Posted on 08/02/2008 6:42:51 AM PDT by kellynla
ONE of the best ways to see a city's bones is to take a long jog in the hour before dawn. That's what I did in San Francisco this week.
The city reminded me of Calcutta.
By day, the camouflage of color and crowds makes the multitudes of homeless less apparent. At the chilly end of the night, though, they lie strewn on the sidewalks like plague victims, wrapped in filthy blankets and abandoned.
New Yorkers have no idea how bad a homeless crisis can be.
I didn't even run in the rougher sections, where old garbage fills the alleys and druggies prowl. My course ran from the slopes of Nob Hill, south of Union Square, down to the Embarcadero, up to North Beach and back. That's the better part of downtown.
My new symbol of San Francisco is a man with ulcerous calves exposed, head and torso thrust into a cardboard box in front of a Prada boutique.
What I saw as I sidestepped bodies wasn't just the failure of social policies, but a collective flight from responsibility. Shrugging our shoulders and declaiming The homeless deserve the right to make their own choices! just lets us all off the hook.
I refuse to romanticize the homeless - unlike those who live in San Francisco's multimillion-dollar Victorians and idealize the homeless from a distance, then cross the street to avoid giving a deranged beggar a quarter.
When it comes to the capable-but-unwilling homeless, John Stuart Mill's rule applies: The individual is entitled to the maximum individual freedom compatible with the freedom and well being of others. As long as he or she poses no criminal, health or aggravated-nuisance threats, the rest of us just have to suck it up.
(Excerpt) Read more at nypost.com ...
btt
It's like constantly putting out saucers of milk and then talking about a wandering cat problem. False cause. False analysis.
Stop giving the bums money (which SF considered doing) and force them into workfare, or institutionalize them.
But stop demanding more handouts from the taxpayers and stop making it look like it is the fault of capitalism.
Some people choose to be bums.
LOL !
The whole damm place place needs to go into the sea and nancy with it
Not to worry. Pretty soon the 'garbage' will be sorted and classified according to their idiot mayor. San Fran Sikko .. you got what you asked for when you let the 'socialistas' into power.
This from the sanctuary of tolerance for illegal immigrants who commit murder and the citadel of perversion.
San Francisco, close your golden gates. You reek.
The money phrase. Describes liberals/demoncrats/socialists beautifully.
- Traveler
“Stop giving the bums money (which SF considered doing) and force them into workfare, or institutionalize them.”
The liberal/leftist cabals have made it near impossible to institutionalize anyone in this country now. I think this is the single biggest reason why the homeless population has skyrocketed in the last 20 years. Not to mention the rise in violent crimes committed by certifiable lunatics and drug addicts.
Not sure what the answer is as far as paying for it, but I would rather spend tax dollars institutionalizing the ones that clearly cannot be productive in society and pose a serious threat.
Because the liberals have made it impossible to institutionalize these people, they end up going in and out of jails all of their lives and taxing that system.
Private and church organizations have done wonders trying to solve the problem, but too many of these people truly are a hopeless lot and so fall through the cracks.
Too crazy and/or violent to be allowed in shelters, they roam the streets until they are picked up and jailed for a few days..then let back out on the streets to start the cycle all over again.
In the early 60's I was in the Navy stationed across the bay from SF. It was a hoot to put on slacks, a nice shirt and sweater and go to the "City". Women in those days dressed to the nines, including gloves and hats and were stunning. Everyone dressed up to go shopping on a Saturday in the "City". After my tour I stayed in the Bay Area and watched SF become what it is today, sad, so sad. Once a world class city now a dump. I worked at the foot of Market St. for a number of years and saw from my window the change. Glad we moved to Texas in 2001.
Don’t forget Rice-A-Roni, the San Francisco Treat.
I’ve always thought it was more like Bangkok, myself.
Rudy Giuliani took a serious thrashing on this site over the past year, but recently I was in New York City, on the exact block where I worked 30 years ago .. and the difference he made by being tough was amazing.
On a Sunday afternoon, the streets, subways and shops were full of people: families pushing babies in strollers, young people, just an incredible mass of people.
In the late ‘70’s when I had to go downtown to work on a weekend day, the same streets in that part of town were abandoned.
Hopefully the day comes soon that San Francisco, arguably the most naturally beautiful city in the US, will get a mayor compaable to Giuliani.
We're avoiding the hard moral choices, the questions whose best answers still leave us uneasy: We worry more about stray dogs and cats than we do about stray humans.
Moral cowardice and lack of hard moral choices are hallmarks of a relativism as opposed to the more compassionate absolutism.
relativism: That homeless mentally deranged man in the gutter as must as much right to live as he pleases, even if that means it's unhealthy, demeaning and bad for society and a burden.
absolutism: put that same man in an institution for long term help, which is real compassion
Liberals are so evil
I thought it was Reagan who started the trend toward de-institutionalizing the mentally-ill homeless.
.....and AIDS methinks!
“In the early 60’s I was in the Navy stationed across the bay from SF.”
I was at NAS Alameda late 68 through 69. It was great!
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