San Francisco, Hostage to the Homeless
City Journal,
by
Heather MacDonald
Original Article
Posted By: Pluperfect,
10/7/2019 5:09:45 AM
Everyone’s on drugs here . . . and stealing,” an ex-felon named Shaku explains as he rips open a blue Popsicle wrapper with his teeth. Shaku is standing in an encampment of tents, trash, and bicycles, across from San Francisco’s Glide Memorial Church. Another encampment-dweller lights a green crack pipe and passes it around. A few paces down the street, a gaunt man swipes a credit card through a series of parking meters to see if it has been reported stolen yet.
For the last three decades, San Francisco has conducted a real-life experiment in what happens when a society stops enforcing bourgeois norms of behavior.
Reply 1 - Posted by:
PChristopher 10/7/2019 5:14:13 AM (No. 199860)
It is not a housing problem. Oh, that might be an element of it but it is mostly a substance abuse problem facilitated by liberals who either don't have a clue or who don't care and want to break the system.
21 people like this.
Reply 2 - Posted by:
Rinktum 10/7/2019 6:55:35 AM (No. 199897)
This is a virtue signaling problem which has become epidemic on the part of progressives. They must feel better about themselves at any cost. It is not about the problems their city is facing, it is all about themselves and how much they care. To solve a problem like this, you must be tough. Laws must be enforced and the public streets must be protected from crime, filth, and mentally ill drug addicts. Right now, the inmates are running the asylum because adults will not stand up and say, enough. You always get more of whatever you tolerate and because of virtue signaling elites, they are getting massive chaos. They made this mess and now don’t want to do the hard work of cleaning it up. Progressives are destroyers. The evidence is quite clear. Look at any big city where democrat progressives are in charge, and it is misery and chaos. Their policies encourage mayhem. Until they change, it will only get worse. The shame is that they have destroyed beautiful cities for their own vanity. They want to show the world how accepting and tolerant they are. What they have wrought is a city of filth, feces and crime. Great job, guys. No one can make life more miserable than a bunch of virtue signaling fools.
39 people like this.
Reply 3 - Posted by:
mobyclik 10/7/2019 8:35:00 AM (No. 199962)
Everything you said is true #2, but don't forget, these brilliant lefties DID ban plastic straws. See how hard they work for the people?
14 people like this.
Reply 4 - Posted by:
F15 Gork 10/7/2019 8:52:45 AM (No. 199981)
Wake up Kalifornia. Your man FDR had the answer - internment camps! Round em up, lock em up and clean em up. They can get out when they get right with western standards of civilization.
20 people like this.
Reply 5 - Posted by:
udanja99 10/7/2019 8:56:12 AM (No. 199984)
I got through about half of the article before I had to go take a shower. I had to go to the Bay Area on business back in February but the only time I entered SF was in a rental car, driving through it on the highway going to Marin County. I go to Seattle this week and am going to make sure that I stay out of the city itself. Not just because of the filth and crime but because it feels like being behind enemy lines.
21 people like this.
Reply 6 - Posted by:
gone2pot 10/7/2019 9:08:08 AM (No. 200003)
If Trump wins 2020, look for San Francisco, Austin, New York and Seattle to create sanctuary cities for presidential assassins and for anyone who openly says they're going to do it. Marxists with Alinsky pedigree ONLY double down.
13 people like this.
Reply 7 - Posted by:
Hardright 10/7/2019 9:51:59 AM (No. 200050)
We used to drive up to SF when friends and family visited. You couldn't pay me to go to that leftist hell hole. Let leftists control things and this is what you get.
11 people like this.
Reply 8 - Posted by:
Strike3 10/7/2019 10:44:26 AM (No. 200099)
Baltimore, Chicago, Detroit, Los Angeles, Minneapolis-St. Paul, Portland, San Francisco, St. Louis, Seattle. They all used to be vacation destinations for thousands of Americans. I would not visit any of them now if given free hotel and plane tickets. They all succumbed to the same problem and can not collectively get their heads together and figure out what it is. The disease of Liberalism is permanent and continues to eat the brain long after infection.
16 people like this.
Reply 9 - Posted by:
NotaBene 10/7/2019 10:45:50 AM (No. 200101)
Only a few years ago people could not poop on the streets. Why can’t we all get along?
3 people like this.
Reply 10 - Posted by:
starboard 10/7/2019 10:49:10 AM (No. 200106)
Recently, I read there's a movement to recall Governor Gavin Newsome. I remember when they recalled Grey Davis and he was mild compared to Newsome.
10 people like this.
Reply 11 - Posted by:
Highlander 10/7/2019 10:57:55 AM (No. 200118)
Laws are created to control human nature. Not to enforce the laws allows this kind of disaster which will be extremely difficult to undo.
5 people like this.
Reply 12 - Posted by:
Congar 10/7/2019 11:30:50 AM (No. 200148)
This article illustrates what can happen to a once fine city, if Liberals run it.
9 people like this.
Reply 13 - Posted by:
little guy 10/7/2019 11:36:41 AM (No. 200156)
As cruel and mean as it sounds, the only thing that will work at cleaning up this so-far-gone place is a military response. 10,000 armed troops start at one end and sweep to the other grabbing and arresting everyone in sight. Pulling them off the streets, handcuffing them and immediately shipping them out to a camp in the dessert where they are met by doctors who will interview them and make a quick judgement as to those who need to be incarcerated immediately versus those who need meds and those who can be re-educated and released in a week or two.
Once the troops move through (yes, it will be bloody and maybe deadly) and remove everyone by force then the sanitation people move in with bulldozers and just scoop up everything and dump it. Follow that with a good washing down with power hoses and bleach. Yeah ... I know ... ain't happening. Ever.
8 people like this.
Reply 14 - Posted by:
Lawsy0 10/7/2019 11:36:47 AM (No. 200157)
Once the center of western US culture and refinement, to San Francisco, we weep and sadly sing with Pinderton, ''Addio, Fiorito Asil.''
4 people like this.
Reply 15 - Posted by:
LadyHen 10/7/2019 11:55:43 AM (No. 200170)
Heather MacDonald is always a good read. Highly recommend this read. She is still a real journalist.
fta: " Drug sellers are as shameless as drug users. Hondurans have dominated the drug trade in the Tenderloin and around Civic Center Plaza and Union Square since the 1990s. They congregate up to a dozen a corner, openly counting and recounting large wads of cash, completing transactions with no attempt at concealment. Most of the dealers are illegal aliens. "
We all know illegal immigration is not the victimless crime progressive democrats say. Here is yet another example of the plague of destruction and lawlessness illegals contribute to our nation.
7 people like this.
Reply 16 - Posted by:
Videodrone 10/7/2019 2:50:41 PM (No. 200348)
I recently started a new job and have to go to the Bay Area a few times a month, my old house in Mt. View recently sold for $1.7M - it was sold as a lot, they weren't even letting folks inside! A max lot 2 story mini MacMansion is going up in it's place. it's less than a mile from two massive Google facilities - a block away is RV row - not tents, but nice rigs - but, they all work for Google and can't afford to pay rent!
2 people like this.
Reply 17 - Posted by:
DVC 10/7/2019 3:30:01 PM (No. 200383)
Way past time to flush the toilet that SanFran has become.
3 people like this.
Reply 18 - Posted by:
OK state mom 10/7/2019 3:47:53 PM (No. 200398)
A family friend has a mother who has been homeless in Tulsa. She just received free housing about a month ago. The friend blogs about it at tim landes jr (one word, no spaces) dot com. If you want to really know more about the homeless situation I encourage you to read it. He doesn't hold anything back. These people are mentally ill and have become feral. Since Tim started blogging about her she has been beat to pulp, had attempted murder charges filed against her, had everything but her Cherokee ID card stolen, wrecked her car, had her neck broken, and been raped.
0 people like this.
Reply 19 - Posted by:
MickTurn 10/7/2019 5:56:40 PM (No. 200489)
I coined a phrase for San Fornication Ca. last time I was there...it's an ANT FARM...millions of idiots milling around but not producing a thing...now we have the BUMS running things...I won't insult the street people that way, I'm talking about the Politicians!
1 person likes this.
Reply 20 - Posted by:
Mother of AL 10/8/2019 5:15:17 PM (No. 201503)
Excellent article! And I immediately went to City Journal and subscribed.
I now have a philosophical question. I know the answer, but I’ll ask anyway. What causes a society to become so nihilistic that it runs headlong toward self destruction? It is truly impossible to believe the *powers that be* cannot see where this will lead. And the disgusting manner of sin and degradation of the path they have chosen!
The answer is, of course the rejection of the Lord Jesus Christ. Our adversary would have his followers be subjected to the most disgusting things he can conceive, and San Francisco has managed to attain that, it appears. When we consider that man was made in the image of God, it is no wonder our adversary wants to subject human beings to these things. And a true revival, turning to Christ in true repentance is the only way out of this filth.
0 people like this.
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