Posted by:
schrodingerscat
(
)
Date: December 10, 2021 04:01PM
I live in one of the most liberal cities in one of the most liberal states in the country, 90minutes from 2/3 cities declared 'Anarchist Zones' by the US Department of Justice.
It was bleak here before the pandemic. We have two extremes we're dealing with, like other cities on the I-5 Corridor of the West Coast and elsewhere in this country. We have the liberals who are in power, running the government, on one side and the extreme conservatives on the other side (See Borat's latest movie where he almost got killed by an armed militia on our State Capitol Campus for singing a song about Wuhan Flu.)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QORVzSGriaYThis was the same heavily armed militia at our Governor's Mansion on 1/6 demanding the State Troopers arrest our Governor.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Uypwwz3DKGYAs the old adage goes,
"A conservative is just a liberal who's been mugged one too many times." and
"Show me a young man who's a conservative and I'll show you a man without a heart.
Show me an old man who's a liberal and I'll show you a man without a brain."
I'm neither a liberal or a conservative.
I'm a pragmatist.
Do what works best.
Toss the rest.
Having growing tent cities full of people on the shoulder of the freeway, under bridges, in the doorways, swamps and greenbelts around town, while high priced out of reach, condo's are being built all around town, like we do, clearly isn't working.
Having waring groups of anarchists and heavily armed militias going around town, intimidating elected officials and shooting people in the street, like we do, clearly isn't working.
What does work, like it did in Finland which reduced homelessness to 0.1% of the population, is housing first, getting people off the streets and out of the tent cities and housing them is the first step. Then getting them drug/alcohol/mental health treatment is the next step. Vocational rehabilitation and training is the next step.
What does work is looking around at what other countries are doing to resolve their most pressing problems facing them. Find local solutions.
What does work is finding common ground with 'others', who might not look like us and working together for the well being of 'others'.
But that's not capitalism. It's dog eat dog, survival of the fittest or the ones with the most weapons, I guess.
Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 12/10/2021 04:18PM by schrodingerscat.