This isn't petty theft. Petty theft is an individual shoplifting, for instance.
> That's a commie answer.
No, that's a capitalist answer. You're comically giving the communist answer, that a business is a collection of people, and that hurting it hurts them all.
Shoplifting is bad for society as a whole, but (usually) doesn't directly hurt individuals.
>> If the stock market dropped 90%, then went up 200%, would you be celebrating the 200%?
> Yes.
So you don't understand math...
> Less safe than last year, for a few years now. Yes, it's smaller than all past gains but why are we slipping backward at all?
Because that's normal. The decrease in crime over the past 50 years hasn't been continuous. It's been a more natural ebb and flow. I don't see a year or two of very slightly higher crime as a trend up.
> Unions were a good idea when workers were dying, a little light crying isn't an issue. Minimum wage increases produce inflation not real wealth. Social programs are what's destroying many cities - specifically Vancouver, Seattle, SF.
All of these cities have lower crime rates than republican lead cities. All of them have drastically lower violent crime rates.
> Free childcare is backwards compared to helping mothers work less in the first place and hurts the quality providers in the market.
What about single mothers? What about mothers in 2 income families, where they can't afford losing an income? What do you actually propose to make it easier for mothers to work less? Apparently higher wages aren't appropriate, and free school to help them get higher paying jobs isn't appropriate.
> Insurance that everyone has isn't insurance, it's a poorly run buying program - mandate open drug pricing and help small providers buy at scale to achieve savings.
Essentially every other country on earth proves this to be wrong. The US has the highest medical costs, and plenty of other countries have a life expectancy that keeps rising, while ours is falling.
> Help make the economy better so they can afford to. Safety for people and property is essential.
The US economy has been stronger than most countries for effectively my entire life, and that hasn't eliminated poverty or crime. Other countries have enacted good social programs and have virtually eliminated crime.
> This isn't petty theft. Petty theft is an individual shoplifting, for instance.
If any are ever caught they get treated as individual shoplifters. Magically the crime statistics never show gang shoplifting.
> You're comically giving the communist answer, that a business is a collection of people, and that hurting it hurts them all.
The communist answer is that it isn't theft because of how you categorize those you inflict it on.
> Shoplifting is bad for society as a whole, but (usually) doesn't directly hurt individuals.
Of course not, you said the word 'directly'. All crimes against public companies are guilt free by definition comrade.
> Because that's normal. The decrease in crime over the past 50 years hasn't been continuous. It's been a more natural ebb and flow. I don't see a year or two of very slightly higher crime as a trend up.
You're missing the difference between reading history and experiencing the events in real time. Yes, we can probably count on things getting better in generational time, but now as things are getting worse we should look at our policies and try to figure it out rather than just waiting decades for things to clear up on their own.
> All of these cities have lower crime rates than republican lead cities. All of them have drastically lower violent crime rates.
Only if you ignore the crime of open drug use, and that it kills thousands per year. The only thing you can trust from these cities is that they're dishonest about their stats. If police don't answer a call did a crime really happen?
> What do you actually propose to make it easier for mothers to work less? Apparently higher wages aren't appropriate, and free school to help them get higher paying jobs isn't appropriate.
Higher wages are because of promotions are good, higher wages for the same job simply by government mandate doesn't provide higher purchasing power after inflation. And free school leads to the nonsense we have now with subsidized loans where a critical-studies degree costs $250k.
> Essentially every other country on earth proves this to be wrong. The US has the highest medical costs, and plenty of other countries have a life expectancy that keeps rising, while ours is falling.
Of course the costs are higher in the USA because it's the only country where you pay the actual cost. In every other country it's hidden in taxes to some degree, usually a lot, if it's available at all.
> The US economy has been stronger than most countries for effectively my entire life, and that hasn't eliminated poverty or crime.
It kinda has though. Our poorest are richer than the median in many countries. In cash dollars and in purchasing power. There are structural problems keeping many people in poverty and not purely distribution problems.
Crime on the other hand is more of a social thing than a poverty thing.
> Other countries have enacted good social programs and have virtually eliminated crime.
You know what's a good social program? Building a place to put druggies before thousands of them die on the street in the middle of a city.
> Only if you ignore the crime of open drug use, and that it kills thousands per year.
Thousands of users are killing themselves with the drugs. This is a self-harm issue, not a violent crime issue. It's only crime because we're criminalized possession, and that hasn't curbed use. It's still illegal to possess the drugs these folks are using, and they have roughly the same level of access to these illegal drugs inside of prison.
Prison simply isn't the answer to solving drug use. Drug use is also highly correlated with poverty. Some of the addicts on the street became homeless because of their addiction, but some of the addicts on the streets became addicts after becoming homeless.
The biggest driver of the heroin epidemic was perdue. The people responsible got off without punishment. You're proposing punishing their victims.
> The only thing you can trust from these cities is that they're dishonest about their stats. If police don't answer a call did a crime really happen?
This is a conspiracy theory.
> And free school leads to the nonsense we have now with subsidized loans where a critical-studies degree costs $250k.
No, you get that nonsense when the government subsidized a loan program.
> In every other country it's hidden in taxes to some degree, usually a lot, if it's available at all.
This argument isn't supported by the data. The data shows that total spending on healthcare in the US is considerably higher.
In the US the cost is also hidden by your employer, who's paying thousands of dollars a month for your insurance, which you also need to pay for, where you also need to cover a deductible, co-pays, out-of-network costs, ambulance costs, etc.
These things are all covered directly by your taxes in other countries. I'm currently living in Japan, and the cost of healthcare here is considerably cheaper, and my overall tax rate isn't much higher than it was when I was living in the US.
> Our poorest are richer than the median in many countries.
We're the richest country in the world. We need to compare ourselves to similar countries, not to third world countries. Folks in impoverished areas in the US can live in third-world conditions. This is extremely out of the norm when compared against our peers.
> Crime on the other hand is more of a social thing than a poverty thing.
Again, the data doesn't support this. There's a very strong correlation between poverty and crime.
> You know what's a good social program? Building a place to put druggies before thousands of them die on the street in the middle of a city.
Yeah, this is the point of safe-use sites, which have counselors to perform outreach, doctors to ensure they don't die, and facilities to ensure they have somewhere to throw away needles and use the bathroom. They're extremely effective at combating overdose deaths and at reducing needles on the street.
As mentioned before, it's just as easy to get these drugs in prison as it is to get them on the street, so unless you're proposing detox and treatment centers, I don't see what your good social program suggestion is.
> this is the point of safe-use sites, which have counselors to perform outreach, doctors to ensure they don't die, and facilities to ensure they have somewhere to throw away needles and use the bathroom.
These already exist in all the cities I'm discussing, but that's not at all what those sites are like. There are no doctors, no talking, no help, just a chair in a little nook and one nurse watching a room of people through a camera. The current message to the addicted is that they will die addicted and there's essentially no hope of "being cured" so there isn't much use in having a doctor on staff to deliver it.
> They're extremely effective at combating overdose deaths and at reducing needles on the street.
That's what they claim in their funding requests. And who knows, years ago with a different drug problem they may have had some positive effect. (fwiw clean needles appear to be the only useful piece of this intervention and they are widely available elsewhere.)
> Thousands of users are killing themselves with the drugs. This is a self-harm issue, not a violent crime issue.
It's a criminal issue because there are armed dealers and fortified camps and dead bodies in our cities.
> It's only crime because we're criminalized possession, and that hasn't curbed use.
It's crime, and not one we can look away from, because they're incapable of doing it quietly and without secondary violence and crime. The point isn't to give them a criminal record, it's that once we judge someone's actions to be criminal it gives us a lot more power to compel them off the streets and into treatment.
Once we put them in a detox program we can waive the criminal record for all their non-violent crimes. Portugal does this - the criminal sanctions are secondary and only used if you don't cooperate.
>> If police don't answer a call did a crime really happen?
> This is a conspiracy theory.
This doesn't require any conspiring, it's just the natural consequence of the police being too busy. They don't even record the things that they're too busy to respond to so it's invisible to the criminal justice system.
> Again, the data doesn't support this. There's a very strong correlation between poverty and crime.
For which city, and when? Is the city also undergoing a fentanyl crisis during the study? The people in the drug camps are not the same people who would have been smoking crack by the side of the road twenty years ago, many of them are well to do people who've fallen - quickly - into ruin.
> Some of the addicts on the street became homeless because of their addiction, but some of the addicts on the streets became addicts after becoming homeless.
Ultimately it doesn't matter how they got there, they all need to detox before they can move on.
> so unless you're proposing detox and treatment centers
I am.
> Prison simply isn't the answer to solving drug use.
Nothing is the answer, but it's an important part of the solution. When you imprison the drug user they don't live in a drug camp on the street and they don't overdose. Everyone is safer and happier. But no, detox is the answer and you use prison to make the junkie do that if they won't take another option.
> it's just as easy to get these drugs in prison as it is to get them on the street,
Not in the slightest. You can openly buy and use injection drugs in front of a police officer in these cities.
> I don't see what your good social program suggestion is.
I don't think you really understand the scope of the problem or the solutions that have been tried. Especially when you're telling the most "progressive" cities to be more progressive.
This isn't petty theft. Petty theft is an individual shoplifting, for instance.
> That's a commie answer.
No, that's a capitalist answer. You're comically giving the communist answer, that a business is a collection of people, and that hurting it hurts them all.
Shoplifting is bad for society as a whole, but (usually) doesn't directly hurt individuals.
>> If the stock market dropped 90%, then went up 200%, would you be celebrating the 200%? > Yes.
So you don't understand math...
> Less safe than last year, for a few years now. Yes, it's smaller than all past gains but why are we slipping backward at all?
Because that's normal. The decrease in crime over the past 50 years hasn't been continuous. It's been a more natural ebb and flow. I don't see a year or two of very slightly higher crime as a trend up.
> Unions were a good idea when workers were dying, a little light crying isn't an issue. Minimum wage increases produce inflation not real wealth. Social programs are what's destroying many cities - specifically Vancouver, Seattle, SF.
All of these cities have lower crime rates than republican lead cities. All of them have drastically lower violent crime rates.
> Free childcare is backwards compared to helping mothers work less in the first place and hurts the quality providers in the market.
What about single mothers? What about mothers in 2 income families, where they can't afford losing an income? What do you actually propose to make it easier for mothers to work less? Apparently higher wages aren't appropriate, and free school to help them get higher paying jobs isn't appropriate.
> Insurance that everyone has isn't insurance, it's a poorly run buying program - mandate open drug pricing and help small providers buy at scale to achieve savings.
Essentially every other country on earth proves this to be wrong. The US has the highest medical costs, and plenty of other countries have a life expectancy that keeps rising, while ours is falling.
> Help make the economy better so they can afford to. Safety for people and property is essential.
The US economy has been stronger than most countries for effectively my entire life, and that hasn't eliminated poverty or crime. Other countries have enacted good social programs and have virtually eliminated crime.