7 ms·

There has to be a line draw somewhere. Generally people who say this don't actually have regular interactions with aggressive, hostile, homeless. Or are you jus

There has to be a line draw somewhere. Generally people who say this don't actually have regular interactions with aggressive, hostile, homeless. Or are you just really cool with going to a coffee shop and have someone screaming in a pile of their own feces 20 or so feet away?

0xcde4c3db 23d ago
The problem is that once you draw "the line", then what? Warehouse a bunch of helpless people in overcrowded prisons? Bus them to some other less-draconian municipality? Forcibly drug them into quasi-submission and then turn them loose again until the depot injection wears off? Or perhaps we should "just kill 'em", as Fox & Friends cohost Brian Kilmeade once suggested?
- kraken_cult 23d ago
  Forced rehab if needed and then somewhere they can work to pay their way, learn the skills to help themselves. There's a ton of manual labor that needs doing, potholes to be fixed.
  - csullivannet 23d ago
    Oh, so forced labour then?
    - qwerpy 23d ago
      If someone’s forcing society to pay for their living expenses, it only seems fair for society to force them to labor to cover the expenses. I’m sure the next objection will be “what, so you’re going to concentrate them in some kind of camp?” Yes because that’s the smart thing to do with a large scale problem. Use scalable solutions.
      - mrguyorama 22d ago
        >If someone’s forcing society to pay for their living expenses, But the mentally unwell person didn't force society to pay for their living expenses. Society decided it couldn't stand them living their life the way they were and locked them up. Society pays for locking people up because it is done for the benefit of society. The point is that a functioning society is more productive than an unorganized one, and so can afford to do that kind of thing.
- Dylan16807 23d ago
  If they're doing lots of vandalism then yes put them in prisons. Get rid of 90% of drug charges to make room. You get a much better score if the imprisonment is trying to rehab them, of course.
- alex43578 23d ago
  If they are committing crimes, they should be imprisoned for an appropriate period of time as a deterrent to crime, a punishment for their actions, and to facilitate rehabilitation (even though evidence shows this doesn't really happen). If they are mentally ill and unable to care for themselves or pose a threat to the community because of their mental illness, they should be institutionalized and treated. If they are able to be released into the community after a period of time, checks should be performed to ensure compliance with treatment/medication.
  - 47635274172635 23d ago
    I think you need to fix the cause not treat the symptom. I mean you should treat the symptoms as well, while fixing the cause of the issue. Atm it seems everyone is trying to figure out how to treat the symptom, and they don't even know why, and they keep completely quiet about the cause of it all. Completely and utter mystery, or framed vague and unfixable enough that they do not have to really address it. What the Swiss did back in the 80's with the heroin program...that's misinterpreted by US and they're specifically trying to mess it up in application. The Swiss didn't just give lab grade heroin to junkies, they ran a serious mental care and social reintegration program and used the heroin as basically bait. You had access to it but you had to go to their facilities where specialized people could start working with you. What the US is doing is a mockery of that, they want it to fail so they can say it's not working and they shouldn't even try it in the future. And I think it's quite clear to basically anyone with two neurons what the cause of it is, but authorities there are going to pretend they do not understand it. That it's some mystical unexplainable cause.
    - alex43578 23d ago
      Right now, many places in the US aren’t even “treating the symptoms”. We can start there, then move to address the more structural, long-term problems that contribute to these issues. An action that reduces drug use by 5% a decade from now is fine, but taking a criminal off the street today yields far greater present value.
  - remarkEon 23d ago
fzeroracer 23d ago
Living in Seattle, people focus a lot on the homeless because it's an obvious problem. The guy screaming at the corner, or the people sleeping on the sidewalk. But I personally think people miss that its a symptom of greater social rot. I've had more issues with antisocial car drivers than any homeless individual. People screaming profanities because I'm crossing the street with the walk signal active, people narrowly missing me as they speed to work. Just yesterday my entire block lost power because a drunk asshole tboned another car going 75mph, killing a family of four while nearly shearing a utility pole. The reality is that even if the line is drawn with the homeless the undercurrent of social rot is still there and it's not getting better. And I don't see people calling for car drivers to be institutionalized, quite the opposite in most cases even when they commit homicide.
- nradov 23d ago
  In a lot of large cities, local governments reacted to the 2020-2023 protests against police brutality by drastically reducing traffic enforcement. Aggressive drivers can get away with a lot more bad behavior now and have little fear of consequences. When voters elect leaders like Katie Wilson this is one of the inevitable consequences.
  - deleted 23d ago
    [deleted]
  - fzeroracer 23d ago
    This is just false, considering I've lived across the US. My experience has been pretty universally the same whether or not I lived in Texas, Virginia or Washington. People that are incredibly sheltered like to believe that it's unique to their city, or the result of partisan politics but the reality is that the rot is deeper than that. One of the most famous examples was in deep red Texas: Ethan Couch.
  - vkou 23d ago
    1. The cities didn't 'react' to those protests by reducing enforcement, cops started quiet-quitting.[1] 2. Katie Wilson was elected last fucking year, replacing a pro-cop, pro-establishment incumbent, whereas the usual suspects have been bitching about Seattle for decades. Par for the course, of course, the usual newspapers were running hit pieces about how her failed policies have ruined the city a day after she took office, without a shred of self-reflection. [1] Wasn't so long ago that Seattle's top-paid cop ($390,000/year!) was caught collecting overtime by napping in her car... Illegally parked in the middle of a bus-only lane. (I guess that's also Katie's fault, despite it being a year prior to her election.)
mmooss 23d ago
I see and interact with apparently unhoused people all the time, and I've never had a problem. > someone screaming in a pile of their own feces 20 or so feet away? This is a hypothetical, and follows a typical pattern of trying to box people into a response using a situation that effectively never happens. It's like people asking if you'd support torture 'if you knew there was a bomb in an elementary school somewhere in NY, but didn't know which one'. That's never happened. I have had many apparently housed people yell at or even threaten me, and almost run me over. So I've never seen it or anything like it, spending lots of time in many neighborhoods of many cities. Human shit, to provoke an emotional reaction (of disgust) at other humans, is a favorite of the anti-freedom crowd. It's not the unhoused people, generally the most vulnerable people I know and encounter, that disgust me.
mrguyorama 22d ago
The primary shelter for my city is across the road from me. All the strung out, chronic homeless people hang out next door at the post office, because it's public property. They also hang out around my building, on the two streets around it. There is never shit. There are no needles. These people leave you alone. They are literally insane and on absurd drugs, but they leave you alone. Why is this true in Portland Maine, but not Portland Oregon?

0xcde4c3db 23d ago

The problem is that once you draw "the line", then what? Warehouse a bunch of helpless people in overcrowded prisons? Bus them to some other less-draconian municipality? Forcibly drug them into quasi-submission and then turn them loose again until the depot injection wears off? Or perhaps we should "just kill 'em", as Fox & Friends cohost Brian Kilmeade once suggested?

kraken_cult 23d ago
Forced rehab if needed and then somewhere they can work to pay their way, learn the skills to help themselves. There's a ton of manual labor that needs doing, potholes to be fixed.
- csullivannet 23d ago
  Oh, so forced labour then?
  - qwerpy 23d ago
    If someone’s forcing society to pay for their living expenses, it only seems fair for society to force them to labor to cover the expenses. I’m sure the next objection will be “what, so you’re going to concentrate them in some kind of camp?” Yes because that’s the smart thing to do with a large scale problem. Use scalable solutions.
    - mrguyorama 22d ago
      >If someone’s forcing society to pay for their living expenses, But the mentally unwell person didn't force society to pay for their living expenses. Society decided it couldn't stand them living their life the way they were and locked them up. Society pays for locking people up because it is done for the benefit of society. The point is that a functioning society is more productive than an unorganized one, and so can afford to do that kind of thing.
Dylan16807 23d ago
If they're doing lots of vandalism then yes put them in prisons. Get rid of 90% of drug charges to make room. You get a much better score if the imprisonment is trying to rehab them, of course.
alex43578 23d ago
If they are committing crimes, they should be imprisoned for an appropriate period of time as a deterrent to crime, a punishment for their actions, and to facilitate rehabilitation (even though evidence shows this doesn't really happen). If they are mentally ill and unable to care for themselves or pose a threat to the community because of their mental illness, they should be institutionalized and treated. If they are able to be released into the community after a period of time, checks should be performed to ensure compliance with treatment/medication.
- 47635274172635 23d ago
  I think you need to fix the cause not treat the symptom. I mean you should treat the symptoms as well, while fixing the cause of the issue. Atm it seems everyone is trying to figure out how to treat the symptom, and they don't even know why, and they keep completely quiet about the cause of it all. Completely and utter mystery, or framed vague and unfixable enough that they do not have to really address it. What the Swiss did back in the 80's with the heroin program...that's misinterpreted by US and they're specifically trying to mess it up in application. The Swiss didn't just give lab grade heroin to junkies, they ran a serious mental care and social reintegration program and used the heroin as basically bait. You had access to it but you had to go to their facilities where specialized people could start working with you. What the US is doing is a mockery of that, they want it to fail so they can say it's not working and they shouldn't even try it in the future. And I think it's quite clear to basically anyone with two neurons what the cause of it is, but authorities there are going to pretend they do not understand it. That it's some mystical unexplainable cause.
  - alex43578 23d ago
    Right now, many places in the US aren’t even “treating the symptoms”. We can start there, then move to address the more structural, long-term problems that contribute to these issues. An action that reduces drug use by 5% a decade from now is fine, but taking a criminal off the street today yields far greater present value.
- remarkEon 23d ago

fzeroracer 23d ago

Living in Seattle, people focus a lot on the homeless because it's an obvious problem. The guy screaming at the corner, or the people sleeping on the sidewalk. But I personally think people miss that its a symptom of greater social rot. I've had more issues with antisocial car drivers than any homeless individual. People screaming profanities because I'm crossing the street with the walk signal active, people narrowly missing me as they speed to work. Just yesterday my entire block lost power because a drunk asshole tboned another car going 75mph, killing a family of four while nearly shearing a utility pole. The reality is that even if the line is drawn with the homeless the undercurrent of social rot is still there and it's not getting better. And I don't see people calling for car drivers to be institutionalized, quite the opposite in most cases even when they commit homicide.

nradov 23d ago
In a lot of large cities, local governments reacted to the 2020-2023 protests against police brutality by drastically reducing traffic enforcement. Aggressive drivers can get away with a lot more bad behavior now and have little fear of consequences. When voters elect leaders like Katie Wilson this is one of the inevitable consequences.
- deleted 23d ago
  [deleted]
- fzeroracer 23d ago
  This is just false, considering I've lived across the US. My experience has been pretty universally the same whether or not I lived in Texas, Virginia or Washington. People that are incredibly sheltered like to believe that it's unique to their city, or the result of partisan politics but the reality is that the rot is deeper than that. One of the most famous examples was in deep red Texas: Ethan Couch.
- vkou 23d ago
  1. The cities didn't 'react' to those protests by reducing enforcement, cops started quiet-quitting.[1] 2. Katie Wilson was elected last fucking year, replacing a pro-cop, pro-establishment incumbent, whereas the usual suspects have been bitching about Seattle for decades. Par for the course, of course, the usual newspapers were running hit pieces about how her failed policies have ruined the city a day after she took office, without a shred of self-reflection. [1] Wasn't so long ago that Seattle's top-paid cop ($390,000/year!) was caught collecting overtime by napping in her car... Illegally parked in the middle of a bus-only lane. (I guess that's also Katie's fault, despite it being a year prior to her election.)

mmooss 23d ago

I see and interact with apparently unhoused people all the time, and I've never had a problem. > someone screaming in a pile of their own feces 20 or so feet away? This is a hypothetical, and follows a typical pattern of trying to box people into a response using a situation that effectively never happens. It's like people asking if you'd support torture 'if you knew there was a bomb in an elementary school somewhere in NY, but didn't know which one'. That's never happened. I have had many apparently housed people yell at or even threaten me, and almost run me over. So I've never seen it or anything like it, spending lots of time in many neighborhoods of many cities. Human shit, to provoke an emotional reaction (of disgust) at other humans, is a favorite of the anti-freedom crowd. It's not the unhoused people, generally the most vulnerable people I know and encounter, that disgust me.

mrguyorama 22d ago

The primary shelter for my city is across the road from me. All the strung out, chronic homeless people hang out next door at the post office, because it's public property. They also hang out around my building, on the two streets around it. There is never shit. There are no needles. These people leave you alone. They are literally insane and on absurd drugs, but they leave you alone. Why is this true in Portland Maine, but not Portland Oregon?