7 ms·

An overtly liberal policy doesn't mean you don't enforce the law. Look at major cities across the country. Most all of them are blue, even in deep red states,

An overtly liberal policy doesn't mean you don't enforce the law. Look at major cities across the country. Most all of them are blue, even in deep red states, yet SF and LA are the only cities I know of with homelessness and crime being this bad. This isn't 'liberal policies', this is corruption and ineptitude.

all2 4y ago
> An overtly liberal policy doesn't mean you don't enforce the law. But hasn't the hue and cry been "defund the police"? We heard it as far back as the mostly peaceful protests that ravaged major US cities across the US in 2020-21. And it's been the chant of mostly left-leaning politicians and organizations.
- wing-_-nuts 4y ago
  'defund the police' has literally only been uttered seriously within the blm movement. Even the most progressive of politicians knew it was dead on arrival.
  - telotortium 4y ago
    Sure, they may have known that "defund the police" couldn't last, but during the summer of 2020, progressive politicians took it seriously enough in public (much of it due to BLM). We got CHAZ in Seattle, Antifa trying to burn down federal buildings and police stations, and progressive DAs (e.g., Chesa Boudin) at the time decided to severely reduce the penalties that they would pursue for even serious crime. A few cities even got around to attempting to redirect funding from police to social workers and the like. Progressive politicians continued to take "defund the police" seriously until the fall, when it was clear that the issue had turned an easy election for Biden into a close election that he was at significant risk of losing. All of this indicated to criminals that law enforcement would be much lighter, which is why crime skyrocketed during that time and has continued to stay elevated until this day
  - augment001 4y ago
    [dead]
- neoromantique 4y ago
  Sometimes it helps to read more than just a slogan before commenting on issues. "defund the police" does not mean that there shouldn't be policing, it means that more attention needs to be brought into preventive measures and community building, so that you don't NEED the excessive police force that helps stirring the violence.
- green_man_lives 4y ago
  1. Police have never been defunded. San Francisco PD budget is up 5% from 2019. This is similar to every other city in the US (LAPD has $250M more in funding after George Floyd). 2. "Defund the Police" usually means diverting money away from reactive policies (policing) to proactive policies (community initiatives that prevent people from falling into abject poverty to begin with). You can claim that "defund the police" is bad optics, but honestly the US is such a far gone police state that "liberals" could have picked any rallying cry and it would have been weaponized. 3. The reason you see police forces doing less even though they have more funding is because they are using the narrative that they were "defunded" (recall this never happened) as a bargaining chip for police unions to negotiate with lawmakers for less oversight and more funding. 4. There is no correlation between police funding and crime rates. Police only show up AFTER a crime has been committed, and anyone who has dealt with police firsthand knows how much they love to drag their feet: https://www.brookings.edu/blog/how-we-rise/2022/03/31/preventing-gun-violence-takes-more-than-police/#:~:text=A%20national%20poll%20found%20that,one%20way%20or%20the%20other https://www.brookings.edu/blog/how-we-rise/2022/03/31/preven.... 5. This one might be a bit philosophical but when you have a police force you aren't reducing violence, you're just shifting the violence that is done to the state. While the crazy homeless people and crack addicts might be "out of sight out of mind", you can guarantee they are getting stabbed and beaten up in prison, or shot in the street by the cops. If your goal is to simply remove "undesirables" from the view of the public then police are a great tool, but if our conception of justice is that crude then we might as well return to the code of Hammurabi. If the goal is to reduce violence and crime overall, then police are not the best tool for the job. Preventative measures must be taken to keep people from getting to the mental state that causes them to commit crimes.
  - s1artibartfast 4y ago
    Where are you getting your numbers? This link [1], says budget was cut 15% in 2020, 11% in 2021, and 11% in 2022. This link [2] says police headcount is down 25% from 2017. https://californiaglobe.com/articles/new-report-sfpd-short-825-officers-by-the-end-of-2022/ https://californiaglobe.com/articles/new-report-sfpd-short-8... https://missionlocal.org/2023/03/police-staffing-crisis-san-francisco/ https://missionlocal.org/2023/03/police-staffing-crisis-san-...
intalentive 4y ago
Selective non-prosecution and non-enforcement of the law is a liberal policy. You see it with Soros-sponsored DAs and you see it with immigration. What is a “sanctuary”? Somewhere you don’t have to worry about the consequences of breaking federal immigration law.
thefourthchime 4y ago
There is a high degree of "blueness". I live in Austin, which is very blue, but not so blue that we didn't criminalize public tent living and enforce it. Dallas and Houston are "blue", but far less than Austin. The West Coast cities, LA, SF, Portland, and Seattle are much more liberal than most "blue" cities.
- mustacheemperor 4y ago
  Dallas and Houston are two cities with higher violent crime rates than San Francisco, so some array of reasons has Austin better off than both. Regardless, I live in SF, and love it here, for way more reasons than the tech scene (it's actually a coincidence I live here as far as my job goes). I really hope we can improve this situation, regardless of the relative scale compared to other cities. It seems like part of a national problem.
dragonwriter 4y ago
> Most all of them are blue, even in deep red states, yet SF and LA are the only cities I know of with homelessness and crime being this bad. Your impressions are, bluntly, wrong. LA and San Francisco have the 32nd and 37th highest violent crime rates out of the top 100 largest cities in the US, and the 72nd and 7th in overall crime rates. Homelessness, driven by lack of development combined with the the attraction and generation of concentrated wealth is a real California statewide problem (though there are plenty of non-California cities with serious problems, NYC is nearly as bad as LA, and far worse than San Francisco, in terms of population share that is homeless.)
- isubkhankulov 4y ago
  "homeless and crime" are usually associated with property crime such as larceny. SF is 4th highest in the United States for larceny rates. Note that larceny is the most frequent type of property crime per the FBI.

all2 4y ago

> An overtly liberal policy doesn't mean you don't enforce the law. But hasn't the hue and cry been "defund the police"? We heard it as far back as the mostly peaceful protests that ravaged major US cities across the US in 2020-21. And it's been the chant of mostly left-leaning politicians and organizations.

wing-_-nuts 4y ago
'defund the police' has literally only been uttered seriously within the blm movement. Even the most progressive of politicians knew it was dead on arrival.
- telotortium 4y ago
  Sure, they may have known that "defund the police" couldn't last, but during the summer of 2020, progressive politicians took it seriously enough in public (much of it due to BLM). We got CHAZ in Seattle, Antifa trying to burn down federal buildings and police stations, and progressive DAs (e.g., Chesa Boudin) at the time decided to severely reduce the penalties that they would pursue for even serious crime. A few cities even got around to attempting to redirect funding from police to social workers and the like. Progressive politicians continued to take "defund the police" seriously until the fall, when it was clear that the issue had turned an easy election for Biden into a close election that he was at significant risk of losing. All of this indicated to criminals that law enforcement would be much lighter, which is why crime skyrocketed during that time and has continued to stay elevated until this day
- augment001 4y ago
  [dead]
neoromantique 4y ago
Sometimes it helps to read more than just a slogan before commenting on issues. "defund the police" does not mean that there shouldn't be policing, it means that more attention needs to be brought into preventive measures and community building, so that you don't NEED the excessive police force that helps stirring the violence.
green_man_lives 4y ago
1. Police have never been defunded. San Francisco PD budget is up 5% from 2019. This is similar to every other city in the US (LAPD has $250M more in funding after George Floyd). 2. "Defund the Police" usually means diverting money away from reactive policies (policing) to proactive policies (community initiatives that prevent people from falling into abject poverty to begin with). You can claim that "defund the police" is bad optics, but honestly the US is such a far gone police state that "liberals" could have picked any rallying cry and it would have been weaponized. 3. The reason you see police forces doing less even though they have more funding is because they are using the narrative that they were "defunded" (recall this never happened) as a bargaining chip for police unions to negotiate with lawmakers for less oversight and more funding. 4. There is no correlation between police funding and crime rates. Police only show up AFTER a crime has been committed, and anyone who has dealt with police firsthand knows how much they love to drag their feet: https://www.brookings.edu/blog/how-we-rise/2022/03/31/preventing-gun-violence-takes-more-than-police/#:~:text=A%20national%20poll%20found%20that,one%20way%20or%20the%20other https://www.brookings.edu/blog/how-we-rise/2022/03/31/preven.... 5. This one might be a bit philosophical but when you have a police force you aren't reducing violence, you're just shifting the violence that is done to the state. While the crazy homeless people and crack addicts might be "out of sight out of mind", you can guarantee they are getting stabbed and beaten up in prison, or shot in the street by the cops. If your goal is to simply remove "undesirables" from the view of the public then police are a great tool, but if our conception of justice is that crude then we might as well return to the code of Hammurabi. If the goal is to reduce violence and crime overall, then police are not the best tool for the job. Preventative measures must be taken to keep people from getting to the mental state that causes them to commit crimes.
- s1artibartfast 4y ago
  Where are you getting your numbers? This link [1], says budget was cut 15% in 2020, 11% in 2021, and 11% in 2022. This link [2] says police headcount is down 25% from 2017. https://californiaglobe.com/articles/new-report-sfpd-short-825-officers-by-the-end-of-2022/ https://californiaglobe.com/articles/new-report-sfpd-short-8... https://missionlocal.org/2023/03/police-staffing-crisis-san-francisco/ https://missionlocal.org/2023/03/police-staffing-crisis-san-...

intalentive 4y ago

Selective non-prosecution and non-enforcement of the law is a liberal policy. You see it with Soros-sponsored DAs and you see it with immigration. What is a “sanctuary”? Somewhere you don’t have to worry about the consequences of breaking federal immigration law.

thefourthchime 4y ago

There is a high degree of "blueness". I live in Austin, which is very blue, but not so blue that we didn't criminalize public tent living and enforce it. Dallas and Houston are "blue", but far less than Austin. The West Coast cities, LA, SF, Portland, and Seattle are much more liberal than most "blue" cities.

mustacheemperor 4y ago
Dallas and Houston are two cities with higher violent crime rates than San Francisco, so some array of reasons has Austin better off than both. Regardless, I live in SF, and love it here, for way more reasons than the tech scene (it's actually a coincidence I live here as far as my job goes). I really hope we can improve this situation, regardless of the relative scale compared to other cities. It seems like part of a national problem.

dragonwriter 4y ago

> Most all of them are blue, even in deep red states, yet SF and LA are the only cities I know of with homelessness and crime being this bad. Your impressions are, bluntly, wrong. LA and San Francisco have the 32nd and 37th highest violent crime rates out of the top 100 largest cities in the US, and the 72nd and 7th in overall crime rates. Homelessness, driven by lack of development combined with the the attraction and generation of concentrated wealth is a real California statewide problem (though there are plenty of non-California cities with serious problems, NYC is nearly as bad as LA, and far worse than San Francisco, in terms of population share that is homeless.)

isubkhankulov 4y ago
"homeless and crime" are usually associated with property crime such as larceny. SF is 4th highest in the United States for larceny rates. Note that larceny is the most frequent type of property crime per the FBI.