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On December 28 2023 08:12 KwarK wrote:Show nested quote +On December 28 2023 06:52 BlackJack wrote:
Seemingly every year progressive cities spend more and more on homelessness and every year the problem gets worse and worse. Unfortunately they lack the linear thinking to see why that's happening so instead they insist they just need a bit more money to right the ship. Your ideology is such a joke. Progressives argue that excessive policing isn’t getting anywhere and that some of that should be diverted to harm reduction programs. The so called “defund the police” movement.
Are you at all familiar with crime levels from say the 1980s to 2020? There are MASSIVE decreases in violent crime, homicide, property crime, etc. Progressives arguing that nothing is getting better and this isn't working and we need to reverse course makes perfect sense.
Conservatives lose their custard over social media and tv echo chamber mischaracterizations of it and complain so hard that they actually win the debate through sheer obstinacy. The harm reduction programs never get funded and instead the police get given record funding. The conservatives get everything that they wanted like the whiny entitled children they are.
Then nothing gets better because of course nothing gets better because we knew it didn’t work last year and spending more money on policies that don’t work won’t change anything.
![[image loading]](https://i.imgur.com/MpDrFuI.png)
But you’re still online bitching about how the failure of your policy of giving the police record funding is really because the progressives defunded the police. Even though the progressives gave in and gave you the funding increases you wanted. It’s not that your policy failed, it’s really their fault for proposing something different before giving in and following your policy because in your mind you’re their victim somehow.
Where was this “progressives spend more and more and the problem just gets worse” Blackjack when it was about record police spending? You’re getting your way. You’re the one pissing away all the money on failed policing strategies. You’re the one that increases the budget each year while all the experts in the field say that harm reduction is the only path forwards. And despite fucking everything up, year after year, you still have the nerve to insist that progressives are to blame for things only getting worse as if your way wasn’t literally the only way that we’ve tried.
It’s the ideology of a child. And not a smart child. The kind of child who will make themselves sick eating only candy, then shit all over the floor, then blame the dinner you cooked them that they didn’t even eat. No accountability, not even a basic recognition that they got what they wanted. Everything is someone else’s fault and it’d all be fixed if you’d only let them eat even more candy.
More nonsense about how Defund the Police was never actually a thing, which I've already thoroughly refuted .
Politifact rates your argument as mostly false:
"Police budgets are at their highest they've ever been, there hasn't actually been any defunding the police."
Rating: Mostly False
It's your argument word for word and Politifact, hardly a right-wing operative, is rating it Mostly False. Only mostly false because, as we've agreed, they have started to reverse course. For example New York planned to cut their police budget by $1 billion and instead only cut it by $317 million. I have no doubt you will be undeterred and just keep repeating this over and over anyway.
Not to mention I've repeatedly pointed out the fallacy that "record high police budgets" does not correlate to record high police force or manpower. Oakland PD:
The Police Department’s budget is increasing by roughly $40 million over what it received in the last two-year cycle, growing to $722 million from $683 million. However, the costs of running the department—salaries, materials, contracts, and more—have grown faster than this new funding. To make up for this, the budget freezes numerous vacant OPD positions, reduces the number of sworn officer positions from 726 to 710, and cuts the overtime budget by 15%. No police officers are being laid off.
+ Show Spoiler +Also bears repeating for the nth time: The "defund the police" is a very small portion of my argument for the current state of affairs. In fact progressive DAs that are lenient on crime and anti-police sentiment becoming en vogue are even larger contributors, in my opinion. With "Defund" and "ACAB" applying even more to anti-police ideologies as to fiscal policies. Instead you opt to argue against the strawman of "BlackJack says all of these problems are caused soley because police have less money."
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United States43419 Posts
Crime is up when it suits your argument. Crime is down when it suits your argument. Funding is down when it suits your argument. Funding is up when it suits your argument. Smaller numbers are sometimes bigger than bigger numbers to you. You live in a fantasy world where facts care about your feelings. Here’s the problem, in the real world where the rest of us live facts don’t care about your feelings.
If more money results in worse service then that is, to you, an argument for even more money. But in the same breath you say we shouldn’t continue pumping taxpayer money into things that don’t produce results.
You don’t even make a cursory attempt at consistency because it’s simply not important to your feelings.
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On December 28 2023 11:01 KwarK wrote:
Crime is up when it suits your argument. Crime is down when it suits your argument. Funding is down when it suits your argument. Funding is up when it suits your argument. Smaller numbers are sometimes bigger than bigger numbers to you. You live in a fantasy world where facts care about your feelings. Here’s the problem, in the real world where the rest of us live facts don’t care about your feelings.
If more money results in worse service then that is, to you, an argument for even more money. But in the same breath you say we shouldn’t continue pumping taxpayer money into things that don’t produce results.
You don’t even make a cursory attempt at consistency because it’s simply not important to your feelings.
Notice the tail end of the graph I posted and how it's going up after 2020? Crime was going down for decades and now it's going up. Both things can be true. Amazing, I know.
The people that live in their own reality are the ones that think the problem was getting "worse" during the decades that crime rate was dropping. Or the people that think the conservatives are to blame for policy failures where progressives hold comfortable supermajorities.
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On December 28 2023 11:12 BlackJack wrote:Show nested quote +On December 28 2023 11:01 KwarK wrote:
Crime is up when it suits your argument. Crime is down when it suits your argument. Funding is down when it suits your argument. Funding is up when it suits your argument. Smaller numbers are sometimes bigger than bigger numbers to you. You live in a fantasy world where facts care about your feelings. Here’s the problem, in the real world where the rest of us live facts don’t care about your feelings.
If more money results in worse service then that is, to you, an argument for even more money. But in the same breath you say we shouldn’t continue pumping taxpayer money into things that don’t produce results.
You don’t even make a cursory attempt at consistency because it’s simply not important to your feelings. Notice the tail end of the graph I posted and how it's going up after 2020? Crime was going down for decades and now it's going up. Both things can be true. Amazing, I know. The people that live in their own reality are the ones that think the problem was getting "worse" during the decades that crime rate was dropping. Or the people that think the conservatives are to blame for policy failures where progressives hold comfortable supermajorities.
You wanted funding increases, got them, got worse results, blamed imaginary funding cuts, then said progressives want to spend money on policies that don’t produce results. Non stop feelings based argument with no internal coherence. Your car got stolen, that sucks, but facts don’t care about your feelings.
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On December 28 2023 11:33 KwarK wrote:Show nested quote +On December 28 2023 11:12 BlackJack wrote:On December 28 2023 11:01 KwarK wrote:
Crime is up when it suits your argument. Crime is down when it suits your argument. Funding is down when it suits your argument. Funding is up when it suits your argument. Smaller numbers are sometimes bigger than bigger numbers to you. You live in a fantasy world where facts care about your feelings. Here’s the problem, in the real world where the rest of us live facts don’t care about your feelings.
If more money results in worse service then that is, to you, an argument for even more money. But in the same breath you say we shouldn’t continue pumping taxpayer money into things that don’t produce results.
You don’t even make a cursory attempt at consistency because it’s simply not important to your feelings. Notice the tail end of the graph I posted and how it's going up after 2020? Crime was going down for decades and now it's going up. Both things can be true. Amazing, I know. The people that live in their own reality are the ones that think the problem was getting "worse" during the decades that crime rate was dropping. Or the people that think the conservatives are to blame for policy failures where progressives hold comfortable supermajorities. You wanted funding increases, got them, got worse results, blamed imaginary funding cuts, then said progressives want to spend money on policies that don’t produce results. Non stop feelings based argument with no internal coherence. Your car got stolen, that sucks, but facts don’t care about your feelings.
Right... because the funding increase I wanted is the one that failed to keep up with costs and resulted in a reduction in the police force...
+ Show Spoiler +
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United States43419 Posts
On December 28 2023 11:53 BlackJack wrote:Show nested quote +On December 28 2023 11:33 KwarK wrote:On December 28 2023 11:12 BlackJack wrote:On December 28 2023 11:01 KwarK wrote:
Crime is up when it suits your argument. Crime is down when it suits your argument. Funding is down when it suits your argument. Funding is up when it suits your argument. Smaller numbers are sometimes bigger than bigger numbers to you. You live in a fantasy world where facts care about your feelings. Here’s the problem, in the real world where the rest of us live facts don’t care about your feelings.
If more money results in worse service then that is, to you, an argument for even more money. But in the same breath you say we shouldn’t continue pumping taxpayer money into things that don’t produce results.
You don’t even make a cursory attempt at consistency because it’s simply not important to your feelings. Notice the tail end of the graph I posted and how it's going up after 2020? Crime was going down for decades and now it's going up. Both things can be true. Amazing, I know. The people that live in their own reality are the ones that think the problem was getting "worse" during the decades that crime rate was dropping. Or the people that think the conservatives are to blame for policy failures where progressives hold comfortable supermajorities. You wanted funding increases, got them, got worse results, blamed imaginary funding cuts, then said progressives want to spend money on policies that don’t produce results. Non stop feelings based argument with no internal coherence. Your car got stolen, that sucks, but facts don’t care about your feelings. Right... because the funding increase I wanted is the one that failed to keep up with costs and resulted in a reduction in the police force... + Show Spoiler +
So the funding increase they got didn’t produce results? No worries. They probably just need a little more money to right the ship. That’ll turn it around.
+ Show Spoiler [hours earlier] +On December 28 2023 06:52 BlackJack wrote:
Unfortunately [progressives] lack the linear thinking to see why that's happening so instead they insist they just need a bit more money to right the ship.
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On December 28 2023 11:58 KwarK wrote:Show nested quote +On December 28 2023 11:53 BlackJack wrote:On December 28 2023 11:33 KwarK wrote:On December 28 2023 11:12 BlackJack wrote:On December 28 2023 11:01 KwarK wrote:
Crime is up when it suits your argument. Crime is down when it suits your argument. Funding is down when it suits your argument. Funding is up when it suits your argument. Smaller numbers are sometimes bigger than bigger numbers to you. You live in a fantasy world where facts care about your feelings. Here’s the problem, in the real world where the rest of us live facts don’t care about your feelings.
If more money results in worse service then that is, to you, an argument for even more money. But in the same breath you say we shouldn’t continue pumping taxpayer money into things that don’t produce results.
You don’t even make a cursory attempt at consistency because it’s simply not important to your feelings. Notice the tail end of the graph I posted and how it's going up after 2020? Crime was going down for decades and now it's going up. Both things can be true. Amazing, I know. The people that live in their own reality are the ones that think the problem was getting "worse" during the decades that crime rate was dropping. Or the people that think the conservatives are to blame for policy failures where progressives hold comfortable supermajorities. You wanted funding increases, got them, got worse results, blamed imaginary funding cuts, then said progressives want to spend money on policies that don’t produce results. Non stop feelings based argument with no internal coherence. Your car got stolen, that sucks, but facts don’t care about your feelings. Right... because the funding increase I wanted is the one that failed to keep up with costs and resulted in a reduction in the police force... + Show Spoiler + So the funding increase they got didn’t produce results? No worries. They probably just need a little more money to right the ship. That’ll turn it around. + Show Spoiler [hours earlier] +On December 28 2023 06:52 BlackJack wrote:
Unfortunately [progressives] lack the linear thinking to see why that's happening so instead they insist they just need a bit more money to right the ship.
*Police budget goes up by $1*
*Homelessness budget goes up by $1 quadrillion*
"Both budgets are record highs with poor results so if you think homelessness funding is being squandered you have to think police funding is being squandered."
As % of city budget
Police spending has DECREASED
Homelessness spending has INCREASED
Comparing the spending increases as relative to previous years or as relative to overall city budget is a much fairer way to examine this than simply "Is this number bigger than last year's number" but of course you don't want to have that discussion.
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United States43419 Posts
On December 28 2023 13:07 BlackJack wrote:
*Police budget goes up by $1*
You may feel like it only went up by $1 but over here in facts land it went up by $23m, 7% year on year, in the year you described as defunded.
Feelings don’t make strong arguments.
This is the second time you’ve attempted the “well what if it only went up by $1, would that still be an increase in funding, if it only went up by $1 then actually I’d be right”. It didn’t only go up by $1. Facts.
Coming up with hypotheticals in which your claim that Oakland defunded their police department in 2023 would be justified doesn’t help you win arguments in the real world, only in those hypothetical worlds.
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% of city budget seems pretty self-evidently dumb as a metric. An increase to funding for the parks department doesn’t in any way imply the policing should get worse, but it does mean their percent of the total budget went down. Normally I would want to be charitable about someone using a non-obvious metric but when it’s attached to this extremely obnoxious “I’m obviously correct and any intelligent person would remember the last conversation I obviously also won” tone, it makes me pretty reluctant to take your position seriously or give benefit of the doubt.
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On December 28 2023 13:11 KwarK wrote:You may feel like it only went up by $1 but over here in facts land it went up by $23m, 7% year on year, in the year you described as defunded.Feelings don’t make strong arguments. This is the second time you’ve attempted the “well what if it only went up by $1, would that still be an increase in funding, if it only went up by $1 then actually I’d be right”. It didn’t only go up by $1. Facts.
Here is the entirety of my quote that this whole conversation devolved from
Oakland has a progressive DA, Pamela Price, that believes in "restorative justice" and an "equitable justice system" which as far as I can tell means doing anything she can to make sure people are not incarcerated, especially if they are of a certain color. It's so bad even the NAACP of Oakland had to come out and bluntly say 'Enforcing the law is not racist.'
OPD is at risk for losing state funding unless they improve their 911 wait times where callers wait on hold for sometimes 10-20 minutes. It's all about par for the course for a city that bought into Defund the police and All Cops Are Bastards. The sad thing is it's primarily the people of color that will suffer from this idiotic social experiment of letting crime run rampant. Polling shows that black people want MORE or equal police present in their community, not less.
And yes I think it's a pendulum swing as you describe and I expect the pendulum to swing back as people wake up to the bullshit. The SF DA got recalled. The recall for the Alameda DA is underway.
I've bolded the only sentence where I even mention defund.
*BlackJack says Oakland defunded the police in 2023 and that's why he had a bad experience" is the strawman you invented and have done a poor job at defeating. I never said Oakland defunded the police in 2023. Of all the arguments I've made on this topic you tried to score the narrowest of victories and still had to resort to making things up.
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United States43419 Posts
Your claim was that you couldn’t get the police to help you this year because the city bought into defund the police. Which part are you now contesting? What year it is?
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On December 28 2023 13:33 KwarK wrote:
Your claim was that you couldn’t get the police to help you this year because the city bought into defund the police. Which part are you now contesting? What year it is?
I've already answered that several pages ago. In 2021 Oakland City Council voted to reallocate $17 million from the police to other social programs for 2022. Part of the money was to be used for future police academies. It's quite obvious how you can get a downstream effect of fewer academies in 2022 to fewer police in 2023. Policy changes don't have instantaneous affects. We don't blame the President for the state of the country the day after he is inaugurated. Almost everything has lag times between policy enactment and when you will see the change.
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United States43419 Posts
On December 28 2023 13:53 BlackJack wrote:Show nested quote +On December 28 2023 13:33 KwarK wrote:
Your claim was that you couldn’t get the police to help you this year because the city bought into defund the police. Which part are you now contesting? What year it is? I've already answered that several pages ago. In 2021 Oakland City Council voted to reallocate $17 million from the police to other social programs for 2022. Part of the money was to be used for future police academies. It's quite obvious how you can get a downstream effect of fewer academies in 2022 to fewer police in 2023. Policy changes don't have instantaneous affects. We don't blame the President for the state of the country the day after he is inaugurated. Almost everything has lag times between policy enactment and when you will see the change.
In 2021 they also didn’t defund the police. People said if they did it would cause issues and so they didn’t actually defund it.
Your side whined until they won the argument, you got what you wanted, the police got funded, and you’re still complaining. And to make matters worse you're complaining about how progressives spend ever increasing amounts on policies that don't yield results.
https://abc7news.com/amp/defund-police-oakland-crime-shooting/12311750/
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On December 28 2023 14:01 KwarK wrote:Show nested quote +On December 28 2023 13:53 BlackJack wrote:On December 28 2023 13:33 KwarK wrote:
Your claim was that you couldn’t get the police to help you this year because the city bought into defund the police. Which part are you now contesting? What year it is? I've already answered that several pages ago. In 2021 Oakland City Council voted to reallocate $17 million from the police to other social programs for 2022. Part of the money was to be used for future police academies. It's quite obvious how you can get a downstream effect of fewer academies in 2022 to fewer police in 2023. Policy changes don't have instantaneous affects. We don't blame the President for the state of the country the day after he is inaugurated. Almost everything has lag times between policy enactment and when you will see the change. In 2021 they also didn’t defund the police. People said if they did it would cause issues and so they didn’t actually defund it. Your side whined until they won the argument, you got what you wanted, the police got funded, and you’re still complaining. And to make matters worse you're complaining about how progressives spend ever increasing amounts on policies that don't yield results. https://abc7news.com/amp/defund-police-oakland-crime-shooting/12311750/
Fast forward a year later, city leaders celebrated what they called a 'historic vote' to defund the police. In June 2021, Oakland city council voted to cut nearly $20 million from its police force to other programs aimed to help prevent crime and address mental illness. But the headline at the time didn't reveal the full story.
While those cuts did happen, the I-Team found OPD's budget still increased more than $5.7 million in the following 2021-2022 fiscal year.
Your source literally says the cuts did happen. The budget was supposed to go up by $23 million and it went up by $5.7 million instead. It went up less becomes funds were reallocated away from the police department and into other social programs which is exactly the premise behind the defund movement.
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United States43419 Posts
On December 28 2023 14:43 BlackJack wrote:Show nested quote +On December 28 2023 14:01 KwarK wrote:On December 28 2023 13:53 BlackJack wrote:On December 28 2023 13:33 KwarK wrote:
Your claim was that you couldn’t get the police to help you this year because the city bought into defund the police. Which part are you now contesting? What year it is? I've already answered that several pages ago. In 2021 Oakland City Council voted to reallocate $17 million from the police to other social programs for 2022. Part of the money was to be used for future police academies. It's quite obvious how you can get a downstream effect of fewer academies in 2022 to fewer police in 2023. Policy changes don't have instantaneous affects. We don't blame the President for the state of the country the day after he is inaugurated. Almost everything has lag times between policy enactment and when you will see the change. In 2021 they also didn’t defund the police. People said if they did it would cause issues and so they didn’t actually defund it. Your side whined until they won the argument, you got what you wanted, the police got funded, and you’re still complaining. And to make matters worse you're complaining about how progressives spend ever increasing amounts on policies that don't yield results. https://abc7news.com/amp/defund-police-oakland-crime-shooting/12311750/ Show nested quote +Fast forward a year later, city leaders celebrated what they called a 'historic vote' to defund the police. In June 2021, Oakland city council voted to cut nearly $20 million from its police force to other programs aimed to help prevent crime and address mental illness. But the headline at the time didn't reveal the full story.
While those cuts did happen, the I-Team found OPD's budget still increased more than $5.7 million in the following 2021-2022 fiscal year. Your source literally says the cuts did happen. The budget was supposed to go up by $23 million and it went up by $5.7 million instead. It went up less becomes funds were reallocated away from the police department and into other social programs which is exactly the premise behind the defund movement.
Defund is when budget goes up $5.7m?
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On December 28 2023 14:44 KwarK wrote:Show nested quote +On December 28 2023 14:43 BlackJack wrote:On December 28 2023 14:01 KwarK wrote:On December 28 2023 13:53 BlackJack wrote:On December 28 2023 13:33 KwarK wrote:
Your claim was that you couldn’t get the police to help you this year because the city bought into defund the police. Which part are you now contesting? What year it is? I've already answered that several pages ago. In 2021 Oakland City Council voted to reallocate $17 million from the police to other social programs for 2022. Part of the money was to be used for future police academies. It's quite obvious how you can get a downstream effect of fewer academies in 2022 to fewer police in 2023. Policy changes don't have instantaneous affects. We don't blame the President for the state of the country the day after he is inaugurated. Almost everything has lag times between policy enactment and when you will see the change. In 2021 they also didn’t defund the police. People said if they did it would cause issues and so they didn’t actually defund it. Your side whined until they won the argument, you got what you wanted, the police got funded, and you’re still complaining. And to make matters worse you're complaining about how progressives spend ever increasing amounts on policies that don't yield results. https://abc7news.com/amp/defund-police-oakland-crime-shooting/12311750/ Fast forward a year later, city leaders celebrated what they called a 'historic vote' to defund the police. In June 2021, Oakland city council voted to cut nearly $20 million from its police force to other programs aimed to help prevent crime and address mental illness. But the headline at the time didn't reveal the full story.
While those cuts did happen, the I-Team found OPD's budget still increased more than $5.7 million in the following 2021-2022 fiscal year. Your source literally says the cuts did happen. The budget was supposed to go up by $23 million and it went up by $5.7 million instead. It went up less becomes funds were reallocated away from the police department and into other social programs which is exactly the premise behind the defund movement. Defund is when budget goes up $5.7m?
“In the United States, "defund the police" is a slogan that supports removing funds from police departments and reallocating them to non-policing forms of public safety and community support, such as social services, youth services, housing, education, healthcare and other community resources.“
-wiki
Funds intended for the police department were removed and reallocated to non-policing forms of public safety and community support. It applies perfectly.
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United States43419 Posts
How many more millions of budget increases would the police need to avoid meeting your definition of defunded? Is there a number? Or is defunded a state of mind? Perhaps they identify as defunded, I hear you kids have all sorts of weird new identities these days.
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On December 28 2023 15:03 KwarK wrote:
How many more millions of budget increases would the police need to avoid meeting your definition of defunded? Is there a number? Or is defunded a state of mind? Perhaps they identify as defunded, I hear you kids have all sorts of weird new identities these days.
I'd say a good benchmark is when reallocating funds away from the police department causes them to have fewer officers responding to 911 calls, as was the case here.
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On December 28 2023 08:47 Sadist wrote:Show nested quote +On December 28 2023 08:18 Mohdoo wrote:On December 28 2023 06:52 BlackJack wrote:
In general society should be cautious giving money to things it doesn't want to incentivize. We have things like scholarships to attend college and tax incentives for first time home buyers and having children because we want to incentivize more people to attend college or buy a home and start a family. Cash stipends for being homeless might just incentivize _________? Seemingly every year progressive cities spend more and more on homelessness and every year the problem gets worse and worse. Unfortunately they lack the linear thinking to see why that's happening so instead they insist they just need a bit more money to right the ship. It’s a weird situation because, like I pointed out, it’s not like any of us are dazed and confused trying to figure out how to solve the problem. The issue is that as they begin to plan how to address homelessness, city council or mayors or whatever look at 2 things: 1: the scale of the issue and approximate cost of solving the problem 2: resources available to use solving the problem As is the case with most things, there simply is not enough available resources to fix it, so the question becomes what can be done to still improve it with the resources available. This approach works in many situations but it does not work for homelessness. The actual, in practice policies enacted by Portland are wildly deficient and basically don’t solve anything. And there are many ways to argue the policies are a net negative. They had the right idea. Their hearts weee in the right place. But this is the fatal flaw: “well, we have to do something, so how can we work within these limitations to still make something happen? Even if we can’t solve it, we can make an impact through this or that” This ultimately leads to extremely poorly executed, under-funded, and mechanistically deficient policies. The people writing the adapted policies don’t understand how to adapt them well. They do a poor job at estimating cost because it’s extremely challenging, even after deciding to “do what we can”. The timeline ends up messed up because the logistics are also challenging, which often leads to certain pieces not lining up right and making it even less effective. Or certain parts of the project get cut half way through, which ultimately ends up being a critical weakness, making it all even less effective. And so I’ll say it again: homelessness is a federal problem. I would vote for a mayor/governor candidate who declared they would completely stop all the half-ass pats on the back and instead go absolutely nuclear on the federal government. Constantly posting graphic images, descriptions of deaths from overdose, and explicitly saying all of the blood is on mayor Pete or Biden’s hands. Make a national spectacle of it, be absolutely shameless, vile stuff left and right attacking the feds while highlighting the suffering of homeless people. Maybe some kind of running counter of “number of homeless people hit by car’s being driven by Joe Biden” or something like that. I’d love it. Can you clarify what the solution is? My understanding of homeless people in the US is that many of them have mental health issues and or addiction issues. I dont know what the percentages are but I would guess a majority. I am curious about what the solution is for the folks with Mental Health problems are. Outreach and stuff is great but Im pretty sure thats already happening. You can increase the Social Safety Net and I am 100% for that, I just think there will always be some homeless unless they are basically jailed in an asylum or something. Didnt the homeless population jump pretty dramatically once those places were shutdown in the US in the 70s and 80s? I again point to the entire rest of the western world that is obviously not perfect but tends to be better then the US in dealing with homelessness, addiction and social security.
This is not a new unsolvable problem. Its just the US being the US.
And no the US is not doing good in outreach and stuff for mental health problems, in fact the US is kind of famous for just throwing their mentally ill in prison rather then actually try helping them.
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There's some facts here, and there are some opinions here:
Fact: The reported rates of crime have been decreasing in the past 20 years or so, with a relatively smaller uptick most recently that is too short to definitely show an upwards trend.
Fact: the Oakland city council in 2021 claimed that they were defunding the police.
Fact: the Oakland city council cut 17 out of 23 million dollars from the spending increase requested by the police force in 2021.
Fact: the police commissioner claimed that it would hamper recruitment and emergency response.
Fact: BJ got his car stolen and the emergency response in Oakland refused to help.
Can we at least agree that all of the above happened, before you discuss how and why those are connected?
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EPT
