US Politics Mega-thread - Page 1666

On July 15 2019 22:40 Blitzkrieg0 wrote:


Epstein connections make more sense anyway. Didn't realize that Mueller got pushed back.

On July 15 2019 22:42 IyMoon wrote:


Is epstein really that big though? These things tend to blow over.

Muller got postponed because they need to figure out how long the questions will be asked

On July 15 2019 22:55 KwarK wrote:

A member of the government publicly admitted that he illegally conspired to release a child rapist. There aren’t many smaller scandals I can imagine.

On July 15 2019 23:01 IyMoon wrote:



I am not saying it's small in the sense of how bad it is. I am asking does the public care?

It's a weird time to live in where I honestly am not sure they do

Then there was actual human shit on the sidewalks. You needed to look down as you walk because you will otherwise very likely walk on poop. actual human poop

On July 15 2019 21:25 Danglars wrote:

Honestly, the NIMBYism is the quintessential part of liberalism. Consider the evolution of the “limousine liberal pejorative.” Sam Francisco liberal elites easily hurdle environmental assessment burdens, but use it to defeat lower class property developments. They send their children to elite private schools, and don’t care when their legislation makes public schools awful.

On July 16 2019 00:24 GreenHorizons wrote:
yikes...on that whole take but



I'm a communist because downtown, without money, there's nowhere to shit but the street.

On July 16 2019 00:17 Mohdoo wrote:
SF Homeless issue stuff: Based on my time there, there is no way to half ass that problem. If you haven't been in some of the worst areas of SF's homeless stuff, you can't understand. I didn't either. There is an enormous number of people who are mentally not quite right. These shelters give people food and water, but the people remain fundamentally broken and wreak havoc on the surrounding area. These people do not have their qualities of life improved by these shelters. All it does is serve as a meeting ground for people who literally throw their own bloody shit at people walking by.

Consider this: When I was in SF, I was walking by a bus that shuttles people to Facebook's campus. In this area, where FB people work, there were multiple homeless people who were straight up bad. A couple of them would sexually harass anyone woman who got near him. One of the dude's *ENTIRE LEGS WERE BOTH BLOODY* because he was scratching all the skin off of it. He was just sitting there DESTROYING the skin on his legs and it looked like he'd been doing it for days. Imagine watching a dude aggressively scratching flesh that is already bloody. Then there was actual human shit on the sidewalks. You needed to look down as you walk because you will otherwise very likely walk on poop. actual human poop.

I forget the name, but there was this 1 street where it was like all the super messed up homeless people took over in some weird dystopian madmax scenario. It was entirely not safe to walk through that area.

In SF, it is like these 2 entirely distinct populations living side by side. And there are so, so, so many of these people I am describing. It is NOTTTTTTTT some people down on their luck who happened to not quite pay rent, but also had no friends nearby, so here they are sleeping on a bench. No. These people need to be committed to a mental facility. I can't emphasize enough how completely past the point of return a LARGE number of these people were.

You know how in most cities, you see homeless people just kinda mumble to themselves as they look through trash cans, sometimes asking for money? Not in SF. In SF, it is a totally different world. And again: there are sooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo many.

In order for SF to solve their homeless issue, it will require full on billion dollar facilities to house these people, commit them to years of therapy/medication, on-site job training, on-site job counseling, a fleet of psychologists and psychiatrists...there's nothing you can do that is less than that while still doing anything at all. It is so hopeless.

If someone proposed a $100/year tax on me to spend $10M building homeless shelters, I would vote no. If they proposed a $1000/year tax on me to spend $1B on some super-shelter that expects each resident to spend at least 2 years recovering/coping with their mental illnesses, I would vote yes. The current approaches to homelessness do not come close to being sufficient for SF. It is a totally different world. If you have homeless people where you live, the situation looks nothing like SF. Portland is getting pretty bad lately too, but SF was like an actual state of emergency.

On July 16 2019 00:40 Acrofales wrote:


Sounds to me like San Franciscan exceptionalism. If your city is one of the richest in the world, but has homelessness problems worse than Mumbai, that isn't because you have a larger-than-normal number of deranged people...

On July 16 2019 00:48 Mohdoo wrote:


When we let people camp wherever they want, but don't help people work towards overcoming whatever makes them scratch off every piece of skin on their legs, we don't fix anything. If you give someone a meal, then they throw their shit at some people (yes, they do), then bloody themselves up in a big fight, then get their blood all over the street or within a business, all you did is feed someone. You didn't make the situation better. My entire point is that feeding these people isn't sufficient. They need to be cured of their mental illnesses. Making a homeless shelter is a useless pat on the back and doesn't help anyone.

On July 16 2019 00:34 Mohdoo wrote:


You don't think just replying with a condescending "yikes" is a bit shitty? Why not just explain why you think its such a bad take rather than this silly drive by condescension?

On July 16 2019 00:17 Mohdoo wrote:
SF Homeless issue stuff: Based on my time there, there is no way to half ass that problem. If you haven't been in some of the worst areas of SF's homeless stuff, you can't understand. I didn't either. There is an enormous number of people who are mentally not quite right. These shelters give people food and water, but the people remain fundamentally broken and wreak havoc on the surrounding area. These people do not have their qualities of life improved by these shelters. All it does is serve as a meeting ground for people who literally throw their own bloody shit at people walking by.

Consider this: When I was in SF, I was walking by a bus that shuttles people to Facebook's campus. In this area, where FB people work, there were multiple homeless people who were straight up bad. A couple of them would sexually harass anyone woman who got near him.

One of the dude's *ENTIRE LEGS WERE BOTH BLOODY* because he was scratching all the skin off of it. He was just sitting there DESTROYING the skin on his legs and it looked like he'd been doing it for days. Imagine watching a dude aggressively scratching flesh that is already bloody.

Then there was actual human shit on the sidewalks. You needed to look down as you walk because you will otherwise very likely walk on poop. actual human poop.

I forget the name, but there was this 1 street where it was like all the super messed up homeless people took over in some weird dystopian madmax scenario. It was entirely not safe to walk through that area.

In SF, it is like these 2 entirely distinct populations living side by side. And there are so, so, so many of these people I am describing. It is NOTTTTTTTT some people down on their luck who happened to not quite pay rent, but also had no friends nearby, so here they are sleeping on a bench. No. These people need to be committed to a mental facility. I can't emphasize enough how completely past the point of return a LARGE number of these people were.

You know how in most cities, you see homeless people just kinda mumble to themselves as they look through trash cans, sometimes asking for money? Not in SF. In SF, it is a totally different world. And again: there are sooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo many.

In order for SF to solve their homeless issue, it will require full on billion dollar facilities to house these people, commit them to years of therapy/medication, on-site job training, on-site job counseling, a fleet of psychologists and psychiatrists...there's nothing you can do that is less than that while still doing anything at all. It is so hopeless.

If someone proposed a $100/year tax on me to spend $10M building homeless shelters, I would vote no. If they proposed a $1000/year tax on me to spend $1B on some super-shelter that expects each resident to spend at least 2 years recovering/coping with their mental illnesses, I would vote yes. The current approaches to homelessness do not come close to being sufficient for SF. It is a totally different world. If you have homeless people where you live, the situation looks nothing like SF. Portland is getting pretty bad lately too, but SF was like an actual state of emergency.

On July 16 2019 00:54 Jockmcplop wrote:


The issue I have with this is that people are becoming homeless all the time.
Homeless shelters don't only help the homeless who have been homeless for 25 years and have awful mental and physical health problems as a result - they help people who have just become homeless and have no idea what to do about the situation. They can help those people find the resources they need to get out of their situation before they end up on drugs or with massive PTSD issues.

On July 16 2019 01:00 Mohdoo wrote:


Right, there basically 2 different groups:

1. Homeless without mental illness or drug addiction

2. Homeless people WITH mental illness or drug addiction

They need entirely different solutions. If someone has advanced schizophrenia, a bed, a meal, a temporary address and some job leads won't help. We need to have a solution for the people who are downright broken as humans. In Portland and SF, there are a ton of support networks for people who are down on their luck. We don't have ANY method of dealing with the people who are fundamentally non-functional as humans. We just give them some bread, socks and say "nice, I defeated homelessness".

On July 16 2019 01:07 Mohdoo wrote:
+ Show Spoiler +
It sounds like most of your critique is misunderstanding my conclusion. I am not saying they aren't worth helping or that they can't be helped. I am saying that they need significantly more and that giving these people a meal is just that, a meal. I am saying building another typical shelter in a SF neighborhood will not help the actual problem. The problem is that we need to give these people years of mandatory support while we fix them.

In many areas I have been, homeless people are not nearly as out of control as SF. People who have never been to SF likely wonder why a homeless shelter wouldn't help. The answer is that they need significantly more because they have debilitating mental illness.

In addition, when we let politicians impose bandage solutions, we let them off the hook, It allows them to say they did something. But they didn't accomplish anything. So they still get to say "I advocated for $10M of homeless stuff! I am hella progressive! xD!", and yet nothing happened. So people get complacent. If we stopped letting people impose policies that do nothing except pat ourselves on the back, and only accepted (actual) solutions, I think we would be in a better place 10 years from now. When we let ourselves try things that we know won't work, we only set ourselves back.

On July 16 2019 00:17 Mohdoo wrote:
SF Homeless issue stuff: Based on my time there, there is no way to half ass that problem. If you haven't been in some of the worst areas of SF's homeless stuff, you can't understand. I didn't either. There is an enormous number of people who are mentally not quite right. These shelters give people food and water, but the people remain fundamentally broken and wreak havoc on the surrounding area. These people do not have their qualities of life improved by these shelters. All it does is serve as a meeting ground for people who literally throw their own bloody shit at people walking by.

Consider this: When I was in SF, I was walking by a bus that shuttles people to Facebook's campus. In this area, where FB people work, there were multiple homeless people who were straight up bad. A couple of them would sexually harass anyone woman who got near him. One of the dude's *ENTIRE LEGS WERE BOTH BLOODY* because he was scratching all the skin off of it. He was just sitting there DESTROYING the skin on his legs and it looked like he'd been doing it for days. Imagine watching a dude aggressively scratching flesh that is already bloody. Then there was actual human shit on the sidewalks. You needed to look down as you walk because you will otherwise very likely walk on poop. actual human poop.

I forget the name, but there was this 1 street where it was like all the super messed up homeless people took over in some weird dystopian madmax scenario. It was entirely not safe to walk through that area.

In SF, it is like these 2 entirely distinct populations living side by side. And there are so, so, so many of these people I am describing. It is NOTTTTTTTT some people down on their luck who happened to not quite pay rent, but also had no friends nearby, so here they are sleeping on a bench. No. These people need to be committed to a mental facility. I can't emphasize enough how completely past the point of return a LARGE number of these people were.

You know how in most cities, you see homeless people just kinda mumble to themselves as they look through trash cans, sometimes asking for money? Not in SF. In SF, it is a totally different world. And again: there are sooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo many.

In order for SF to solve their homeless issue, it will require full on billion dollar facilities to house these people, commit them to years of therapy/medication, on-site job training, on-site job counseling, a fleet of psychologists and psychiatrists...there's nothing you can do that is less than that while still doing anything at all. It is so hopeless.

If someone proposed a $100/year tax on me to spend $10M building homeless shelters, I would vote no. If they proposed a $1000/year tax on me to spend $1B on some super-shelter that expects each resident to spend at least 2 years recovering/coping with their mental illnesses, I would vote yes. The current approaches to homelessness do not come close to being sufficient for SF. It is a totally different world. If you have homeless people where you live, the situation looks nothing like SF. Portland is getting pretty bad lately too, but SF was like an actual state of emergency.

On July 16 2019 01:00 Mohdoo wrote:
Right, there basically 2 different groups:

1. Homeless without mental illness or drug addiction

2. Homeless people WITH mental illness or drug addiction

They need entirely different solutions. If someone has advanced schizophrenia, a bed, a meal, a temporary address and some job leads won't help. We need to have a solution for the people who are downright broken as humans. In Portland and SF, there are a ton of support networks for people who are down on their luck. We don't have ANY method of dealing with the people who are fundamentally non-functional as humans. We just give them some bread, socks and say "nice, I defeated homelessness".