You should consider that you're imagining enemies. For example, I have never been to SF nor have I lived on the West coast. I have no feelings about it and I h

You should consider that you're imagining enemies. For example, I have never been to SF nor have I lived on the West coast. I have no feelings about it and I have no interest in defending it as some kind of stand-in for my politics. Some people downplay the crime as an unsubstantive retort to another commenter, and some relative-statistics-based defenses are dishonest, misleading, or at least not holistic. I find this attitude infuriating, and in the worst cases I believe that it's essentially antithetical to civilization and progress. Safety and community are values that should be passionately embraced and viciously defended. It's hard to overstate how strongly I feel about it. And yet I flag politically petty, antagonistic, or unnecessarily provocative posts like yours, the parent, and the GP. There is just as much social-politics-motivated irrationality on the anti-SF side. I believe the US, on the whole, has a sickness that manifests in being too hateful of criminals. I think fairness is essential in treating criminals, and that we should devote far more than we do to addressing the root causes of crime, rather than just focusing 100% on being "tough on crime". However, I also believe these ideas should never be carried to the extent of minimizing the victims or downplaying the fact that to rob somebody is to terrorize them and erode a community. You can be balanced, curious, self-bettering, and passionate at the same time. You should consider that people are not one-dimensional, and might say something in one post that puts them into a bucket in your head that they don't belong in. You and those who agree with you do not have a monopoly on the qualities you are lauding HN for.