4 ms·

Maybe not as dysfunctional as SF, but clearly there is severe social dysfunction in a lot of the cities run by liberals: Oakland, Seattle, Portland, NYC, Detroi

Maybe not as dysfunctional as SF, but clearly there is severe social dysfunction in a lot of the cities run by liberals: Oakland, Seattle, Portland, NYC, Detroit, DC, Minneapolis. Allowing for some variation, at what point does one begin to blame the policies and ideologies behind those policies, that are substantially similar across the board?

evanelias 5y ago
What "severe social dysfunction" are you referring to in, say, NYC or DC? Among the 10 most populous US cities, not a single one currently has a Republican mayor. Among the top 25, there are only 2 with Republican mayors: Jacksonville, FL and Fort Worth, TX. Do you honestly believe that most of the other 23 largest cities in the country have severe social dysfunction? Do you honestly believe that Jacksonville and Fort Worth are substantially more functional urban societies?
- SamReidHughes 5y ago
  In NYC, for years, Jews have repeatedly gotten attacked in the streets. Last year, the city had major riots and looting. D.C. had the same. Here in San Diego we had a Republican mayor, Republican county board of supervisors, and Republican county DA last year, and there was only minimal social dysfunction, while rioters and looters ransacked many parts of LA County.
  - evanelias 5y ago
    I've lived in or near NYC for 14 years now. There were no "major riots" last year, full stop. There was some looting, yes. Not "major riots". Crown Heights in 1991 was a "major riot", this was nothing of the sort. As for violence against Hasidim (not "Jews" in general), there have been occasional acts of violence between the Hasidic community and other residents of the same neighborhoods -- in both directions, notably -- for several decades. Including times when the mayor was a Republican. I'm Jewish and have never felt unsafe in NYC. The NYC metro area literally has the highest percentage of Jewish population in the entire US.
    - SamReidHughes 5y ago
      "Some" looting. We have the videos of rampant looting. https://www.nytimes.com/2020/02/17/nyregion/hasidic-jewish-attacks.html https://www.nytimes.com/2020/02/17/nyregion/hasidic-jewish-a... "More than half of the hate crimes in New York City last year were attacks on Jewish people. Orthodox Jews are particularly at risk." No, it's not "in both directions," or would you care to put a number on the ratio there?
      - evanelias 5y ago
        So you've reviewed all these looting videos and think that somehow gives you a better perspective on its extensiveness than someone who actually lives in this city? If this is seriously your perspective then there's no point discussing anything further with you. As for "both directions", YES, it is. Educate yourself by reading about the Shomrim and their history of assaulting random people of color. You're also examining a statistic that is effectively ethnic proportion of hate crime convictions, which is orthogonal to per capita violence or "severe social dysfunction". My point in this subthread is that people complaining about "severe social dysfunction in liberal-run cities" are actually just complaining about large US cities in general, because literally every large city in this country leans left.
        SamReidHughes 5y ago
        You didn’t put a number on that ratio, did you. Are you saying it’s 100:1, instead of 100:0? Why isn’t there a volunteer patrol protecting people from rampaging Hasids? A more reliable source of information than you is the data, the videos, and the voters who somehow, despite your explanations that things are just fine, picked Eric Adams for mayor.
        evanelias 5y ago
        You seem to lack all historical context on the social dynamic in Crown Heights and South Williamsburg, the disproportionately massive political power of the Hasidim voting block, and how this leads to disproportionately one-sided arrest and conviction rates whenever ethnic violence occurs in these neighborhoods. The severe 1991 Crown Heights riots occurred directly as a result of a Hasidic rabbi's motorcade running a red light and striking two black children, one fatally. Ethnic tensions in this area had already been simmering for a long time, and while they've improved since 1991, there are still lots of problems. But this is just two Brooklyn neighborhoods, and has absolutely nothing to do with liberal-run cities or widespread "severe social dysfunction" in NYC, a city of over 8 million people and a combined metro area of 20 million people. So, no, I'm absolutely not going to waste my time researching some arbitrary ratio that is completely orthogonal to the topic at hand, just because some random person on the internet is trying to gaslight me from 2500 miles away. As for looting and "the data" and "the videos": two NewsCorp-owned publications put the estimated number of looted businesses at 450. As NewsCorp skews far-right we can assume that's the worst-case (highest possible) number. Among the approx 220,000 businesses in NYC, an estimated 32,000 are retail businesses, but this number does not account for how many of these are businesses with multiple storefronts. From this, as well as daily personal observation in various parts of the NYC metro area, I would conclude far less than 1% of storefronts in NYC were looted. While this was a significant event, it's FAR from a "major riot". It's also not an ongoing problem. In all the videos I saw, the perpetrators were large groups of teens on bicycles. Meanwhile NYPD has 36,000 officers and a nontrivial amount of military-grade equipment. One can either conclude that somehow they were incapable of stopping groups of teenagers on bicycles, or one can more logically conclude that they chose not to.

evanelias 5y ago

What "severe social dysfunction" are you referring to in, say, NYC or DC? Among the 10 most populous US cities, not a single one currently has a Republican mayor. Among the top 25, there are only 2 with Republican mayors: Jacksonville, FL and Fort Worth, TX. Do you honestly believe that most of the other 23 largest cities in the country have severe social dysfunction? Do you honestly believe that Jacksonville and Fort Worth are substantially more functional urban societies?

SamReidHughes 5y ago
In NYC, for years, Jews have repeatedly gotten attacked in the streets. Last year, the city had major riots and looting. D.C. had the same. Here in San Diego we had a Republican mayor, Republican county board of supervisors, and Republican county DA last year, and there was only minimal social dysfunction, while rioters and looters ransacked many parts of LA County.
- evanelias 5y ago
  I've lived in or near NYC for 14 years now. There were no "major riots" last year, full stop. There was some looting, yes. Not "major riots". Crown Heights in 1991 was a "major riot", this was nothing of the sort. As for violence against Hasidim (not "Jews" in general), there have been occasional acts of violence between the Hasidic community and other residents of the same neighborhoods -- in both directions, notably -- for several decades. Including times when the mayor was a Republican. I'm Jewish and have never felt unsafe in NYC. The NYC metro area literally has the highest percentage of Jewish population in the entire US.
  - SamReidHughes 5y ago
    "Some" looting. We have the videos of rampant looting. https://www.nytimes.com/2020/02/17/nyregion/hasidic-jewish-attacks.html https://www.nytimes.com/2020/02/17/nyregion/hasidic-jewish-a... "More than half of the hate crimes in New York City last year were attacks on Jewish people. Orthodox Jews are particularly at risk." No, it's not "in both directions," or would you care to put a number on the ratio there?
    - evanelias 5y ago
      So you've reviewed all these looting videos and think that somehow gives you a better perspective on its extensiveness than someone who actually lives in this city? If this is seriously your perspective then there's no point discussing anything further with you. As for "both directions", YES, it is. Educate yourself by reading about the Shomrim and their history of assaulting random people of color. You're also examining a statistic that is effectively ethnic proportion of hate crime convictions, which is orthogonal to per capita violence or "severe social dysfunction". My point in this subthread is that people complaining about "severe social dysfunction in liberal-run cities" are actually just complaining about large US cities in general, because literally every large city in this country leans left.
      - SamReidHughes 5y ago
        You didn’t put a number on that ratio, did you. Are you saying it’s 100:1, instead of 100:0? Why isn’t there a volunteer patrol protecting people from rampaging Hasids? A more reliable source of information than you is the data, the videos, and the voters who somehow, despite your explanations that things are just fine, picked Eric Adams for mayor.
        evanelias 5y ago
        You seem to lack all historical context on the social dynamic in Crown Heights and South Williamsburg, the disproportionately massive political power of the Hasidim voting block, and how this leads to disproportionately one-sided arrest and conviction rates whenever ethnic violence occurs in these neighborhoods. The severe 1991 Crown Heights riots occurred directly as a result of a Hasidic rabbi's motorcade running a red light and striking two black children, one fatally. Ethnic tensions in this area had already been simmering for a long time, and while they've improved since 1991, there are still lots of problems. But this is just two Brooklyn neighborhoods, and has absolutely nothing to do with liberal-run cities or widespread "severe social dysfunction" in NYC, a city of over 8 million people and a combined metro area of 20 million people. So, no, I'm absolutely not going to waste my time researching some arbitrary ratio that is completely orthogonal to the topic at hand, just because some random person on the internet is trying to gaslight me from 2500 miles away. As for looting and "the data" and "the videos": two NewsCorp-owned publications put the estimated number of looted businesses at 450. As NewsCorp skews far-right we can assume that's the worst-case (highest possible) number. Among the approx 220,000 businesses in NYC, an estimated 32,000 are retail businesses, but this number does not account for how many of these are businesses with multiple storefronts. From this, as well as daily personal observation in various parts of the NYC metro area, I would conclude far less than 1% of storefronts in NYC were looted. While this was a significant event, it's FAR from a "major riot". It's also not an ongoing problem. In all the videos I saw, the perpetrators were large groups of teens on bicycles. Meanwhile NYPD has 36,000 officers and a nontrivial amount of military-grade equipment. One can either conclude that somehow they were incapable of stopping groups of teenagers on bicycles, or one can more logically conclude that they chose not to.