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Oh you spoke of strawmen? Your personal policy preference are irrelevant, its who you vote for. They gave us this shitty system.
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Overly progressive policing and prosecution simply doesn't work
- Thread starter ALiberalModerate
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These are simple questions. I literally asked you about the topic of the thread.
Points 2 and 3 of the opening post:
2. There are areas of town where all the windows are boarded up at street level because they cannot keep people from busting the windows out. These are open businesses with boarded up windows.
3. Every store, literally every store, no matter how big or small, has a security guard. We asked some store owners why this is the case, and were told that because the local prosecutors will not prosecute shoplifting or vandalism, they have to pay security to keep people from just openly stealing from them or vandalizing their business.
So, these are local decisions, they have nothing to do with any president. Do you believe that vandals and shoplifters should face criminal prosecution or not?
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Which is nothing but a strawman as well.
. These arent just local decisions and you should damn well know that. They followed many of the trends presidents were promoting. Both parties got what they wanted in the 90s, a mass incarceration system that rivals countries we call dictatorships. You arent providing an argument, you are just rationalizing it and excusing it.Just fix it yourself. Ya got what you wanted.
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The decision of whether or not to prosecute shoplifting and vandalism is literally at the discretion of the city council and local prosecutors office.Which is nothing but a strawman as well.
Just fix it yourself. Ya got what you wanted.
We have a lot of people in prison because of overly aggressive laws and sentencing around drugs. That has nothing at all to do with whether a city decides not to prosecute people for shoplifting and vandalism - and btw, the city I gave as an example of this, Seattle, is mostly white and the people out shoplifting and vandalizing there are mostly white.
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This is dancing around the problem. Mass incarceration is the intended effect of the tough on crime drive.
Why are you asking me? Ya got what you wanted.
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This has nothing to do with the thread. Either you think people should face potential criminal charges for shoplifting or vandalism, or you think a better system is that they don't face charges and business owners must rely on private security.
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Im not letting ya dictate the options. Just fix it yourself since you were never interested in a conversation.
Ya beat the meanie ol bernie bros so you are on your own.
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You can give any option you want, no one is stopping you, you are simply avoiding answering the question at all. It seems your position is well there are too many people in prison, so if you walk into a store and steal hundreds of dollars worth of stuff or severely vandalize a business, you should face no consequences and its all Bill Clinton's fault for the 1994 Crime Bill...
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Talk about a strawman ;p
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Seattle is lovely, compared to cities in red states. Here's a nice reality check on that:
Metro Seattle, as you can see, had a murder rate of just 3.0, and a violent crime rate of 324.1. To put it in perspective, if you go to one of the worst cities in the world, Kansas City, you'll find the metro area has a murder rate of 8.4 and a violent crime rate of 324. If you zoom in from the metro areas to the cities proper, the difference is even starker. The City of Seattle has a murder rate of just 3.4, compared to 23.0 for KC.
So, the question is why is regressive policing and prosecution such a catastrophic failure? Or, to put it another way, why does more progressive policing and prosecution in places like Seattle simply work better. Any thoughts?
Anyway, I agree that the elections this fall will likely be a loss for the Democrats. We just came off the best economic growth and job creation in almost 40 years, and obviously that plays to Republican strengths. When people are feeling more prosperous, they'll put more value on the kinds of things Republicans care about (upper-class tax cuts, and culture war posturing), while they'll put less value on stuff Democrats care about (maintaining or improving the social safety net). The more people feel rich, and the less people feel economically imperiled, the easier it is for Republicans to win elections. That also played out in 1994 and 2010. For that matter, it's the story of 1952, 1968, 2000, and 2016. When have we ever had an election in a time with unemployment rates well below 5% that WASN'T a bloodbath for Democrats?
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I thought it smelled just fine. I'll tell you what place DOESN'T smell fine, though: Houston. That place smells like a diesel fire mixed with a refinery. Gackh! And the data bears it out -- the air is clean (for a city) in Seattle, whereas it's quite unhealthful in Houston.I don't recall it smelling any more or less like shit than any other city, American or otherwise. I suppose the visit was several years ago now, but...
I hear LA is bad, too, but I was only there during the start of the pandemic, when the roads were practically abandoned, so the air quality was awesome.
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Thanks. Im shit at explaining things but this captures my sentiments entirely i didnt really believe the whole smelling like shit thing.
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Fox News has gone all-in with telling its under-educated-elderly-couch-potato audience that liberal streets are strewn with human feces thanks to homeless people. Those folks then go onto forums like this and submissively recount those talking points as if they were personal anecdotes. There's no arguing anecdotes, since you can't prove they didn't just happen to be somewhere that they encountered some poop. But statistical facts are things that can be confirmed, and as a statistical fact, Seattle is a VASTLY safer place than KC, or most large red-state cities.
You can also see what the collective wisdom of the market is, by seeing how high people have bid the "cost of admission." Home prices and rents are basically the outcome of countless auctions where people put their money where their mouths are in deciding how much a city has going for it. It turns out Seattle has a great deal going for it, judging by how very much people are willing to pay for the privilege of living there. It sure doesn't seem like they think it smells like shit.
KC, on the other hand, does famously smell like poop:
Smell that? Experts say poo odor is likely coming from farmlands up north
KANSAS CITY, Mo. — Many viewers across the metro have contacted FOX4 Wednesday night asking why it smells so bad outside. Some thought they had maybe stepped in something not so pleasant. The…
fox4kc.com
MN to blame for foul smell in KC that had people calling 911
That's what they get for living downstream...
bringmethenews.com
That may contribute to its low property values. Who wants to live somewhere that smells bad and has so little going for it?
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That faux news talking point infected a ton of 90s democrats too this was the dishonesty of the op i was trying to point out.Fox News has gone all-in with telling its under-educated-elderly-couch-potato audience that liberal streets are strewn with human feces thanks to homeless people. Those folks then go onto forums like this and submissively recount those talking points as if they were personal anecdotes. There's no arguing anecdotes, since you can't prove they didn't just happen to be somewhere that they encountered some poop. But statistical facts are things that can be confirmed, and as a statistical fact, Seattle is a VASTLY safer place than KC, or most large red-state cities.
You can also see what the collective wisdom of the market is, by seeing how high people have bid the "cost of admission." Home prices and rents are basically the outcome of countless auctions where people put their money where their mouths are in deciding how much a city has going for it. It turns out Seattle has a great deal going for it, judging by how very much people are willing to pay for the privilege of living there. It sure doesn't seem like they think it smells like shit.
KC, on the other hand, does famously smell like poop:
Smell that? Experts say poo odor is likely coming from farmlands up north
KANSAS CITY, Mo. — Many viewers across the metro have contacted FOX4 Wednesday night asking why it smells so bad outside. Some thought they had maybe stepped in something not so pleasant. The…
MN to blame for foul smell in KC that had people calling 911
That's what they get for living downstream...
That may contribute to its low property values. Who wants to live somewhere that smells bad and has so little going for it?
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I mentioned in the opening post that Seattle is a very safe city. That is kind of the point. High murder rates is very hard to solve because of all the societal factors, retaliation violence and so on. In contrast, people feeling free to shoplift because they have no fear of prosecution is not a hard problem to solve.
As to comparing KC to Seattle, unlike with Seattle, KC does not control its own police department.
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High murder rates are, indeed, hard to solve, when your state has the idea that regressive policing and draconian prosecution are the path to take. That involves rounding people up for minor offenses like recreational drug use or shoplifting, and throwing them behind bars with hardened crooks, where they are transformed into animals who come out and commit serious violent crime. In backwards states like Missouri, high incarceration rates mean that the prisons are effectively functioning as finishing schools for violent criminals -- basically, fear of "those people" has driven the population to embrace counter-productive policies. One reason why Seattle is such an in-demand place to live (judging by how high people have bid the "cost of admission," in terms of rents and home values) is because they've pursued better policies in those areas.
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You are arguing a strawman. No one is saying throw shoplifters in prison.
As to why Seattle is expensive to live in, it's in one of the most beautiful parts of the world and has a very mild climate. It's like when right wingers complain about how expensive housing is in California as though it were the fault of Democrats, when in fact, housing is really expensive anywhere in the world with that kind of landscape, coast, and climate.
As to my argument in the opening post, even the voters of Seattle agree with me: https://www.king5.com/article/news/...rney/281-0946588f-99a1-4a2b-8128-197d905d361d
They rejected the kind of overly progressive policies that created a situation in an otherwise safe city where business owners of all sizes were resorting to private security.
They also agree with me on the homeless encampments: https://www.kiro7.com/news/local/ho...eared-out-seattle/BUBL3CK44RFMDJRMDJEMWPUCHE/
The problem is the political damage from those ridiculous, activist driven policies has been done.
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Some do, in fact, argue in favor of prison for shoplifters. But if you, personally, favor some other course for them, that's great.
It's not just Seattle. There are a lot of liberal cities in liberal states where the cost of admission has been bid very high because of the widespread perception that the value of living there is just that great. Boston doesn't have a mild climate. San Francisco's isn't great, either (there's a great old line, sometimes attributed to Twain: "the coldest winter I ever spent was a summer in San Francisco.") Manhattan is famous for both brutal winters and hot, muggy summers. But climate and natural beauty aren't the only factors people consider when deciding on a city. There's also culture -- which depends in part on how welcoming the city feels to those more likely to create great culture, including the gay community. There's walkability, and the quality of public transit. There's how safe the streets are and access to good schools. And there are the jobs -- especially the kinds of high-paying, skilled, information-age jobs that rely on attracting extremely educated young people. Seattle has those kinds of things going for it.
That doesn't mean all their policies are great. But judging by what people say WHEN THEY PUT THEIR MONEY WHERE THEIR MOUTHS ARE, as opposed to what they say when they're just whining to pollsters, Seattle's doing a pretty good job overall: it continues to attract so much demand for living there that it significantly outdistances supply, driving the cost of admission ever-upward -- and even with that high price, people keep deciding it's worth it.
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San Francisco has one of the mildest climates on earth. Due to Boston's coastal location, its winters are not as cold as any major midwestern cities. NYC is huge, but growing slowly. The fastest growing cities are all in the Sunbelt or on the West Coast. There is a reason for that, its climate.
As to liberal cities, almost all cities are liberal. The most liberal city in the country is not San Francisco or Seattle, it's St. Louis.
St. Louis ranks as No. 1 city for liberals
Study shows liberal St. Louis loves chain pizza, foreign cars
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The fastest growing cities are actually not in the Sunbelt or the West Coast. They're in the third world: Delhi, Dhaka, Lagos, etc. But, obviously, the growth rate of a city is mostly about the availability of dirt-cheap housing for the teeming masses, whether that's in Nigeria, Bangladesh, India, or Texas. What we see in SF, Seattle, Boston, and Manhattan is more like what we see in Sydney, Zurich, Munich, and Paris, where demand is outstripping supply, but even as prices spiral ever upwards, there's no shortage of people who look at that price and what's on offer and decide "yeah, it's worth it."San Francisco has one of the mildest climates on earth. Due to Boston's coastal location, its winters are not as cold as any major midwestern cities. NYC is huge, but growing slowly. The fastest growing cities are all in the Sunbelt or on the West Coast. There is a reason for that, its climate.
As to liberal cities, almost all cities are liberal. The most liberal city in the country is not San Francisco or Seattle, it's St. Louis.
St. Louis ranks as No. 1 city for liberals
Study shows liberal St. Louis loves chain pizza, foreign carswww.stltoday.com
Anyway, it's true most cities around the world are run by liberal governments.... since the inherent challenges of urban life are poorly addressed by conservative political ideas. For example, mass transit doesn't pop up spontaneously by way of independent private-sector action.... it takes an interventionist government. But, while nearly all cities are run by liberals, there's a difference between cities that effectively partner with liberal states, like SF, Boston, or Seattle, and cities that are isolated and starved by their conservative states, like St. Louis.
When a state (or country, to take the example of smaller European countries) sees a city as its economic and cultural crown jewel and invests in making it work, you get outstanding cities, where people are willing to pay a fortune for the privilege of living there. When a state instead sees a city as a ghetto for housing "those people," and it's only willing to invest in the city to the extent of financing draconian policing to keep them contained and under heel, then you get squalid, dangerous cities like St. Louis, Memphis, Kansas City, New Orleans, etc. Those try their best, but they can't do much when they're effectively politically cut off from the tax base of the 'burbs, and politically overruled by the disproportionate power given to rural people by gerrymandering.
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The most expensive state to live in is now Florida.
That being said, have you ever even been to Kansas City? It's a relatively fast growing city, its not some dump like you think it is.
Democrats run cities because as a rule they are the more pragmatic party and cities run best when they are ran by pragmatists rather than by ideologues. Even in Republican ran cities, the local government is typically very moderate and pragmatic. Moreover, even in really liberal cities, typically when the local government gets to far to the left, the local citizens will throw them out and elect more moderates to replace them.
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Or maybe we can compare to countries that dont treat everyone imprisoned no matter how serious the crime is like zoo animals. Its hard because we cant imagine any other form of justice than punitive justice.
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Yeah thats literally the whole idea behind tough on crime. Put people in prisons then keep upping the penalties no matter if they actually deter people or not. Its mighty profitable for certain people.
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People still seem to want to move there and still setup businesses. I got news for you people hire private security in many more places than just those you mention.San Francisco has one of the mildest climates on earth. Due to Boston's coastal location, its winters are not as cold as any major midwestern cities. NYC is huge, but growing slowly. The fastest growing cities are all in the Sunbelt or on the West Coast. There is a reason for that, its climate.
As to liberal cities, almost all cities are liberal. The most liberal city in the country is not San Francisco or Seattle, it's St. Louis.
St. Louis ranks as No. 1 city for liberals
Study shows liberal St. Louis loves chain pizza, foreign cars
You shouldnt just complain about people wanting to scale back policing without addressing problems that lead to people wanting to scale it back in the first place. I know you probably wont believe me but here it is, it aint just middle class folk who have an increased distrust in police.
The level of policing never really follows the actual crime rate. In fact it either goes overblown or it severely underachieves. We saw in New York how many times people were stopped and frisked compared to the actual amount of contraband and it near specifically targeted black people despite the police finding barely any contraband.
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In what terms? In terms of median home prices, the states that people have determined are the most desirable are Hawaii, California, Massachusetts, Colorado, Washington, New Jersey, Maryland, New York, Oregon, and Utah, in that order. The gap, even within that top-ten list, is huge. Like Hawaii is seen as so much better than Utah, by the collective wisdom of the market, that a single median home there is seen as significantly more value than having two median homes in Utah.
Yes, I was there shortly before the pandemic. It seemed like a terrible dump to me, but I'll accept that personal tastes vary from person to person and that my anecdotal experience with it may have been influenced by what things I happened to see while there, which are never going to be a representative sampling. "Fast-growing" though, doesn't mean a place isn't a dump. Most of the fastest growing cities in the world are dumps.... it's never places like Geneva or Monte Carlo that are the world's fastest-growing. It's places with giant slums Malappuram, India (44% growth in just 5 years), or Can Tho, Vietnam (37% in those same five years). When people live like this, you can add a lot of population quickly:
KC isn't that bad, obviously, but it definitely has its slums.
I think the cities that do best tend to be the ones that stay the course with liberal government (in cooperation with wider liberalism in the state and regional governments). Take Boston, for example. In the last FBI Uniform Crime Report, it had the lowest murder rate of any large metropolitan area in the US. It has high life expectancy, low incarceration, good air quality, a walkable downtown, world-class cultural offerings, great schools, elite job opportunities, and so on. In terms of quality of life, it regularly ranks among the best in the world:
The 26 major cities with the highest quality of life in the world
Deutsche Bank released its annual "Mapping the world's prices" report, cataloguing the cost of goods and services in a cross section of the world's biggest cities
www.businessinsider.com
How did it get there? Well, it hasn't had Republican leadership even once in the last 92 years. And most of the Democratic mayors in recent decades were true-blue liberals like Ray Flynn, Tom Menino, and Michelle Wu.
Thomas M. Menino, Mayor Who Led Boston’s Renaissance, Is Dead at 71 (Published 2014)
Mr. Menino was Boston’s longest-serving mayor, and helped transform it from a gritty parochial town to an economic and cultural hub of New England.
When the people stay the course, rather than being panicked into self-destructive reactionary periods by culture-warriors driving wedge issues, things go well.