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Open Thread 2-5

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It is always amazing to me when I read things like this. “I’m old enough to remember the shock, replaced quickly by compassion fatigue, when urban homelessness first energed as a problem in the early ’80s,. Before then, hard as it is to imagine now, cities didn’t have homelessness issues – just a few random drunks and what were then quaintly called hoboes.” Geov isn’t the first person I’ve read with similar observations, and while I believe it, it’s tough to internalize. What seems like an intractable problem that has been there forever is actually a bit younger than me.

Comments

  1. 1

    Smart filter is popping up everytime I come here now. I have to prove I’m a human to vote this site as safe. Probably the ads. I’ve always had some problems here.

    HellofaDebateHuh?

  2. 2

    That was my experience in Philadelphia. Whether it was there all the time and just better hidden, I can’t say for sure, but the number of homeless certainly appeared to take off in the early 1980s.

  3. 3

    How the economics profession blew it.

    http://www.cbsnews.com/news/as.....economics/

    Roger Rabbit Commentary: Nearly all their assumptions of 20 years ago — which happen to be the same assumptions underpinning conservative ideology — about big banks, tax cuts for the rich, free trade, fiscal and monetary policy, self-regulating markets, productivity, breaking unions, and retraining workers turned out to be wrong. But then, depressions have a way of upending assumptions, don’t they? One thing, however, has remained a predictable constant over the last two centuries of capitalism: If you have conservatives in power and laissez-faire economic policies in place, you’re going to have depressions.

  4. 4

    It strikes me that if you chase homeless people out of one place, they’ll go to some other place, because they don’t cease to physically exist simply because you run them off. They have to be somewhere, right? If they’re not sitting on a downtown sidewalk, camping in The Jungle, or riding on a bus, then where will they go? Somewhere. They have to be somewhere. A tactic adopted by some cities, mostly in the south, is making it a crime to feed the homeless. Other cities make it a crime to sit or fall a sleep on a sidewalk. Other places put spikes on flowerboxes to discourage people from sitting on them. The idea is to make cities so inhospitable the homeless will remove themselves from the cities. So where do they go? To the suburbs, of course, and they’re not welcome there, either. We may not be that far away from bureaucrats and city councils entertaining “final solutions” to “the homeless problem,” to be carried out with police dogs and police clubs.

  6. 6

    @4 Tepublicans hope they’ll all leave their districts for the urban centers. So that they can say “see our policies produce better people”.

  7. 7

    Sure, there’s no drug health crisis, or over zealous cop crisis, or global warming crisis, or alchahol crisis, or just plain uneducated young American crisis.

    The true fight should be porn.

    http://www.democraticunderground.com/10141337951

    I’m sure this guy ducks around on his wife, but so long as the little children aren’t exposed.

  8. 8

    The voters blew it. They went with Hoover, oops, I mean Reagan.
    Before that, my father’s yearly income was the price of their home.
    It won’t be long before a home will take three generations to pay off.

  10. 10

    @9 I wonder if Palin ever spent some time in Latin America? Or maybe someone just pissed on her and she contracted it. After all she’s given birth to a bunch of fucking retards.

  11. 11

    Geov is probably right, to a degree. Back in the day, it was indeed true in many places that “Four hours of pushin’ broom” got you an “eight-by-ten, four-bed room”. Then places like Pioneer Square were declared hip and the flophouses gave way to “luxury lofts”. Now we’ve reached the point where twelve hours of pushin’ burgers won’t put a roof over your head for the night, but it’ll get you a tent and a sleeping bag from Outdoor Emporium.

    All that started happening earlier than 1980. However, it was about a year into the Gipper’s watch that I realized there were now entire families out begging, instead of the stereotypical grizzled loners who’d come to town on the side-door Pullman.

  13. 13

    “Fundamental Right”? Say unlike gay people being married. Seems like a hypocritical comment if you believe in one and not the other. But who’s counting?

    Oh and even a court ruled on it. But who believes in the court system?

    Boob, being a fucking douche, must be a fundamental right too.

  14. 14

    @9 “I guess there is a real risk that Washington, D.C. might soon have microcephalics in places other than federal government buildings.”

    That’s already a problem in the medical profession, so I wouldn’t be surprised if it spreads to other segments of the civilian population.

  15. 15

    @12,
    I tend to regard these kinds of laws as futile and somewhat pointless. Even if they were somehow found to be Constitutional, it leaves the industry relatively free to bypass with new models that avoid the “type” standard while retaining the inherently dangerous features.

    A far better approach is to articulate reasonable and generally applicable standards focusing on safety. As it stands right now, in many states firearms constitute a woefully unregulated consumer product that puts the gun owner, their family, their neighbors, and the general public at considerable risk for no good reason. People have a Constitutional right to own and carry guns. But they don’t have a Constitutional right to own personal protection weapons that are inherently unsafe to themselves and others.

  16. 16

    @12 People also have a fundamental right to get abortions, but that doesn’t stop the right from using force and violence to prevent them from exercising this right. Maybe people sick and tired of their children being gunned down in elementary schools will decide someday to use the same approach on gun owners. I’m no advocating that; I’m just trying to visualize where things might go in a lawless society where people have as little respect for others’ rights as is routinely exhibited by Republicans.

  17. 17

    Ah. I can just click the X at the top right and I don’t have to fill anything out.

    I’m glad you folks are having this conversation. I’ve never lived in an area with so much homeless. I remember hearing about authorities in Kansas bussing them to Texas, and Texas would put them on busses to the west. Not sure how true that is, but it wouldn’t surprise me. I wish I could help in some meaningful way. I worry that I’m only a paycheck away from joining them.

  18. 18

    @16,
    something else the opponents of reproductive health services have done with some limited success is use safety regulation as stalking horse to limit access.

    We need to vigorously explore the limits of the 2nd Amendment within that context. We shouldn’t be timid about embracing firearms ownership as not only a legitimate, but also a perfectly healthy thing for American families. And in doing so, champion every effort to ensure that firearms ownership really is a healthy option for families and communities. Instead of blaming Adam Lanza’s mother, maybe one approach is to require that firearms be made safe from this kind of misuse. Locking and disabling features are a pretty simple first step. One that would save a lot of lives.

  19. 19

    Our idiot media and scientists, yes, I said it, showed footage of a rare leopard in the mountains south of Tuscon. Any bets on how long it is before some savage fool with a gun shoots it?

  22. 22

    @18 Adam Lanza’s mother deserves a mountain of blame. Too bad she’s not around to collect it.

  23. 23

    So why won’t Heilary release those Goldman Sucks speeches now?

    PuddyPoll:

    1) They are boring… like R senile’s stock ANALysis
    2) They are begging for Clinton Crime Family Foundation donations
    3) They kiss Wall Street’s ASS
    4) All of the above
    [ ] Mark answer here

  24. 24

    Bwaaaaaaaaaaa haaaaaaaaaaaaaa haaaaaaaa haaaaaaaaaaa haaaaaaa haaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa haaaaaaaaaa haaaaaaaaaaaa haaaaaaaaaa bwaaaaaaaaaaaaaa haaaaaaaaaaaaaaa

    DUMMOCRETIN voting malfeasance again?

    – The Iowa Democratic party has refused to audit the results.
    – “something smells in the Democratic party”

    Nothing new here.

    Step 1. The first Coronation Process has been run as discussed at the DNC. Completed

    Step 2 Attack Bernie as worthless in the general election. Completed

    Step 3 Allow Heilary to lie about the FBI investigation which she knows nothing about per the FBI. Completed

    http://www.theguardian.com/us-.....on-sanders

  29. 29

    @28 “All klownservatics care about is power.”

    Sure. They want to run other people’s lives. Even though they do a lousy job of running their own lives.

  31. 31

    I can already predict one or more of the suprbowl commercials, and I haven’t seen any previews. Of course their will be at least one, or more, that will poke fun of ones masculinity and precariously make fun of a straight person with respect to sexual orientation. Of course we couldn’t have manly football without a homophobe audience to pander to.

    Oh, and have fun with the Zika virus everyone.

  34. 34

    Did the crazed clueless databaze cretin fart again?

    Did the crazed databaze fail the fool again?

    Sux to be so crazed!

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