build more housing for people who will never be able to get a good job. It hurts those people more than it helps

I am a card carrying deomcrat but can not vote for any of the new generation of communist racist democratic candidates. Being a hard worker is a crime. They are great at telling a story that is just not true

Re:Screw San Fran

[ooloorie]

No, it's not. Please, do check the BLS statistics - former "middle class" overwhelmingly moves only in the downward direction.

That's nonsense. None of these trends are "overwhelming", and the BLS statistics only account for median gross weekly income, a lousy measure of where people are "moving".

Meanwhile the income both for "middle class" and for pretty much everyone in 90% has stagnated.

It certainly has grown much less than it should, largely due to costly government mandates and taxes. Who do you think is going to pay, say, for ACA? Or new financial regulations? Or new corporate reporting requirements? Or new product safety standards? All of that comes out of everybody's salaries. And people in upper income brackets are much less affected by these because they are effectively regressive taxes.

So yep, oligarchy coming soon.

Yes, thanks to people with your kind of politics.

Re:Screw San Fran

[ooloorie]

Unlike Kansas, California has been running a budget surplus for 4 years straight now. It now has a healthy "rainy day" fund and its financial situation is pretty much assured for the next 10 years or so.

Wishful thinking: http://www.ktvu.com/news/77148...

Oh, and even California teachers are better than no teachers in Kansas.

Not if you look at educational outcomes. In fact, no public school teachers may well be a much better state of affairs.

Re:Screw San Fran

[Anonymous Coward]

" a) In the 90's it was a "computer in every classroom" . No training for the teacher. No software to use. Just 4 Macs that collected dust. The cost per computer amounted to about $20,000 per computer because union electricians had to run new power cables (even though there were power outlets plus $30 for a power strip would have done)"
I might add all the new outlets were installed in the least convenient location. We bought our own surge protectors and use the older outlets. The reason for the new outlets was purely based on getting a kickback from the electricians union. Not based on need.

Blame the big bad adults in the state house who need to balance a budget when they cut off the money hose to Detroit. Yes Detroits schools are falling apart. The problem is more the with the liberal leadership who refused to right size services and salaries . Spent more than they could afford. Who conspired to steal money from the kids and the taypayers Tax residents so much that only those who don't pay any taxes remain(ie those in subsidized housing ) . Pull the property tax stats for crumbling cities like Detroit, Bufulo NY, Camden NJ. You will find the same thing. Houses are dirt cheap, property tax throught the roof. Taxes on businesses throught the roof. Years of paying for city services for 3 million people while only 1 million people remains. Yes the liberals do a great job pointing the finger at republicans and conservatives. Really easy to do when they have to make the tough choices becasue the elected officials in the city wont.

Obomacare will be the same deal. It won't pay for itself, increase quality health care coverage and will collapse under it's own ponzi scheme weight. It will take a few years and when people are tired and fed up a republican will be elected and have to clean up the mess

Obama is reinflating the housing bubble now . google it . We are back to the 3% down loans

Once again I am a life long democrate teacher(and former tech worker)

Re:Screw San Fran

[serviscope_minor]

If you are going to measure the quality of an educational system at all, you should do it by test scores, dropout rates, and graduation rates.

No, we've tried that and it sucks really hard, because schools have an incentive to fuck over pupils to improve their statistics. With the former measure they don't have that incentive.

Those are not useful metrics for managing public educational systems, but they can certainly tell us whether the California school system is generally delivering on its promises.

No, we tried that, and IT DOES NOT WORK.

That is, a public educational system (i.e., a centrally planned educational system) requires vast amounts of information about the details of every locality, student, family, and subject to function.

In any system, the teachers need to know a lot about their pupils and subject in order to teach them effetively. That's kind of inherent in teaching. This has nothing to do with central planning.

You still suffer from the delusion that this problem is solvable.

I keep forgetting that Finland doesn't exist. Silly me.

A couple of centuries of experience have shown that it is not. Thanks for making my point for me.

Except for those countries which manage. Hell, pretty much every first world country does a better job at secondary level education than the US.

Re:Screw San Fran

[Cyberax]

Yes, it's wishful thinking - on part of conservatives whose main goal is to see California failing.

The "unfunded liabilities" are future retirement payments, including for people who are NOT EVEN BORN yet. They can be addressed as they come in many ways. If the state invested in low-risk bonds to start a trust fund then the required expense would still be less than the surplus.

Oh, and if we're talking about retirements then we should definitely mention the libertarian fiscally responsible paradise of Kansas. That is now borrowing money just for regular expenses and has already eaten through its retirement savings fund.

Re:Screw San Fran

[Cyberax]

That's nonsense. None of these trends are "overwhelming", and the BLS statistics only account for median gross weekly income, a lousy measure of where people are "moving".

Yes, they are. Otherwise the percentage of the "middle class" would have grown. And BLS has a lot more statistics than weekly income. Anyway, see here: http://www.dailykos.com/story/...

It certainly has grown much less than it should, largely due to costly government mandates and taxes.

No, and it actually can be proven. There is no correlation between US state GDP and income growth and the amount of regulations.

If your goal is to return good old 60-s when rivers were catching fire from deregulated dumping, then I suggest you move to China.

Who do you think is going to pay, say, for ACA? Or new financial regulations?

And who would bear the risks and costs of financial deregulation and ACA repeal? Read my lips: "not the top 1%".

Re:Screw San Fran

[Falconhell]

No I mean the town where a republican governor replaced the elected council, and his appointed manager was resposible for the water disaster to save a few bucks.
Reality disagrees with your moronic roght wing famtasy.

Re:Screw San Fran

[Falconhell]

Except it was the republican governor who overode the democrat council, and replaced it with the city manager who caused the disater!
As usual, rethuglicans fans ignore reality for their own fantasy.

Re:Screw San Fran

[Anonymous Coward]

"The metric you advocate, namely teacher credentials and increases in spending has nothing to do with student performance, and everything with the financial interests of powerful political groups like teachers' unions. Thanks for demonstrating how fucked up progressive priorities actually are."

Yes and No

Yes that the only stats that are important are graduation rates and student performance. Although you would never expect a hall of fame basketball coach to be able to make a 5 foot 2 inch chubby guy be able to be an all-star in the NBA. Why do you expect a teacher to take a child with emotional and/or learning disabilities and make them into an honor student or even someone who can learn period? Mom doing tricks and does not clean or feed you, no focus for school work.

No, teacher credentials do matter.
                      If you have parents who teach their kids right from wrong, the basics of life, hard work, follow up on them doing their hw and classwork and your child has no learning disabilities , he quality of the teacher is not as important . This is because if the teacher teaches a lesson poorly and assigns HW without fully teaching the topic, the parent will step in and make sure the child reads the textbook and learns anyway. This is what goes on in Catholic school and Yeshiva's in NYC. If the kid still does not get it, the parent hires a tutor or finds someone to help them out.

If you have children that do not get as much support at home, you need a higher skilled teacher with years of experience. I know every way to teach a topic, deal with a child with issues. Training matters. I am a much better teacher now that we have weekly professional development and teacher teams than I was before. I have more tools to get the job done.

An analogy would be a heart doctor that treats fairly healthy patients.

  Doctor 1: If he does not have advanced credentials, no problem he has no difficult nonstandard cases to cure. He has a very low death and heart attack rate. His patients will follow his orders on diet and take their pills on time each day.

Doctor 2: Has unhealthy or rare cases, the extra skills and experience he possesses is crucial to helping his patients. I would bet he has more patients that have repeat heart attacks and may die. He has more because his patients were not as healthier and at a higher risk.

Your statements are why we can never solve the education issue. It is not about democrat, republican. There is no one size fits all solution such as raising standards and holding kids accountable based on their age (that is what is done now) But rather there is a multitude of solution that need to be done at the same time and tailored to the population you are serving. And school leadership needs to be based on qualification not political connection. Many principals especially in inner cities (ie : subsidized communities) are based on political connection . My brothers son goes to a public school in a pricy NJ area. The teachers are poorly supervised, somewhat lazy and would not last a second at the highly rated NYC school I work at. Yet the student test scores are good. They would be better if they were taught by the quality of teacher at my school. Parents hire tutors in NJ.

Re:Screw San Fran

[Dogtanian]

Obviously, a lot of people get hurt by free markets; they just happen to be the people who ought to get hurt

This- it has to be said- comes across as dogma.

like inefficient businesses

When a company is large or influential enough to squash competition, it doesn't need to be efficient. When a company is large enough that it can leverage its financial might to use the legal system as a weapon of attrition against competitors or ordinary people, and use that same threat of attrition to defend itself against legal attacks then the market is no longer "free".

This is particularly the case in the US where even the winning side can be wiped out by costs in many cases- and large companies can exploit this to dissuade such action.

But when you try to achieve economic equality through government intervention, the outcomes are rent seeking, crony capitalism, and economic stagnation.

Are you seriously telling me you don't believe that rent seeking and crony capitalism *aren't* the likely outcome when income inequality grows to the extent that those few at the top can afford to skew things in their favour?

Regardless of what they claim, in practice businesses are not- and never have been- in favour of a level playing field if it's not in their advantage. Given enough power- in this case, financial- they *will* seek to skew things in their favour and this *will* result in influence on government and the democratic process to achieve that.

This inevitably increases the likelihood of the rent seeking and crony capitalism that you describe, blurring the edges between government and business to the point of meaninglessness. I suspect that you'll blame this on government being involved in the first place and that it wouldn't be a problem if businesses were competing in a purely "free" market, but I don't believe that for a second. The free market can- and does- tend towards monopoly on occasion, and when (as I mentioned) their influence grows beyond a certain point, it can be leveraged to ensure that the market effectively isn't "free".

Rent seeking isn't something that happens in a free market

Do you mean a market "free" from government interference or one in which supply and demand are "freely" met? I appreciate that some people would say that they're effectively the same and- again- I'd say that was dogma. It's quite possible- if not probable- for markets free from regulation (the former) to end up in a position where the dominant party is able to abusively engage in what is effectively rent-seeking behaviour (contrary to the latter).

Re:Screw San Fran

[Anonymous Coward]

The metrics that matter the most are % attendance and % parents who attend parent teacher conferences and two parent family’s vs one parent or no parent families.

Why?

If you are not in school you don't learn

If your parent does not care if you learn or not, MOST children will rather play video games than do HW.

If your parent does nothing if the teacher calls home for lack of classwork, disrespectful behavior, and most children will do whatever they want.

One parent families are an issue because even if you have a loving caring parent, they may need to work or not otherwise be available to properly supervise their children. Also many one parent families are formed by irresponsible behavior such as casual sex leading to many baby daddies’s who never loved mom and the kids sense this which leads to emotional issues. Been working in the education field for 15 years. See it all the time

Racist liberals who are desperate to blame racism for all the ills of the non performing black population who are suspended and disciplined at a far higher rate that the average at school across the nation have watered down the discipline code so much that a child needs to HARM another child to be removed from a class. This allows distracting prevents a teacher from teaching. Highly trained teachers can mitigate the affects by using proven strategies. These strategies take the teachers attention away from actually teaching and diagnosing and remediating topic related issues

Re:Screw San Fran

[ooloorie]

Do you mean a market "free" from government interference or one in which supply and demand are "freely" met? I appreciate that some people would say that they're effectively the same and- again- I'd say that was dogma.

A "free market" is, by definition, one in which all transactions are voluntary and according to terms that the participants in each transaction choose.

I have no idea what it means to "meet supply and demand freely". No economy ever "meets" demand, freely or not, because demand is always unlimited and supply is always finite.

It's quite possible- if not probable- for markets free from regulation (the former) to end up in a position where the dominant party is able to abusively engage in what is effectively rent-seeking behaviour (contrary to the latter).

No, it is neither "probable" nor even "possible" for that to happen.

Regardless of what they claim, in practice businesses are not- and never have been- in favour of a level playing field if it's not in their advantage. Given enough power- in this case, financial- they *will* seek to skew things in their favour and this *will* result in influence on government and the democratic process to achieve that.

Yes, they will. And there is only one remedy to that: to reduce the size and power of government; that is the only policy we, as voters, can possibly ever hope to achieve. You, instead, imply that the solution is more regulation and more government power, which is absurd; you are proposing throwing gasoline on the fire.

Re:Screw San Fran

[ooloorie]

Except it was the republican governor who overode the democrat council, and replaced it with the city manager who caused the disater!

So? I didn't say "Democrats bad Republicans good". I said economic studies have shown again and again that more economic freedom and smaller government translate into increased growth and wealth. The people of Flint, Michigan, were failed both by their Democratic and Republican governments.

As usual, rethuglicans fans ignore reality for their own fantasy.

As usual, Democrats and progressives engage in blind partisanship to the exclusion of any reason or logic.

Re:Screw San Fran

[Plus1Entropy]

The way you think the debt ceiling works is completely backwards. Congress sets the amount of taxes, the amount of spending, and the debt ceiling. The President spends the money, collects the taxes, and borrows if the latter is less than the former. If the country is at the debt ceiling when it comes time to borrow, the government can either default or choose to raise it. Congress was playing chicken with arithmetic, but arithmetic doesn't flinch. Congress creates the crisis, the President just informs them when it's imminent.

You can't reduce the debt without making the deficit a surplus, and you can't make the deficit a surplus without raising taxes or cutting spending. That's just math. I get that Congress is supposed to control the budget, I'm not saying it shouldn't be that way. What I am saying is that since it is that way, blaming the President for the debt is asinine. To reduce the debt all Congress has to do is pass a surplus budget, if the President vetoes it, then we can talk about that.

You also seem to be confused about the Great Compromise... It's the Senate that protects small states from large ones, not the House. The House is proportional (as close as possible given the discrete nature of Representatives): California has ~12% of the population and ~12% (53/435) of the Representatives, Wyoming has ~0.18% of the population, and about ~0.22% (1/435) of the Representatives. In spite of California having over 6000% of the population of Wyoming, they both get 2 Senators. Who's willfully ignorant of what now?

Re:Screw San Fran

[ooloorie]

Yes, they are. Otherwise the percentage of the "middle class" would have grown. And BLS has a lot more statistics than weekly income. Anyway, see here: http://www.dailykos.com/story/...

You're just rattling off an endless stream of progressive talking points and apparently can't decide what point you are trying to argue. I can tell you this: as an immigrant, I have had much greater economic mobility in the US than in Europe. And the belly-aching from people like you just strikes me as laughable.

No, and it actually can be proven. There is no correlation between US state GDP and income growth and the amount of regulations.

Actually, there is, and numerous studies have shown that, both at the country and at the state level. http://politicalcalculations.b...

If your goal is to return good old 60-s when rivers were catching fire from deregulated dumping, then I suggest you move to China.

Environmental disasters in the US and elsewhere have been due to government protecting big industries from liability in the past. That kind of environmental protectionism has been reduced over the last few decades, which is a good thing. Unfortunately, environmental regulations still provide cover for industry to harm people.

Re:Screw San Fran

[ooloorie]

No, we tried that, and IT DOES NOT WORK.

Obviously not, since it produces semi-literate nincompoops like you. However, it is still objectively possible to determine that you are a semi-literate nincompoop, even if that determination doesn't fix anything.

Except for those countries which manage. Hell, pretty much every first world country does a better job at secondary level education than the US.

Coming from you, that is ironic.

Re:Screw San Fran

[Anonymous Coward]

"To put it generously, it's utterly obtuse to say, "urban environments often include blighted environments, urban environments often have liberal-leaning voters, thus liberal politics cause urban decay, case closed."

You can say liberal politics are the cause. There is a DIRECT casue and effect. It also has to do with political corruption and the power of money in politics that leads to the decay.

A little history lesson . Urban areas were flush with factory jobs. Cities flush with tax dollars and politicans looking to make a name for themselves spend money like drunken sailors to win favor of voters and stay in power .Most of the money mis spent and would have been better off putting in rainy day fund or lowering the tax rate.

. As technology comes into the scene, powerful union who collect tons of money from hard working members refuse to allow a few lost jobs to allow the factory to mondenize . The union pays of the local mostly democratic elected oficials. Presto factory closes down , jobs lost and now thousands of workers have no jobs.
Read all about how unions killed jobs in UK
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wapping_dispute

Civil right leaders fill up now empty slots in public housing with blacks from the south. they arrive to an environment where there are no jobs for them. As people don't work crime spikes. People don't move becasue they are getting cheap housing and government money. Those who leave leave

Politicians want to stay in power and collect payouts from the union spend the city into debt. Promise that they will not allow non union jobs at former union factoies. Factories sit idle. Tax revenue continues to decline. Tax rates get rasies . Services are not cut until things past the tipping point of no return. Cities empty.

Taxes get rasied. People don;t have the skills for higher level jobs that left the city or country. Subsidized housing gets built but no jobs for the people. Children of the former hard working union factory workers take on bad behaviors, drugs out of marrige pregnacny etc More social programs more money spent no better result . Plus the anti-american leftist wing of the liberal party wants nothing more than more programs to employee freinds and family.

If you were born after the 1970's you did not see what i describe above happen before your eyes. The narrative you see on tv is propoganda . Free money and subsidized food and housing allows those bad actors who don't want to work to not work. No penalty for having multiple babies with men or women you hardly know and love. Go to any subsidized area/trailer park etc you will find the same

This cost the hard working law abiding taxpayers. Everyone pays for others mistakes. Pay and pay

Enviromental regulation so strict that it cost cities and companies millions to get aprovals for needed things. Bizentyne regulation designed to slow extract campaign donations and bribes

Why do liberals rule the cities . Well meaning educated voters who want to help. Poor people who are not going to say no to something for free. And cities like NYC, LA and San Fran have established industries that were not as affected by the union greed of the past.

The only problem is that the problem is made worse by papering over the problem. The USA is in a global economy. You can not tax your companies into being not competative . Everyone has a price they are willing to pay for an item. rasie the price to high and companies must move or go out of business

Re:Screw San Fran

[Dogtanian]

A "free market" is, by definition, one in which all transactions are voluntary and according to terms that the participants in each transaction choose.

And if the market ends up in a position where one party dominates to an extent that it is able to dictate terms for an essential supply that the other party has no choice but to accept, does that still count as a "free market"?

Or will you claim that a truly "free" market can never end up in that position because...?

I have no idea what it means to "meet supply and demand freely".

Let me clarify that to "the *laws* of supply and demand are met freely" (i.e. without restriction by government, as a result of (e.g.) a monopoly or by any other means).

No, it is neither "probable" nor even "possible" for that to happen.

Why?

Yes, they will. And there is only one remedy to that: to reduce the size and power of government; that is the only policy we, as voters, can possibly ever hope to achieve. You, instead, imply that the solution is more regulation and more government power, which is absurd; you are proposing throwing gasoline on the fire.

No, the "gasoline on the fire" is the self-reinforcing corrupting influence of money on the democratic process. If government is permitted to become little more than a tool of big business, then of course that is a problem- the problem which we wish to prevent in the first place.

BTW, just to clarify, are you in favour of getting rid of government altogether? If not, why?

Re:Screw San Fran

[Anonymous Coward]

Very true

The allure of the better weather and the free handout lure the lazy to the LA and NYC.

The local community newspaper here in queens (a place where european born people are rare) interviewed bums on the street all black, hispanic or white. 8 out of 10 were from the midwest or the south. Why did they come to NY. The news that the progressive mayor told police not to arrest bums and beggers .

In less than 2 years since Deblasio took office, the streets are filled with bums. Slashings are up 2000%. Subways smell with the "homeless" bums sleeping across seats. Video of thugs shooting wildly mid day in former safe neighborhoods. Liberal activists claimed cops were racist for stopping and questioning people who matched descriptions of those who committed a crime they were looking to solve. 90% of those stopped were former criminals.

Liberal judges letting violent gun defendents out on bail just to committ more crimes.

Lies lies lies to the community

Many people call themselves liberals. Liberals have made the word conservatives, republicans or any religious denomination a bad word. Tv tell you they are racist and not tollerant .

BUT MOST PEOPLE VIEW OF WHAT IT MEANS TO BE LIBERAL IS DIFFERENT. And the media rarely ponts out bad actors. Black life matters is a hate group. They hate anyone who is not black including the police and any white, asian or hispanic people. Go out to one of their rallys and listen to what they say .

I am all for gay marrage by LGBT activist want more than equality.

Re:Screw San Fran

[pete6677]

Funny how all of the "evidence" you cited comes from ultra-left-wing sources.

Would you consider foxnews.com to be a credible source? I highly doubt it. Yet you have no problem linking to salon.com, one of the left-most publications in existence.

Re:Screw San Fran

[PopeRatzo]

Funny how all of the "evidence" you cited comes from ultra-left-wing sources.

You think a right-wing news source is going to report on the utter failure of right-wing policies?

How about the Topeka Sentinal-Journal? http://cjonline.com/news/state...

How about KSN.TV out of Wichita? http://ksn.com/2015/10/26/surv...

By the way, those are both conservative outlets. And that second story? It shows that Republican Governor Sam Brownback's approval ratings are lower than Barack Obama's...in Kansas. You have to be seriously hated to have lower approval ratings than Obama in Kansas.

Re:Screw San Fran

[ooloorie]

And if the market ends up in a position where one party dominates to an extent that it is able to dictate terms for an essential supply that the other party has no choice but to accept, does that still count as a "free market"? Or will you claim that a truly "free" market can never end up in that position because...?

I don't know of any "essential supply" with which that could happen, can you give an example? Furthermore, if there were such an "essential supply", politics would immediately kill a free market and you would end up with some form of dictatorship, so the question ceases to be an economic one. Free markets are not realistically possible in societies where people are threatened by essential shortages. However, if politics wouldn't hijack economics and free markets would continue to operate, then there would be a cost with enforcing the property rights that are associated with that monopoly, and those costs become so large that the monopoly would collapse immediately.

No, the "gasoline on the fire" is the self-reinforcing corrupting influence of money on the democratic process.

The kind of majority-based representative "democracies" we live in are inherently corrupt. In fact, the ancient Greeks referred to our system of government as "oligarchy"; what they called "democracy" was something quite different. What you are advocating is more oligarchy, not more democracy.

BTW, just to clarify, are you in favour of getting rid of government altogether? If not, why?

At the federal level, I want government in the original American sense: a government that guarantees external defense, free trade, and free mobility between states and is financed by money transfers from state governments. At the local level, I want government that operates more like an HOA than state and local government do now. Furthermore, I think the unit of local government should be a few thousand people at most.

Re:Screw San Fran

[Anonymous Coward]

They're "Human" "Resources". I'm sure they were purchased at fair market value from the slave trader without significant government interference.

Re: Screw San Fran

[ultranova]

I'd rather have rich, intelligent, productive overlords than stupid, diseased, ignorant, lazy super predators getting my money.

But what you actually have is rich, intelligent, productive super predators seeking to devour every tiny bit of economic power from you before casting your now-useless remains away.

Re:Screw San Fran

[Gussington]

If you think you can prove economic relationships by cherry-picking some examples, you are an idiot, and the four examples you cited don't even support your point, such as it is.

From your own link: " our results do not imply that government must shrink for growth to increase." Did you even read it? It doesn't sound like it...
Now back to the original point, If liberal policies are so evil, how is Californian and New York among the richest economies in the US? How does you hypothesis explain this?
How is Qatar so wealthy despite an oppressive "unfree" political regime?
Do you think maybe there might be more to it than catch phrase slogans such as Freedom and Small Government for all!?

Re:Screw San Fran

[ooloorie]

From your own link: " our results do not imply that government must shrink for growth to increase." Did you even read it? It doesn't sound like it...

You are quoting out of context. What they are saying, in context, is effectively that there may be ways of achieving higher growth without shrinking government. They are basically hedging their bets, as people tend to do in scientific publications.

Now back to the original point, If liberal policies are so evil, how is Californian and New York among the richest economies in the US?

I'm not sure what you mean by "richest economies". Both states are big, but in terms of per capita GDP, they were 7th and 17th, and in terms of growth, they were 20th and 46th in 2013, pretty dismal performances.

Furthermore, the usual pattern is that countries and states first become rich and then adopt welfare state policies, which then start hurting economic growth. Eventually, they usually pare back the welfare state again.

How is Qatar so wealthy despite an oppressive "unfree" political regime?

I didn't say that political freedom was important for growth, but economic freedom. Qatar has a "mostly free" economy (just behind Norway) according to the Index of Economic Freedom. Qatar's government spending is 16% of GDP (US: 36%), government employment is 11% of the population (US: 16%) and government debt-to-GDP is 32% (US: 104%). So, Qatar is an example of a country with decent amounts of economic freedom and a much smaller government than the US relative to the size of its economy. Add to that the fact that it is massively oil rich and it is not surprising that they are doing so well economically.

Do you think maybe there might be more to it than catch phrase slogans such as Freedom and Small Government for all!?

I didn't use such a "catch phrase". I pointed out that economic freedom is important for sustained, long term economic growth and for political freedoms, not that it is sufficient.

Re:Screw San Fran

[Cyberax]

I have had much greater economic mobility in the US than in Europe. And the belly-aching from people like you just strikes me as laughable.

And as an immigrant you quite likely have had far more opportunities for mobility than an average European. Likely free or very cheap college education, probably better schools and better child healthcare. So?

And don't "immigrant" me. I was born in Russia, lived for many years in Ukraine, moved to work in Germany then founded a startup in the US. I'm now learning Mandarin as I'm flying back and forth between China and the US periodically. I kinda know what over countries are like.

Actually, there is, and numerous studies have shown that, both at the country and at the state level. http://politicalcalculations.b... [blogspot.com]

They quite literally cherry-picked points to get a weak correlation.

Environmental disasters in the US and elsewhere have been due to government protecting big industries from liability in the past. That kind of environmental protectionism has been reduced over the last few decades, which is a good thing.

You are insane, really. Are you going to sue a coal power plant for damages to your health? How are you going to prove it?

Have you even SEEN what a serious "pollution" is?

Re:Screw San Fran

[ooloorie]

And as an immigrant you quite likely have had far more opportunities for mobility than an average European. Likely free or very cheap college education, probably better schools and better child healthcare. So?

You're guessing and you're wrong.

They quite literally cherry-picked points to get a weak correlation.

In fact, the correlation is quite strong and consistent between many different studies.

You are insane, really. Are you going to sue a coal power plant for damages to your health? How are you going to prove it?

http://lmgtfy.com/?q=coal+poll...

I was born in Russia, lived for many years in Ukraine, moved to work in Germany then founded a startup in the US. I'm now learning Mandarin as I'm flying back and forth between China and the US periodically. I kinda know what over countries are like.

So you made a smooth transition from communism to wealthy globe trotting US progressivist. Congratulations.

Re:Screw San Fran

[Cyberax]

http://lmgtfy.com/?q=coal+poll... [lmgtfy.com]

No, no. Class action requires government intercession. And anyway, you have to sue each power plant INDIVIDUALLY. Then each company that dumps toxic waste. Individually.

Oh, you want a government to enforce results of one lawsuit against all other coal companies? That's Socialism!

Re:Screw San Fran

[Anonymous Coward]

No, no. Class action requires government intercession.

So? You brought up lack of regulation as the cause of environmental disasters. I pointed out that it was lack of an ability to recover damages. You seem to mistake me for an anarchist.

And anyway, you have to sue each power plant INDIVIDUALLY. Then each company that dumps toxic waste. Individually.

Yes, imagine that: you actually have to make a determination that someone harmed someone else before you start imposing fines on them. Gosh, even the EPA operates roughly according to that principle, since they don't go around fining companies merely for being coal companies.

Oh, you want a government to enforce results of one lawsuit against all other coal companies?

That doesn't make any sense.

That's Socialism!

No, it wouldn't be. It would merely be stupid. Like you.

Re:Screw San Fran

[Gussington]

I pointed out that economic freedom is important for sustained, long term economic growth and for political freedoms, not that it is sufficient.

No, your quote was "more economic freedom and smaller government", and in case you were wondering, the word 'and' actually means something.
To bring this back to your original point "So we can look at places like San Francisco and California to see what the long term effect of Democratic progressive government is." What exactly is that? I see blue states tend to be doing better than red states economically, so maybe you could clarify?
ie You are implying that all the red states should all being doing much better than all the states, since their economic policy is better. Since this is not the case, something must be wrong with your theory?

Re:Screw San Fran

[serviscope_minor]

However, it is still objectively possible to determine

Yep, good plan. Try to "objectively" measure something by using metrics which objectively measure something you're not interested in and can easily game. Brilliant! That will certainly work. Ignore my naysaying, clearly you are the genius of our age.

Re:Screw San Fran

[DarkOx]

I am not talking about the great compromise. I am talking about representation of population centers within the states. House districts are drawn so that large groups of people with related interests are usually within a district. That is a major city might have a few congressional districts. A large more rural area outside the city also gets to be a congressional district. So that group of people get a rep. Unlike state wide Senate offices which now in our direct election of Senate offices environment mean a few major cities within a state pick the Senator and the rural votes effectively have no representatives in the Senate.

Re:Screw San Fran

[Anonymous Coward]

" find labor that understands it's place in the scheme of things."

Can you find an apostrophe that understands its place in a possessive pronoun? it's means it is.

Re:Screw San Fran

[ooloorie]

Yep, good plan. Try to "objectively" measure something by using metrics which objectively measure something you're not interested in and can easily game.

(1) People actually are interested in graduation rates, dropout rates, and test scores, that's why these metrics matter.

(2) To the degree that they are "gamed", they can be reasonably assumed to be gamed similarly in different states. That is, while these metrics make for lousy comparison over time, and hence a lousy instrument for managing educational systems, they tell us something about relative performance between states right now.

(3) Citing these metrics in this thread isn't an endorsement of the metrics, it is just to give simpletons like him and you easy to digest facts. If that doesn't satisfy you, you are welcome to read up on the detail.

Remember, the thread started with Daemonik's ludicrous claim that Kansas' educational system was failing relative to California because it wasn't spending too much money. Iffy as test scores may be, they still tell us a lot more about the performance of an educational system than how many dollars we spend per student.

Ignore my naysaying, clearly you are the genius of our age.

Well, thanks for your excellent demonstration of the shortcomings of the UK educational system.

Re:Screw San Fran

[ooloorie]

You are implying that all the red states should all being doing much better than all the states, [...] Since this is not the case, something must be wrong with your theory?

No, the only thing that is "wrong" is your persistence on thinking in false dichotomies. I'm simply pointing out that "Democratic and progressive policies don't work as promised" without saying anything about Republican policies. To see that Democratic and progressive policies don't work as promised, it is sufficient to look at the promises and the actual outcomes of where those policies have been implemented. San Francisco is an example where Democrats and progressives made big promises, on reducing homelessness, inequality, and poverty, and obviously have failed to deliver.

Re:Screw San Fran

[ooloorie]

Oh, I haven't had my coffee yet, so sorry about the lack of editing.

Re:Screw San Fran

[Dogtanian]

I don't know of any "essential supply" with which that could happen, can you give an example?

You're saying that you can't see that happening with (e.g.) water, electricity, gas, various forms of staple food (depending upon where one lives) in an entirely unregulated free market?

Furthermore, if there were such an "essential supply", politics would immediately kill a free market and you would end up with some form of dictatorship

Does "some form of dictatorship" automatically include any regime that would impose controls or split up a monopoly in such a situation?

However, if politics wouldn't hijack economics and free markets would continue to operate, then there would be a cost with enforcing the property rights that are associated with that monopoly, and those costs become so large that the monopoly would collapse immediately.

I'm really *not* sure what you're trying to suggest here? That the company would be responsible for enforcing its own property rights?

Why do you think the costs would rise disproportionately if one company had a monopoly?

What you are advocating is more oligarchy, not more democracy.

I don't think I've strongly advocated any particular form of democracy here. You seem to be making assumptions.

At the local level, I want government that operates more like an HOA than state and local government do now.

I was under the impression that HOAs in the US were frequently petty enforcers of superficial rules. Of course, if people want to freely subject themselves to that, that's one thing, but I can't see the appeal in a local government behaving the same way for someone that appears to dislike anything more than minimal governance.

Re:Screw San Fran

[david_thornley]

Obama has the distinction of being the only President to cut the deficit by $1T from where he started. He inherited a really major mess, and has pretty well straightened it out.

Re: Screw San Fran

[Anonymous Coward]

So it would be like working for a Silicon Valley startup?

Re: Screw San Fran

[Krishnoid]

I'm starting to think Dwayne Elizondo Mountain Dew Herbert Camacho would be a better alternative here.

Really? I'm leaning more toward 'Not Sure' on that one.

Re:Screw San Fran

[Krishnoid]

Of course they don't. They're more 'huono' or 'paha' places.

Re:Screw San Fran

[ooloorie]

You're saying that you can't see that happening with (e.g.) water, electricity, gas, various forms of staple food (depending upon where one lives) in an entirely unregulated free market?

No, I don't. There are many fungible sources of water, electricity, gas, and staple foods. I mean, get real: how would anybody manage to get a monopoly on potatoes?

Does "some form of dictatorship" automatically include any regime that would impose controls or split up a monopoly in such a situation?

You seem to be misinterpreting what I'm saying. I'm not saying that splitting up a monopoly amounts to a dictatorship, I'm saying that if you were in a situation in which a single party actually is in a position to control an essential good (e.g., air on a lunar colony), you will end up with a bona fide dictatorship of the "lick my boots peasant or suffocate" kind.

I'm really *not* sure what you're trying to suggest here? That the company would be responsible for enforcing its own property rights? Why do you think the costs would rise disproportionately if one company had a monopoly?

I'm saying that even the theoretical possibility of monopolies (e.g. air on a lunar colony) is a result of having replaced parts of the free market with political control; that is, it is a result of assuming that the state will guarantee private property at any cost. In a society fully based on free markets, ownership itself is defined through a web of contractual relationships, with finite, well-defined penalties for breaking those contracts, and even the theoretical possibility vanishes, because if that situation ever arose, people would simply break their contracts and the monopolist would lose their property.

Of course, we have never had that kind of free market system. but even when the state guarantees private property, it can't do so at any cost. At some point, when private property ownership becomes too unbalanced, people "break contracts" and "pay the penalty" in the form of violent revolutions. A free market approach to private property is simply a less violent, less political, and more rational version of that.

I was under the impression that HOAs in the US were frequently petty enforcers of superficial rules. Of course, if people want to freely subject themselves to that, that's one thing, but I can't see the appeal in a local government behaving the same way for someone that appears to dislike anything more than minimal governance.

When human beings live close together, there will always be disputes, conflicts, and "superficial rules". Zoning boards are no different in that regard from HOAs. Where zoning boards and HOAs differ is that zoning boards are subject to political lobbying from people who don't pay the cost of their decisions and don't have to live with them, and that zoning boards are exempt from many of the restrictions on private contracts. So, if an HOA decides that everybody's home must be painted pink, then the people paying for painting and having to live with the pink color every day are the ones voting for it. A zoning board, on the other hand, doesn't have to bear the cost of its decisions and doesn't have to live with the consequences; zoning boards are often hijacked by outside commercial and political interests.

Re:Screw San Fran

[dbIII]

So you moved the goalposts to pretend that there has not been a decline since 2000? Shame on you!
There is more to life than winning arguments by changing the topic.

Re:Screw San Fran

[ooloorie]

So you moved the goalposts to pretend that there has not been a decline since 2000? Shame on you!

You first said that "jobs have been moving to China"; wrong. Then you said "The manufacturing sector crashed"; wrong. Now you're clinging like mad to the fact that there has been a reduction in the number of manufacturing jobs in the US since 2000. It's you who keeps moving the goal posts.

What do these number actually mean? While the number of manufacturing jobs has decreased, US manufacturing output has increased since 2000. So, obviously, jobs didn't "move to China", but rather manufacturing has become more automated and more efficient. That's generally a good thing, but it has probably been speeded up by US policies during the same time that increase the cost of labor.

There is more to life than winning arguments by changing the topic.

I'm not trying to "win" arguments. I'm trying to understand how misguided people like you think, since obviously there are a lot of you around.

Re:Screw San Fran

[Plus1Entropy]

Hmm, OK. Sorry I misunderstood...

Unlike most people, I (and it seems like you as well) have actually read the Constitution many times (it's therapeutic) and a lot of the FF's writings, but I can't remember this particular intent being mentioned. That's why I went to the Great Compromise, because that's what it sounded like you were talking about. Is it mentioned anywhere in the Federalist or Anti-Federalist papers (or any other FF writings)?

Also, if a city gets (in some hypothetical state) 5 representatives, and the area outside the city gets 1 or 2, wouldn't that just result in the same issue if Senators are appointed by the state legislature? The 5 in this case dominate the proceedings anyway right? I guess it depends on the State's constitution, and how their appointment processes differ. I'd be curious to look at the population distribution and see what percentages live within cities vs. outside of them, state by state.

I never found the 17th Amendment all that controversial, as far as Amendments go. It was ratified pretty quickly, which I know isn't a good reason, but it was by those same legislatures who were giving up their power of appointment after all... I'll tell you what, I'm not convinced, but you've got me thinking (and reading) about it.

Re:Screw San Fran

[Dogtanian]

There are many fungible sources of water, electricity, gas, and staple foods.

The infrastructure required to support delivery of many of those things isn't, though. *That* is where the problem lies and where the barriers to entry into a market exist, and where barriers to entry exist they can be leveraged to shut out newcomers.

And even that's assuming that a free market would support (e.g.) many different water suppliers all able to bring their own, independent delivery infrastructure to my house to provide true competition. Of course that's not going to happen, I'm not going to have 100 different suppliers' pipes coming to my house to choose from!

I'm saying that if you were in a situation in which a single party actually is in a position to control an essential good (e.g., air on a lunar colony), you will end up with a bona fide dictatorship of the "lick my boots peasant or suffocate" kind.

It's only the (apparently) dogmatic assumption that a "true" free market can't end up in the same monopolistic position that would differentiate this from an abusive, non-democratic government.

Speaking of the air supply, don't you remember that it was a private company that cut it off in Total Recall? :-)

if that situation ever arose, people would simply break their contracts and the monopolist would lose their property.

I thought you said there were "well-defined penalties" for breaking contracts? How do you know the monopolist will lose their property- doesn't that depend on the terms of the contract and what the company can do to recover it? Who's going to back up the terms of those contracts anyway? The government? If not, what's to stop the company from just doing what they want? Doesn't sound like a free market to me.

With respect, the model of "free market" you're describe is starting to sound like an idealist intellectual abstraction, not something that would- or could- make sense in the real world.

Re:Screw San Fran

[Gussington]

I'm simply pointing out that "Democratic and progressive policies don't work as promised" without saying anything about Republican policies.

You're playing with words. Some policies fail (on both sides), but the general trend is upwards but over the long term.

Re:Screw San Fran

[ooloorie]

With respect, the model of "free market" you're describe is starting to sound like an idealist intellectual abstraction, not something that would- or could- make sense in the real world.

You envisioned unrealistic Total Recall scenarios. I pointed out that the failures you postulate are not market failures but political failures, such as not accounting for the cost of policing and assuming unlimited enforceability of property rights. It's OK to ignore those factors when discussing existing, real-world markets; but you can't ignore them when you extrapolate to unrealistic Total Recall scenarios.

It's only the (apparently) dogmatic assumption that a "true" free market can't end up in the same monopolistic position that would differentiate this from an abusive, non-democratic government.

I have no idea what you mean by that. Of course, hypothetical free markets can produce monopolies; for example, on an isolated island with just two people on it, all goods are by definition monopolized. As I was saying before, realistically, free markets only operate well in large, educated societies with lots of products. But in those societies, they do operate better than any alternative. Furthermore, when free markets break down, it is through politics, not market mechanisms.

The infrastructure required to support delivery of many of those things isn't, though. *That* is where the problem lies and where the barriers to entry into a market exist, and where barriers to entry exist they can be leveraged to shut out newcomers.

That isn't a "monopoly on an essential good", it's a local monopoly, and almost always an artificial one at that. That is, there are many people you can buy electricity from in the market as a whole, it's just that you may have to move to get it. And most of those local monopolies are artificial anyway. That is, in most places, you could actually have a choice of suppliers, or even supply yourself, if government hadn't granted an artificial local monopoly to some utility, usually due to political lobbying.

Speaking of the air supply, don't you remember that it was a private company that cut it off in Total Recall? :-)

That is my point: your idea about monopolies is as unrealistic as Total Recall; in real societies, monopolies don't operate that way.

Re:Screw San Fran

[Dogtanian]

Good grief. If it wasn't already obviously silly enough, the smiley didn't tip you off that the "Total Recall" comment was a joke, a lighthearted reference to the fact that your example reminded me of that film or "proved" my point?...!

No, it doesn't actually prove anything, and wasn't meant to. It's a fictional movie featuring a three-breasted woman. Lighten up.

That said, I like the fact you accused me of "unrealistic Total Recall scenarios" when you were the one that came up with the "air in a moon colony" example in the first place!

I pointed out that the failures you postulate are not market failures but political failures

Yes, I'm aware that you keep claiming this. If one takes it as axiomatic (or as I see it, dogmatic) that the free market cannot fail on its own- which appears to be the basis of your argument- then *by definition* all such failures must be the fault of political interference.

But since that's essentially the point being argued, this is little more than circular reasoning.

Furthermore, when free markets break down, it is through politics, not market mechanisms.

Again. See above.

And most of those local monopolies are artificial anyway. That is, in most places, you could actually have a choice of suppliers, or even supply yourself, if government hadn't granted an artificial local monopoly to some utility, usually due to political lobbying.

Can't see numerous companies digging up- or being allowed to dig up (either by government or by private landowners) numerous independently-owned water supply routes and sets of pipes just so I can pick and choose one of them.

That is my point: your idea about monopolies is as unrealistic as Total Recall; in real societies, monopolies don't operate that way.

As I said, you were the one who came up with the "unrealistic" example, I just made a tongue-in-cheek comment about a fictional instance of it.

And if your idea of a free market is that it's free because (e.g.) you can move halfway across the country to change supplier, then we've certainly moved out of the bounds of real world usefulness and into intellectual masturbation.

Re:Screw San Fran

[ooloorie]

Yes, I'm aware that you keep claiming this. If one takes it as axiomatic (or as I see it, dogmatic) that the free market cannot fail on its own- which appears to be the basis of your argument- then *by definition* all such failures must be the fault of political interference.

But I'm not taking it as "axiomatic". As I was saying, highly unusual markets can produce monopolies. Furthermore, free market transactions are well defined: they are transactions that are voluntary and according to conditions entirely set by all participants.

Can't see numerous companies digging up- or being allowed to dig up (either by government or by private landowners) numerous independently-owned water supply routes and sets of pipes just so I can pick and choose one of them.

Well, look, that's just a testament to your inexperience. Many places have just one set of wires and pipes in the ground, yet give people the option to buy from dozens of suppliers, who share the cost for the delivery system. Many other places have tunnels in the ground where it is easy to put in new wires and pipes. And many people need no utilities at all, because they can get water, sewer, and electricity on their property, yet they are still forced to buy from government monopolies.

And if your idea of a free market is that it's free because (e.g.) you can move halfway across the country to change supplier, then we've certainly moved out of the bounds of real world usefulness and into intellectual masturbation.

Well, luckily, that isn't my idea. What I am saying is that I do not like moving halfway across the country to change suppliers, which is the current situation we have with public utilities. I would like that situation to end, which is precisely why I oppose government-granted monopolies.

Re:Screw San Fran

[dbIII]

You first said that "jobs have been moving to China"; wrong

You indeed wrong - I did not say that at all you lying and insulting creature. You have put words in my mouth and then presented graphs based on a "gut feel" metric as some sort of evidence, presumably so that you could laugh at how ignorant I am if I fell for it.

Re:Screw San Fran

[Anonymous Coward]

The really scary part is that we are now complaining about metrics "used by the American political left" when I can still recall the "no child left behind" policies being pushed by a conservative "American political right" president who was complaining about lackadaisical teachers who were not qualified to keep their positions because they weren't being measured based on their output (brighter children, I guess).

I guess for a person to really remember a dumb "American political right" action as an "American political right" action, it needs to have a truly stupid name, like "The War on Dumb"

Re:Screw San Fran

[Dogtanian]

But I'm not taking it as "axiomatic". As I was saying, highly unusual markets can produce monopolies. Furthermore, free market transactions are well defined: they are transactions that are voluntary and according to conditions entirely set by all participants.

I'm not sure how that's relevant. The point under dispute was whether an entirely laissez-faire free market (that initially met your definition) could end up in a position where it didn't (e.g. a monopoly). You took it as given that "when free markets break down, it is through politics, not market mechanisms", meaning that by definition any such failure could only be ascribed to external interference in that otherwise free market- that is to say, the free market is perfect because the free market is perfect...!

Yes, monopolies can occur under other "highly unusual" conditions, but the question was whether or not they can also arise in an entirely unregulated free market.

Well, look, that's just a testament to your inexperience. Many places have just one set of wires and pipes in the ground, yet give people the option to buy from dozens of suppliers

I'm aware of that. My point was that they still use the same shared infrastructure which either requires external regulation to allow access, or (in an unregulated market) is a weak point with high risk of failure- i.e. falling into the hands of a small number of parties exerting monopolistic or near-monopolistic control and using it as a barrier to entry for competitors.

Re:Screw San Fran

[ooloorie]

The point under dispute was whether an entirely laissez-faire free market (that initially met your definition) could end up in a position where it didn't (e.g. a monopoly).

No, I didn't "take it as given". I am saying that this is not possible for the kinds of diverse and large markets we have. It's like the Second Law of Thermodynamics: large systems have the possibility of behaving that way, but it is so unlikely that we consider it a "law" that they don't.

You took it as given that "when free markets break down, it is through politics, not market mechanisms", meaning that by definition any such failure could only be ascribed to external interference in that otherwise free market- that is to say, the free market is perfect because the free market is perfect...!

Ah, I see the source of the confusion. The expression "free markets break down" is ambiguous: it can mean "free markets yield bad outcomes due to the emergence of monopolies" or it can mean "people are coerced by force to engage in economic transactions against their wishes". I was using it in the latter sense. Sorry for not expressing that more clearly.

So, what I'm saying is that if a monopoly on some good were to arise in a large free market and the political system continues to allow the market to operate freely, then market mechanisms will eliminate the monopoly; monopolies just aren't stable in large free markets. The only way a monopoly can be stable is when the political system intervenes in the market and forces people to continue to buy from the monopoly.

My point was that they still use the same shared infrastructure which either requires external regulation to allow access, or (in an unregulated market) is a weak point with high risk of failure- i.e. falling into the hands of a small number of parties exerting monopolistic or near-monopolistic control and using it as a barrier to entry for competitors.

And I'm saying that that belief is rooted in an analysis that mixes up existing government monopolies with free market mechanisms. That is, as a home owner living on a public street, I have no private property interest in the road that leads to my property. The fear of monopolistic control in that situation is well justified, but the monopolistic control over utilities arises out of monopolistic control over roads, which is something government established in the first place.

If the road leading to my property is instead owned and administered by a private association of the people living on that road (as they are in many places), the issue of monopolistic control over the road disappears, because now the property owners are in control, and they now have the power to decide how the wires running to their property are shared.

Re:Screw San Fran

[Anonymous Coward]

Cities compete with cities and states with states for money, jobs, and business/industries all on the larger canvas of the nation. For many years, now, our nation has been chasing the money, jobs, and industries out of here into other places. Some of that is by stupid policies and politics, more by design and intent by those who stand to gain wealth and power at the impoverishment and dimunition of a nation they don't esteem very much. At least that is being illuminated and challenged in the GOP primaries.

God forbid anyone be responsible for themselves...

[Anonymous Coward]

This is what's wrong with society - you can't point out the elephant in the room without the elephant feigning offense and everyone hating you until you buy it peanuts.

I say we shoot the elephant.

Slashdot

[orledrat]

Stuff Those Matters!

Re:Slashdot

[Actually, I do RTFA]

Whiplash, whereever you are, I clicked on this article in spite of the title, not because of it. Please make it less clickbaity.

Re:God forbid anyone be responsible for themselves

[Barny]

I say we take off and nuke the room from orbit. It's the only way to be sure...

As a tourist...

[x0ra]

walking down Market from Embarcadero to Castro brings up a few areas which indeed do look like shit, not to mention the awkward times when a delirious hobo get in a trolley. SJW are probably gonna mod me down, but that would be one more fact they conveniently ignore...

Re:As a tourist...

[Daemonik]

If you want to live in a curated life, move to Disney Land, buy the clothes they tell you to wear, work the job they tell you to work.

Rest of us will be dealing with real life. You won't be missed.

Re:As a tourist...

[Anonymous Coward]

If you don't like the "curated" life so much, stop taking all my money to distribute among those the government has decided is more worthy.

Re:As a tourist...

[afgam28]

First of all, Market St takes you right between the Tenderloin and the 6th & Market area, which locals knows to avoid. Clueless tourists however, don't.

Second, everyone in SF knows it looks like shit there, no one's pretending it doesn't. But about a third or maybe even half of the homeless people there are mentally ill. It's fucked up that as a society, we'd leave sick people out there to die, and demand that they "beg coyly, stay quiet, and generally stay out of your way". We don't do that with people with cancer, or physical disabilities, and we shouldn't for the mentally ill either. You can look down on "SJW"s all you want, but the guy was acting like a cunt, and he got treated the way he deserved.

Re:As a tourist...

[Anonymous Coward]

Heaven forbid we take notice of problems and demand improvement.

I guess "dealing with real life" means just ignoring shit and letting everything spiral into a hellhole.

Re:As a tourist...

[rsmith-mac]

Sadly I'm forced to agree. As an occasional business traveler I no longer feel safe in SFO. Go the wrong couple of blocks from the Moscone Center and you're in a very bad part of town.

Re: As a tourist...

[Anonymous Coward]

What fact is that, that you're taking the same NIMBY approach to homelessness which led to the predicament you're in?

Re: As a tourist...

[Anonymous Coward]

You're full of shit.

Go a couple blocks from Moscone and you're in SoMa, which used to be a bad neighborhood, but is now home to Twitter and many others.

San Francisco is one of the most gentrified cities in the world. I'm tired of wide-eyed suburbanites shitting their pants every time they see a homeless person.

Re:As a tourist...

[ooloorie]

Rest of us will be dealing with real life. You won't be missed.

San Francisco isn't "real life". It's an ultra-wealthy enclave that has chosen to turn itself into a filthy dystopia. It is San Francisco that is a "curated life", albeit the curators are doing a piss poor job. In real life, cities are neither as filthy as San Francisco, nor as wealthy.

Re:As a tourist...

[__aaclcg7560]

Go the wrong couple of blocks from the Moscone Center and you're in a very bad part of town.

Especially that intersection with Starbucks on three of the four corners.

Re:As a tourist...

[Nemyst]

I'll readily agree that he worded it poorly and I disagree with much of the premise, but... Is the punishment in line with the offense here? He spoke his mind out, something Americans seem all too eager to do and say they have a right to, and then the backlash was not only severe, but persisted for years down the line and probably will for years further. That's a bit much, don't you think? That you can essentially destroy your life in a single act, one that is neither immoral nor illegal?

Re:As a tourist...

[guises]

Disney World, and it's not in the park itself. Geez, you've got this all mixed up. Typical Californian, giving bad directions...

Re:As a tourist...

[Anonymous Coward]

lol go get fucked by a homeless retard you SJW piece of shit. rest of the country isn't like your shithole SF.

Re: As a tourist...

[Anonymous Coward]

San Francisco is one of the most gentrified, affluent, well-heeled and clean cities in the world.

Pretty much every city is filthy, by the way, sorry if this is a revelation for you. I guess you don't know cities very well.

I'll tell you right now SF's main problem is afflluence and not "filth."

Re:As a tourist...

[trout007]

It was the left that pushed to clear out the mental hospitals. You cannot be held against your will for long if you haven't done anything wrong. To be fair there were people held against their will when they posed no danger and were just odd or embarrassing for their family. There needs to be something in between. Maybe need a jury trial every year or so to see if the person can stay committed or something similar.

Re:As a tourist...

[Anonymous Coward]

It's fucked up that as a society, we'd leave sick people out there to die

We used to house them in mental institutions, but the SJWs made that too expensive and they shut down. Now the mental institutions are ruins and our streets are full of mentally ill.

Re:As a tourist...

[Anonymous Coward]

> Rest of us will be dealing with real life.

Let me guess, by passing taxes on other people to clean this mess up.

Thanks for the tip.

Re: As a tourist...

[Anonymous Coward]

Hahaha what a fucking hilarious lie.

The last time I was in SF, some fat screaming black woman was taking a shit on the sidewalk, and everyone was pretending like it wasn't happening.

You're the problem, fuckwit.

Re:As a tourist...

[Anonymous Coward]

That you can essentially destroy your life in a single act, one that is neither immoral nor illegal?

Yes - speaking out about the homeless problem and how disgusting many homeless people behave will get you tarred and feathered in perpetuity.

If you want something you can come back from, you should shit on the streets while mainlining heroin like the homeless people the good citizens of San Francisco clearly cares so much about.

And remember, just as soon as George Bush and his Republican cronies stop ruining everything, Obama can get down to the business of fixing America! I can't WAIT for Obama's inauguration!

Re: As a tourist...

[Anonymous Coward]

I'm tired of wide-eyed suburbanites shitting their pants every time they see a homeless person.

We're even. I'm tired of stepping in homeless person shit.

Re: As a tourist...

[Anonymous Coward]

Right, bruh! San Francisco is gentrified, which is why there are so many homeless people.

And that means there's absolutely no reason to complain at all about San Francisco.

If you complain about San Francisco, it's because you're a wide-eyed bumpkin. San Francisco is perfect. It is highly gentrified, and has no homeless problem. San Francisco is love.

Re: As a tourist...

[Anonymous Coward]

Have you actually been to any other cities? Yes, SF is super rich & elitist, but it is also undeniability filthy. Like wretched, willful, dystopian filthy.

- this post written from the delicious Indian restaurant, corner of Jones & O'Farrell a.k.a. "crack corner", downtown SF.

Re:As a tourist...

[Daemonik]

There's a difference between "demanding improvement" and feeling that improvement is rounding them up and pushing them out of sight of their betters. Generally using words like "filth", "degenerates" or "animals" tells us which side of the argument you're on.

Re:As a tourist...

[Daemonik]

Oh boo hoo. "He said words and he was held accountable!!" That's life. If you want to be in the public eye be prepared to deal with the fallout.

Re:As a tourist...

[Anonymous Coward]

and he got treated the way he deserved

Do you really think that people who hold unpopular opinions deserve to be prosecuted for them? Oh wait, I know, only states are capable of being tyrannical, it's not as if there has ever been a cult-like ideology which has exercised it's influence to silence dissenters.

Re: As a tourist...

[Anonymous Coward]

Don't forget tolerance! SF is all about tolerance. And if you don't agree they'll beat you and shit on you and sue you into oblivion. Tolerance - or else...

Re:As a tourist...

[x0ra]

If you want to live in a curated life, move to Disney Land, buy the clothes they tell you to wear, work the job they tell you to work.

Rest of us will be dealing with real life. You won't be missed.

Typical SJW asshole argument...

Re: As a tourist...

[x0ra]

Fuck tolerance. The mentally ill `hobo` spiting non-sense at tourist in the tram don't give a shit about that, why should I ? I'm fed up of this compassion argument from the left, or how we should all bend over to those who *choose* to fuck their lives. I could have been doing drugs, I chose not to.

Re: As a tourist...

[x0ra]

I doubt you would want mentally ill hobos shitting / pissing / doing drugs on the sidewalk in front of your house / apartment either...

Re:As a tourist...

[Anonymous Coward]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9m2FxgyADpQ

captcha: murderer

Re:As a tourist...

[x0ra]

Interestingly enough, feminazi mentioning that *all* men should be put in concentration camps are not held accountable... Go figure.

Re:As a tourist...

[Gussington]

There needs to be something in between. Maybe need a jury trial every year or so to see if the person can stay committed or something similar.

Or say a qualified doctor who does a professional diagnosis? Of course that doctor would have to funded by the state, which means someone somewhere will have to pay taxes to fund it, so that'll never happen...

Re:As a tourist...

[Livius]

demand that they "beg coyly, stay quiet, and generally stay out of your way". We don't do that with people with cancer, or physical disabilities

In fact people with cancer or physical disabilities do not have any right to get in the way of others.

Re:As a tourist...

[Falconhell]

Typical deluded right wing asshole response.

Re:As a tourist...

[J-1000]

I'll readily agree that he worded it poorly and I disagree with much of the premise, but... Is the punishment in line with the offense here? He spoke his mind out, something Americans seem all too eager to do and say they have a right to, and then the backlash was not only severe, but persisted for years down the line and probably will for years further. That's a bit much, don't you think? That you can essentially destroy your life in a single act, one that is neither immoral nor illegal?

Not much empathy going around eh? I'm always trying to catch myself before grabbing a pitchfork, because I fear one day I may do something stupid and end up on the wrong end of them. Internet justice can be an awful and uncontrollable thing.

Here I risk going off topic. Degree of malice is not always an accurate predictor of outcome or punishment. Either of the two can fly off the charts with little predictability or justification. A bus driver has a mellow job in most cases, until one of their little errors has big consequences and people die. Recall one of your own fender benders or near misses, then imagine the same thing happening while driving a bus, and you'll probably see that you might not have fared any better. And it's not like we compensate bus drivers for the risk of failure we are heaping upon them.

So don't be too quick to judge. And respect those whose jobs have a high degree of personal risk, not just to life and limb but also to reputation.

Re:As a tourist...

[Anonymous Coward]

You like those blinders eh? Just run forward it will be fine....

Re:As a tourist...

[x0ra]

At least, I don't live in the magical left-wing world where everything is star spangling awesome, everyone is happy, and there is no wrong doing.

Re:As a tourist...

[Anonymous Coward]

I went to San Francisco, then went to China Town and got drunk on Tsingtao. Maybe I was tired from walking around all day, but I thought it was really good beer.

Re: As a tourist...

[Anonymous Coward]

Having homeless people on the streets serves a progressive political purpose -- it contrasts the rich and poor. Sad to see the mental cases used in such a way.

Re: As a tourist...

[Anonymous Coward]

"we should all bend over to those who *choose* to fuck their lives"

So how do you feel about the bank and GM bailouts?

Re:As a tourist...

[DerekLyons]

He spoke his mind out, something Americans seem all too eager to do and say they have a right to

Something very few seem to grasp is that freedom of speech does not grant freedom from consequences.

Re: As a tourist...

[Anonymous Coward]

You hate freedom. Not just freedom of speech - that's obvious beyond doubt - but all freedom in general. Admit it. Filthy totalitarian capitalist shitlord.

Re:As a tourist...

[Anonymous Coward]

First of all, Market St takes you right between the Tenderloin and the 6th & Market area, which locals knows to avoid. Clueless tourists however, don't.

Once locals know and accept that there are no-go areas, a city is basically dead. RIP.

Re:As a tourist...

[serviscope_minor]

I don't live in the magical left-wing world where everything is star spangling awesome, everyone is happy, and there is no wrong doing.

That sounds like an awesome place. Why wouldn't you want to live there?

Re:As a tourist...

[serviscope_minor]

libtards

You know I wasn't entirely convinced by the nuances of your reasoning, but you finally won me over with that decisive argument.

Re: As a tourist...

[Plus1Entropy]

Yep, homeless people are a liberal conspiracy to bring down the rich. This guy gets it.

Re: As a tourist...

[Plus1Entropy]

He doesn't give a shit because he's mentally ill. You got lucky, schizophrenia (e.g.) *chooses* you, not the other way around.

Re:As a tourist...

[serviscope_minor]

She got away with is so I should get away with it too!

For someone who espouses conservative values, you really seem to want people to be protected from the consequences of their actions AND you seem to hate when people use freedom of association to choose to not associate with this inividual.

Secondly, no, your point is not especially interesting. Firstly, there is very little in terms of equality of consequences for vasious actions. Some people get the book thrown at them, other people get off easy. Secondly, can you not see the difference between a wealthy, slick, well connected person, whos entire business model seems to be centered around publicitiy and social media, in a large inequality hotspot taking potshots at the less fortunate as compared to a random nutjob that no one cares about somewhere else?

Actually, I'm not supporting turning this guy into a complete outcast, many people have said many stupid things (myself included) due to switched-off brain, alcohol and so on. What's unfortunate for him is he was (a) very visible (b) in the wrong place at the wrong time and (c) doubled down.

Re:As a tourist...

[serviscope_minor]

San Francisco isn't "real life".

Yes it is. I wish the "this isn't TRUE real life" (you know as lived by True Scotsman hunting Real Haggis in a Real Glen) thig would die. Everywhere people are actually living it is some kind of real life.

Real life is actually incredibly varied and encompasses literally everyone living.

Re: As a tourist...

[ChrisMaple]

How the government handles things makes a big difference. When I was last in Manhattan, about 3 years ago, I noticed that it smelled different than it had for the preceding 50 years. I finally figured out that the smell of urine was gone. That was the result of government policy.

The new far left mayor of New York City has pushed through legislation to make it legal to defecate in public in NYC. Expect the old odors to return.

Re:As a tourist...

[Anonymous Coward]

TIL not loving SF for all its failures makes you a right wing asshole.

SF is a fucking shithole. I wouldn't live there if I had a trillion dollars. The only thing I miss after moving back to the "terrible" midwest is Pepe's Taqueria, Victor's/Tony's Pizza, Ozumo and Tadich Grill. Everything else can go fuck itself. I've never seen more smug doucebags in anyplace I've ever visited worldwide. Austin is trying, but they've got a long way to go.

Re:As a tourist...

[swb]

There's the question of incentives and unintended consequences.

The doctor who works for the state/institution may have the incentive to keep people institutionalized because the more people who are in the institution, the more money it gets and the more authority and prestige the doctors have working in a large institution.

The family hires a doctor for the diagnosis, chances are they will get the diagnosis they want.

Both will be likely to provide a truly unbiased diagnosis in extreme cases, but in the larger grey center where diagnosis can be more ambiguous their own biases will come into play.

Where it gets truly expensive is a third party hiring doctors for diagnosis who have no stake in either the institution or family, because who pays for that? Then it becomes the question of how good a one-time diagnosis is from a doctor unfamiliar with the patient.

Another expensive option is releasing patients whose diagnosis is marginal, but providing intensive therapy, monitoring and reintroduction services. This is truly expensive, families won't pay to have their nutty family member on the streets and government funding will never be adequate to cover it.

So you end up circling back just releasing people.

Re: As a tourist...

[Anonymous Coward]

Disney Land is a theme park, you can't live there.

Re:As a tourist...

[Anonymous Coward]

It was not the left, it was Reagan, who promised to make up for it with... something. Somehow once everyone was out on the street that something never got funded... Now perhaps he would now be considered a liberal, but not at the time.

Re:As a tourist...

[Anonymous Coward]

Disney World, and it's not in the park itself. Geez, you've got this all mixed up. Typical Californian, giving bad directions...

If you weren't such a tourist you'd know that Disney World is in Florida and Disney Land is in fact in California.

Re:As a tourist...

[Anonymous Coward]

walking down Market from Embarcadero to Castro brings up a few areas which indeed do look like shit, not to mention the awkward times when a delirious hobo get in a trolley. SJW are probably gonna mod me down, but that would be one more fact they conveniently ignore...

When traveling on Market St. from Embarcadero to Castro St. you are in fact walking UP Market St. and not down seeing as your walking up hill.

Re:As a tourist...

[Anonymous Coward]

wat

Re:As a tourist...

[Anonymous Coward]

I responded to Daemonik's use of the term, and he seemed to be saying that "San Francisco is representative of how most people live". That's why I put the term in "quotes": a quote like that generally signifies that the responder disagrees with the usage. Bet they didn't teach you that in your little Podunk university, did they?

Re: As a tourist...

[Anonymous Coward]

I wouldn't expect somebody who's been vomiting hate into this entire thread to buy the argument that mental illness isn't voluntary or, further, that mental illness can be managed.

Re: As a tourist...

[Anonymous Coward]

Different AC here, but same sentiment. Of course I wouldn't want that. How is turning your back on them helping? I want them to have some place for when nature calls, somewhere to sleep in peace, and access to outpatient treatment.

Your position throughout this discussion is that you don't see any other alternatives in your black and white world to the horribly abusive mental health institutions of the 70s and 80s and the current problem outside of just shooting them. Truth be told, shooting them would probably be the most humane of those three options.

You don't have a solution you care to bring to the table. All you're doing is engaging in a five minutes hate because it makes you feel better about your sad, pathetic life.

As fewer and fewer low-skill jobs are needed in the workforce, you're going to see this problem get a lot worse, and it won't be contained to the bad part of town in San Francisco.

Re:As a tourist...

[thewolfkin]

As an american you're free to say whatever you want. You are not however free from recrimination. When you dehumanize people who are suffering, you kind of reap what you sow.

Most people don't like the homeless but most people dont use their high profile to call them trash and animals. When you cross that line from ignoring the homeless to slamming them. You don't open yourself up to a lot of sympathy. For non-physical clapback

It may not be illegal but what he did is in my opinion highly immoral just like what Justine Sacco did. While I acknowledge the backlash is extreme in both cases. I'm hard pressed to consider it too much. What he, and she, said is dangerous. They're representative of a mindset that punishes people for situations they can't help, and in Silicon Valley he is representative of one of the major influential forces. The ambiguous, tech industry white guy. It speaks to the environment that he felt completely comfortable saying what he said. He didn't fear reprisals. He didn't think he needed to consider his words and perhaps find a way to express an idea more elegantly. The culmination of his life maybe as a white dude, maybe as someone who has never been homeless, maybe as someone in the angel investment industry, maybe because it's something everyone around him says, all led up to a person, who felt he could call the homeless trash and that this was perfectly fine. How are we supposed to trust that Silicon Valley isn't just looking out for itself and the tech industry? How are we supposed to believe that they don't view the homeless as just another engineering problem that is best solved by simply moving it somewhere else? It makes it very hard to trust them when their bright stars are not just doing nothing about homelessness but they're actively bashing them.

What you see in these major scandals isn't just people yelling for no reason. People gleefully piling on isn't what made Justine viral, it isn't what ruined this guy's reputation. It's a rebellion against an entire sector.

In South Florida he had been itching to bust through the glass ceiling he’d reached: paying himself more than $100K while selling repaired cellphones on eBay.

I find this quote interesting on two fronts. One that they would use the term glass ceiling to describe the situation, here of a guy who is paying himself six figures selling repaired phones on ebay and can't seem to make more money. Two that this situation describes someone who felt like "a nobody" when he arrived in silcon valley. And this is in the piece that's supposed to be symathetic to him.

The day after Gopman got Valleywagged, a city bureaucrat from the mayor’s office emailed him, wanting to talk about how to “leverage the potential of the tech community for good in our city.” A PR company asked him to face off with a homeless-helping reverend at a church: “a chance to build some bridges in a city that’s under some pressure right now, and, a chance for you to help shape your story/message as well.” Gopman interpreted all these offers to mean: save your skin, and hook us up with your rich contacts.

I mean good lord the man can't even take a hand out of his mess properly. His mindset isn't "How can I prove to everyone that I'm not a callous heartless dick? Let me go put in some facetime with this church." it's "What can I give them so they'll leave me alone? I can throw money at this problem via all the rich people I know.". It's fundamental misunderstanding of why everyone hate him.

“I just kind of felt like this [homelessness] was going to be something I couldn’t walk away from—something I would become responsible for. I have to move forward to feel like I’ve done something to rectify, apparently, this wrong I’ve done to the city.”

Like apologies that aplogize "if anyone was offended" rather than owning up

Re:As a tourist...

[Anonymous Coward]

Second, everyone in SF knows it looks like shit there, no one's pretending it doesn't. But about a third or maybe even half of the homeless people there are mentally ill. It's fucked up that as a society, we'd leave sick people out there to die, and demand that they "beg coyly, stay quiet, and generally stay out of your way". We don't do that with people with cancer, or physical disabilities, and we shouldn't for the mentally ill either. You can look down on "SJW"s all you want, but the guy was acting like a cunt, and he got treated the way he deserved.

Incorrect. I don't know about San Francisco but we don't allow people with cancer or disabilities to spit on or assault others. That sort of barbarianism deserves to be looked down on.

Re:As a tourist...

[thewolfkin]

Interestingly enough, feminazi mentioning that *all* men should be put in concentration camps are not held accountable... Go figure.

AN INTERVIEW WITH JULIE BINDEL by radfem collective

will heterosexuality survive women’s liberation?

It won’t, not unless men get their act together, have their power taken from them and behave themselves. I mean, I would actually put them all in some kind of camp where they can all drive around in quad bikes, or bicycles, or white vans. I would give them a choice of vehicles to drive around with, give them no porn, they wouldn’t be able to fight – we would have wardens, of course! Women who want to see their sons or male loved ones would be able to go and visit, or take them out like a library book, and then bring them back.

I hope heterosexuality doesn’t survive, actually. I would like to see a truce on heterosexuality. I would like an amnesty on heterosexuality until we have sorted ourselves out. Because under patriarchy it’s shit.

And I am sick of hearing from individual women that their men are all right. Those men have been shored up by the advantages of patriarchy and they are complacent, they are not stopping other men from being shit.

I would love to see a women’s liberation that results in women turning away from men and saying: “when you come back as human beings, then we might look again.”

The full quote in question. I however think it's important to point out that this woman is a self acknowledged radical feminist, and political lesbian (1). By all indications she's on the forefront of this movement. She's hardly a typical member of the feminist movement. She's an extreme fringe. She's more comparative to conspiracy theorists. Part of why people rebelled against Gopman is because he wasn't a fringe Silcon Valley elitist. He was a typical Silcon Valley elitist.That's why VW points out that his credentials as being fluffed up in the way most valley techies are fluffed up.

So yeah nice try it's not nearly the same thing. She said that knowing how counter to everyone else's thoughts it was. She said it knowing people like you would compare her to a Nazi. Gopman on the other hand felt like he was just saying the same thing everyone was thinking. He said it with a casualness that suggested he thought he was being insightful and/or brave for saying it and should be lauded for doing so.

(1)Political lesbianism is the idea that women may choose to become lesbians, and should do so. It is epitomized in a phrase usually attributed to author Ti-Grace Atkinson: "Feminism is the theory; lesbianism is the practice."

Re:As a tourist...

[Anonymous Coward]

I'm sure it had nothing to do with Reagan and cutting the state budgets that the right-wing loves to do.

Re:As a tourist...

[Anonymous Coward]

No, the rest of you will still be asking for handouts. You won't be missed asshole

Re:As a tourist...

[Anonymous Coward]

You should take them all home cause you're such a swell guy.

Re:As a tourist...

[facetube]

Ah yes, real life: having "fuck fuck nigger fuck nigger fuck shit piss fuck" screamed in peoples' faces at 8am on BART by the mentally ill who have no meaningful access to health care. I've seen this first-hand, multiple times. The police not even bothering to remove the person from the train when it's reported. People not even reacting, because it's the third time that week it happened. City-block sized homeless camps. Stepping over shoeless people sleeping on the sidewalk. Eventually you get out of the habit of stopping for a couple seconds to make sure you can still see respiratory activity. Human feces in the street. The rich blaming the poor instead of their own pathetic greed, or the lack of any functional social services for the sick.

You've set up a false dichotomy. The choices are not this or Disney Land. Enjoy your "real life"; I'll be enjoying mine somewhere where people give a shit about the health of their community and the wellbeing of others.

Re: As a tourist...

[Anonymous Coward]

The new far left mayor of New York City has pushed through legislation to make it legal to defecate in public in NYC.

Uh, no, it's being decriminalized, so instead of prosecuting people as criminals, you find another solution. Part of the whole idea that maybe a police state isn't the best way to live.

But hey, keep on twisting the truth through the wringer.

Re:As a tourist...

[Anonymous Coward]

libtards

I agree, Libertarians' arguments tend to be incredibly retarded.

Re:As a tourist...

[Anonymous Coward]

Jesus H. Chist, Americans have become such pussies. Look, there are poor people in the world. They're not going to kill you and rape your corpse. Maybe you'll get mugged or your pocket picked. Chill out, it isn't that big a deal.

Re:As a tourist...

[Anonymous Coward]

Yes. You've hit it on the head. People have opinions about things, and that will affect their reactions to things you say. Congratulations!
Insult and demean the powerless and people will think you're a jerk. Insult and demean the powerful, and people may reward you!

Re:As a tourist...

[Anonymous Coward]

the homeless don't fucking die in SF, that is exactly the problem. Everything the "tech bro" said is true. We don't necessarily want the homeless to die, just to go away and stop coming to SF. if they all moved to oakland the problem would be 100% solved.

https://frinkiac.com/caption/S08E09/1008123

Re:As a tourist...

[x0ra]

I'd like to, but libtards fuck it up beyond recognition.

Re: As a tourist...

[x0ra]

They should have declared bankruptcy. It would have been a huge mess, probably taken a decade or more to recover, but we would have learned the lessons... hopefully.

Re: As a tourist...

[x0ra]

Schizophrenia has an environmental/social component. Drugs and alcohol do not help. If you were really looking, you'd fine mental illness in the majority of people, who live "normal" lives otherwise.

Re: As a tourist...

[x0ra]

How if they don't want what you propose, reject your concept of modern society, and still want to shit in the front of your door ? If you ask my opinions, I *do* believe we have a population problem. Hopefully, war / disease / climate change will take care of the problem within the next decades.

Re: As a tourist...

[Anonymous Coward]

Yeah! Fuck free speech or free expression! I hate homeless and the mentally ill!

This problem should just disappear if we all ignore it!

Re:As a tourist...

[evilviper]

It was the left that pushed to clear out the mental hospitals.

No, it was Regan.

Over 30 years ago, when Reagan was elected President in 1980, he discarded a law proposed by his predecessor that would have continued funding federal community mental health centers. This basically eliminated services for people struggling with mental illness.

He made similar decisions while he was the governor of California, releasing more than half of the stateâ(TM)s mental hospital patients and passing a law that abolished involuntary hospitalization of people struggling with mental illness. This started a national trend of de-institutionalization.
http://www.povertyinsights.org...

Re:As a tourist...

[evilviper]

That's a bit much, don't you think? That you can essentially destroy your life in a single act,

If he was spouting racist, neo-Nazi or KKK ideals, would you feel the same?

All our actions have consequences. If you're convicted of stealing a car when you're 18, you can forget about getting a highly paid position in IT for the rest of your life. And how about getting yourself addicted to drugs, alcohol, or gambling? Welcome to being an adult, where a great many things can ruin your life to some degree.

I'm sure he'll be a great burger flipper, and once he leaves for a lower-rent area, he'll still be able to support himself, but he was very lucky to have his position, and he spoiled it. Once he gives up on getting it back, and moves on, he will do just fine.

Re: As a tourist...

[basecastula]

The filth is what makes it what it is. The other 75% of SF is really nice.

Re:As a tourist...

[Falconhell]

I do we call it Australia. We have great universal health care, no idiots with guns on the street and a minimum wage 3x that of the US.
You should try living in a civillised country.

Re:As a tourist...

[Falconhell]

We dont want deluded assholes like you, please stay in dumbfuckistan where you belong.

Re:As a tourist...

[Anonymous Coward]

I lived in San Francisco back in 1992-1996 and it was pretty average down big stretches of Market then as well.Union Square was often like a drop-in center depending on the how long it was since they had sent the last bus load over to Oakland to "clean up the city". There is no doubt America has some gross social problems but I am not convinced that Google is the key. Perhaps a public healthcare system and any sort of social support system would go some way to redress their issues,... but where would they get the ideas for how to run such a program,.... hmmm,... perhaps the could look at any other country!

Re:As a tourist...

[Gussington]

There's the question of incentives and unintended consequences.

The doctor who works for the state/institution may have the incentive to keep people institutionalized because the more people who are in the institution, the more money it gets and the more authority and prestige the doctors have working in a large institution.

Yes, the good old conspiracy theory, doctors really don't like helping people, they just want your money.
It might sound scary if we didn't already have such systems in place in lots of other countries, where the results speak for themselves.

and government funding will never be adequate to cover it

Govt funding is never enough to make the world perfect, but we know from international comparison is a base level of state funded health and education for all citizens gives better results overall than none.
Yes this costs money, but all good things do. The ultimate decision is if you prefer a nicer society that comes at a slightly higher cost, or a homeless people defecating on your streets , but you save a few pennies each year in taxes.

Re:As a tourist...

[Anonymous Coward]

walking down Market from Embarcadero to Castro brings up a few areas which indeed do look like shit, not to mention the awkward times when a delirious hobo get in a trolley. SJW are probably gonna mod me down, but that would be one more fact they conveniently ignore...

Looks like you're modded "5, Insightful". Wrap your mind around the fact decent human beings (dubbed SJWs) aren't just blithely ignoring reality. Honestly, you're ignoring these people until they dim your view, and you want to claim the other side are the ones ignoring the facts?

Re:As a tourist...

[Anonymous Coward]

If you don't like the "curated" life so much, stop taking all my money to distribute among those the government has decided is more worthy.

You don't contribute anything significant to the coffers anyways, and a meaningless tiny percentage of *that* goes to welfare programs, so quit whining and grow up.

Re:As a tourist...

[ultranova]

If you don't like the "curated" life so much, stop taking all my money to distribute among those the government has decided is more worthy.

Not more worthy, more needy. We The People includes those people too, and more cynically, too many people hurting will lead to unrest or even outright rebellion.

Re:As a tourist...

[Anonymous Coward]

It's called Celebration, FL.

Try visiting one time--it's truly non-reality.

Re:As a tourist...

[Maritz]

"SJW" "SJW" "libtard". You're stupid, but in addition, you're fucking repetitive.

Re:As a tourist...

[swb]

I wasn't advocating for the for-profit medical model of the US, but pointing out the consequences of the incentives in the US. Personally, sign me up for single payer. I don't see how medical care could get worse than what we have now, I think the notion that private insurance somehow improves choice or outcomes is baloney.

Even in single payer countries, though, I would be hesitant to ascribe altruistic motivations to doctors. They may want to help people, but people are complex and even when money isn't a primary motivator, doctors are people and have complex motivations which include ego-driven motivations which may transcend the desire to help people.

Re:As a tourist...

[Anonymous Coward]

They really don't like it when you call them libtards. It violates their Self Righteous Smugness Sphere (SRSS).

Re: As a tourist...

[Anonymous Coward]

You make a lot of assumptions, dipshit.

Re:As a tourist...

[Anonymous Coward]

Gives another meaning to "filthy rich."

Re:As a tourist...

[Anonymous Coward]

In MA it was Dukakis that closed most of the state run mental hospitals in the 70's. NOT REAGAN. Dukakis.

Who was it in your state? Probably NOT THE PRESIDENT. he does not have that power. Reagan did his own stupid shit, admittedly, but the President does not control mental hospitals.

Re:As a tourist...

[jmcvetta]

doctors really don't like helping people, they just want your money

The first time you are turned away from a hospital while injured and in pain, because you cannot afford the copay on your worthless Obombercare "insurance", you will understand the truth of this statement.

Re:As a tourist...

[jmcvetta]

Serious question: which corner is that? I know some areas in downtown SF with a high concentration of Starbucks, but not quite that high.

Re:As a tourist...

[AK Marc]

stop taking all my money to distribute among those the government has decided is more worthy.

Like Halliburton, Goldman Sachs, and GM?

Re:As a tourist...

[Gussington]

Even in single payer countries, though, I would be hesitant to ascribe altruistic motivations to doctors. They may want to help people, but people are complex and even when money isn't a primary motivator, doctors are people and have complex motivations which include ego-driven motivations which may transcend the desire to help people.

Of course, which is easily fixed by independent review panels.
The worst case here is that lots of people get cured of illness, and every now and again a few rogue doctors might scam the system for a few extra dollars.
The alternative is all the poor people get sick and lose their jobs and homes, breaking up families and creating a homeless epidemic. This contributes to the urban decay and crime and has numerous negative roll-on effects across the wider society.
I know which sounds like the least worst option, and I'm happy to contribute a little extra for it.

Re:As a tourist...

[Gussington]

doctors really don't like helping people, they just want your money

The first time you are turned away from a hospital while injured and in pain, because you cannot afford the copay on your worthless Obombercare "insurance", you will understand the truth of this statement.

Only because of the stupid medical situation in the US.
In my country, the govt (taxpayers) foot the bill, so no-one gets turned away. Taxpayers are happy with this outcome because we prefer our countrymen who are less fortunate than us to enjoy a basic level of health. Same goes for education.
America look like barbaric by comparison.

Re:As a tourist...

[Anonymous Coward]

You're both right! In today's political climate Ronald Reagan would be considered a bit to the left of Obama.

Re:As a tourist...

[__aaclcg7560]

Serious question: which corner is that?

I think it's 4th and Mission. One at the garage, one inside the Meteron and the other at the opposite corner. I haven't been in the area in years. One is an official Starbucks store. The other two are affiliated with Starbucks and serve Starbucks coffee.

Re:As a tourist...

[Anonymous Coward]

"It was the left that pushed to clear out the mental hospitals."

That is a stereotypical, right-wing, Goebbels-style big lie. Is there _any_ lie _at all_ that you people won't tell?! You have no shame.

IT WAS REAGAN who shut down the mental hospitals and turned the crazies out onto the street. It was one of his first moves as governor of California, right up there with tripling tuition at the University of California while eliminating courses and entire departments, turning my Vietnam War GI Bill entitlement into a joke, and getting rid of other things that were supposedly a waste of the tax-payers' money. Yet, taxes didn't go down. Hell, Reagan didn't even bother to lie that taxes were going to go down. The money just went into the pockets of rich Republicans.

Re:As a tourist...

[trout007]

Because of the O'Connor v. Donaldson decision.

Homeless, and a dozen other names

[rmdingler]

It is a tough cause for most to get behind because of the exaggerated distance the good citizen finds between his fate and the street.

Re:Homeless, and a dozen other names

[quintessencesluglord]

Not really.

Previously when the mentally ill were wards of the state, there was massive abuse, no means to really rectify it, and people thought One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest was reality, and the ill were just free spirits who were really just misunderstood.

They've never seen a man smear himself in shit or bash his face into broken glass because it seemed like the right thing to do.

And so now we are here, where besides mental illness, we also have the results of a drug war that has failed miserably, an economy that is failing more and more people (who, I might add, are only too acutely aware of how tenuous their current life of food and shelter really is), and psychiatric help that often is worse than the disease.

And in-between all that you also have a select minority that want nothing to do with modern society.

Platitudes concerning the apathy of the good citizen doesn't do justice to the complexity of the situation, and especially given SF ultra-liberal bent and large economy; you'd think this would have been solved ages ago with good feelings and money.

Instead they have people shitting in the street.

Re:Homeless, and a dozen other names

[KGIII]

You said the economy is failing more and more people. I decided that I'd be less lazy for a minute and get you a graph.

https://upload.wikimedia.org/w...

It's an interesting metric and I understand the number has been going down since the plateau but not significantly so. That's poverty, not unemployment, thus a more meaningful statistic and nobody likes any of the BLS numbers. You might also want to look at this one:

http://dmc122011.delmar.edu/so...

That's actually quite an improvement on the 50 years prior but I can't find a nice pretty graph inside of a minute that I dedicated to the task. So, that's what you get. You can look for more. You might want to look at the numbers yourself some time and remember the prevalence of media and people with an agenda. Err... If you happen to be one of those folks with an agenda then I'm sorry, let me get out of your way and you can get back to whatever it is you were doing. But, if you want some actual facts and numbers, they're actually out there for people who are looking.

Re:Homeless, and a dozen other names

[quintessencesluglord]

More important than the graphic is knowing how it was derived. The criteria for poverty has changed at least twice within my lifetime. Anyhoo- the current definition-

https://www.census.gov/hhes/ww...

You'll note the homeless that aren't even counted unless they are under some government program.

And the number of homeless people have been increasing despite improvements in the economy:

https://www.minnpost.com/commu...

And most telling is the rate of bankruptcy for the past century (hint- it has exploded in the later 1/3)

So what am I to make of this? If you set the bar low enough, poverty rates have been consistent around 15% for the past 50 years (even with near exponential productivity gains). But if you set the bar even lower, the number of homeless and bankruptcies have shown an even greater increase.

Re: Those Republicans...

[Anonymous Coward]

I never heard Milkemtion tech.

Liberals..

[Mass Overkiller]

He posted an opinion that was not liberal. Liberals are very tolerant as long as you ascribe to their group think.

Re:Liberals..

[Anonymous Coward]

Even if that were true, I would take partial tolerance before I'd ever put up with zero-tolerance from conservative fuckwits.

Re:Liberals..

[Anonymous Coward]

Says the liberal "tolerant" hipster...

Re: Those Republicans...

[Anonymous Coward]

Milk was ahead of his time. Even today most of us in SF are anti-tech.

He forgot the rule #1 of dealing with millenials

[choke]

Talk PC, act sociopathic.

Re: Those Republicans...

[Anonymous Coward]

except on gay marriage. That was first proposed by the republicans in The New Republic which did so as an effort to stop the spread of HIV. So many republicans have supported it since it promotes monogamy.

Re: Those Republicans...

[Anonymous Coward]

This. If he was still alive he'd be fighting like hell against the tech industry.

Re: Those Republicans...

[Anonymous Coward]

Many republicans supported it since it represents monogamy, fidelity, and family life. I don't support it because it brings the same awkward conversation about marriage to all relationships.

Re: Those Republicans...

[Anonymous Coward]

This. The republicans want us to be as miserable as they are.

Re: Those Republicans...

[Anonymous Coward]

He was hostile to the idea of gay marriage. He wanted us to "develope our own lifestyle."

Re: Those Republicans...

[Anonymous Coward]

And that is why those republicans that want us to accept gay marriage are so evil. They want us to suffer like they have.

Re: Those Republicans...

[Anonymous Coward]

Technology is so profitable so they love it.

Re: Those Republicans...

[Anonymous Coward]

Which is a republican construct.

Re: Those Republicans...

[Anonymous Coward]

He was wrong about that. We need to have the same awkward conversations as those breeders.

The situation in SF...

[DiSKiLLeR]

The situation in SF really is, pretty bad.

I'm not even sure what the solution is anymore now that I lived here for a while and see it every day first hand.

I've lived in large Australian and New Zealand cities, but the homeless epidemic here is just on a level you couldn't believe or imagine without being here and seeing it for yourself.

Prices and rents won't ever go down again imo, and the homeless refuse to leave and only increase in number every ear... shit will get to a real breaking point before long.

Not sure I want to be here when that happens.

Re: The situation in SF...

[Anonymous Coward]

That was what shocked me on a trip to the USA, the levels of homeless out innthe streets. People actually sleeping under cardboard not a block from 5th Ave in NYC..... sheltering under freeways in LA...like...hundreds if not thousands.

I too have been to major Australian and NZ cities and found them clean, well kept and orderly with NOTHING like the levels of urban decay and despair in the big US cities. Im sure they do have their homeless , but its like 100, not 100,000 all camped out in dumpsters behind West Hollywood.

Re: The situation in SF...

[Anonymous Coward]

http://www.breitbart.com/california/2016/03/10/san-francisco-peoples-republic-declares-homeless-state-of-emergency/

Supervisor Aaron Peskin told the San Francisco Chronicle that despite all the city funding, well-intentioned people in San Francisco started a crowdfunding campaign to purchase tents for the city’s homeless. Now scores of tents line a number of streets around town. The camper zones usually feature the stench of human feces and urine, along with needles litter on the sidewalks...Supervisor Peskin said, “There’s no question it has gotten exponentially worse.”

Re: The situation in SF...

[Anonymous Coward]

Funny that the outhouse is calling someone else full of shit... Over the last 12 years SF has moved 12,000 homeless into permanent shelters - and STILL has the same number of homeless. So you still have the same homeless problem, but now have an additional 12,000 in free housing. Hurray!

And you still have the same number of people shitting in the streets...

Re:The situation in SF...

[Anonymous Coward]

The solution in the other parts of the world is to build slums around the SF, where the rich can full fill their darkest desires and needs. And then send in the bulldozers and riot police, when the rich can't stand the smell of untreated sewage and decaying corpses of Cholera victims.

Re:The situation in SF...

[Anonymous Coward]

Good thing you can't own a gun in the city as well. Enjoy the next 6.5+, it's going to be interesting to watch on TV.

This is why I lived outside the city and my wife and I had plans on how/where to meet should something happen at typical times of the day.

Dot Com Success Plan

[Anonymous Coward]

1. Be a privileged millennial hipster cocksucker
2. ???
3. Profit!

Re: Those Republicans...

[Anonymous Coward]

This place isn't the same as when he ruled.

Re:He forgot the rule #1 of dealing with millenial

[Anonymous Coward]

That's something that makes me genuinely sad. Not condescending, but sad like watching a family member hurt themselves.

When I grew up (which WASN'T that long ago) we had this thing called "tolerance" and it extended to "Tolerance of Ideas." We admitted we didn't know everything, tried to have fun, and IF we offended someone, we apologized.

Now, everyone has turned the legal idea of "sue if anyone gives you the slightest chance" and turned it into a life style. If anyone says the slightest thing that CAN be misconstrued into an attack, it must be one, and you should attack them back.

Everyone is either afraid to talk, or too busy yelling at each other to listen.

It... it just makes me sad. That these new kids and the world they're creating... they don't realize the magic and the fun of truly getting to know another person without judging everyone. Nowadays, anyone who is male, or white, is completely invalidated. Their experiences don't matter, even if they grew up under an actual communist dictatorship.

Everything is decided. There's no need to debate anymore. There is only "you are with us, or against us." You're either helping women, or a member of "The Patriarchy."

I don't know. I guess I'm just disillusioned with a time I thought would last forever. When I was a teenager, I thought free discussion of ideas would stay forever. I didn't realize how special it was until it was gone.

vote with your feet

[ooloorie]

I used to live in San Francisco, and it used to be tolerant, interesting, welcoming, and a live-and-let-live kind of place. These days, it's a dirty dump, full of intolerant people and massive social problems. Of course, the homeless and drug addicts in the street aren't the cause, they are merely the symptom of a broken political culture and corrupt political class and machinery, a toxic mix of nouveau riche techies, public sector unions, retirees, and "social justice" activists. San Francisco demographics are against it: SF has largely destroyed its middle class, leaving the city to young party goers and retirees, neither of which are the kind of people who care about the long term health of their community. Having left SF, I just hope I don't have to bail these people out with my tax dollars, because SF will get a lot worse before it gets better. So, my recommendation: don't try to fix SF, just leave it. Unless you are a 20-something who likes to party, in which case put up with the stink and dirt for a few more years and have fun before leaving.

Re:vote with your feet

[Anonymous Coward]

I left as well. Paying the amount of rent I had to pay was not worth it for the amenities available. I hate to say it, but the tech sector has destroyed San Fransisco. You can't have a city where no one making >$100k can afford to work or live.

I live no where near there currently and never see myself returning.

Re:vote with your feet

[Gussington]

I used to live in San Francisco, and it used to be tolerant, interesting, welcoming, and a live-and-let-live kind of place. These days, it's a dirty dump, full of intolerant people and massive social problems.

Just our of interest, where are the good places in the US these days? I'm not American, I went there once years and years ago, and SF seemed nice (we're talking the 90's here), although even then the number of homeless there and everywhere else in the US was too much for me.
What are considered the better 'progressive' places in the US today? ie Not attached to religion, tolerates people who are different, tech-savvy, forward thinking etc?

Re:vote with your feet

[ooloorie]

What are considered the better 'progressive' places in the US today? ie Not attached to religion, tolerates people who are different, tech-savvy, forward thinking etc?

I have no idea why you would want people to be "not attached to religion" or why you think this is a big issue. The US is about middle of the road in religiosity and Christianity compared to Europe. Americans generally have a live-and-let-live attitude. That's true even for Mormons, Baptists, and Catholics (the most intolerant people I have found are the "progressive, forward-thinking" types). So, my main recommendation would be to give red states and smaller towns serious consideration.

San Francisco really isn't worse in terms of homelessness and social problems from many other large cities in the US and Europe. What is so striking about it is simply the contrast to what it used to be like. So, if you like your typical "progressive, forward thinking" place and can afford it, SF may well be the place for you.

Re:vote with your feet

[speedplane]

Come to NYC!

We have the riff-raff, but for some reason it seems to be less of an issue than in SF. Maybe it's the weather that is less conducive to street homelessness, maybe a greater diversity of residents and commerce make homelessness seem like a smaller issue, maybe it's the police sweeping all of it under the carpet, maybe it's less publicly reported, or maybe (probably unlikely) we're doing something right politically. But overall, day-to-day living in NYC does not have the same level of problems with the homeless population as many from San Fran appear to have.

NYC is the city for humans. We have it all, readily accept everyone, and happily allow you to make it what you want.

Re: vote with your feet

[Anonymous Coward]

Duuuuuuude - SF has WAY more crazy people crawling the streets than anywhere else in America. C'mon bro, we spend $250,000,000/yr on homelessness - OF COURSE we have the most street people, we're awesome that way.

SF - where else can you get a person who lives at city expense to shit right in front of the (heavily armor plated) door of your $3000/mo studio apartment? That's what we San Franciscans call Progressive Quality of Life!

100% of people who claim otherwise CLEARLY don't live in the Tenderloin.

Re:vote with your feet

[Gussington]

I have no idea why you would want people to be "not attached to religion" or why you think this is a big issue.

Because if you believe in magic fairies that is your business, not public policy.

Re:vote with your feet

[Raenex]

I used to worry about the religious nutters, politically, but these days I'm more worried about the "progressive" nutters.

Re:vote with your feet

[Gussington]

I used to worry about the religious nutters, politically, but these days I'm more worried about the "progressive" nutters.

Why?

Re:vote with your feet

[Raenex]

Because "progressive" nutters are in vogue and actually having real-world effects, whereas the religious nutters don't have as much sway. Some examples:

o Rape hysteria in the West (such as the Rolling Stone fiasco), while the real rape epidemics occur in non-Western populations and are being imported on a massive scale to the West. When sexual assaults by migrants occurred it was attempted to cover them up. Are you against such mass immigration? You're a "xenophobe", and your comments can have the police raiding your apartment. Oh, and let's not point out that Islam is the most militant religion in the world right now, and quite full of religious nutters.

o You've got the "Black Lives Matter" crowd, where criminals are defended as "children" who were "good boys". Michael Brown was a thug who robbed a convenience store and assaulted a police officer, not a victim. Blacks commit the most violence against blacks. Yet they protest Clinton because she used the term "super-predator" to describe violent gang members that were plaguing inner cities in the 1990s.

o Free speech is being shut down on campuses and on social media. You've got "microaggressions", "safe spaces", and racism being redefined so that it only applies to White males.

o Less than 1% of the population is transgender, but there's enormous social pressure that the rest of the 99% have to conform and go along with people's "chosen" gender.

I could go on and on. The "progressive" left are hypocrites, authoritarian, and overall harmful to society. They're the useful idiots of the modern era.

Re:vote with your feet

[serviscope_minor]

The US is about middle of the road in religiosity and Christianity compared to Europe.

Not really, no.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/...

Compared to the US, church attendance for example is much lower in Europe than the US. In the US, presidential candidates fly their religious credentials high. Tony Blair on the other hand rather down played his strong faith as he believed (almost certainly correctly) that wouldn't go down especially well with the public.

Re:vote with your feet

[Gussington]

The "progressive" left are hypocrites, authoritarian, and overall harmful to society. They're the useful idiots of the modern era.

Sounds like you label anything you don't like the sound of as "progressive", thus making it a foregone conclusion.
And you didn't actually give any real examples there, just some vague media headlines that are designed to invoke an emotional response, and boy did you get sucked in.
This is precisely what ideology is, and why it is so dangerous. You get fed a story and you get angry. There is no analysis, no investigation, or reasoned discussion, just hate.

Re:vote with your feet

[Raenex]

No, those are actual "progressive" values. I can't help you if you aren't paying attention to the news and are dismissive of things actually happening in the real world.

Re:vote with your feet

[ooloorie]

Compared to the US, church attendance for example is much lower in Europe than the US.

You're cherry picking your statistics, and without much understanding of the non-religious functions of churches in different places.

In the US, presidential candidates fly their religious credentials high.

And they do the same in many European countries as well. In fact, many European countries have explicitly Christian parties. The UK is an anomaly and not representative of Europe in many ways.

Really, you need to get out of your insular and provincial views of European society, and you need to stop cherry-picking.

Re:vote with your feet

[ChrisMaple]

Religious nutters have mostly lost the power to drain your wallet. Progressives base their lives on draining your wallet.

Re:vote with your feet

[Anonymous Coward]

No, they're not. Real progressive values are equal opportunity in employment and education, populist government, an end to discrimination, universal access to health care, end deregulation that lets the 1% rape the economy, end war and stop neglecting the disenfranchised inner cities.

Of course you see things differently; you're wearing wingnut-colored glasses.

Re:vote with your feet

[serviscope_minor]

You're cherry picking your statistics, and without much understanding of the non-religious functions of churches in different places.

So are you claiming that church attendance or lack thereof is only weakly correlated with religiosity?

And they do the same in many European countries as well. In fact, many European countries have explicitly Christian parties. The UK is an anomaly and not representative of Europe in many ways.

In terms of church attendance, it's roughly in the middle. There are countries with greater attendence (though mostly lower than the US), but plenty with lower and MUCH lower figures.

Really, you need to get out of your insular and provincial views of European society, and you need to stop cherry-picking.

How about I cherry pick the median country?

Re:vote with your feet

[ooloorie]

Because if you believe in magic fairies that is your business, not public policy.

Yet "believing in magic fairies" is much more public policy in Europe than in the US, as many European governments spend vast sums of public funds in order to pay for religion and churches, and to spread Christian values. Many European conservative parties are explicitly Christian, right down to their names.

Re:vote with your feet

[Raenex]

This is just the "No True Scotsman" argument. Batshit crazy leftists have taken over the "progressive" movement, just like the batshit crazy feminists have taken over the feminist movement. I don't make up the news.

Re:vote with your feet

[Anonymous Coward]

So are you claiming that church attendance or lack thereof is only weakly correlated with religiosity?

I am saying that you incorrectly and without evidence assume that it is strongly correlated.

In terms of church attendance, it's roughly in the middle

Yes, and you have failed to support your belief that church attendance is relevant.

How about I cherry pick the median country?

I'm sorry you are so provincial that you don't understand that the UK is atypical for Europe as a whole in many ways.

Re:vote with your feet

[serviscope_minor]

I am saying that you incorrectly and without evidence assume that it is strongly correlated.

Curches are religious organisations. You'd need evidence to demonstrate that attendance at church is not religious, not the other way around.

Yes, and you have failed to support your belief that church attendance is relevant.

This is probably one of the most surreal discussions I've had online.

I'm sorry you are so provincial that you don't understand that the UK is atypical for Europe as a whole in many ways.

The median country in that lis is Austria, not the UK. Let me guess, that's atypical too. In fact, let me guess, every country which doesn't support your assertion is atypical?

Re:vote with your feet

[HuguesT]

The parent is right., the US church attendance is 39% according to the wikipedia link you gave. Church attendance in Europe varies between 3% in Norway to 54% in Poland. The Church attendance in the US is a little high compared to the average in Europe but not that far.

Re:vote with your feet

[ooloorie]

This is just the "No True Scotsman" argument. Batshit crazy leftists have taken over the "progressive" movement, just like the batshit crazy feminists have taken over the feminist movement. I don't make up the news.

That is arguably true for feminism, where critical theory and social justice movements took over feminism. That still doesn't alter the reality of it: that's what feminism is and means today. The fact that feminism used to have equality and liberalism as its goals doesn't change that.

As for the progressive movement, it has always been batshit crazy. Progressives used to support eugenics, racial segregation, trade barriers, and various forms of central planning. If anything, progressives have mellowed out a little: at least they aren't sterilizing, lobotomizing, or killing people anymore.

Re:vote with your feet

[Anonymous Coward]

Almost every city in the US is becoming a retirement home. Population aging.

Re:vote with your feet

[Dogtanian]

Come to NYC! [..] NYC is the city for humans.

Really? Last I heard, NYC was becoming- like London- exorbitantly expensive for ordinary people, with the likes of Manhattan now effectively out of bounds to all but the super rich (#) who can buy property as an investment and don't actually need to bother living there, and anyone close to an average worker being driven to the outskirts with an extended commute time.

That doesn't sound much like a "city for humans" to me.

I don't think anyone needs to romanticise the state NYC was in during the 1970s when CBGB's rose to prominence, but when New York has become so gentrified that one of its most iconic and world-famous venues was driven out of business by rent increases to be replaced by a f*****g designer clothing outlet, then I think one can happily say that it's jumped the shark culturally. And even *that* was ten years ago; safe to say that it's probably more so now.

But then, if one isn't super-rich, why would you want to pay through the nose to live there anyway? Old, established New York establishments replaced with blandness like banks and branches of Subway- FFS, I live in a relatively unremarkable mid-sized Scottish city and we have several Subway outlets here where I can experience the same identikit overpriced mediocrity. In a city where you need to be very well-off to even consider buying a modest dwelling, it's fair to assume that the surroundings, culture and cost of living will increasingly revolve around the lifestyles of such people.

Maybe I'm wrong. NYC still looks great on postcards, and yeah, lots of impressive tall buildings, but beyond that? Comes across as very hollowed-out and one-dimensional.

Correct me if I'm mistaken, but that's my impression of NYC life these days anyway.

(#) The average apartment price in Manhatten being now almost $2m. The *average* price. For a poxy little *apartment*.

Re:vote with your feet

[speedplane]

Housing prices are the biggest negative about NYC. But while the average house may be far too expensive for the average person, it is still possible to scrape by in Manhattan. More importantly, you don't have to live in Manhattan. The so-called "outskirts" of the city are incredibly dynamic and interesting places to live. Most of the culture that is now in Manhattan was sourced from the outer boroughs and Harlem, bringing in the best they had to offer.

Yes, New Yorkers bemoan the loss of our old cultural institutions (I played at CBGB's in the 90s), but fast paced change is just part of the scenery here. Uprooting old established institutions is itself an institution of this city. Yes, there are Subway's and bland banks, but there are also hundreds of hole-in-the-wall sandwich shops and community gardens. The culture and people of NYC change rapidly, sometimes for better and sometimes for worse, but that's what makes it such an beautiful and "human" city.

Re:vote with your feet

[speedplane]

And I just read the article that you linked to regarding the closing of CBGBs. While its closing is certainly a sad thing, the quote in the first sentence by Patti Smith sums up the New Yorker's attitude nicely:

There’s new kids with new ideas all over the world. They’ll make their own places—it doesn’t matter whether it’s here or wherever it is.

The original article linked to by Vice expands on this: http://www.nytimes.com/2006/10...

Re:vote with your feet

[serviscope_minor]

Poland is the top. The median appears to be around 20%, so that's a factor of 2 lower than the US. I'd say that's pretty significant.

Re:vote with your feet

[Dogtanian]

Sorry, I don't have a login for the New York Times, but in answer to your quote

There’s new kids with new ideas all over the world. They’ll make their own places—it doesn’t matter whether it’s here or wherever it is.

Of course... but *we* were talking about NYC as a "city for humans", not those other places. And there's not a chance in hell of anything akin to the original CBGB's springing up in (at least) Manhattan these days.

Don't get me wrong. I'm sure that by the time it closed CBGB's was more about its past than its present, if only because that's the way these things always pan out- much like how the Cavern Club will always be about the Beatles. So I'm not claiming that the closure was a tragedy in itself- its legacy will always be there.

But my original point actually *was* that even as the famed birthplace of much of the early punk and new wave scene- somewhere one would expect to be doing well (if only because of its past reputation and cachet) as a mecca for punk fans- or more likely, tourists who'd like to think of themselves as such- and culturally important (to the extent of being posthumously added to the US National Register of Historic Places)- despite all this, it still wasn't able to pay the amount of rent the building owners could squeeze out of a bland designer boutique in the same location.

Ironically, although the cultural impact of its closure in 2006 was probably far less important than if it had closed in (e.g.) 1976, it probably *says* a lot more. If it had closed in 1976 it would have been seen as another club falling victim to big, bad greedy landlord- well-known to the people who knew it and within the scene, but not famous. In 2006, everyone knew its past importance, it was probably famous enough to trade off that... and it *still* wasn't enough.

Essentially I'm using this as an example for what it says about cultural and financial priorities and the economy of New York City in the 21st century. If your reason for wanting to live there is that it's the sort of place that throws up individualistic venues like that- it isn't, it doesn't even sustain the ones that were there.

But it *is* probably a great place if you're into shopping for John Varvatos' clothes. Bet they're not cheap! :-)

Re: vote with your feet

[speedplane]

There are plenty of places popping up that are akin to CBGBs, sure they don't play pink rock, and they aren't in the same neighborhood, as the Bowery has been gentrified. But NYC is still the place young musicians and artists come to in order to make their expressions heard. Some "make it", most don't. The really new stuff is coming from less expensive neighborhoods like Bushwick and Long Island City, and some venues in 30 years may reach CBGB fame. But even in the gentrified neighborhoods, there is still plenty of culture. Within two blocks of CBGBs is the New Museum and the soon to be opened international center for photography, and plenty of galleries with avante guard artists, which throw parties wth cool crowds on a near daily basis. It isn't what it was back in the 70s, but it's still a vibrant place.

Re:vote with your feet

[Gussington]

No, those are actual "progressive" values. I can't help you if you aren't paying attention to the news and are dismissive of things actually happening in the real world.

Dude the "real world" and "the news" are vastly different things. I suggest you stop watching TV and get out more. This could be the root cause of your concerns.

Re:vote with your feet

[Gussington]

When you keep quoting 'the news" as your source of truth you have issues.

Re:vote with your feet

[Raenex]

Dude the "real world" and "the news" are vastly different things. I suggest you stop watching TV and get out more. This could be the root cause of your concerns.

The news is shit actually happening. I suggest you stop blinkering yourself to reality just because you didn't personally experience it or because it disagrees with your political leanings.

Re:vote with your feet

[Gussington]

As for the progressive movement, it has always been batshit crazy. Progressives used to support eugenics, racial segregation, trade barriers, and various forms of central planning. If anything, progressives have mellowed out a little: at least they aren't sterilizing, lobotomizing, or killing people anymore.

Wow. You can't make this shit up...

Re:vote with your feet

[ooloorie]

No, you can't make this shit up because it happens to be true.

https://www.creators.com/read/...

https://www.creators.com/read/...

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/...

Of course, it's not a history that Democrats and progressives are fond of, which is why they have been trying hard to rewrite history.

Re:vote with your feet

[Gussington]

Religious nutters have mostly lost the power to drain your wallet. Progressives base their lives on draining your wallet.

Money is all you care about?

Re:vote with your feet

[Gussington]

Yet "believing in magic fairies" is much more public policy in Europe than in the US,

Interesting. What is your point?

Re:vote with your feet

[Gussington]

The news is shit actually happening. I suggest you stop blinkering yourself to reality just because you didn't personally experience it or because it disagrees with your political leanings.

The News is an opinion of what is happening. Depending of which news channel you watch you will get different opinions.
The fact that you are still defending this position explains a lot.
If something is real then send links to court transcripts, or actual filed complaints and we can discuss. You might be shocked to learn there's more to it than a news headline. Or maybe you are happy to be ignorant and prefer the News version of truth to the actual information?

Re:vote with your feet

[Gussington]

You realise you are sounded like a loony right now?
Abraham Lincoln had slaves so all Republicans love slavery. This is the intellectual equivalent of your argument.
Progressive just mean to make progress, as in people who look for solutions, and don't fear change. You know like when someone said once, 'hey women shouldn't be treated like second class citizens', the first people to accept this mindset and challenge the established views were those who were progressive.
So maybe it means something different where you live, but this is what I mean. Be prepared to question authority, not for the sake of complaining, but because you have a better way, and you can demonstrate you opinion based on facts and reason. That is how progress happens. Whatever it is you reading or watching, take a break. It's making you crazy.

Re:vote with your feet

[Raenex]

Some are facts, some are opinions, but I look at a wide variety of sources, do research, and read beyond the headlines. That you're still defending your position tells me you want to remain blinkered.

Based on your view, I could just completely ignore the news and pretend wars on not happening, for example, or pretty much nothing is happening besides what I directly experience.

Re:vote with your feet

[ooloorie]

Progressive just mean to make progress, as in people who look for solutions, and don't fear change.

What you describe might be called a "progressive attitude". An individual progressive attitude is a good thing, just like a socialist attitude ("share with others, generosity") and a Christian attitude ("temperance, compassion and charity") are a good thing.

Progressivism, however, is a political movement. Progressivism isn't just people who value progress, progressivism seeks to achieve progress through political means and majority vote, and that doesn't work. It fails in the same way as socialism and theocracies fail to lead to generous, temperate, compassionate, and charitable societies.

Abraham Lincoln had slaves so all Republicans love slavery. This is the intellectual equivalent of your argument.

No, it isn't at all equivalent. In the late 19th century, scientists had discovered large racial differences in intelligence, abilities, and success between different groups, the heritability of IQ and mental diseases, and large differences in fertility between groups. In particular, they found that whites did a lot better than non-whites, and they were concerned about the US becoming less and less competitive compared to all-white European nations (a bit of Euro-worship, still common among progressives today, played into that). To progressives, eugenics and segregation were the logical and rational policy conclusions. That isn't my interpretation of what happened, that is documented history. Nor have things changed: modern progressive views on race and equality are different, but they are still wrong and destructive.

Progress (like generosity, temperance, charity, and compassion) is an excellent value for individuals to hold, but you can't successfully impose it through government policy. That is, the problem isn't with progressive values (and progressivism doesn't have a monopoly on people who value progress) the problem is with how they are going about to achieve it. In fact, individually, I am strongly "progressive", which is why, politically, I strongly oppose progressivism because it is antithetical to progress.

So, yeah, read up on, and face, your history. Thomas Sowell (I gave a couple of links), an economist who grew up poor and black in the South and started out as a Marxist, is a good place to start, and he has written detailed books on the subject with lots of excellent references and primary sources. I checked many of those sources because I used to be a political progressive myself until I understood its history and the problem with the ideology.

Re:vote with your feet

[ooloorie]

You asked about what good places to live in the US were and wanted a place where "people were not attached to religion"; you then clarified that by saying that what you meant by that is that you don't want religion to be "public policy". Since you are not from the US and to help you put this into perspective, I pointed out that religion is much less "public policy" in the US than it is in Europe, both according to party platforms and according to spending.

Re:vote with your feet

[david_thornley]

Black Lives Matter has a lot of legitimate points, but what happened to Michael Brown was not one of them. It's unpleasantly common for police to kill people who aren't actually threatening anyone and get away with it, particularly when the victims are blacks. We're starting to see some action on that, including the bypassing of grand juries and the drive for body cams.

I haven't seen all that much suppression of free speech on campuses. As far as social media goes, if you want to say things on Facebook, you've got to abide by Facebook rules. The social media are privately owned, and nobody's got a right to say whatever they want on them.

I have no idea what problem you have with transgender people. The other 99% can deal with transgender people just like they deal with everybody else, and have no problems whatsoever. It's like "gay marriage", which is presented often as something we shouldn't put up with, when it works like any other marriage (the majority of the married heterosexual couples I associate with are childless for some reason or other). If you don't get judgmental against other people because you don't like their race or sexuality or whatever, things work just fine.

Re:vote with your feet

[Anonymous Coward]

The problems are a consequence of being a nice place. Rent is high because it's a nice place, there are a lot of homeless because it's a (comparatively) nice place to be homeless, and so on. Nice places attract people, not necessarily the ones you intended, or in the quantity you intended.

Re:vote with your feet

[Gussington]

Some are facts, some are opinions, but I look at a wide variety of sources, do research, and read beyond the headlines. That you're still defending your position tells me you want to remain blinkered.

Yes blinkered to your baseless opinion. Such as your examples above, you haven't provided actual references or specific events but vague headlines that make you angry. Headlines are designed to evoke an emotional response, if you take one of those examples above and dig into the detail, you probably find there's no great conspiracy to eat you babies, just people who saw an issue and thought they had a solution.

Based on your view, I could just completely ignore the news and pretend wars on not happening, for example, or pretty much nothing is happening besides what I directly experience.

Or maybe when you could read/watch the news, instead of forming you opinion right there and then, maybe do a little research to see how much the headline matches the facts.

Re:vote with your feet

[Raenex]

I said I did research and pulled from a variety of sources. It's you who is unwilling to research anything and reflexively forming an opinion. Remain blinkered.

Re:vote with your feet

[Raenex]

Black Lives Matter has a lot of legitimate points, but what happened to Michael Brown was not one of them. It's unpleasantly common for police to kill people who aren't actually threatening anyone and get away with it, particularly when the victims are blacks. We're starting to see some action on that, including the bypassing of grand juries and the drive for body cams.

Police brutality is an issue for everybody, not just black people. That they choose to highlight ridiculous cases, make the issue only about blacks, ignore black on black violence and black on white violence, and make ridiculous protests because Clinton said "super-predator" when describing criminal gangs in the 1990s all goes back to the "progressive" stupidity inundating the country.

I haven't seen all that much suppression of free speech on campuses.

https://www.thefire.org/catego...

This is also a good place to mention the University of Missouri ridiculousness as part of the general zeitgeist of college campuses.

As far as social media goes, if you want to say things on Facebook, you've got to abide by Facebook rules. The social media are privately owned, and nobody's got a right to say whatever they want on them.

No shit, but free speech isn't just about legal rights. That they're bowing to pressure to censor politically incorrect speech is the point.

I have no idea what problem you have with transgender people. The other 99% can deal with transgender people just like they deal with everybody else, and have no problems whatsoever.

If that's the case, then why is there all the media attention pushing for transgender acceptance? Why was everybody falling over themselves to talk about how "brave and stunning" Bruce Jenner was when he attempted to transform himself into a woman, and not talking about the person he killed with his car?

If somebody wants to pretend they're a woman when they're a man, well it's a free country, but I'm never going to see them as a woman, despite the barrage of "progressive" media. There's an alternative viewpoint that it's a mental illness, and normalizing transgenderism and encouraging body mutilation with hormones and reassignment surgery is unhealthy.

Re:vote with your feet

[Gussington]

I said I did research and pulled from a variety of sources. It's you who is unwilling to research anything and reflexively forming an opinion. You make the claims, you provide the citations. I try to form my opinions on facts, not other opinions. So if you can provide something more concrete than "The News" (And I'm guessing based on this exchange that your source is probably Fox News?), maybe we can make some progress here.

Remain blinkered.

Yes, blinkered to ignorance and baseless opinions.

Re:vote with your feet

[Raenex]

Blinkered to reality and anything that threatens your ingrained politics.

Re:vote with your feet

[Anonymous Coward]

Pot, here's a kettle I'd like you to meet.

Re:vote with your feet

[Gussington]

Dude, your reality is Fox News. Come back when you're off the kool-aid.

Re:vote with your feet

[Gussington]

and a Christian attitude ("temperance, compassion and charity")

That's not a Christian attitude. Christians historically have done far worse than anything you claim against "Progressivism". So if you are to be consistent you should hate them even more.

progressivism seeks to achieve progress through political means and majority vote,

Well that's how politics should work shouldn't it?

and that doesn't work

It is precisely how democracy works. Everyone has an opinion, the opinion with the most support wins.

It fails in the same way as socialism and theocracies fail to lead to generous, temperate, compassionate, and charitable societies.

Theocracies fail because it is based on pure lies.
Socialism works, it is working in countries like Denmark, Norway, Sweden, Australia, and New Zealand etc. The 1950's communist version of socialism didn't work, but that's not the only model of socialism.

No, it isn't at all equivalent. In the late 19th century...

So you distaste for progressiveness (progressivism?) is based on the 19th century version? Do you also base your geography on the 19th century version? Your medical standards? Your treatment of women or other races?
Everyone got it wrong in the 19th century, that's the beauty of progress, we all learn from our mistakes. I can't speak for the 19th century, but I know all about the 21st century. Some people want to take us forward, while others (usually those with the money and power) want to keep us where we are. I prefer to move forward, And I think most people would agree.

Progress (like generosity, temperance, charity, and compassion) is an excellent value for individuals to hold, but you can't successfully impose it through government policy.

Of course it can. Because if you look on those OECD studies done on things like life expectancy, quality of life, access to health and education, social mobility, lowest corruption, most of them always have the same countries at the top of the list (Denmark, Norway, Sweden, Australia and New Zealand). See the pattern there?

Re:vote with your feet

[Gussington]

Since you are not from the US and to help you put this into perspective, I pointed out that religion is much less "public policy" in the US than it is in Europe, both according to party platforms and according to spending.

Well this maybe one of those things were the numbers don't tell the full story.
First we must be careful when we use "Europe" as an example. When most people refer to "Europe", especially as an example of how things can be done better, they refer to North Western Europe (ie Germany, France, Benelux, Scandanavia, UK & Ireland etc). These countries are similar in wealth to the US, Canada, Australia, and New Zealand, and have a "Western Culture" so make suitable comparisons.
I only raise this because every other time this has been raised, someone will say, "well yeah America is better than Romania!"
I don't know what these countries spend on religion, but having been to most of them, I know it is as not important as some parts of the US if you don't go along with it.
There have been many Athiest leaders in many countries, but 53% of Americans say they would never vote for one, even if they are the most qualified candidate. That is barbaric, and not progressive using any definition of the word.

Re:vote with your feet

[Raenex]

Dude, my reality is a wide variety of sources, from liberal to conservative, and I don't reflexively dismiss a source out of ideology. Come back when you're willing to take your blinkers off.

Re:vote with your feet

[ooloorie]

So you distaste for progressiveness (progressivism?) is based on the 19th century version?

You claimed that my statement that progressivism favored segregation and eugenics was "loony". I recalled the history for you.

Everyone got it wrong in the 19th century, that's the beauty of progress, we all learn from our mistakes.

That is absolutely false: many people strongly opposed progressive policies at the time. Their objection wasn't to the scientific conclusions, their objection was to the idea that majorities have the right to interfere in the private lives of people for the public's benefit. You obviously still haven't learned from those mistakes.

Some people want to take us forward, while others (usually those with the money and power) want to keep us where we are. I prefer to move forward, And I think most people would agree.

You say that as if "forward" were something a large number of people agree on. From your other postings, I would say that it is you who is trying to keep people back and whose idea of "progress" is some stagnant European middle class hell.

Of course it can. Because if you look on those OECD studies done on things like life expectancy, quality of life, access to health and education, social mobility, lowest corruption, most of them always have the same countries at the top of the list (Denmark, Norway, Sweden, Australia and New Zealand). See the pattern there?

I was born in one of those countries and have lived in several of them. Yes, I see the pattern, obviously, you don't.

Re:vote with your feet

[ooloorie]

Since you are not from the US and to help you put this into perspective, I pointed out that religion is much less "public policy" in the US than it is in Europe, both according to party platforms and according to spending.

Well this maybe one of those things were the numbers don't tell the full story.

Numbers, party platforms, and laws, however, do tell the full story: government is in bed with Christian churches in much of Europe. You have to be utterly blind not to see that.

I don't know what these countries spend on religion, but having been to most of them, I know it is as not important as some parts of the US if you don't go along with it.

You asked for good places to live in the US and were concerned about religion being "public policy". And I responded that religion is much less "public policy" in the US than in Europe, and that even when Americans are religious, they tend to be quite tolerant.

There have been many Athiest leaders in many countries, but 53% of Americans say they would never vote for one,

You want to talk about Christianity in politics? Note that even on gay marriage, Germany (one of the more "progressive" European countries on gay rights) has always been behind the US.

That is barbaric, and not progressive using any definition of the word.

Well, as a gay man, I'm glad I emigrated from the "sophisticated and progressive" European culture to the "barbaric" American culture.

Re:vote with your feet

[Gussington]

Your source so far has been "the news". When you learn to cite something more reliable than that, then we can discuss.
You've raised four points above, Rape Hysteria, Black Lives Matter, Free speech and LGBT, none of which are anything more than tabloid headlines.
There maybe be true stories behind those headlines, but without some sort of reliable reference it is simply that, a sensationalist headline designed to evoke an emotional response. And it has clearly worked on you.

Re:vote with your feet

[Gussington]

You claimed that my statement that progressivism favored segregation and eugenics was "loony". I recalled the history for you.

Not my history. But in any case, segregation was human history, so everyone thought like that at one point. So it doesn't really carry any weight in this context.

That is absolutely false: many people strongly opposed progressive policies at the time. Their objection wasn't to the scientific conclusions, their objection was to the idea that majorities have the right to interfere in the private lives of people for the public's benefit. You obviously still haven't learned from those mistakes.

The idea that the majority rule is called a democracy. What you are arguing against is not progressiveness, it the democratic model.
If you have a better alternative, I'm all ears.

You say that as if "forward" were something a large number of people agree on.

"Most people" because that the definition of how a democratic system works.

From your other postings, I would say that it is you who is trying to keep people back and whose idea of "progress" is some stagnant European middle class hell.

If hell means longer life expectancy, greater access to health and education, lower corruption, and greater social mobility then I guess so. Do you not want these things? Or do you prefer a heaven where homeless people litter the streets, shitting and pissing everywhere, and you have the highest risk of a violent death than most other developed countries?
What metrics do you use when coming up with such things?

I was born in one of those countries and have lived in several of them. Yes, I see the pattern, obviously, you don't.

Yet musn't have paid much attention.
And I'm not saying Europe is perfect and the US is terrible. There's good and bad in both, I just reject the notion that progressive attitudes have brought about all the world's evils, when clearly a lot of "progressive" nations are doing quite well (as the measurable statistics demonstrate)

Re:vote with your feet

[Gussington]

Numbers, party platforms, and laws, however, do tell the full story: government is in bed with Christian churches in much of Europe. You have to be utterly blind not to see that.

Got any specifics? I'm well aware of the historical connection of the church to everywhere, but my point was even if the Queen of England was fucking the Pope, more people will still vote for an Atheist leader in Europe than the US. And they don't force their religion onto their currency.

You asked for good places to live in the US and were concerned about religion being "public policy". And I responded that religion is much less "public policy" in the US than in Europe, and that even when Americans are religious, they tend to be quite tolerant.

In some places. The US is a vast nation so it varies from place to place.

You want to talk about Christianity in politics? Note that even on gay marriage, Germany (one of the more "progressive" European countries on gay rights) has always been behind the US.

Nice. You chose Germany because it is the one country that is behind the US, but ignored the other dozen that are in front?

Well, as a gay man, I'm glad I emigrated from the "sophisticated and progressive" European culture to the "barbaric" American culture.

I'm glad you are happy, but that doesn't mean that progressive (not 19th century US progressive) policies don't improve lives.
Any minority group should be well aware of the that.

Re:vote with your feet

[Raenex]

So now you've moved back from bashing "Fox News" to "the news". A simple search will show a great number of sources. But you want to bury your head in the sand, and pretend nothing is going on that isn't happening to you personally.

Re:vote with your feet

[ooloorie]

Not my history.

Progressivism, its foundations in scientific racism, and its policies of segregation and eugenics were worldwide phenomena. The US progressive movement was fairly moderate compared to the crimes committed by progressive movements in Europe.

The idea that the majority rule is called a democracy. What you are arguing against is not progressiveness, it the democratic model.

"Democracy" just means that the source of government power comes from the people; there are many kinds of democracy. Majoritarianism is one form, but a particularly lousy one, which is why it is rarely used. Representative democracies were intended to address some of the problems with majoritarianism but are prone to corruption. Free market minarchies, anarcho-capitalism, demarchies, and cellular democracies are all also forms of democracy, and likely better choices than either majoritarianism or representative democracies.

If hell means longer life expectancy, greater access to health and education, lower corruption, and greater social mobility then I guess so. Do you not want these things?

There are a lot of problems with that entire list, but let's just look at a couple. You ask me: do I want a long life expectancy? Of course. But my personal life expectancy isn't determined by population averages. The fact that Americans have more freedom to overeat and engage in dangerous activities doesn't affect me; the fact that European governments impose strong and costly regulations on everything to keep people from doing stupid things did affect me in Europe. Greater access to education is great if you are a mediocre student, because you can go to university anyway; it's not so good for excellent students who have to go to dumbed down classes and get less attention.

To the small degree that the European model delivers on its promises, it does so by helping those below average by harming and limiting those above average and paying massive social and economic costs (cf. the massive youth unemployment). That's why people like me leave.

I just reject the notion that progressive attitudes have brought about all the world's evils, when clearly a lot of "progressive" nations are doing quite well (as the measurable statistics demonstrate)

There is nothing wrong with progressive attitudes. There is everything wrong with progressive politics.

Re:vote with your feet

[Gussington]

So now you've moved back from bashing "Fox News" to "the news".

Give up. you sound ridiculous now.

A simple search will show a great number of sources. But you want to bury your head in the sand, and pretend nothing is going on that isn't happening to you personally.

Burden, proof, claimant. Let me know when you graduate high school.

Re:vote with your feet

[ooloorie]

Got any specifics?

Christian churches receive massive state funding and special legal status in many European countries. I suggest you read up on whatever country you're interested in.

my point was even if the Queen of England was fucking the Pope, more people will still vote for an Atheist leader in Europe than the US.

Well, given that there are a lot more socialist and communist-leaning voters in Europe, that is hardly surprising. Why you think that matters either way, I don't know.

I'm glad you are happy, but that doesn't mean that progressive (not 19th century US progressive) policies don't improve lives.

Progressive policies improve some lives at the expense of harming others and interfering with civil liberties. And the fact that progressives accept those tradeoffs is at the heart of what's wrong with progressivism as a political movement.

Any minority group should be well aware of the that.

What any minority group should be well aware of is that they are at grave risk of being declared the minority that needs to be sterilized, expropriated, and/or silenced "for the common good", as progressive have historically done that to liberals, to the disabled, to homosexuals, to blacks, to Jews, and to many other minority groups. Being temporarily favored by progressives isn't worth the serious downsides.

Re:vote with your feet

[Gussington]

But my personal life expectancy isn't determined by population averages.

So you only care about yourself? That's not very "Christian".

The fact that Americans have more freedom to overeat and engage in dangerous activities doesn't affect me

It does actually, you just don't realise it. That's why more people die from gun violence in the US than in every other comparable nation. That's what TFA is about, 1%ers who are complaining that homeless people are shitting on their streets. Those other people's freedom to shit anywhere is affecting them
True Freedom means greater risks from others exercising their freedom, which is why rules inevitably get created in even the simplest societies.

Even if you support the privatised/insurance model, every idiot injuring themselves raises your premium, so it affects you. It affects you under the pure capitalist model, it affects you under the socialist model. But the data tells us that it is likely to affect you slightly less overall under a socialist model.

Representative democracies were intended to address some of the problems with majoritarianism but are prone to corruption.

Human nature is prone to corruption, which is why independent oversight was invented. Even Richard Nixon knew that when he created the EPA.

To the small degree that the European model delivers on its promises, it does so by helping those below average by harming and limiting those above average and paying massive social and economic costs (cf. the massive youth unemployment). That's why people like me leave.

Germany has lowest unemployment rate of just about anywhere on earth.
US unemployment has halved since the "progressive left" took power.
You can't cherry pick numbers to suit your argument.

There is nothing wrong with progressive attitudes. There is everything wrong with progressive politics.

We're going around in circles now. Politics is just a representation of attitude. eg If I think two people should be allowed to demonstrate their love for each other by society's standard of legal partnership, I will support a political party that share's that view.
Because people in the 19th century were racist, you refuse to support any political movement that existed in the 19th century? It all sounds a bit ridiculous.

Re:vote with your feet

[ooloorie]

So you only care about yourself? That's not very "Christian".

I'm an atheist. And, I do care about others, which is why I believe that others should have the same free choice in these matters that I do.

It does actually, you just don't realise it.

I do realize it. But unlike you, I'm not selfish about it. You believe that other people's freedoms should be restricted so that society conforms to your preferences, and that is both illiberal and selfish.

True Freedom means greater risks from others exercising their freedom,

Yes, it does. "They that can give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary safety deserve neither liberty nor safety."

But the data tells us that it is likely to affect you slightly less overall under a socialist model.

You know, I spent part of my childhood in a socialist country, and I'm afraid you are totally naive.

Politics is just a representation of attitude. eg If I think two people should be allowed to demonstrate their love for each other by society's standard of legal partnership, I will support a political party that share's that view.

And I believe that the very idea that society should have "standards of legal partnerships" is wrong. Who I love or cohabitate with is none of your or society's business, and shouldn't be subjected to social "standards". You have already accepted a view of government in which it is the responsibility of the state to bind individuals together into a society, you are simply quibbling over the details of the policies that such a state adopts.

Because people in the 19th century were racist, you refuse to support any political movement that existed in the 19th century? It all sounds a bit ridiculous.

Well, yes, that would be ridiculous. In fact, as I keep telling you, the reason I oppose progressivism (and its close cousins of socialism and fascism) is because it fundamentally denies the right to self-determination and individual liberties when they conflict with supposedly overall societal interests, as you yourself keep affirming. The particular "scientific" justifications used to deprive people of their liberties change every few years. A century ago, it was scientific racism, these days, it's other pseudo-science.

Re:vote with your feet

[ooloorie]

The idea that the majority rule is called a democracy. What you are arguing against is not progressiveness, it the democratic model. [...] Politics is just a representation of attitude. eg If I think two people should be allowed to demonstrate their love for each other by society's standard of legal partnership, I will support a political party that share's that view.

So, just to encourage you to think that through. Let's say you live in some European country. Statistics suggest that Muslim immigrants to Europe are disproporationately opposed to gay rights, religious freedoms, women's equality, and free speech; they are overrepresented among violent criminals and recipients of government benefits. So, voters in your country reason that the country would be better off without Muslim immigrants and they vote to expel them all; they also decide to demand repayment of any and all welfare payments and other government benefits those immigrants have received, if necessary by expropriation. And for good measure, they are deciding to revoke the citizenship of Muslims who have recently immigrated.

So, it's a majority decision, you don't like people who believe in "sky fairies" anyway, and in addition, there is good evidence that it would actually benefit society on average. By your political reasoning, that would be a democratic decision, it would be a legitimate decision, and you would support it, right?

Re:vote with your feet

[Gussington]

Progressive policies improve some lives at the expense of harming others and interfering with civil liberties. And the fact that progressives accept those tradeoffs is at the heart of what's wrong with progressivism as a political movement.

But you yourself accept these too. Everyone does. This is what is wrong with the "don't tread on me" logic, the hypocrisy.
Every society needs rules that limit what others can do, it is the only way a society can function. Do you have any examples of a society that has no rules?

What any minority group should be well aware of is that they are at grave risk of being declared the minority that needs to be sterilized, expropriated, and/or silenced "for the common good", as progressive have historically done that to liberals, to the disabled, to homosexuals, to blacks, to Jews, and to many other minority groups. Being temporarily favored by progressives isn't worth the serious downsides.

Dude you have some issues there that won't be uncovered here.

Re:vote with your feet

[Gussington]

I'm an atheist. And, I do care about others, which is why I believe that others should have the same free choice in these matters that I do.

What if what you want do negatively impacts someone else's freedom? How do you control that?
This is all the rules are trying to achieve, I want the freedom to run red lights, should I be allowed t do that? Don't tread on me!

You believe that other people's freedoms should be restricted so that society conforms to your preferences, and that is both illiberal and selfish.

Nope. I believe individual freedom have to be restricted in the common interest eg Just like why traffic lights exist. you freedom to drive how you feel like is restricted for the benefit of everyone.

Yes, it does. "They that can give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary safety deserve neither liberty nor safety."

Righto, well every time you stop at a red light you have just given up all rights to freedom and saftey.

You know, I spent part of my childhood in a socialist country, and I'm afraid you are totally naive.

Oh so now it's making sense. You were born in a soviet controlled country and now associate Hillary with Stalin.
I have many friends from the former Eastern Bloc so assure you I am familiar with the story.

And I believe that the very idea that society should have "standards of legal partnerships" is wrong. Who I love or cohabitate with is none of your or society's business, and shouldn't be subjected to social "standards". You have already accepted a view of government in which it is the responsibility of the state to bind individuals together into a society, you are simply quibbling over the details of the policies that such a state adopts.

Oh dear, the state doesn't bind people into a society, society elects an administration to set some ground rules for the greater good. And it actually turns out that the concept of marriage creates a greater good to society.

The particular "scientific" justifications used to deprive people of their liberties change every few years. A century ago, it was scientific racism, these days, it's other pseudo-science.

I have no idea what you are talking about. Racism was never scientific, the racists tried to validate their view with science and science proved them wrong. It's one of the great things about science, it doesn't give a fuck what you believe.

Pseudo science isn't progressive, since it contributes nothing to human progress. You are just making stuff up now.

Re:vote with your feet

[Raenex]

Give up. you sound ridiculous now.

You sound ridiculous, vacillating from one defense to another.

Burden, proof, claimant.

It's not a problem to do so, but you made it clear from the start that you wanted to dismiss anything that didn't fit your political leanings as "news", which is quite a hypocritical position to take given that you're commenting on a sensational news story on Slashdot, "How San Francisco Hazed a Tech Bro".

I gave you concrete examples of stories that achieved widespread and prolonged news coverage. I would expect somebody commenting on American politics to be familiar with them, or if not, to do a little fucking research on your own before dismissing it out of hand.

You could start by reading the Wikipedia page, which is backed up by references. The short version is that a black guy got shot by a cop, there was an outcry that it was racist police brutality, and it made national news.

Brown was called "a gentle giant". Then the police released video footage of Brown robbing a convenience store shortly before the incident, physically shoving the clerk when he confronted him. Idiots like John Oliver then say this video is "irrelevant", like it wouldn't pertain at all to his character or state of mind. The officer was eventually cleared, both by local authorities and a federal investigation, with witness testimony matching forensic evidence that backed up the officer's account. And yet this Brown thug is still a poster child for Black Lives Matter. Oh, and if you use the word "thug" you're racist.

Re:vote with your feet

[ooloorie]

Dude you have some issues there that won't be uncovered here.

Dude, you seriously need to read up on the history of progressivism and come to terms with it. Given Europe's history (I'm assuming you are European) not to understand what I'm referring to is an embarrassingly poor showing on your part.

Re:vote with your feet

[ooloorie]

What if what you want do negatively impacts someone else's freedom? How do you control that? [...] I believe individual freedom have to be restricted in the common interest

So, which is it? Do you believe that people's freedom should be restricted so that they don't interfere with someone else's freedoms? Or do you believe that individual freedoms should be restricted for the good of society? The two are entirely different concepts.

Like many Americans and classical liberals, I draw the line of what is permissible at what Locke stated as: "Being all equal and independent, no one ought to harm another in his life, health, liberty, or possessions." That applies both at the level of individuals and "society", which is nothing more than a collection of individuals.

Oh so now it's making sense. You were born in a soviet controlled country and now associate Hillary with Stalin.

No, I wasn't "born in a Soviet controlled country", I was born and educated in Western Europe, but I spent enough time in socialist countries to have a good idea of what socialism is all about, unlike you apparently. My parents were also old enough to have experienced the Nazis sweeping through Europe and government scientists performing craniometry on them.

I have no idea what you are talking about.

Obviously not, which is an embarrassing lapse of historical knowledge on your part.

Racism was never scientific,

You're confusing "scientific" with "true". Racial superiority was a widely accepted scientific theory; it happened to be incorrect. More importantly, progressivism used scientific racism as justification for eugenics, segregation, ethnic cleansing, and genocide.

Nope. I believe individual freedom have to be restricted in the common interest [...] and science proved them wrong. the racists tried to validate their view with science and science proved them wrong

So you are saying that the problem with scientific racism was that it was incorrect? If it had been right, the political choices based on it would have been justified? That, in principle, society has the right to prevent people from procreating and to oppress them if science can prove that they actually are mentally or physically inferior on average?

See, the problem with scientific racism was not that it was wrong, the problem with scientific racism was that people like you are willing to use scientific claims (whether right or wrong) to violate the rights of individuals for "the good of society". After the horrors of the 20th century, it is disturbing how common your beliefs are, in particular among people who really ought to know better based on their history.

Re:vote with your feet

[ooloorie]

Incidentally, here is another interesting article by the same author, well worth reading for both Europeans and Americans.

Re:vote with your feet

[Gussington]

So, it's a majority decision, you don't like people who believe in "sky fairies" anyway, and in addition, there is good evidence that it would actually benefit society on average. By your political reasoning, that would be a democratic decision, it would be a legitimate decision, and you would support it, right?

Ok so this is why stupid unrealistic hypotheticals get ignored in most intelligent debates.

Re:vote with your feet

[Gussington]

You sound ridiculous, vacillating from one defense to another.

No, if you could read, it's the same defense. You presented some claims, and have repeatedly failed to back it up with anything substantial.

It's not a problem to do so, but you made it clear from the start that you wanted to dismiss anything that didn't fit your political leanings as "news",

No if you could read, i asked that you give us all something more substantial than "the news". All your references have been "the news", and I rightly dismiss this as "the news" is not a reliable reference.

I would expect somebody commenting on American politics to be familiar with them,

Oh I'm familiar with them, I just wanted to understand which specific detail concerns you. Yet rather than enter into the discussion you continue to argue that "the news" explains your entire policital opinion.

The short version is

Fuck at last! Was that really so hard?

that a black guy got shot by a cop, there was an outcry that it was racist police brutality, and it made national news.

Good so far.

Brown was called "a gentle giant".

By a media organisation which we've already established is unreliable.

Then the police released video footage of Brown robbing a convenience store shortly before the incident, physically shoving the clerk when he confronted him.

By the police which are an interested party in the case.

Idiots like John Oliver then say this video is "irrelevant", like it wouldn't pertain at all to his character or state of mind.

Maybe he is right, maybe he is wrong. What is correct is that trial by media is a foolish proposition. This is why we have courts.

The officer was eventually cleared, both by local authorities and a federal investigation, with witness testimony matching forensic evidence that backed up the officer's account.

So the system works. What was your problem again?

And yet this Brown thug is still a poster child for Black Lives Matter.

I'm not across this organisation, but there must be millions of similar activist groups all across America, all with varying degrees of extreme views. Do you let all of them affect your opinion?

Oh, and if you use the word "thug" you're racist.

According to one guy. According to another guy, we are all really being mind controlled by aliens, and according to yet another guy we should be allowed to fuck children.
Do you see how it works yet? Once you boil down your argument, you've gotten all angry based one or two people's opinions. The courts opinion (the one that actually counts) aligns with your own, so why are you angry? Are you really arguing for people not to be allowed their own opinion, regardless of how stupid it is?

Re:vote with your feet

[Gussington]

I'm not European, but thanks for making that embarrassing assumption.
What you are referring to is something from the 19th century that shares nothing with today apart from a few shared letters in the name. Like I said earlier, it' like holding the modern Republicans accountable or Abraham Lincoln owning slaves, or your local church accountable for the Crusades.
Move on, that's how progress happens.

Re:vote with your feet

[Gussington]

This explains your position. I couldn't get past the first paragraph since it is blatantly false and biased.
"In the face of Europe’s all-too-obvious moral, political, and demographic decline" Really?
It's not obvious to me. Countries like the UK and Germany are not declining, they have lower unemployment than the US and they don't have as many people shitting on the streets.
Maybe a little more critical thought is required before swallowing whatever bullshit they are feeding you?

Re:vote with your feet

[ooloorie]

There is nothing "stupid or hypothetical" about it; this is what happened in Germany in the 1930's: scientists, historians, and economists claimed that Jews were inferior and were responsible for Germany's economic woes, the NSDAP got elected to fix the problem by expropriating Jews and resettling them out of the country, and the rest is history. These decisions were made both based on widely accepted scientific beliefs at the time and were reached through the democratic process. You just don't want to face facts.

Re:vote with your feet

[ooloorie]

I'm not European, but thanks for making that embarrassing assumption

That perhaps explains your naivite.So what benighted part of the globe are you from then?

What you are referring to is something from the 19th century that shares nothing with today apart from a few shared letters in the name

Progressivism has a continuous history from the 19th century to the 21st. Many of the people who advocated segregation and eugenics are still revered by progressives.

More importantly, though, the fundamental belief was the same back then as it is today, and it is the same belief you keep reiterating, namely that it is the job of government to use scientific results and rational processes for the common good. That belief is so axiomatic for you that you can't even conceive that government could work differently. You are a typical 19th and 20th century progressive.

Re:vote with your feet

[Gussington]

The two are entirely different concepts.

Not really since society is just a collection of individuals. The issue is that with individuals, its a lot easier to determine conflicting freedoms, a winner and a loser. With groups you have a whole lot of overlap with no easy solutions, and there's not always a winner and a loser. Sometimes everyone loses a little for the sake of a few people not losing a lot.

I was born and educated in Western Europe, but I spent enough time in socialist countries to have a good idea of what socialism is all about, unlike you apparently.

I was born and educated in a 'socialist' country which has better standards of living and education than all but the 1%ers of the US.
I was born poor and am now relatively well off because these systems give people like me a chance out of the swamp.

I have no idea what you are talking about.

Obviously not, which is an embarrassing lapse of historical knowledge on your part.

I meant I have no idea how you are trying to connect science with racism. All sorts of weird ideas have tried to be justified with science, because science is the ultimate bullshit detector. That doesn't make science the bad guy. The fact that science exposes these flaws makes it the good guy in this story.

You're confusing "scientific" with "true". Racial superiority was a widely accepted scientific theory; it happened to be incorrect.

Like the earth was widely accepted to be flat? Fucking humans, they can't be trusted.
And you keep posting links to 'The National Review" which is opinionated conservative junk. Maybe get some more objective sources next time.

So you are saying that the problem with scientific racism was that it was incorrect? If it had been right, the political choices based on it would have been justified?

Depends on what those choices are. Science can merely say a giraffe is taller than a elephant. It doesn't say that giraffes are now justified in persecuting elephants because they aren't as tall as them.

That, in principle, society has the right to prevent people from procreating and to oppress them if science can prove that they actually are mentally or physically inferior on average?

See you've gone all crazy again. See giraffe example above.

See, the problem with scientific racism was not that it was wrong, the problem with scientific racism was that people like you are willing to use scientific claims (whether right or wrong) to violate the rights of individuals for "the good of society".

You use words like "violate" to attach negative emotions. But just like in my red light example, you also agree with this view.
Science shows there is lack of control at intersections causing overall harm to society
We use this science to "violate" people's rights to plow into intersections without stopping. Society is forced against its will to stop when the light is red, and is forced against their will to go when it is green. They all sacrifice liberty for security so deserve neither.
Which part of this don't you agree with?

After the horrors of the 20th century, it is disturbing how common your beliefs are, in particular among people who really ought to know better based on their history.

After the greatest rise in standards of living in all of humanity since the rise of science and critical thought, it's disturbing to hear your beliefs. Although luckily for the rest of us, they are the minority and predominately among old white people, so will eventually die off.

Re:vote with your feet

[Raenex]

No, if you could read, it's the same defense.

No, first it was "the news" (widespread dismissal), then it was "Fox News" (accusation of single-source blindness), then it was back to "the news" after I pointed out yet again that I pull from a variety of sources.

No if you could read, i asked that you give us all something more substantial than "the news".

We've been over this. It's just a lazy way for you to dismiss anything that threatens your preconceived notions. And what the news chooses to report and the narrative they try to frame is a major part of the "progressive" politicking going on that has me worried.

By the way, I noticed you left out the part about, "which is quite a hypocritical position to take given that you're commenting on a sensational news story on Slashdot, 'How San Francisco Hazed a Tech Bro'." You follow the news just like anybody else, and I'm willing to bet you've used them as sources in arguments before.

Oh I'm familiar with them, I just wanted to understand which specific detail concerns you.

Oh, really? Then if you're familiar with them (I wonder how, since, you know, "the news"), you should also be familiar with the riots, protests, property damage, and lives dragged through the mud that went along with the false accusations hyped up by "progressives".

I'm not across this organisation, but there must be millions of similar activist groups all across America, all with varying degrees of extreme views. Do you let all of them affect your opinion?

Do you let all crazy religious groups affect your opinion? Why are you worried about religion when you want to move? The fact is the media and politicians are pandering to "progressive" nutters, with real-world consequences.

Re:vote with your feet

[Anonymous Coward]

"In the face of Europe’s all-too-obvious moral, political, and demographic decline" Really?
It's not obvious to me. Countries like the UK and Germany are not declining

Are you kidding? The PIGS are falling apart, Germany is a demographic disaster, and the UK is seriously considering leaving the EU. Average EU salaries are declining and much less than in the US.

Maybe a little more critical thought is required before swallowing whatever bullshit they are feeding you?

You should take your own advice.

Re:vote with your feet

[ooloorie]

I meant I have no idea how you are trying to connect science with racism.

Yes, it is plainly evident that you don't. You really need to catch up on your US and European history.

After the greatest rise in standards of living in all of humanity since the rise of science and critical thought, it's disturbing to hear your beliefs.

As Kant put it in What is Enlightenment: "Enlightenment is man’s emergence from his self-imposed immaturity. Immaturity is the inability to use one’s understanding without guidance from another." I suggest you read it, because you are still stuck in a pre-Enlightenment, pre-scientific world view in which responsibility and choice does not rest with the individual, but with society and its leaders.

I was born and educated in a 'socialist' country which has better standards of living and education than all but the 1%ers of the US. I was born poor and am now relatively well off because these systems give people like me a chance out of the swamp.

I challenge you to name a single socialist country whose standard of living comes even close to that of the US.

Re:vote with your feet

[Gussington]

That's not what happened so you are now lying to cover your position.

Re:vote with your feet

[Gussington]

Progressivism has a continuous history from the 19th century to the 21st. Many of the people who advocated segregation and eugenics are still revered by progressives.

Utter, utter crap.
Bernie Sanders calls himself progressive. I haven't seen anywhere in his policy statements anything about gassing the jews. Although Donald Trump wants to ban Muslims so maybe you've a little confused?

More importantly, though, the fundamental belief was the same back then as it is today, and it is the same belief you keep reiterating, namely that it is the job of government to use scientific results and rational processes for the common good.

What do you prefer, irrational processes? Do you even read what you write?

That belief is so axiomatic for you that you can't even conceive that government could work differently. You are a typical 19th and 20th century progressive.

Being progressive (the regular definition, not you weirdo version) means I'm open to any new ideas. So maybe you are just doing a poor job of selling it.

Re:vote with your feet

[Gussington]

No, first it was "the news" (widespread dismissal), then it was "Fox News" (accusation of single-source blindness), then it was back to "the news" after I pointed out yet again that I pull from a variety of sources.

"Fox News" is a subset of "the news" you retard.

and I'm willing to bet you've used them as sources in arguments before.

Well you're wrong again. What do you owe me?

Oh, really? Then if you're familiar with them (I wonder how, since, you know, "the news"), you should also be familiar with the riots, protests, property damage, and lives dragged through the mud that went along with the false accusations hyped up by "progressives".

The difference is dummy, I didn't just read the headline and believe it in face value

The fact is the media and politicians are pandering to "progressive" nutters, with real-world consequences.

Because the news told you so. Congratulations, you are now the stupidest person I've ever argued with on Slashdot.

Re:vote with your feet

[Gussington]

I challenge you to name a single socialist country whose standard of living comes even close to that of the US.

Let. Me. Fucking. Google. That. For. You:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/...

Every country above the US is considered socialist (socialised health and education etc, not your 1950 Communist Russia version of socialism)

Then combine that with this:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/...
If you take out the 1%ers, the US would be considered 3rd world, which explains nicely why there are lots of homeless people shitting in the streets

Your argument has just evaporated. Time to give up.

Re:vote with your feet

[ooloorie]

More importantly, though, the fundamental belief was the same back then as it is today, and it is the same belief you keep reiterating, namely that it is the job of government to use scientific results and rational processes for the common good.

What do you prefer, irrational processes? Do you even read what you write?

Yes, do you? Instead of depriving people of liberty in order to promote the common good, which is what progressives and socialists favor, the job of government ought to be to secure liberty, which is what classical liberals favor.

Being progressive (the regular definition, not you weirdo version) means I'm open to any new ideas.

You're quite funny, even if unintentionally.

Re:vote with your feet

[ooloorie]

Seriously? Switzerland is "socialist"?

You're right: time to give up; obviously your "public education system" has failed you and you are beyond the pale of rational discussion.

Re:vote with your feet

[ooloorie]

You're welcome to correct me. How do you imagine Hitler came to power, and how do you think Germans justified their anti-Semitism?

Re:vote with your feet

[Raenex]

"Fox News" is a subset of "the news" you retard.

No shit, but there's a difference between accusing somebody of a single-source bias and generically bashing all "news", retard.

Well you're wrong again. What do you owe me?

A gold sticker for being such a special boy? You did reference an article which can be categorized as news, though it's also a poll, which would qualify as research. So enjoy your gold star, special boy.

The difference is dummy, I didn't just read the headline and believe it in face value

Neither did I, or I'd just be another "progressive" idiot, dummy. But we've established you follow the news. So are you saying all the riots, protests, property damage, and lives dragged through the mud are just the collective imagination of "the news"??

I'd mirror your most X person on Slashdot I've ever argued with comment, but your kind of intellectual dishonesty is not unusual.

Re:vote with your feet

[Gussington]

Instead of depriving people of liberty in order to promote the common good, which is what progressives and socialists favor, the job of government ought to be to secure liberty, which is what classical liberals favor.

It's the same thing, you just choose different word to make you sound like it's different.
Example: Arms Control.
Right wing nut jobs scream freedom to own guns, but are the first to complain when Iran wants nukes. Why can't Iran be free to own Nukes, North Korea?
True Freedom is either all-in or not, otherwise you're somewhere in the middle, which we all are, but only some of us are aware of this fact.

Re:vote with your feet

[Gussington]

Google it.
It sure as hell isn't explainable in one paragraph, and you seem to suggest.

Re:vote with your feet

[Gussington]

So are you saying all the riots, protests, property damage, and lives dragged through the mud are just the collective imagination of "the news"??

No. This is what makes conversing with retards so painful. You have to explain every little thing twice and they still don't get it...

Re:vote with your feet

[Raenex]

You didn't explain anything. You said, "So the system works. What was your problem again?" I pointed out the real-world problems generated by the "progressive" idiots, and you mumbled something about not personally believing headlines. Umm, ok?

This is what makes talking to dishonest ideologues so painful. They crank up the smog machine and make non-nonsensical replies, and fill in the blanks with insults.

Re:vote with your feet

[dbIII]

You really need to catch up on your US and European history.

This from the guy that has called the USA a manufacturing powerhouse since 2000?
You never told me what is your "reality"? You keep on throwing around shit about "the real world" but from where - the position of an intern doing "social media work" in a political office or marketing company or where? What field does the science and reality denier "ooloorie" work in? What makes you fit to throw rubbery derived metrics around and insults in an attempt to ridicule me when I mention hard physical or economic measures?

Re:vote with your feet

[dbIII]

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/...

Re:vote with your feet

[ooloorie]

"It's too complicated forme to explain" is the cop-out of someone who is trying to cover his ignorance.

In fact, I did "Google it", and read a lot of books about it, which is why I know this stuff and you don't. Look up the NSDAP party program, read the speeches Hitler and other politicians gave to the public, and read the speeches Hitler and other parliamentarians gave justifying their key votes in parliament, foremost the Enabling Act. Read the books I recommended.

Re:vote with your feet

[ooloorie]

It's the same thing, you just choose different word to make you sound like it's different.
Example: Arms Control. Right wing nut jobs scream freedom to own guns, but are the first to complain when Iran wants nukes. Why can't Iran be free to own Nukes, North Korea?

It's a simple statement of fact: under the US Constitution, the US government has the power to use force against Iran and North Korea for any reason whatsoever, but it does not have the power to restrict gun ownership by US citizens.

True Freedom is either all-in or not, otherwise you're somewhere in the middle, which we all are, but only some of us are aware of this fact.

I don't believe I ever claimed that the US Constitution was a perfect blueprint for a free society. Furthermore, freedoms need to be reciprocal, and since Iran and North Korea are not free societies, we don't have to treat them as such.

Re:vote with your feet

[Gussington]

I pointed out the real-world problems generated by the "progressive" idiots.

No you didn't, you pointed out some headlines, but we are yet to hear how any of things have created an actual real problem for you.
Because headlines! is not a reasoned argument.

Re:vote with your feet

[Gussington]

"It's too complicated forme to explain" is the cop-out of someone who is trying to cover his ignorance

You attempted to explain volumes of work in one paragraph. If you can't accept the error of that vast oversimplification there is no point continuing.

Re:vote with your feet

[Gussington]

It's a simple statement of fact: under the US Constitution, the US government has the power to use force against Iran and North Korea for any reason whatsoever, but it does not have the power to restrict gun ownership by US citizens.

Ah so here we have it. A Bible worshipper who must adhere to the bible regardless of the consequences. Fuck humanity, we can kill as many brown people as we like as long as the US constitution lets us. All sounds very Germany 1939 from here.

I don't believe I ever claimed that the US Constitution was a perfect blueprint for a free society. Furthermore, freedoms need to be reciprocal, and since Iran and North Korea are not free societies, we don't have to treat them as such.

I believe Goebbels had a similar opinion...

Re:vote with your feet

[Gussington]

Seriously? Switzerland is "socialist"?

You're right: time to give up; obviously your "public education system" has failed you and you are beyond the pale of rational discussion.

Good one. So you conveniently pretend Norway, Australia, Denmark, Netherlands, Germany and Ireland aren't there?
And if we take the wealth inequality of the US into account, then for 99% of Americans, Canada, New Zealand, Singapore, Hong Kong, Liechtenstein, Sweden, UK, Iceland etc etc have higher standards of living too?
Or are you man enough to admit that yes, there are a few socialist countries with higher standard of living than the US? Therefore we can conclude that socialist political systems are probably not the devil that conservative literature tries to make out?
Can you at least bring yourself to admit that now?


Other political ideologies can work too (as noted by countries like Switzerland and Singapore on the list), that is the beauty of diversity, but claiming your way is the only way when the facts clearly say otherwise does look a bit silly.

Re:vote with your feet

[Gussington]

Ok, but it doesn't change the fact that for 99% of Americans, there's quite a few "socialist" countries with higher standards of living. Which is the point the GP doesn't want to admit.

Re:vote with your feet

[Raenex]

you pointed out some headlines

And now we're back again to the question which you tried to dodge: "So are you saying all the riots, protests, property damage, and lives dragged through the mud are just the collective imagination of "the news"??"

but we are yet to hear how any of things have created an actual real problem for you

Why do I have to personally experience the problem to be concerned by it? What have the religious people personally done to you that prompted your inquiry? Point on the doll where the priest touched you.

Because headlines! is not a reasoned argument.

Neither is acting like an ignorant jackass.

Re:vote with your feet

[Gussington]

And now we're back again to the question which you tried to dodge: "So are you saying all the riots, protests, property damage, and lives dragged through the mud are just the collective imagination of "the news"??"

I answered that already. See above if you need help.
Do you now see what I'm dealing with here?

Why do I have to personally experience the problem to be concerned by it?

It helps to determine for others whether your concerns are real, and maybe we should be concerned too, or it's just fear of the unknown, and you're one of the millions whose minds are easily led by the media. I'm quite confident after this exchange that it's the latter.

What have the religious people personally done to you that prompted your inquiry?

I have a list longer than your arm. For one my business loses money because the church's political influence won't allow us to trade on certain days of the year.
See how that works? Now your turn...

Re:vote with your feet

[Raenex]

Do you now see what I'm dealing with here?

Yes, somebody who sees through your "ignorant jackass" approach to arguing.

I'm quite confident after this exchange that it's the latter.

Point blank simple question, answer it: Did riots happen as a result of the false accusation in the Michael Brown shooting?

For one my business loses money because the church's political influence won't allow us to trade on certain days of the year.

Oh, you poor soul. Maybe you can find a "progressive" reason for that? After all, lots of religious dogma is based on societal good.

See how that works? Now your turn...

I'm not playing your stupid game. I don't have to be personally affected by an event to be concerned by it, just like you have no personal reason to be commenting on this Slashdot sorry. See how that works?

Re:vote with your feet

[ooloorie]

Good one. So you conveniently pretend Norway, Australia, Denmark, Netherlands, Germany and Ireland aren't there? Or are you man enough to admit that yes, there are a few socialist countries with higher standard of living than the US?

The US spends about the same percentage of GDP on social welfare as Switzerland and Australia, and significantly more than Canada. In absolute terms, the US spends more on social welfare per capita than any other major country. Canada, Switzerland, Australia, New Zealand, Singapore, and the UK all rank higher on economic liberty than the US. And the US has the highest corporate tax rates among OECD countries. So, the idea that those other countries are "socialist", even in the sense of being a welfare state, while the US is supposedly not is untenable.

In terms of economic factors (housing, jobs, income), the US outranks all other OECD members. If you ranked countries like Sweden and Germany among US states, they would be among the poorest US states. Having lived in several of the countries you list, that agrees with my experience. In particular, I rejected emigrating both to Canada and Australia because I consider the economic opportunities and standard of living to be too low in those countries.

And if we take the wealth inequality of the US into account, then for 99% of Americans, Canada, New Zealand, Singapore, Hong Kong, Liechtenstein, Sweden, UK, Iceland etc etc have higher standards of living too?

Most comparisons of living standards already look at median incomes or exclude the top 1%, so arguments about "if you take wealth inequality into account" are rooted in a misunderstanding of what that data shows. Furthermore, the levels of inequality in the US are not much higher than other countries; pretax, they are the same or lower than the UK, Spain, Poland, Germany, Finland, Ireland, the Netherlands, and Sweden. Post tax, they are similar to the UK, Canada, Spain, and Australia (0.42 vs. 0.41 and 0.38).

Overall, I agree: the US should be more like Canada, Australia, and Ireland: we should cut back our corporate tax rates to lower levels, and cut back our social welfare spending to the lower levels found in those other countries.

Re:vote with your feet

[ooloorie]

You attempted to explain volumes of work in one paragraph. If you can't accept the error of that vast oversimplification there is no point continuing.

I made a simple, factual historical statement about the NSDAP party program and the role scientific statements played in it. I suggest you verify it yourself.

Re:vote with your feet

[dbIII]

I agree with you and the article points it out.
The GP promotes a bit of a fantasy world as his other posts show - possibly some sort of "social media worker" pushing an agenda from a political office.

Re:vote with your feet

[ooloorie]

I answered your question of why people believe this, not what I think should be done.

Re:vote with your feet

[Anonymous Coward]

Example: Arms Control. Right wing nut jobs scream freedom to own guns, but are the first to complain when Iran wants nukes. Why can't Iran be free to own Nukes, North Korea?

It's a simple statement of fact: under the US Constitution, the US government has the power to use force against Iran and North Korea for any reason whatsoever, but it does not have the power to restrict gun ownership by US citizens.

Which raises an interesting point. Do US citizens have the right to keep and bear nuclear arms?

Why or why not?

Re:vote with your feet

[Gussington]

The US spends about the same percentage of GDP on social welfare as Switzerland and Australia, and significantly more than Canada.

At last some real objective data. This makes for so much more interesting debate than just citing you own conservative propaganda.
So based on your own data, Norway spends more on welfare, and has a higher standard of living than the US, and is socialist. Do you agree or disagree?

In absolute terms, the US spends more on social welfare per capita than any other major country. Canada, Switzerland, Australia, New Zealand, Singapore, and the UK

It's a bit silly to use absolute terms when the US has 3 times more people than all those countries combined.
As above, percentage of GDP gives a better indicator, and if you toggle the down arrow to sort highest to lowest, the US is near the bottom.

all rank higher on economic liberty than the US.

Yes because economic liberty has little to do with socialism. As your own references show, you can be socialist AND have economic freedom.
So again the socialist countries like NZ, Australia, Canada, Iceland seem to be performing better than the US, agree or disagree?

And the US has the highest corporate tax rates among OECD countries.

Interesting. Although where is this money going?Maybe you're blowing it all on Defence and Prisons instead on health and education?
I'm also aware that the US spends a fair bit on health and education but just isn't getting the same results. I wonder why that is?
Also, just paying higher tax isn't a socialist concept, unless that money is going to benefit those at the bottom, which it clearly isn't in the US.

So, the idea that those other countries are "socialist", even in the sense of being a welfare state, while the US is supposedly not is untenable.

So you're seriously going to try and argue the the US is socialist too now? Or that all the other countries aren't?
Actually I might agree somewhat, the US is a little bit socialist, because it does have some social programs, but your original argument is that socialism is evil, and only small government can succeed is clearly flawed. You've clearly demonstrated that there is a strong correlation between socialist policy and quality of living.

In terms of economic factors (housing, jobs, income), the US outranks all other OECD members.

But this argument isn't about who is the richest, it's about quality of life. Would you rather be rich and unhappy, or mostly rich and happy?

If you ranked countries like Sweden and Germany among US states, they would be among the poorest US states.

As above, slightly less rich, but with better services and higher quality of life overall. I would gladly sacrifice a few extra percent of my income to not have some poor soul have to live on the streets - actually I already do. Would you?

Having lived in several of the countries you list, that agrees with my experience. In particular, I rejected emigrating both to Canada and Australia because I consider the economic opportunities and standard of living to be too low in those countries.

Even though the

Re:vote with your feet

[ooloorie]

And being neither North American nor European I have no attachment to the cultural dogma attached to either of them. They both have strengths and weaknesses. Socialism has been proven to work in quite a few places, so saying it can't work is deliberately deceptive or ignorant.

The reality is that there is little difference between the economic systems of the US, Canada, Australia, Norway, Germany, and all the other countries you list. All of them are modern welfare states, none of them are socialist. If anything, the US spends more on social welfare, social safety nets, and other social expenses than those other countries, and the US regulates corporations and bankers more strongly.

What is "deceptive and ignorant" is that you try to make a distinction between the US and "socialist states" that simply doesn't exist. Your reasoning is rooted in complete ignorance of the social and economic realities in Europe and the US.

Here's is the problem with the "lower taxes" and "smaller government" arguments. At what point do you deem them small enough?

Do you find a statement like "the US should cut back our corporate tax rates and our social welfare spending to the lower levels found in those other countries" too difficult to comprehend?

Re:vote with your feet

[Gussington]

What is "deceptive and ignorant" is that you try to make a distinction between the US and "socialist states" that simply doesn't exist.

Apart from the references that you provided as part of your argument you mean?
Give up. This is getting embarrassing...

Re:vote with your feet

[ooloorie]

Apart from the references that you provided as part of your argument you mean?

You mean the references that show that there is no consistent difference between the US and those other countries that you claim are socialist?

Tell you what, why don't you actually define what you mean by "socialist country"?

Why don't you then demonstrate that the US doesn't meet those criteria while all of the countries you claim are "socialist" (Norway, Australia, Switzerland, Denmark, Netherlands, Germany, Ireland) meet those criteria.

Re: Those Republicans...

[Anonymous Coward]

Which they shoved down our throats with gay marriage.

Re: Those Republicans...

[Anonymous Coward]

This. They want us to suffer with that awkward conversation.

Predator 1987

[Anonymous Coward]

Anna is the predator!!! AAAAAGH O_o

Look, if not eating my head after sex, I wish dating a fucking cannibal before dating that Goblin. (short term for troll)

Re: Those Republicans...

[Anonymous Coward]

The tech industry has never helped anyone.

Re: Those Republicans...

[Anonymous Coward]

Not completely. Many tech leaders have supported Hillary, which is good for the people.

Re: Those Republicans...

[Anonymous Coward]

Better than that guy that asked for an invite to the Vatican.

"Degenerates" is a bit much

[slimjim8094]

"Degenerates" is over the line, but there is a problem here. Like any social problem the question of who contributes what share of the blame is in dispute.

But I'll just leave this here: Human waste shuts down BART escalators. Clearly something is horribly horribly wrong.

Re:"Degenerates" is a bit much

[Anonymous Coward]

The only question I can ask is why would someone do that? This is not one act of one person. That is a systematic breaking of those. So now the city has to divert and workforce funds to fix those instead of working on more useful things.

Re:"Degenerates" is a bit much

[Anonymous Coward]

Because the bathrooms are closed, BART shuts them down at night. Business don't allow homeless to use their facilities and there is no other place to go, so the homeless urinate or defecate where they can. An escalator, elevator, porch, or alley. I have seen a person squat and take a dump between two parked cars in the middle of the day.

Also, BART is a separate municipal agency servicing multiple counties, the city of San Francisco doesn't finance it.

Re:"Degenerates" is a bit much

[Anonymous Coward]

I get that. But my question is why on an escalator? Then there is the logistics of how to do that on a moving stairway. Pee I can see. But shit. What are you racing to get done?

two parked cars in the middle of the day
Then the bathrooms would not be closed. That is just being nasty.

Re:"Degenerates" is a bit much

[Anonymous Coward]

The problem is tough to combat, especially with so few downtown public restrooms open late, BART authorities said.

It seems to me that the problem is very easy to combat. If you don't want people to shit on the escalators, give them free 24/7 public toilets.

Re:"Degenerates" is a bit much

[jmcvetta]

While restrooms at some suburban Bart stations remain open, afaik all restrooms at Bart stations inside San Francisco city limits were permanently closed after 9/11. 'Cuz Osama bin Laden might need to take a dump while commuting, or something like that.

Do you piss and shit on the sidewalk?

[Anonymous Coward]

So are you one of the San Franciscans who shits on the sidewalk, in broad daylight? Are you one of the San Franciscans who pisses on the side of buildings? Are you one of the San Franciscans who leaves used hypodermic needles all over the place? Are you one of the male San Franciscans who engages in unprotected anal intercourse with seven, eight, or more random men per day? Are those the kind of activities you partake in when you say that you're "dealing with real life"?

I think that the GP is talking about the complete lack of civilization that permeates so many parts of San Francisco. We're talking about behavior that isn't seen to such an extent anywhere else in the United States, even in the worst parts of the other major cities. We're talking about behavior that would be looked down upon in the slums of the third world. We're talking about behavior that even untrained dogs don't engage in!

That's what the GP is talking about, I think. He's pointing out that San Francisco sees abhorrent and disgusting behavior way, way, way more than anywhere else in the United States, if not the entire world. And yet here you are, basically defending people who defecate on sidewalks, who urinate on park benches, who spread numerous STDs, and who pose a serious health risk to others thanks to their completely uncivilized ways of life. There's nothing unreasonable with the GP's request that the people of San Francisco try to maintain even a minimal level of hygiene and civility.

Re: Do you piss and shit on the sidewalk?

[im_thatoneguy]

I was in SF last year and within 24 hours had to flee with a group from a bus stop after a homeless tweaker went ape shit smashing everything in sight with a skateboard. Had a homeless man throw a bowl of spaghetti and meatballs on my girlfriend as we walked by and had a guy take 3 full trash cans full of garbage and just empty them into a gutter.

Same time of year, this year, there were homeless but maybe I lucked out but the mentally ill and the tweakers seem to have been gotten the help they needed or the super bowl just pushed them out of sight for the near term.

Re: Do you piss and shit on the sidewalk?

[KGIII]

I have local friend and family who say they actually put a shit-ton of them in jail and (highly illegal - or so I understand, I'm not a lawyer but I'm pretty sure it is) they arrested them (or took them into custody) and put them either in vans or on the bus. I've been told both vans and buses by different people. I'm also told that there's a bit of a cover-up for this but I have absolutely no way of knowing BUT I've been told this by three different people during the run-up to the game.

I think I might have even mentioned it, here specifically, and I want so say that someone confirmed it in a reply - and I think it was here. I'm almost positive it was here. I... I say a lot. ;-) I'm not gonna go read through all my old posts to find it.

In fact, if I understand correctly, someone important has a kid who was hauled away mistakenly and that this might have repercussions and result in a bit of a media dust-up but I've seen nothing more of it. Of course, I don't actually read the news that much and I really don't read the news for San Fransisco. But, nobody has mentioned it since - that I've seen. So, I've no clue how valid any of that is but it wouldn't surprise me. In fact, I recall being mostly amused by it. I'm kind of old to go getting outraged at everything. I don't have time or inclination to do so. People will be people.

Hmm... A quick Google isn't telling me a whole lot of scandalous results. They say they moved 24 and put them in a homeless shelter in this article:
http://thinkprogress.org/econo...

What bothers me is that there are usually zero free beds at that time of the year. So... Where did they put the 24 people who would have slept in those beds? More interesting is how come the number is only 24? 'Cause I have been there and have stomped all over the city - for months when I was younger and even worked out of SF for almost six months at one point and I don't actually believe the number is as low as 24. That's off by an order of magnitude, maybe even two. Ah well... I don't keep up with it and it was mentioned as items of interest by those who brought it up but it hasn't been mentioned again.

Re: Do you piss and shit on the sidewalk?

[Anonymous Coward]

First of all, take what you read in thinkprogress.com with a big grain of salt.

Second, if someone is breaking the law they can be detained and given a forced evaluation. I don't know if it was done properly in the cases you mention because it takes a court hearing and a judge's order, but it can be done legally. It's not much different than arresting someone for drunk driving

Re: Do you piss and shit on the sidewalk?

[Anonymous Coward]

This is quite common for cities hosting sporting events. In 1998 Atlanta was accused of placing homeless people on buses to other states and in 2002 the Mayor of Las Vegas accused Salt Lake City of busing homeless people to Las Vegas making their homeless problem even worse. I'm sure cities hosting the Super Bowl also have been accused of trying to bus homeless people out of town.

Re: Those Republicans...

[Anonymous Coward]

This. That is why so many Republicant's are pro-gay marriage.

Re: Those Republicans...

[Anonymous Coward]

This. Those Republicans killed him in 1978 so he couldn't have foreseen the horrors of the tech industry.

Re: Those Republicans...

[Anonymous Coward]

Dan White might have been a member of our party, but he was acting under republican influence when he killed Moscone and Milk.

Re: Those Republicans...

[Anonymous Coward]

Well eating only Twinkies will do that to you.

Not exactly

[rsilvergun]

these high paid tech folks still want and need services. They want teachers for their kids, police and fire dept to keep them safe. Housemaids to tidy up for them after an 80 hour work week and restaurant staff to cook food for them.

What they do not want, it seems, is to pay for all that. See, it's not as easy as "Just move out of San Fransico". When your poor you live where you're born. You don't just move to where the work is, and if you try you're taking a huge risk. You have no savings because you're never paid enough for savings.

What we have is servant class asking members of the merchant class to pay for their services. I don't see a problem with that.

But hey, bashing people over the head with the "PC" moniker never gets old, right? So go ahead. I suppose it's a hell of a lot easier than facing the unpleasant consequences of a modern service economy.

Re:Not exactly

[Anonymous Coward]

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Company_town#Decline_of_American_company_towns

Re:Not exactly

[Gussington]

I suppose it's a hell of a lot easier than facing the unpleasant consequences of a modern service economy.

It has nothing to do with that. Most issues like this are purely down to bad town planning. The economy changes quicker than geography and local governments are not equipped to deal with it.

Re:Not exactly

[Anonymous Coward]

"When your poor you live where you're born. You don't just move to where the work is, and if you try you're taking a huge risk. You have no savings because you're never paid enough for savings. "

It's interesting I've heard this uttered multiple times when I get into arguments with ultra-left liberals in my area. I currently work in San Francisco and have for many years. Left rural America and drove 3,000 miles with nothing but a 90s beater car and the clothes on my back. Now make six figures working in a self-taught profession, with no college degree or education, with skills I gained using free online resources. I am the antithesis of your liberal government-funded welfare/education state.

My opinion? I'd pin the problem you described to entitled west-coasters who have never been held accountable for anything in their life, have never seen a winter or hard labor, and were raised in an environment where it's socially acceptable to blame your failures in life on other people. I bet if you offered most of the homeless in SF the opportunity to work on a farm, oil rig, etc, and paid 100k a year, all those same "servent class" would turn it down because it's too "hard", "far away", or some other pathetic self-rationalization. I know because I've seen it, lived it, and moved up and down through different income brackets and social classes. The sad part is that the same people who programmed your political viewpoint (E.g. Educational institutions, the SJW folks, Democratic Party) play the victim card not out of ignorance, but because it benefits them, their donors, and their customers to make up fake social justice issues to line their pockets and rip apart the American Dream .

~A

Re:Not exactly

[Anonymous Coward]

" I am the antithesis of your liberal government-funded welfare/education state."

Uh huh. That highway you drove on paved itself by its own bootstraps just for you, but now you'd deny other people the same access to public services ... because you're a self-centered egotistical psychopath?

Re:Not exactly

[khallow]

See, it's not as easy as "Just move out of San Fransico".

It is that easy. Something like a ninth of the US population moves every year.

When your poor you live where you're born.

Which indicates to me yet another behavior that makes people poor and thus, isn't something we should encourage. My parents and their siblings all started out rather poor in New England (the northeastern part of the US). They all fixed that by moving where the jobs were, sometimes ending up across the US, thousands of miles away from their birthplaces.

Re:Not exactly

[Anonymous Coward]

What's supposed to happen here is that the wages for teachers, cleaners, restaurant staff etc. increase, and so do the costs for the associated services. But - and here's the thing - all of this happens by itself. Tech workers are willing to pay more for food, so restaurants increase their prices, and use the revenue to afford the increased wage needed to hire someone who's actually living locally. It doesn't take government intervention.

If the government is intervening, it's redistributing wealth in a way beyond what's actually fair: it's no longer simply a matter of people wanting to be paid for their services.

Re:Not exactly

[khallow]

That highway you drove on paved itself

Currently, the US federal government spends about half its budget on stuff that doesn't build infrastructure and that portion is projected to rise a great deal. A lot of state and local governments are pretty bad about that as well. I suspect California and San Francisco have rather high non-infrastructure budgets though I can't be bothered to check.

This insipid pop psychology you wrote ("self-centered egotistical psychopath") ignores that public services for the most part aren't needed to help people. My view is that most public services are actually bribes to certain classes of voters to go along with crony capitalism.

Mr. Gopman wasn't speaking truth, but he was derailing the gravy train. That may help explain his sudden fall from heaven.

Re:Not exactly

[ChrisMaple]

You lumped together items that do not belong together and then claimed "What they do not want, it seems, is to pay for all that."
Police, fire dept., and schools are things people are forced to pay for whether they use them or not. Public grade schools are particularly egregious because some people don't use them at all, and because costs are roughly twice what they should be. Where I live, about 2/3 of taxes go to public schools, and that's egregious.
Housemaids and restaurant service are recognized as luxuries and no reasonable person is unwilling to pay for them.

Re:Not exactly

[Anonymous Coward]

Where did you stay in the time between getting there are finding employment? What did you eat? If you were living out of your car, how did you take care of daily hygiene?

I see this story over and over again. I never see that detail.

Re:Not exactly

[Anonymous Coward]

Trickle-down economics is dynamite on paper, isn't it?

Re:Not exactly

[Anonymous Coward]

Currently, the US federal government spends about half its budget on stuff that doesn't build infrastructure and that portion is projected to rise a great deal.

You mean the oft-cited Social Security spending? Yeah, terrible that, keeping a promise and guarantee MADE to people. But now you're using it as a grievance? Please stop.

You can criticize Social Security if you want, but don't muddle up the budget picture to do it. That's just falling into the trap. It's presented as part of the overall budget pie to deceive us, so we don't notice the problems of other spending.

My view is that most public services are actually bribes to certain classes of voters to go along with crony capitalism.

There are two ways to motivate people, the carrot and the stick.

Both are used, and both have their costs.

But then, so does doing nothing.

Re:Not exactly

[Anonymous Coward]

He's complaining about people who would rather live in poverty and make up flimsy rationalizations for it, rather than put in the hard work required to better their situation.
He's also complaining about groups and institutions that seize on that myopic viewpoint and use it to enrich themselves, often at the expense of the people they're claiming to help.

What he is not complaining about is basic government services, like your paved roads. After that false assertion, you then claim he ... wants to deny the people of SF access to paved roads? You make no sense. What exactly is your angle here, or are you just coming up with any excuse to hate a counterexample to the concept of "poor people have no way out of their circumstances, so they shouldn't bother trying"?

Re:Not exactly

[Anonymous Coward]

You lumped together items that do not belong together and then claimed "What they do not want, it seems, is to pay for all that."

Lumped together or not, you're nowhere close to disproving that contention. And sadly, I fear it is all too true.

Police, fire dept., and schools are things people are forced to pay for whether they use them or not.

Oh, but you do benefit from them, assuming they're doing their job properly. Reduced worries about crimes, about fires, and a better more productive workforce.

That is why the last was added to many state constitutions as a governmental obligation.

Do you want to change that? What do you want to propose instead?

Public grade schools are particularly egregious because some people don't use them at all, and because costs are roughly twice what they should be. Where I live, about 2/3 of taxes go to public schools, and that's egregious.

Where do you live, and what taxes are you talking about? If you're talking about property taxes in specific, well, that is how schools are funded, and you might find that a lot of people have problems with that whole idea, for a variety of reasons.

But the costs? Yeah, I can see the problems with that. Yet you may not be willing to look at the real cost leeches, instead preferring to demonize your own personal peeves rather than identify real issues.

Housemaids and restaurant service are recognized as luxuries and no reasonable person is unwilling to pay for them.

Yet you can find people who have underpaid servants, even outright illegally constrained ones, as well as others who skip out on their bills at restaurants, or find ways to get them paid for by others.

I just saw a commercial last night that featured an alligator being unable to pick up a check.

Re:Not exactly

[khallow]

You mean the oft-cited Social Security spending? Yeah, terrible that, keeping a promise and guarantee MADE to people. But now you're using it as a grievance? Please stop.

I see no reason to keep promises that were made in bad faith by both the politicians building the program and the voters protecting the program for the past 80 years. Further, given the program is now just a transfer of wealth from the workers to wealthier elderly with growing, unsupported obligations, I see it actually being harmful to the future of the US.

You can criticize Social Security if you want, but don't muddle up the budget picture to do it. That's just falling into the trap. It's presented as part of the overall budget pie to deceive us, so we don't notice the problems of other spending.

Nonsense, there is nothing magical about the status of Social Security. It's just another budget item.

But then, so does doing nothing.

Easy to say when all you've talked about is Social Security. Some of us care about other things than a puny check at retirement.

Re:Not exactly

[HornWumpus]

It was political to raid the SS trust fund for all the decades it went on.

It is now political to point out that the trust fund is empty and money will have to be spent from the general fund.

So what? Federal bonds in the SS trust fund are just the federal government righting IOUs to itself. Any insurance company that did similar would have responsible corporate officers _arrested_.

Even if the IOUs are good as gold, they still have to be PAID. It's never a choice to end a Ponzi scheme.

Re:Not exactly

[david_thornley]

I see no reason to keep promises that were made in bad faith by both the politicians building the program and the voters protecting the program for the past 80 years. Further, given the program is now just a transfer of wealth from the workers to wealthier elderly with growing, unsupported obligations,

I've been paying into that program all my working life, and I'd like to get something from it. It has absorbed a considerable amount of money that could have gone into retirement savings, and I'd like either my SS benefits or my money back, adjusted for inflation and with a reasonable interest rate. Simply abolishing SS would mean that tens of millions of people would take a large hit to their retirement, particularly at ages where there really isn't a way to recover. It would infuriate a large number of people who'd see their contributions confiscated, and people of those ages do tend to vote. It would be not only unfair but politically impossible. It's politically possible to make changes to keep the program on a sound financial footing, or gradual changes (like the gradual increase in full retirement age for people born in 1948-1960), but arbitrarily abolishing the program isn't going to happen.

It may well be beneficial to the economy to dump the elderly into the streets with no way to support themselves, or simply shoot them, but I don't consider that morally acceptable.

Re:Not exactly

[jmcvetta]

Not the OP, but I did something similar when I was young. Took the Greyhound from a moribund Rustbelt industrial town out to SF. Lived in a bunk bed at a youth hostel for six months, sometimes scraping by paying rent on a day-to-day basis. I was lucky. Then picked up a little bit of work and lived for another few months in a decrepit "residential hotel" (aka "bum hotel") with a filthy shared bathroom down the hall. Eventually things got better. thank the gods.

Nowadays I don't think a kid in my former position could do the same thing. Most of the residential hotels were taken over by City-funded quangos and used to house the deranged street people for which SF is justly famous. The few remaining bum hotels now charge something like $1000/mo (maybe more, haven't checked lately) for third world quality accommodations. Rent for a bunk bed at the hostel is about the same.

No more cheep housing available in SF, no matter how modestly one is willing to live. Makes me kinda sad that kids today don't have the same opportunities I did not that many years ago.

Re:Not exactly

[khallow]

I've been paying into that program all my working life, and I'd like to get something from it.

Last I heard, cutting back benefits by 25% would allow the hamster wheel to keep spinning indefinitely (though that may be understating the scope of the problem). I don't see the belt tightening happening yet for some odd reason.

and I'd like either my SS benefits or my money back, adjusted for inflation and with a reasonable interest rate

Wouldn't we all? Problem is that we can't all do that and still have a functioning federal government in the US. I believe the key problem is simply that the entire Social Security surplus has been dropped down a rat hole for its entire lifespan. There is no investment from which to recover the money you or I put in.

It's politically possible to make changes to keep the program on a sound financial footing, or gradual changes (like the gradual increase in full retirement age for people born in 1948-1960), but arbitrarily abolishing the program isn't going to happen.

I'm quite aware of the lock-in that the program has. But my belief is that the usual creative accounting that the federal government engages in will eventually whittle away the benefits of the program via inflation or other means. I'd rather just end the sorry mess now than deal with the consequences of the games that would otherwise be played in the future to make ends meet.

And there are other programs that are in much worse shape, such as the federal employees and railroad employees retirement pensions or Medicare.

It may well be beneficial to the economy to dump the elderly into the streets with no way to support themselves, or simply shoot them, but I don't consider that morally acceptable.

Well, we'll either fix our problems or get to the point where that sort of thing does become morally acceptable. It alarms me quite a bit that the problems have been left to fester for many decades. That's not a good sign for the future.

Re:Not exactly

[david_thornley]

The Social Security trust fund is by law invested in US bonds. They will come due, and SS will be pulling money out of that, unless the US government defaults on its bonds. That would have quite a few negative consequences of its own, including a sharp increase in the interest rate the government would have to pay. The government screwed things up in a lot of ways, not just Social Security, and I don't see proposals to default on other debt.

As far as ending the sorry mess goes, that would have a REALLY big impact on people my age and older. It would have to be phased out over a long time. I'm going to guess that you're probably under 40, which means that if SS ended you could use the freed-up funds to put together a substantial 401(k) or IRA. I'm not.

Re:Not exactly

[khallow]

The Social Security trust fund is by law invested in US bonds.

Since the US bonds don't actually create an obligation of the federal government (they're not actually owed to anyone physical, including you) to pay them off nor an obligation to grant a certain level of benefit to Social Security pensioners, it is completely irrelevant. They are merely the legal machinery by which excess Social Security funds have been dumped into the general fund for the past 80 years and from there, squandered.

It's just a pay-as-you-go program gussied up as a traditional pension fund.

As far as ending the sorry mess goes, that would have a REALLY big impact on people my age and older. It would have to be phased out over a long time. I'm going to guess that you're probably under 40, which means that if SS ended you could use the freed-up funds to put together a substantial 401(k) or IRA. I'm not.

I don't have a problem with that since I didn't create the mess or fail to fix it over the course of my life. Sooner or later this pyramid scheme will collapse. I'd rather it happened while the people largely responsible for it were still alive to help take their share of the burden.

Re: Those Republicans...

[Anonymous Coward]

Corporate food will do that to you.

Respect has to be E. A. R. N. E. D.

[Taco Cowboy]

Do not expect to be respected just because you are

Just like there is no free lunch, no one deserves any free respect either

You gotta E. A. R. N each and every single one of it

Republicans or Democrats it does not matter - you just ain't gonna be respected if you prefer to act like a motherfucking idiot

Re:Respect has to be E. A. R. N. E. D.

[reboot246]

That's basically what we were taught. You grant courtesy to everyone automatically, but not your respect. That has to be earned. Otherwise you'd be respecting some people who don't deserve it.

Re:Respect has to be E. A. R. N. E. D.

[Anonymous Coward]

That's basically what we were taught. You grant courtesy to everyone automatically, but not your respect. That has to be earned. Otherwise you'd be respecting some people who don't deserve it.

Well, yes, that sure sounds horrible.

I'm just gonna throw this out here

[rsilvergun]

but wouldn't the solution be to just give them homes to live in? I mean, we're the wealthiest country on plant earth. This shouldn't be a problem.

Re: I'm just gonna throw this out here

[Anonymous Coward]

I'm for this. Find some huge area of vacant land in the middle of nowhere, many miles away from downtown, and build hundreds of tiny homes there. We can even send weekly shipments of food and necessities.

Re:I'm just gonna throw this out here

[Anonymous Coward]

S.F. to see $99 million budget deficit next year, as pension costs soar
The US Debt Just Exceeded $19 Trillion.
Household debt at highest level since 2010
Student debt load growing, so are delinquencies

The people that taught you we're wealthy are idiots. Stop listening to idiots.

Re:I'm just gonna throw this out here

[Anonymous Coward]

A better solution would be to grind them into dogfood. At least they'd finally be useful.

Re: I'm just gonna throw this out here

[im_thatoneguy]

No, because someone who is barely aware of their surroundings doesn't need a home they won't realize is theirs, they need to be institutionalized and forced into treatment. My friend's family's greatest fear when he had a mental break was that they wouldn't get a court order before he just ran out into the street never to be seen again. He's now on medication, engaged and living a perfect normal happy life, but when he thought he could fly and was barely aware of his surroundings he had no desire to stay or even consciousness of what wad real let alone what was best.

Re:I'm just gonna throw this out here

[Ingenium13]

It's been tried in SF. If my memory is correct, the city spends around $60,000 per homeless person per year trying to help them (the current year's homeless budget is $241 million http://www.sfchronicle.com/bay...). In many cases, when they were simply given homes they then proceeded to trash them and make them uninhabitable (ie condemned). They were then back on the street again, and more money had to be spent making the home liveable again.

The issue is that the homeless in SF are either mentally ill, addicts, or both. You can give them homes, but if you don't treat the underlying issue you're just throwing the money (and homes) away. But when treatment is a requirement for housing, they walk away and go back to living on the street. So what's the solution?

Many of the people simply don't want help and would rather live on the street. Just the other week, one homeless guy who camps in the doorway of my building drank all day until he passed out. An ambulance was called, he fought them, but they ended up restraining him and taking him to the hospital. Two days later he was back again. The following day he was again passed out and unresponsive in the street, and the ambulance came again. Repeat a few days later. It happens a few times a week with several people, and this is just in front of my building across the bridge in the Oakland/Berkeley area. San Francisco is worse. I can't count the number of times I've seen people shooting up. So do you force these people into rehab? Arrest them? What's the solution? Simply giving them a home won't work.

Re:I'm just gonna throw this out here

[LynnwoodRooster]

San Francisco has done just that, moving nearly 12,000 into free housing. Problem is, they still have the same number of homeless. And now the expense and burden of free housing for 12,000 people.

Re:I'm just gonna throw this out here

[Anonymous Coward]

There's nothing stopping you from opening your home, or donating your time and money to worthwhile organizations that share your goals. You're more than welcome to give speeches, hold fundraisers, and otherwise ask for help with your noble endeavors. I draw the line at you forcing me to participate (generally via getting new taxes passed, increasing bureaucracy, etc.). You don't know my needs, you don't get to decide what I should be happy with and what's good enough.

http://www.census.gov/prod/2012pubs/p60-243.pdf

Having a hard time doing this on mobile, and generally sorry for linking to FB, but you can check the gov't citations.

https://m.facebook.com/story.php?story_fbid=470279529824714&substory_index=0&id=123061011213236&__tn__=%2As

Re:I'm just gonna throw this out here

[Anonymous Coward]

Although inconceivable to most, for a significant number of the homeless it is simply a preferred alternative lifestyle. They like it. Relatively low stress, a lot of freedom to do whatever you want, no schedule to keep. There are plenty of services available when they want them. They are not starving to death like a begger in the 18th century would. Most I have seen could stand to drop a few pounds.

Re:I'm just gonna throw this out here

[Gussington]

So do you force these people into rehab? Arrest them? What's the solution? Simply giving them a home won't work.

Treat them. It's a medical condition that needs treating, and sometimes that treatment involves incarceration in a medical facility where access to harmful things can be controlled.
But unfortunately for Americans, this means some sort of socialised medical system. Since that is only for communists, you'll be free to enjoy the aromas of homeless excrement in their public areas instead. That's freedom at work right there...

Re:I'm just gonna throw this out here

[KGIII]

... when they were simply given homes they then proceeded to trash them and make them uninhabitable (ie condemned).

That's brilliant. SF got their money back in spades. (And no, I don't mean black people! Sheesh.)

Seriously, think about it... SF has a housing crisis and the property is *very* valuable. Give it to the homeless, they trash it, it can be sold to a developer, and that process can then repeat. How many of them were in one contiguous area? I'm not kidding. Do you have access to a map? Someone might be pissy if they find you looking for a map.

Go look at a map and see if they filled up large areas.

The best part (for them) about it is if they didn't trash their houses, they could just say it was trashed and who's going to believe the crazy homeless guy vs. the guy on the Inspection Board?

Then go look and see who was related to who, probably not too close but an in-law or something, to whom and what people had a new BMW or their kids made it into an expensive college or whatnot...

Nope. It wouldn't surprise me one bit. Not even a little. Obviously, that could be entirely innocent and unplanned and nobody took advantage of the situation. Or, alternatively, they could be government officials and human. I'd definitely be looking into that, even if just for amusement/curiosity. I don't suppose you know anyone in the media or feel like doing some leg work and potentially ending up (in)famous?

Someone up above used the number '12,000' people when they referenced those who were being homed. They then indicated that the same number of people are now homeless. It didn't dawn on me until I read your post. Then I realized the potential. This, obviously, isn't even a "hunch" or anything. This is just a wild-ass guess and entirely speculation. The entire process could be squeaky clean or dirty as a rig left on the pavement behind the dumpster.

Re:I'm just gonna throw this out here

[KGIII]

And I missed the continue editing button. Sorry 'bout that. Hopefully you can figure out where I should have closed the quote. ;-) Also, it appears that someone below your post has repeated the 12000 number. I'd seriously consider looking into that. That's awfully convenient and I understand that they're government has had some accusations of corruption in the past.

Re:I'm just gonna throw this out here

[Razed By TV]

Many of the people simply don't want help and would rather live on the street.

Maybe homeless people don't want to be told what to do.

"Want X? Well, then you have to do Y. You don't want to do Y? Then I get to say that you don't want to cooperate, that I can't help you, and then I can throw my hands in the air in mock exasperation."

Re:I'm just gonna throw this out here

[john.r.strohm]

From TFA: "A Facebook DM from a city economic development worker named Ellyn Parker (unsanctioned by City Hall, she says) struck him as more sincere. They met on the roof of Soma Grand while Parker explained the web of nonprofits and city departments that spends $241 million a year on the city’s more than 6,000 homeless residents, a population count that has stayed nearly unchanged for 25 years. “He was in education and humbling mode,” Parker says. She suggested that maybe he could create a database to track each homeless person as they get services from various entities. Maybe he could help a nonprofit that was getting evicted."

(/ 241e6 6e3)
40166.666666666664

So it's only about $40K/year per homeless person. Assuming 2000 hours per year for full-time employment, that's $20/hour. And, since the homeless population has stayed unchanged for 25 years, whatever they're doing with that quarter of a billion dollars per year ISN'T WORKING.

Meanwhile, the Devil's Advocate is screaming "AUDIT! AUDIT! FIND OUT WHERE THE MONEY REALLY WENT!!!" and wrestling me for the keyboard.

Re:I'm just gonna throw this out here

[Anonymous Coward]

40 cal? 40 whole inches? That's like WWII battleship level!

Re:I'm just gonna throw this out here

[Anonymous Coward]

> So what's the solution?
Euthanasia.

Re:I'm just gonna throw this out here

[Plus1Entropy]

The problem is that the wealth is held by so few. The pie gets bigger, but only so many people get a decent slice.

Helium is the second most abundant element, so why is it so expensive and rare? Because it's all in the Sun.

Re:I'm just gonna throw this out here

[Anonymous Coward]

Shoot them and end the fucking misery! But no, becsue PC SJW scum demand those poor lunatics keep suffering so they (SJW scum) can bang their SJW drum and feel all warm and fuzzy abut it.

Fuck you SJW! You are sadist fuckers and worst than any fascist ever.

Re:I'm just gonna throw this out here

[Anonymous Coward]

> Many of the people simply don't want help and would rather live on the street.

Often these are those with severe mental illnesses or issues such as PTSD. People that fall into this categories need additional support other than just a home, as you point out.

> Just the other week, one homeless guy who camps in the doorway of my building drank all day until he passed out

You're probably describing someone with mental illness. Sometimes those with mental illness use alcohol to dull things as a form of self-medication, although it's obviously not a good strategy.

Re:I'm just gonna throw this out here

[Anonymous Coward]

First problem is where to place the homes? They want to live downtown and not forced to live in some remote part of the bay away from the rest of civilization. They need access to benefits offices, veterans hospitals, medical centers and other services like supermarkets.

So that would restrict the options to somewhere in the city. Residents in working areas will object due to the effect on house prices and safety.

Placing them in wooden structure homes just causes problems; they'll fall asleep while smoking a cigarette, and set fire to themselves and their home. Maybe they will leave a gas or electric cooker on and then burn their food and start a fire that way. Or run a bath and forget to turn the water off. Either way, the place gets trashed.

Re:I'm just gonna throw this out here

[Anonymous Coward]

I work my ass off (50 - 70 hours a week). Are you saying I can quit my job, shit in the street, and at that point I should simply be give everything I work for today?

Sounds like a great deal, but when people like me get tired of working our asses off and having a sizable portion of our earnings ripped out of our hands to make it happen when we could just as easily not work and live (apparently) the same life, you're going to run very low on people paying into this scheme and have a long line of people seeking to benefit from it.

Re:I'm just gonna throw this out here

[Rob Lister]

If you subsidize it, it will grow.

Re:I'm just gonna throw this out here

[tomhath]

But unfortunately for Americans, this means some sort of socialised medical system.

Wrong and you know it. Treatment is available for people who seek it. The problem is that unless a person is a danger to themself or someone else, the law forbids forced treatment of any kind. Just being homeless whackos walking around on the street is not grounds to incarcerate them.

Re:I'm just gonna throw this out here

[ChrisMaple]

There's a huge difference between taking care of the truly mentally defective and providing taxpayer funded hospitalization for a skier who jumps off cliffs because "Hey, I don't have to pay." When people are allowed not to bear the consequences of their actions they will act irresponsibly; that's the basis of communism and it should be minimized.

Re:I'm just gonna throw this out here

[Anonymous Coward]

You have a perfectly good island in the bay that is not used for much ;-)

If they manage to get of the island, they are ready to rejoin the city.

Posting AC for obvious reasons...

Re: I'm just gonna throw this out here

[cyber-vandal]

So much wrong in one short paragraph.

Re:I'm just gonna throw this out here

[Anonymous Coward]

If they were arrested for shooting up yes that would be a terrific solution. The cost of jailing a prisoner per year in california is $47,000 - that's a lot of money but it's a savings over $60,000 and it would mean that normal people in SF won't risk getting mugged or stepping on used hypodermic needles.

probably wouldn't even need to put them all in prison - once the word got out the rest would leave.

Re:I'm just gonna throw this out here

[Anonymous Coward]

The problem is that the ambulance came. Also, that he passed out before finishing the job. When actions have consequences, Darwin eliminates the degenerates.

Re:I'm just gonna throw this out here

[Gussington]

Wrong and you know it. Treatment is available for people who seek it.

Unless you're a nutcase and a not aware you have a problem. Or you do, but you have no money to get it fixed.

The problem is that unless a person is a danger to themself or someone else, the law forbids forced treatment of any kind. Just being homeless whackos walking around on the street is not grounds to incarcerate them.

How do they get to be homeless whackos in the first place? A lot of these issue can be identified before they get to this stage, if you have easily available social and medical services.

Re:I'm just gonna throw this out here

[Gussington]

There's a huge difference between taking care of the truly mentally defective and providing taxpayer funded hospitalization for a skier who jumps off cliffs because "Hey, I don't have to pay." When people are allowed not to bear the consequences of their actions they will act irresponsibly; that's the basis of communism and it should be minimized.

Why?

Re:I'm just gonna throw this out here

[HeadSoft]

They should learn to live off the land, we can send them to Alaska. That's how our ancestors did it if they were homeless. There's no excuse to debase yourself and become a panhandler.

Re:I'm just gonna throw this out here

[Anonymous Coward]

San Francisco, like other cities with great benefits for homeless people and mild weather, is a destination for homeless people. Just ask any homeless person in SF how they ended up in SF.

Re: I'm just gonna throw this out here

[allston]

This is what needs to be done, we as a society must take care of those who cannot take care of themselves.

I read this and I find myself screaming BS

[Crashmarik]

The whole article reads like a package dropped from a PR firm with the sole purpose of rehabbing this guys rep.

Call me when it runs in the Sacramento Bee or any paper that actually verifies what they print.

Re:I read this and I find myself screaming BS

[Anonymous Coward]

...and it reads like it was written by a teenager.
Yet as he now passed the homeless on his daily walk to the office, a growing sense of #WTF set in. One morning, a bedraggled lady had kicked him in the shin. Another time, a guy had flashed him a fistful of heroin needles, which really grossed him out.

OMG, WTF LOL, gag me with a spoon

Re:I read this and I find myself screaming BS

[Anonymous Coward]

> The whole article reads like a package dropped from a PR firm with the sole purpose of rehabbing this guys rep.

which is odd, because it made me want to fly half way around the world just so i, too, could kick this guy in the apps and try to convince him that you can't app the homeless problem with apps.

APPS!

Re:I read this and I find myself screaming BS

[Anonymous Coward]

I don't know if you can app the homeless but you might be able to app the regular homeless. Most of the homeless aren't homeless for a very long time. Well, I'm sure it seems long to them. However, they might be served with some kind of app - assuming it was something they had access to and that it did something useful - like buy them dinner and some clothing and, I don't know, maybe affordable housing until they got on their feet again?

It won't do anything for the chronically homeless. Most of the chronically homeless have extenuating circumstances that makes them difficult to house - often by choice and sometimes because of a chemical imbalance in their brain. They're ill and we can't house them by force. The chronically homeless? Nope... They'll eat the phone, pawn it for drugs, eat a bunch of Zanax or some other barb and drink - while they'll in the hole they'll lose it - every day and every time, until their check runs out. Then they'll panhandle for a while and do it but they'll probably be sick (they're addicted and withdrawals do this) and only score a few times a week until they get their check again.

That's pretty common. Go party with a few of 'em some time. It's a blast. Some of them are pretty clean. They're just addicts and a little crazy. Mostly harmless, unless they're sick. They're deluded for part of the time and they don't remember it. We give 'em a script of 60 to 120 Xany bars per month. They sell for a buck a pop, maybe two. They're bars, usually. 10 mg and will knock your dick in the dirt if you eat a big hand full of them and drink. Don't mix it with shooting dope, that's how you die. By the way, Bars and Alcohol are some of the few substances where withdrawal can actually kill you, heroin/opiates can too.

I've never been a big fan of the bars but I've fallen into the hole a couple of times. It's a bit like the k-hole but that probably doesn't give you a good reference. I'm told I once went shopping (this was years and years and years ago - I was, fortunately, kind of poor at the time) and I'd eaten some Xanies and drank. My idea was that I was going to lose weight, you never want to eat what's in the house, and I was going to buy one of everything.

I did not buy it all but I bought a lot, brought it home, and alphabetized all of it, went to sleep, and woke up the following morning with no recollection of the previous night. Sometimes, they wake up with blood on their shirt and the first question they ask is whose blood is it? I imagine that's kind of scary when you wake up and you're in jail - it happens, regularly.

Seriously, go party with 'em sometime. You'll have a blast and you can buy the beer. And drugs... And they *always* know where to score the best of the best, believe it or not. Usually, at pretty good prices. They'll appreciate it more than they will a few bucks, a shower, and a meal. They're having a hell of a good time, part of the time. It looks like it might almost be a fun life but it's rough on the body.

Yes, yes I have gone and partied with the homeless in strange cities. You're in a hotel room, in a city you're stuck in for a month, and you've got nothing better to do. Leave all your valuable shit (not all but most of it) back at the hotel lobby and then give the person at the lobby your key. That way you have to go to the lobby to get it back and they know you've left. Go get trashed with the homeless in the park, out behind the warehouses, or wherever. Do *not* take them back to your hotel room, male or female and even if it's just to party. It might seem like a good idea at the time, it's not nearly as amusing as you might think. Bring a bottle and a 12 pack with you and go hang out in the tent park. Some of them have some interesting stories and are interesting people.

I think I'm gonna post this as an AC. Dunno why but it seems the thing to do. Meh, it's better than farming for cheap karma and then I needn't proofread it.

Re:I read this and I find myself screaming BS

[speedplane]

While I agree that content of the article was relatively contrite, it was a worthwhile read. It's a telling story of hubris, family money, and youthful inexperience that leads to inflated egos and eventually a painful public downfall. The tie-in with the tech world made it timely and relevant. You don't walk away thinking Mr. Gopman is a good person, only a person. Overall a good story.

Re:I read this and I find myself screaming BS

[thegarbz]

any paper that actually verifies what they print.

Why not just come out and say "don't call me ever". :-)

Re:I read this and I find myself screaming BS

[Dogtanian]

The whole article reads like a package dropped from a PR firm with the sole purpose of rehabbing this guys rep.

And yet still the article failed to convince me at any point (#)- in fact, failed to even sound like it was *trying* to convince me- that he was actually doing any of this out of any real sincerity and concern (even if such empathy had only been provoked as a result of being hauled over the coals or having to rethink his position) rather than simply as a personal, egocentric response to the damage to his reputation.

(#) Well, okay. I'll admit that I eventually got to a "tl;dr" point somewhere after halfway through, when I realised it was boring us with narcissistic details about what he was doing without ever giving us a reason why we should care about that in the first place. That was probably more than this excessively longwinded article deserved.

Re:He forgot the rule #1 of dealing with millenial

[Anonymous Coward]

Don't haze me, bro!

How't the lawsuit against this turd doing, anyway?

[Anonymous Coward]

Y'know... this one: http://valleywag.gawker.com/homeless-hater-greg-gopman-sued-for-abusing-funds-and-t-1530897282?

Tame compared to this asshole.

[Anonymous Coward]

The most obvious comparison is to Monty Burns in The Simpsons. I mean, he seriously was complaining about having this ultra-privileged life of attending "Kabuki Theatre", when the rabble interrupt his perfect life. You can almost hear him say "release the hounds!".

https://justink.svbtle.com/open-letter-to-mayor-ed-lee-and-greg-suhr-police-chief

Seattle has the same issue

[Anonymous Coward]

The homeless problem is out of control. How to fix it, I don't know. These people don't want help. They don't want to get back on their feet. The vasy majority do whatever they want, whenever they want, while basically living wherever they feel like with no desire to integrate with society. A line has to be drawn somewhere. If they want to live freely off the land I'm totally fine with that, but not in crowded areas of downtown. Send them to the middle of nowhere 100 miles east where they won't be bothering anyone.

Re: Seattle has the same issue

[Anonymous Coward]

The vast majority of homeless people are mentally ill.

Privileged reaganites and President Reagan himself pretty much destroyed mental health facilities serving lower income populations in the United States.

Most of the complaints I see about homelessness are from the same kind of privileged assholes who destroyed the infrastructure for dealing with it 30 years ago. Their complaints usually consist of "I don't like looking at these people, why don't they just disappear?"

These are the kinds of people who play the fiddle while the city burns. They, not homeless people, are the real problem here.

Re:Seattle has the same issue

[__aaclcg7560]

Send them to the middle of nowhere 100 miles east where they won't be bothering anyone.

Send them back to Las Vegas!

For years, the Las Vegas Rawson-Neal Psychiatric Hospital, Nevada's primary state mental facility, gave discharged patients a bus ticket out of town. Poor and mentally ill, they ended up homeless in cities around the country—especially in California, where more than 500 psychiatric patients were sent over a five year period.

http://www.motherjones.com/mojo/2015/10/nevada-settles-busing-homeless-lawsuit-san-francisco/

Re: Seattle has the same issue

[Anonymous Coward]

I agree with you on the mental health part, a lot of these people are definitely certifiably insane, while the minority are threats to the community.

I disagree with you on the privileged asshole part.

Perhaps we need to invest in mental health faciliies again. We're already paying a hefty fee to have emergency services dealing with yet another issue created by a homeless person almost every day.

Re: Seattle has the same issue

[_Sharp'r_]

President Reagan himself pretty much destroyed mental health facilities serving lower income populations in the United States.

This is a relatively common left-wing urban myth. The ACLU is still proud of ensuring the involuntarily committed were released out of the "institutions". That was in the 60s and 70s, before Reagan was President. You can't blame him for being governor of CA, either, as the number of patients in State mental hospitals went from 37,500 to 22,000 in the years before he took office.

So go complain to the left-wing ACLU and the academic psychiatrists who influenced the courts and the bureaucracy in the 60s and 70s to get them all out of mental hospitals, rather than simply assigning blame to people you don't like something they weren't responsible for.

Next you'll be telling us about how the right-wing is governing San Francisco into the group, despite Democrat-led City, County, State and Federal administrations....

Re: Seattle has the same issue

[x0ra]

Whining about mental facilities closing down won't fix shit. On which ground would you detain these folks ?

Re: Seattle has the same issue

[dabadab]

The ACLU is still proud of ensuring the involuntarily committed were released out of the "institutions".

And is rightfully so.
See, you can actually run a mental health program without practically jailing people as it is evident in many places in the world.

Re: Seattle has the same issue

[Anonymous Coward]

And is rightfully so.

That's the fun thing about the crazies.

They don't think they're crazy.

Re: Seattle has the same issue

[HuguesT]

On the ground that they are a danger to themselves and others ?

Re: Seattle has the same issue

[ooloorie]

See, you can actually run a mental health program without practically jailing people as it is evident in many places in the world.

Really? Like where?

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/...

AFAIK, the US has some of the strongest restrictions on involuntary commitment in the world.

Re: Seattle has the same issue

[x0ra]

This is not a pre-crime society, or at least, isn't meant to be one. Moreover, my life is mine, if I want to be a danger to myself, screw you and your pro-life values.

Re: Seattle has the same issue

[Anonymous Coward]

No, it's just history, keep up the reality distortion field, bro!

http://www.salon.com/2013/09/29/ronald_reagans_shameful_legacy_violence_the_homeless_mental_illness/

Re:Seattle has the same issue

[HornWumpus]

Send them to the middle of nowhere 100 miles east where they won't be bothering anyone.

Stockton? They will just get on the bus or hitchhike back.

Send the to Salt Lake City. So they fear the cops and getting caught.

Re: Seattle has the same issue

[Anonymous Coward]

For a primer on the issues with mental health care in the 60s and 70s, read up on the Rosenhan Experiment sometime.

Bottom line is, there was no notion of "scientific validity" in mental health diagnosis - no criteria to meet, no tests to pass, and most definitely no notion of "reproducible diagnosis". You were institutionalized because some doctor, somewhere, thought you should be, period. There was no appeal, and no realistic mechanism for review or release.

Re: Seattle has the same issue

[_Sharp'r_]

You didn't even read your own article, did you?

Other than an unsubstantiated opinion Reagan didn't understand mental illness and stating some funding was given to the States to spend as block grants, 90% of the article was about all the unrelated-to-Reagan causes, predating his election in both California and the USA. So your own article doesn't even agree with your position.

Look, I cited the ACLU and the NY Times on purpose, so that even a lefty couldn't say it was all according to some right-wing source. Try and find some facts, rather than someone's editorial opinion in Salon decades after it happened.

Re: Seattle has the same issue

[Anonymous Coward]

Is it rightful when someone "gets out" then takes lives of others? Why is there life worth more than many others? What is the break even point of people release vs. people released and then deprive the rights of others to even more basic freedoms?

I expect the break-even point of any replies to be defined as a qualitative metric that can be verified, validated, and enforced as these qualities are necessary to be unarguably applicable to a population. If it can't be defined, I think the questionability of the ACLU releasing people needs a better definition before we release people an vaguer grounds.

Re: Seattle has the same issue

[david_thornley]

left-wing ACLU

Left-wing? We are talking about the organization that stood up for the right of neo-Nazis to march through a Jewish neighborhood. Also, if it's left-wing to want to enforce and protect constitutional rights, exactly what is the right wing doing?

Re: Seattle has the same issue

[anti-disney]

It seems like a broad brush to paint all people who are mentally ill as a threat to society. Most of the mentally ill are more likely to be the victim of a violent crime than the one committing a violent crime. If we had institutionalization today how do we define someone who is mentally ill? There are some people who are diagnosed with a mental illness who are contributing to society and able to live independently. There are a lot of people who have been successfully treated with medications and other techniques who actively contribute to society. I agree that something needs to be done about people who live on the streets who suffer from a mental illness who are unwilling to get help or unwilling to continue treatment including faithfully taking medications and other treatments. They are in a position where they are unable to take care of themselves but a lot of other mentally ill people are able to take care of themselves and function in society. This reminds me of a classmate I had in grade school in the early 80s. Her parents were repeatedly told by educators that their daughter had a mental illness and should be institutionalized. Her parents were opposed to having her institutionalized and had to fight the school district to allow her to attend school. This student had difficulties socializing but had a normal IQ and she was capable of learning and taking care of herself. Because she was diagnosed and considered to not be normal, educators wanted to remove her from their school. Her parents not only had to endure educators who felt their daughter should be in an institution but also harassment and even physical attacks their daughter had to endure while attending school. There are mentally ill people who are able to take care of themselves and even more can be productive members of society if they are treated and are willing to continue their treatment such as taking medications daily. I would hate to see people be institutionalized because they have been diagnosed with a mental illness without any determination if they are truly unable to function in society.

Re: Seattle has the same issue

[anti-disney]

How do you define a threat to themselves or others. There are many mentally ill people who are not a threat to themselves or others. Do we institutionalize everyone diagnosed with a mental illness even though you can have two people diagnosed with an illness like schizophrenia where one person is potentially a threat to themselves or others while the other person isn't a threat at all. With treatment a lot of mentally ill people are able to function in society and are not a threat to anyone.

Degenerates

[Anonymous Coward]

So when did "degenerate" mean "homeless"? I've been to SF twice in the past few years for GDC and I gotta say I've seen plenty of degenerates that don't appear to be homeless. We knew to stay out of the tenderloin but some hipster devs were holding a party thing there for Firewatch, I think. We had to go a few blocks into the tenderloin and saw literal shit, human feces, on the sidewalk. Even outside of the tenderloin it's no better. I was on the BART to go to Moscone from the Sunset district where we were staying with a local and this older white guy in some stupid hemp tribal outfit gets on the train with his little yappy dog in one of those soft carriers, and proceeds to kick the poor thing under the seat. I'm glad my business partner didn't see it happen because he would have knocked the guy's teeth out. One of my friends who was also going witnessed a guy have his phone stolen right from his hands one one of the main streets. When the guy chased the thief into an alley the thief's friends showed up and mugged him.

The food is great, but other than that SF is a shithole.

Re:Degenerates

[Xochil]

There are no BART lines in the western part of SF (Sunset, Richmond, etc.), so taking BART from the Sunset to Moscone is not possible.

Re:Degenerates

[Anonymous Coward]

He probably meant Muni, even smellier. The BART/Muni distinction is something that confuses tourists.

hard to sympathize

[Anonymous Coward]

those pissing all over people as they walk by hardly deserve it.

Re:hard to sympathize

[Anonymous Coward]

The next time you see a bum in SF, the ones with their cup out and flopped on the sidewalk, go over and just start pissing in his cup. Get that shit on video. POV. Walk over, whip it out, and just let a stream go right in the cup. Bonus points if you don't miss a drop and it all goes in the cup. Video required.

Imma post this AC too.

no, please don't

[Anonymous Coward]

Stay there. Stay in CA please. The weather is wonderful! Why leave?

Please don't.

Manufactured controversy

[wait_a_little]

"Instead, the entire city turned against him."

For what reason? He didn't say anything out of line. Degenerates who shit up the place shouldn't be tolerated.

Re: Manufactured controversy

[Anonymous Coward]

To manufactured triumph. Hear hear.

Re:Manufactured controversy

[x0ra]

SJW need targets to spur their hatred...

The U.S. Supreme Court closed all the hospitals.

[Anonymous Coward]

California voters will elect another Ronald Reagan for governor and close the mental hospitals again because it's socialism to provide for the less fortunate.

The U.S. Supreme Court closed all the hospitals.

Ronald Reagan closed the actual facilities, but the U.S. Supreme Court emptied them first.

When the NY ACLU, aided by the Church of Scientology, made it illegal to forcibly treat the mental ill, and gave them the right to refuse treatment, and sit in Golden Gate Park, and self-medicate with Heroin, if those chose that course of action instead.

Personally, having worked with chronically mentally ill people, if I were in charge, I'd be involuntarily giving them lithium norplant-style implants so that they'd *have no choice* but to stay on their medication.

Re:SF is the worst

[Anonymous Coward]

I just spent the last week in SF for work. I'm coming from Europe, the shittiest places in SF are FAR FAR worse than the worst in Europe.
Obviously, you don't have a clue. In just a week in SF, I had the opportunity to see:
1) guy barking on the streets and behaving like a dog
2) woman tazing a guy in the streets
3) guy pissing himself while standing
4) people yelling and screaming at each other
5) people spitting to the floor
6) naked guy running around .. and what's up with the dress code???

SF is filled with idiots

[rossz]

They block new housing development, so there is a shortage. Then they throw a fit because rent keeps going up. Even if there wasn't a tech boom, this is the expected result when you strangle the supply. Have they stopped teaching basic economics in our schools?

Re:SF is filled with idiots

[PapayaSF]

They block new housing development, so there is a shortage. Then they throw a fit because rent keeps going up. Even if there wasn't a tech boom, this is the expected result when you strangle the supply. Have they stopped teaching basic economics in our schools?

"Politics is the mindkiller." There are a lot of bright people here, but the politics is left-wing to the point of idiocy. We also finance what local wags call the "homeless-industrial complex" to the tune of $150-$200 million a year, and wonder why the problem never seems to get any better.

Re:SF is filled with idiots

[Anonymous Coward]

Economics? That sounds like something that dead white guys used as an excuse to keep the black man in chains.

  We are too diverse for your white privilege economics and your racist "supply and demand" keepin' us down!

Re:SF is filled with idiots

[ooloorie]

Have they stopped teaching basic economics in our schools?

Did they ever teach basic economics?

title reference?

[Anonymous Coward]

is the title a reference pub to the "don't taze me, bro" meme?

Re: title reference?

[Anonymous Coward]

No, the title is a reference to how SJWs use "male" words like "man" and "bro" as pejorative terms.

Re:The U.S. Supreme Court closed all the hospitals

[__aaclcg7560]

The U.S. Supreme Court closed all the hospitals.

I could only find one Supreme Court citation. That case restricted the states from locking up a non-dangerous person for no good reason. That's not the same as the Supreme Court ruling to close down the hospitals.

O'Connor v. Donaldson, 422 U.S. 563 (1975), was a landmark decision in mental health law. The United States Supreme Court ruled that a state cannot constitutionally confine a non-dangerous individual who is capable of surviving safely in freedom by themselves or with the help of willing and responsible family members or friends. Since the trial court jury found, upon ample evidence, that petitioner did so confine respondent, the Supreme Court upheld the trial court's conclusion that petitioner had violated respondent's right to liberty.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/O'Connor_v._Donaldson

I want 45 min of my life back

[oshkrozz]

I read the article looking for some form of redemption but found none ...
I will summarize for you so you can save your self.
Guy who feels he knows better then everyone went on a rant since he didn't like the "others" dirtying his beloved place with their presence without ever interacting with them. Most people were outraged his name went through the mud and he was shunned for his views. He then decided it was time to show he knew better then everyone and failed totally and completely and befriends a token homeless guy. Now he is back at work someplace irrelevant, yet still has done nothing to show he learned to respect their plight and ends with how everyone else is wrong (ie the people he (*&^%$^ elected to run the place) he is right if only people would listen.... sounds like the same guy to me, I was looking for something he did that worked, something he did that made a difference and found just a fluff piece.

Re:I want 45 min of my life back

[Anonymous Coward]

Slow reader, I see. Or maybe a slow writer...LOL

Re:I want 45 min of my life back

[speedplane]

There is some redemption in this story: A young man comes to a new land believing he can make something of himself, he fails, tries to make up for his misdeeds but fails again. While I don't admire Mr. Gopman, there is something classically human about his condition. We can all learn from his story.

This!

[Anonymous Coward]

GP makes it sound like the only way to discuss problems is by being a douchebag, and that the only reason this guy was chastised was that he mentioned the problem. Fact is, the guy behaved like an asshole. I walk down that same street every day I work in the office. Once a week I buy a homeless person lunch (sometimes more, but as a rule once a week). I don't give them money, I buy them big ole Oasis Gyro.

I always wonder if I will ever crack under the pressure. If I do, I sure as hell would not want to be the target for some rich prick who can't see beyond their own ego.

Re:This!

[x0ra]

Being a douchebag is generally what to end up being when you dare look at this other dark side of the liberal distropia, and dare speak it loud. If you consider that calling a hobo a hobo is being asshole, then I'm fine with it.

Re:This!

[Anonymous Coward]

Hey! Hobos had a work ethic - they travelled the country looking for work, then moving on.
You're thinking about the Bums, those damned freaks.

Re:SF is the worst

[KGIII]

Bullshit... You've got places in France that the cops won't even go into, for one example. I need only one to nullify your statement but I can come up with more. Hell, there are whole countries that are, at least as average, worse that SF. Hungary, Romania, etc...

But nah, keep up with the silliness while it all crumbles and you argue over meaningless things rather than working towards improving things.

Shit, my home state has a lower rate of violent crime, homelessness, and quite possibly even gun-crime than just your home city does in Europe but that's a topic for another day. San Fransisco sucks but it's nowhere near as bad as La Courneuve, Amiens, etc... Hell, they're convinced that there's ethnic cleansing in Denmark (I've my doubts about that one - I've not been for a while) and head back down to Marseilles (I think I spelled that wrong) and parts of that are worse than Detroit.

Stop ignoring facts!

[Anonymous Coward]

The guy being discussed thought he was a hot-shot. He wanted to be one of the big voices in the city, one of the guys that everyone looked to for his brilliant words. Well, his words were not so brilliant and his breath smelled like foot.

Most people do have tolerance and are willing to forgive people, because most people are not out running their mouths assuming they are better than everyone else. When you jump on the podium, the rules change. Sorry, but that is the price of fame. He got what he wanted, but negative fame instead of positive.

What does the guy do to repent? He tries to start companies LOUDLY. Good grief, if he went to Oracle and let the dirt settle it would have blown over. No, he has to run around yelling about how he's going to save the city by saving all the people he had just shat on.

Keep all of the facts in the discussion. Dickhead.

Re:Stop ignoring facts!

[Anonymous Coward]

Fuck you, you self-righteous fundamentalist shitlord, for demanding that he "repent" for frankly stating the truth.

Don't haze me bro

[JoeyRox]

Thanks.

Re:Don't haze me bro

[Lotus456]

Came here to make the same joke, you beat me to it! :)

Side note: how is this incident a "hazing?" I don't think that word means what they think it means...

Re:God forbid anyone be responsible for themselves

[squiggleslash]

Whether what he said was right or not, using language usually associated with Nazi propaganda like "degenerates" is probably the wrong way to go about it. Also the entire thing comes across as victim blaming.

Re:He forgot the rule #1 of dealing with millenial

[x0ra]

Screw millennials, they need a crash course into real life...

Re:SF is the worst

[x0ra]

There is a difference between a place where cops don't go because of crime, and mentally ill people shitting on the streets... A criminal is still more sane than the crazy hobo, and thus relatively predictable, whereas the hobo...

Re:SF is the worst

[MightyMartian]

You sure that wasn't my last staff party?

Re:SF is the worst

[x0ra]

I have probably traveled more than you have, so please stop the condescending comment. I grew up in the vicinity of the places you're talking about, so you should just STFU...

Re:SF is the worst

[KGIII]

Not even close and the funny thing is that inside of two weeks you'll be repeating the same thing I'm saying once you realize what you can imply with it. You're a daft child, aren't you? See, I read more of your commentary throughout the thread. I'll give you something fun and you can turn it around to help your side of the argument with the other people. The areas that are no-go are, more often then not, predominantly ethnically Muslim.

And if you think riots on the street are better than shit, you're an idiot. If you think someone shitting on the street is better than a place where sanitation services does not go, emergency services sometimes refuses to go, PLUS the shit on the street, is somehow better than the shit on the streets of SF then you're even less intelligent than you've so far displayed.

Do you really think these people, the ones on the streets rioting or the ones who keep even the police at bay are sane or something? Do you think they're less mentally ill than those in San Fransisco?

And no, you've not traveled for shit. I, on the other hand, have even gone so far as to post pics of me in varied places and to have posted pics I've taken in various places and - while traveling, even interacted with a few people from Slashdot in the real world. I'm not condescending, you're just sorely misinformed and horribly inexperienced. In fact, you're dismissed.

I rather deal with homeless than corporative scum

[Anonymous Coward]

spit urinate and taunt are nicer features than sell people's data or give it to the government

Re:SF is the worst

[x0ra]

If you were understanding my actual stance, I clearly state that the situation in some part of SF is clearly worse than the situation in Paris' suburbs.

Re:SF is the worst

[x0ra]

Oh, and by the way, while I'm a pretty selfish prick, I'm not so self-centered as to have picture of me in "places", and brag about it. And I don't really care about /. reader either, their demographic is not the one I'm interested in when I travel. If I want to discuss with such "nerds" (between quotes, as most are more script-kiddy millennials than hardcore nerds) from all over the world, I save the jet fuel and directly go to 4chan.

That title gave me cancer

[rebelwarlock]

Can we stop pretending that anyone who writes like this should be taken seriously?

"Job Creator" opens mouth...

[d'baba]

Reviled and suddenly unemployable, Gopman spent a quixotic year spinning up businesses to solve homelessness. His journey is weirdly emblematic of today's startup-fueled San Francisco.

"quixotic", "solve Homlessness". No bias here.

Poor people and homelessness isn't a bug of capitalism. It is a feature.

Re: SF is the worst

[dunkelfalke]

Eh? I just returned from a 1 week business trip in Romania. Except for stray dogs and garbage littered roadsides it was okay. Then again i skipped Bucharest, but I've been in Sibiu, Vatra Dornei, Craiova...

Naive but well-meaning

[bradley13]

I don't know about SF, but in most cities there are plenty of charities and shelters, almost no one has to be homeless.

The problem with handing someone a free apartment is: the place will be trashed and then abandoned. They will pee in the corners, set fire to the kitchen, leave the windows open in the rain, and then wander off to the bridge they used to live under.

They aren't capable of living independently in a home. Some of them don't even want to.

Re:Naive but well-meaning

[ChrisMaple]

You're forgetting the ambitious ones, who'll pull out and sell the built-in appliances, strip out the wiring and sell it for the copper. Or host booze parties for underage teens.

not the small job

[Anonymous Coward]

A good stable blue collar job did not increase for the date you cited. The crushing increase was white collar and services job. The majority from the last category being very poorly paid. Both the blue collar decline and the poorly paid service industry , make it a negative loss for the lower social class where those job are taken. California is a bit of the exception with their high minimum wage, but has problem with gentrication. See inflation increased much faster than those job were paid. 1992 to 2016 this is 24 years if job kept up with inflation you would expect people be paid the double for the same job. But this did not happen for such low job in most of the country as the minimum federal did not double. California is the exception, but gentrification outpriced people quicker than inflation because house price climbed higher, and low rent appartment did not keep up. Well at least california has now aminimum wage (10$.hour-1) which is about the same purchasing power (except housing) than 1992.

Re:SF is the worst

[KozmoStevnNaut]

We don't have ethnic cleansing in Denmark (WTF?), but I wouldn't put it past our current nationalistic right-wing government to consider it. They've already put refugees from Syria in ill-maintained barely-functioning tent camps, even though there are plenty of available public buildings with modern sanitation etc. available for them.

Drunk posts

[taylorius]

Gopman's first post "my love affair with SF dies a little" seemed ok (although his having "no clue" about why the homeless were there does smack of techie-arrogance). It was the drunk one after that that that did for him.

In times gone by it would've just been shouting in a bar. Afterwards he could've apologised, laughed it off, and put it down to too many beers. Now - it's affected his whole life. For those living their lives online, every utterance is juggling dynamite. It seems to me that this encourages rather a strict, lockstep approach to discourse. No room to blow off a little steam, everything you ever say will be "googled" for evermore. It's a terrifying prospect, in my view.

Re:He forgot the rule #1 of dealing with millenial

[Plus1Entropy]

This thread be all "Fuck your side because it's intolerant," without the slightest hint of irony.

It's great! :D

Re:He forgot the rule #1 of dealing with millenial

[Plus1Entropy]

Man, you're all over this thread. We get it, you're a curmudgeon! Now, it's time for your nap...

He’d always wanted to be a thought leader

[cardpuncher]

I don't think I've ever read such a self-referential, vacuous pile of crap.

"image", "startups", "city tax break", "hackathon host and startup incubator", "photos on Facebook of cash", "Valleywag", "Huffington Post", "the flavor of disruption", "crowdfunding", "Burning Man"

I'm afraid that if you insist on living inside your own virtual reality you're eventually going to be confronted by the fact that the rest of the world neither cares about this parallel universe whose inflation is powered almost entirely by self-aggrandisement. Nor do they believe that warehousing your homeless in instagram-friendly workfare "decadomes" is a solution to the housing problem : it's simply a product of a mind that does not understand the lives of people in the real world and believes the answer is to sweep them under an attractive carpet.

I've no idea who this guy is, nor do I particulalry care about his fate, but the unquestioning belief in the article that the narcissism of the internet should naturally just carry over into real life is breathtakingly insane.

Re:SF is the worst

[Sax Russell 5449D29A]

And yes, there are parts of Europe that are pretty bad. Yes, they include people shitting on the street. Err... Quite a bit worse, depending on where are - they can get pretty bad. Try not going to a tourist trap and actually seeing what's behind the curtain. Humans are humans, all the world around. Some have better circumstances than others but, for the most part, we're largely the same.

This is very much true for the countries below the Baltic Sea. Nordic Countries (and Estonia) are the best of Europe and among the best, Sweden is the worst with its 100% immigrant housing estates (mistakes were made in the 70's and 80's by Palme...) France is probably the worst among Western European countries with its (literally) no-go zones run by immigrant gangs.

Eastern Europe has its problems, but they're quite different from the rest of Europe. There's human trafficking and organized crime, but a lot less "crazy people". If you stay out of their way, they mostly stay out of yours.

So yes, Europe has its problems too. However, the most notable difference between Europe and the US I've noticed is homelessness. While some countries in Europe have severe homelessness related problems, like France, in the US you see people living on the street across the country. And not just a few, but an insane amount of people. In the Nordic Countries and Germany, for example, you'd be generally surprised to spot a homeless person actually living on the streets (even the usual drunkards have a home provided for them by the state or city). In the US, you can't take a turn without seeing endless amounts of homeless people.

Re:God forbid anyone be responsible for themselves

[ChrisMaple]

victim blaming

You shouldn't jail us for killing our parents! We're orphans!"

SF's lack of diversity

[tomhath]

My impression after a couple of visits to the Bay Area and talking to people from there is that San Francisco seriously lacks diversity. Yea, you'll see a variety of skin colors, and LGBT lifestyles are acceptable, etc.; that's not diversity.

Diversity means people have differing backgrounds and opinions, and openly discuss their different views with tolerance for the other person's position. This article illustrates the lack of diverse thought in San Francisco; someone voiced a minority opinion and was bludgeoned into conforming.

Re:SF's lack of diversity

[jmcvetta]

San Francisco seriously lacks diversity. Yea, you'll see a variety of skin colors,

Don't forget the California Apartheid. There's a whole vast servant / menial laborer class of ethnically Hispanic people who are treated as second-class citizens. It's appalling, it's everywhere right in your face, and no one ever says a word about it.

Re:He forgot the rule #1 of dealing with millenial

[serviscope_minor]

So wait, this guy flew his asshole flag high, suffered some serious consequences, yet it's other people who need a lesson in what you laughably call "real life".

So yeah fuck those liberal progrssive commienazi millenials, they should be *forced* to associate with people they don't like because real life.

Absolutely!

[Anonymous Coward]

but wouldn't the solution be to just give them homes to live in? I mean, we're the wealthiest country on plant earth. This shouldn't be a problem.

Absolutely! Unfortunately, I'm a little short on cash today. You go ahead and give them all homes. I'll try to remember to give you some money another time. Mmmkay?

Asshat!

San Francisco homeless are out of control

[Anonymous Coward]

I have been to a number of US cities. The worst, by far, was Baltimore. Its residents should be given $5000, a bus ticket, and 72 hours to disperse to start over somewhere else. However the problem with San Francisco is the tragedy of hundreds of hard-core crazy, dirty, aggressive homeless men. Try using the public bathroom on Pier 39. It's somebody's apartment. Try walking to get a sourdough -- crazy-assed homeless men will block your path. The problem with the homeless in San Francisco is worse than in other cities. I'm not an expert. Maybe it's because the elite of San Francisco mean well but are soft. Maybe it's because San Francisco attracts people with a dream. Whatever the case, you need about a dozen roving teams to scoop people off the streets, do psychiatric holds and evaluations, then hopefully ship them back to their home states. Or keep giving them tickets until they are incarcerated and when they get out they will run away from San Francisco. Do something.

Re:San Francisco homeless are out of control

[x0ra]

women too...

Horse shit!

[Anonymous Coward]

You don't promote change by name calling. I have no problem expressing very libertarian values, telling people where society is going wrong, and don't need to claim that a specific culture is a bunch of deranged people that need to sit quietly by themselves. The fact that you can't tell the difference between those two things is a large problem with society. Sharpton != MLK. The former name calls and causes trouble, the other expressed egalitarian values and made progress.

Re:Horse shit!

[x0ra]

Egalitarianism and your so called "progress" are newspeak terms. You try to promote both of these by enhancing disparities and communitarianism.

Re:SF is the worst

[Anonymous Coward]

The areas that are no-go are, more often then not, predominantly ethnically Muslim.

The areas that are portrayed as "no-go" are more often than not, actually not existing.

Of course, there have always been impoverished ghettos where the municipal infrastructure is failing and decrepit, if not outright corrupt, but blaming that on religion is a lot easier than recognizing that some people don't care about what happens to the poor.

Do you really think these people, the ones on the streets rioting or the ones who keep even the police at bay are sane or something?

When that happened in the US, the people were the ones upset at the police, and despite all the hand-wringing over it, an investigation justified that level of being upset.

Re:God forbid anyone be responsible for themselves

[Anonymous Coward]

"Victim"

Re: SF is the worst

[Anonymous Coward]

So, you attended the Folsom Street Fair?

Re:SF is the worst

[KGIII]

That one I have my doubts about. I've not been to Denmark in a while. It was on NPR, a police chief was being the spokesman for some department - national level, I understand, that was going on and on about how the citizens were engaging in ethnic cleansing. His metric? A pattern of break-ins that indicated that it was specific people being targeted. That's why I mentioned that I had my doubts about that one. Just to be clear - it's not the Dane's doing the supposed cleansing.

I've been to Denmark and they're probably pretty capable of being horrendous people - just like anywhere else. They're probably capable of ethic cleansing, just like everybody else. But, I seriously don't know if I can believe that police officer. Let me see if I can find you a link. Wikipedia mentions it again.

According to Funen police, the burglaries committed in the Vollsmose disctrict follow patterns of ethnic cleansing against native Danes.[19] Danes from other parts of the country are stabbed just for walking into the ghetto zone.

I kind of have my doubts about that one and it really looks like they're exaggerating. Hell, they might even be making it up out of whole cloth. It looks like you might be able to read this and get more information. This is what Wikipedia cited:
http://www.b.dk/nationalt/poli...

I don't speak the language so I'm not going to speculate.

Point being, it's really stupid of people to make stupid statements like the ones that were being made. It's borderline retarded, at best. I am not home at the moment but I'll be back home in a few more weeks, at the latest. When I get home, I'll be in a State with almost no crime, no real violent crime, almost no homeless people, and even has some diversity. For the record, t's Maine, USA. I live up near the Canadian border, just up above Rangeley if you want to see it on a map. It's beautiful.

Re: Those Republicans...

[Anonymous Coward]

Fk that, I don't align with either party but Hillary? Evil incarnate, nothing but power hungry and you... wow... didn't anyone ever tell you "you never go full retard"?

Re:He forgot the rule #1 of dealing with millenial

[x0ra]

Isn't that what the leftist "social contract" is all about ?

Re:He forgot the rule #1 of dealing with millenial

[Anonymous Coward]

Yes, let's fuck over all the rich people who don't kill, rape, or commit felonies in favor of homeless nutjobs. That will really improve America.

Re:He forgot the rule #1 of dealing with millenial

[serviscope_minor]

Isn't that what the leftist "social contract" is all about ?

Er, huh? You're kind of ketting inchoerent. Is *what* is what the social contract is all about?

As far as I see, the guy acts like a colossal dick and people use their freedom of association to not associate with him. That kids of sucks for him how much they choose to exercise their consititutional freedoms, but, well, that's life.

Unless you want to repeal the constitution to nanny people like him, of course.

Re: SF is the worst

[basecastula]

Best time to be had in the city.

Re:SF is the worst

[KozmoStevnNaut]

Yeah, Vollsmose is a known ghetto. Similarly, Gellerupplanen in Aarhus, and Mjølnerparken and Tingbjerg are also problematic ghetto areas. There are more, but those are the most well-known.

There have been issues with attacks on fire engines and police, but it's no as bad as the right-wing media (such as the cited article from b.dk) would have you think. Certainly not bad enough to be classified as "ethnic cleansing". The right-wing media has been stepping up their hateful rhetoric enormously due to the current humanitarian crisis in Syria and surround countries. According to right-wing pundits, all of the refugees are basically only here to take our public benefits and turn the country into a sharia state in the great global caliphate. Yeah, it's exactly as insane as it sounds.

I worked in Vollsmose for 3 months ~10 years ago, and the only major difference I experienced compared to anywhere else was that we ate chicken at the company barbecue rather than pork chops and sausages. And I'm as whitey-white as can be.

Re: SF is the worst

[Anonymous Coward]

If it makes you feel better, the majority aren't actually homeless... just panhandling. Now, if you're referring to the dude sleeping under the overpass with a newspaper as a blanket..'that person is definitely homeless. If you're talking about the guy that has a cup and a sign that says he's homeless... Well, he's probably making a decent living doing what he does.

The US definitely has more homeless than Scandinavian, etc due to government protection, but the US rate isn't horrible. In fact, many have a place to stay at night (shelters) but don't want to.

Re:SF is the worst

[ultranova]

Bullshit... You've got places in France that the cops won't even go into, for one example.

Speaking of bullshit, give us that one example: name an adress - with evidence of course - in France the cops won't go into.

Re:God forbid anyone be responsible for themselves

[AK Marc]

So people can't take offense at things, because that offends you? Sounds like you are the problem you complain about.

Every day is SJW day

[Anonymous Coward]

If 1% of this type of behavior was directed at a woman (especially a WOMAN IN TECH!!) even if other women were doing it, there would be national news story about rampant misogyny.

Re:God forbid anyone be responsible for themselves

[Krishnoid]

Shooting the elephant is probably a bad idea -- when the white man turns tyrant it is his own freedom he destroys.

I hate this "devils advocate" debate game crap

[dbIII]

Use google you tool instead of arguing against reality:
http://www.epi.org/publication...

Re:I hate this "devils advocate" debate game crap

[ooloorie]

If you look at the actual data, the conclusions of the report fall apart. Real output per person in the manufacturing sector has nearly doubled since 2000. Note that the FRED time series come from the same source as what EPI uses, the BLS. All your link shows again is that EPI is an organization of dishonest partisan hacks. What might give you a clue is that Figure A shows you a year-by-year graph of employment, while Figure B shows a bar chart of hand-picked time ranges.

Of course, a more fundamental question to ask is why organizations like the EPI want to condemn Americans to working in menial, low-paying blue-collar jobs in the first place. I guess the answer isn't all that difficult: Democrats and progressives like lots of low wage, dissatisfied, blue collar workers: it keeps them in power.

Re:I hate this "devils advocate" debate game crap

[dbIII]

All your link shows again is that EPI is an organization of dishonest partisan hacks

It just happened to be one of many hits on a google search so all I can conclude here is either you are a different type of dishonest partisan hack or arguing against reality as some sort of mass debating game.

Re:I hate this "devils advocate" debate game crap

[ooloorie]

It just happened to be one of many hits on a google search so all I can conclude here is either you are a different type of dishonest partisan hack or arguing against reality as some sort of mass debating game.

Reality is that, based on the very data that EPI uses (namely BLS numbers), manufacturing productivity has doubled between 2000 and 2014, while manufacturing employment has gone down to a lesser degree, so the EPI analysis of that data is clearly false. I gave you the links to the original data and graphs. If you can't understand a simple graph, that's your problem, not mine.

Re:I hate this "devils advocate" debate game crap

[dbIII]

Oooh the rubbery "productivity" number instead of a measurable metric - fuck off loser.

Re:I hate this "devils advocate" debate game crap

[Anonymous Coward]

Not only is productivity well defined, it's what the EPI paper you cited relies on for its arguments.

fuck off loser

Ah, after putting up one strawman after another and getting all of them wrong, you now resort to insults.

Re:I hate this "devils advocate" debate game crap

[dbIII]

You keep throwing that "reality" word around despite using a very rubbery metric. What is your reality you insulting creature - are you some sort of political staffer or something?

Re:I hate this "devils advocate" debate game crap

[dbIII]

So derived and skewed "data" from some place well known for country music trumps national import figures, export figures and employment figures? Good to know what sort of person has suddenly decided to insult me and then marked me foe after being called out on it.

I'm no bro

[spongman]

but i'm with Gopman.

$241,000,000 for 6,000 homeless.

do the freaking math.

The most ironic thing is...

[Anonymous Coward]

With all the self-righteous group speak that is being forced onto people by the Social Justice Warriors, people still think the same damn thing, only it can't be voiced.

I lived in SF prior to 9/11, and the homeless population in Union Square was extremely aggressive. Guess not much has changed.

Re: SF is the worst

[interstellarsurfer]

Most would rather sleep in the street than be herded into 'shelters' with the other homeless, is what you meant to say. Also, unless you're in an urban area, there are no actual shelters to speak of. I agree that in the US, homelessness is pandemic now. It seems worse in the cities, because they're more visible. The rural areas are hit just as bad, but there are more places to stay out of site.

WRong: See O'Connor v. Donaldson

[trout007]

http://www.treatmentadvocacyce...

Re:WRong: See O'Connor v. Donaldson

[evilviper]

The criminally insane are permanently housed in jails, today, because the state hospitals were defunded. Rulings on involuntary commitment for non-criminal offenders are not relevant in such cases.