6 ms·

I know this is difficult to digest, but compared to a lot of the rest of the world, almost every US politician is conservative. In regards to Portland, you alm

I know this is difficult to digest, but compared to a lot of the rest of the world, almost every US politician is conservative. In regards to Portland, you almost certainly have a problem with the key points you identified, but you also have a problem with the fact that public drug use is intrinsically tied with homelessness. You can't fix one without the other. This involves (in the short term) more public housing, but for a better solution (the long term) it involves better education, welfare, health-care and social equality. You can't try to fix one of these problems while ignoring the others. It won't work.

true_religion 3y ago
What is conservative about Portland politicians and whom are you actually comparing them to? IMO Portland already does every single one of the solutions that you recommend. It’s not working out for them well, in the same way it isn’t working out for Portugal or Amsterdam. Maybe some drugs should be restricted and usage controlled. I’m pro legalization, but I would not support opium dens being as common as Starbucks.
- blackshaw 3y ago
  Why do you say it's not working out in Portugal or Amsterdam? I frequently hear those two places cited as an example of where drug liberalisation has been a big success. Is that not true? I ask from ignorance.
  - t8sr 3y ago
    The programme in Portugal requires people to check in with the authorities, seek treatment and move off the street corner. It by most accounts worked ok for a while, but downtown Lisbon started to look pretty bad recently, and I think they’ve been backpedaling a bit. In Amsterdam, the drug tourism made the city hard to live in, and the authorities have largely cleaned it up now. Weed is a special case, but using anything else on the street will warrant a check-in from the cops.
    - cyco130 3y ago
      I live in Lisbon and I don't see how "downtown Lisbon started to look pretty badly recently". Street drug users, seemingly mostly/wholly homeless, seem to be concentrated in an area I wouldn't call downtown. I don't really know what they do to keep it that way though. Also Porto seems to be an entirely different story from what I've seen there. In any case, Portugal's strategy was supposed to be diverting funds from the narcotics police to rehabilitation efforts. But those funds have steadily eroded over the years with cost-cutting measures such as the merger of the autonomous drug agency into the main healthcare service. It's not too surprising if it is falling short of its initial success. Another thing to consider is the inseparability of homelessness and drug abuse issues. It doesn't seem to be possible address one without the other, rising homelessness will inevitably bring more drug abuse. (Still I see fewer homeless people in downtown Lisbon than in Barcelona that won't even let you have a beer in the park).
      - t8sr 3y ago
        Fair enough, my knowledge of the situation in Lisbon is mostly second hand from some friends there. When I visited them, there were definitely areas that were pretty dodgy in what seemed to me to be the downtown. Now, I’ve been to places that are actually dangerous, and I’ve never felt unsafe in Portugal, but I definitely did get accosted by a clammy, pale looking gentleman with a nervous tick who tried to steal my phone.
        petre 3y ago
        It's only dodgy compared to Ponta Delgada or the well groomed areas of London, which are well groomed thanks to immigrant labour. Pickpockets and annoying sodium bicarbonate or basilic 'drug dealers' are quite common in Lisbon, but then evey major tourist destination has pickpockets. The novelty in Lisbon is the fake drug dealers. I don't know about drugs as I haven't seen any needles or addicts or even stoners on the street.
  - rayiner 3y ago
    I don’t know about Portugal. But Amsterdam’s drug toleration (it’s still illegal mind you) happens against a background of pretty intense anti-drug culture. As that culture has become more permissive, drug policy has become more punitive: https://www.journals.uchicago.edu/doi/10.1086/681551 https://www.journals.uchicago.edu/doi/10.1086/681551
panick21_ 3y ago
What American cities need more then public housing, is housing. Actual policies that increase housing stock and make it possible to live in these places without a car. That is how you actually decrease total cost of living. The US has been trending up, between housing and transportation, a huge amount of people spend well above 50% of their income on that, and poorer people even more. Public housing can be part of this, but by itself it wont fix anything.
- fosk 3y ago
  America doesn’t have an housing problem. America has a drug problem. It’s time we stop deceiving the public.
  - u32480932048 3y ago
    Too bad the Housing Authority can't help smuggle houses over the border.
    - ArtemZ 3y ago
      There are plenty of houses in America, it just happens so that most of them are in less desirable places.
      - fosk 3y ago
        I think nobody is entitled to live in any city. You and I are not entitled to live in Manhattan if we can't afford it, we are not entitled to live in Beverly Hills if we don't have the means for it, and likewise the homeless are not entitled to live where they cannot be housed. Otherwise, I would like to apply for a supportive housing unit penthouse on 5th avenue please.
        uoaei 3y ago
        What a useless argument against a position no one is taking! Please participate in the conversation happening here, not some fantasy straw man. Comments like this are less than useless.
t8sr 3y ago
> “ compared to a lot of the rest of the world, almost every US politician is conservative.” As someone from the “rest of the world” I don’t know what people mean when they say that. I think this claim is based on a broad misunderstanding of, let’s be honest, Western European politics by people who’ve never voted in elections here. I live in Switzerland, have lived or worked in the Netherlands, UK and Czechia. The liberal parts of the US are far to the left of any of those countries. (Yes, healthcare is cheaper, except in Switzerland. It’s not a 1:1 mapping, but on questions related to drug use in the public square, I think you’d find it’s a lot less lenient here than you think.)
- pythonguython 3y ago
  I think if you look at actual class issues such as labor organization, healthcare, housing, public transportation, the adage of all US politicians being consevative stays (mostly) true
  - t8sr 3y ago
    Hm, maybe? Public transport, for example, I very nice, I agree, but in fact it’s less affordable in most places than, say in New York. I’d much rather be poor in NYC than in Paris, London or Prague. At least in NYC, you don’t get charged more for commuting from a cheaper area, the city provides heat, there are community programs, etc. Look up some actual political programs from major parties in Western Europe. You’ll be surprised. I think most Americans have seen a sanitized version of Europe, just like most Europeans have seen the evening news version of America. Both of those ideas are caricatures.
    - riversflow 3y ago
      You honestly think NYC is a good place to be poor? lol
      - t8sr 3y ago
        I mean, "poor" might mean different things to different people. Call it working class? I'd rather commute from the Bronx for $2.90 than from Croydon (in many ways the Bronx of London) for, like, $7. I'd much rather get heating for free than pay, like, $5k in London. If you're on the street, none of this helps you much, but across many metrics, I think NYC might legitimately be more affordable to live for the working class than London or Paris.
rzl1235 3y ago
[dead]
fosk 3y ago
You got this wrong: drug use generates homelessness. Most homeless in the US are drug addicts - many of them with serious health conditions partly induced by drug use - and that’s why they can’t hold a job or get a home. In San Francisco when we give homes to drug addicts, the first thing they do is ripping the sink out to sell it and buy more drugs. There is a serious drug epidemic that needs to be addressed simultaneously as we try to help the super-minority of legitimate homeless that are bad on their luck and need 2-3 months to find a new job and get back on their feet.
- xrd 3y ago
  I always felt like I heard this was the opposite. That the drug addicts were the minority population, but the majority of the news stories. I feel like we both would benefit from statistics that prove either way. My feelings are generated from anecdotes I've heard over the years, and I would love to be proved wrong and change my mind. Do you know? I feel like so much of this discussion is fueled by strong feelings without data.
  - fosk 3y ago
    > In 2022, there are approximately 582,462 people affected by long-term homelessness in the United States. The US homeless population is increasing yearly, particularly in younger age ranges. Tragically, homelessness and substance abuse go hand in hand. The National Coalition for the Homeless has found that 55% of homeless people are alcohol dependent, and 25% reported being dependent on other harmful substances.[0] More than half suffer substance abuse. Accounting for the fact that many of them would deny admitting to drug use when asked, this is probably a conservative number and the percentage is much higher. Also this is an US average, and it doesn't take into consideration "drug tourism" in cities like San Francisco, Portland and Seattle where drug use is literally the main goal thanks to easy drug access, therefore the drug-related homelessness ratio in some places is much higher. They also probably take into account both housed an unhoused homeless, with the nuance that unhoused homeless are more likely to be druggies and to refuse shelter. Therefore the percentage of homeless population we see every day in our streets (which is the subset of homeless more likely to affect our day-to-day lives) have very likely an higher percentage of drug use. Finally, the US actually has another problem: we can't fill up the supportive housing units fast enough! New York has empty supportive housing units [1]. This suggests that the total number of vacancies might be even higher, as more units are added to the system regularly. [0] https://www.addictioncenter.com/addiction/homelessness/ https://www.addictioncenter.com/addiction/homelessness/ [1] https://www.theday.com/state/20230529/thousands-of-nyc-apartments-for-homeless-sit-empty-amid-migrant-crisis/ https://www.theday.com/state/20230529/thousands-of-nyc-apart...
megaman821 3y ago
This is only true economically in arenas like taxes and government programs. Socially what country are you thinking of that is to the left of the American left?
eric_cc 3y ago
> I know this is difficult to digest, but compared to a lot of the rest of the world, almost every US politician is conservative. Source? This reads like a Leftist talking point. I’d be interested in understanding who trained on you on this idea.
- rrrrrrrrrrrryan 3y ago
  The Democratic party would be considered right of center to many Western European nations, but certainly not compared to "the rest of the world", and there's a growing chunk of U.S. politicians that are proper left of center as well.
  - lupusreal 3y ago
    In Seattle, local elections are a contest between Socialists and Democrats. The former may not have much presence on the state or federal levels, but to say they don't exist in city politics is incorrect. Also, the reason they can't succeed much beyond a few lefty cities is because they can't stop saying insanely stupid shit, like the suggestion that Boeing workers should seize Boeing factories and use them to make city buses instead of airplanes. Most of America doesn't go in for this kind of nonsense. This is a real example btw: https://www.kiro7.com/news/seattle-city-councilmember-elect-shares-radical-id/246045525/ https://www.kiro7.com/news/seattle-city-councilmember-elect-...
cultureswitch 3y ago
>I know this is difficult to digest, but compared to a lot of the rest of the world, almost every US politician is conservative In what way? Compared to almost everywhere on earth, American politicians are extremely xenophilic, extremely tolerant of sexual minorities, extremely feminist, more inclined towards individual freedoms in general and perhaps slightly more capitalist. All of these things are different axes of politics that are correlated differently in different regions of the world.
z3ncyberpunk 3y ago
[flagged]
rayiner 3y ago
> I know this is difficult to digest, but compared to a lot of the rest of the world, almost every US politician is conservative Pretty much only on the issue of taxes. But the right-wing parties surging in popularity in Europe right now make Trump look like Jimmy Carter.
deleted 3y ago
[deleted]
hellojesus 3y ago
Please stop voting to steal my money for more social program waste. I already have to pay a 1% tax on all household earnings above $200k. Before haters hate, please realize I'm already paying 10% to the state on all earned income. Plus the federal rates. Oregon has consistently mismanaged funds. Giving them more money won't fix anything. They don't know how to spend it. I'm tired of keeping zero income until the end of April. Especially when all I have to show for it is constant homeless drug addicts. Lwt the private sector handle it or enforce no camping laws and sober folks up in a cell or ship them away, or just give them all fet lined drugs to permasolve the issue.

true_religion 3y ago

What is conservative about Portland politicians and whom are you actually comparing them to? IMO Portland already does every single one of the solutions that you recommend. It’s not working out for them well, in the same way it isn’t working out for Portugal or Amsterdam. Maybe some drugs should be restricted and usage controlled. I’m pro legalization, but I would not support opium dens being as common as Starbucks.

blackshaw 3y ago
Why do you say it's not working out in Portugal or Amsterdam? I frequently hear those two places cited as an example of where drug liberalisation has been a big success. Is that not true? I ask from ignorance.
- t8sr 3y ago
  The programme in Portugal requires people to check in with the authorities, seek treatment and move off the street corner. It by most accounts worked ok for a while, but downtown Lisbon started to look pretty bad recently, and I think they’ve been backpedaling a bit. In Amsterdam, the drug tourism made the city hard to live in, and the authorities have largely cleaned it up now. Weed is a special case, but using anything else on the street will warrant a check-in from the cops.
  - cyco130 3y ago
    I live in Lisbon and I don't see how "downtown Lisbon started to look pretty badly recently". Street drug users, seemingly mostly/wholly homeless, seem to be concentrated in an area I wouldn't call downtown. I don't really know what they do to keep it that way though. Also Porto seems to be an entirely different story from what I've seen there. In any case, Portugal's strategy was supposed to be diverting funds from the narcotics police to rehabilitation efforts. But those funds have steadily eroded over the years with cost-cutting measures such as the merger of the autonomous drug agency into the main healthcare service. It's not too surprising if it is falling short of its initial success. Another thing to consider is the inseparability of homelessness and drug abuse issues. It doesn't seem to be possible address one without the other, rising homelessness will inevitably bring more drug abuse. (Still I see fewer homeless people in downtown Lisbon than in Barcelona that won't even let you have a beer in the park).
    - t8sr 3y ago
      Fair enough, my knowledge of the situation in Lisbon is mostly second hand from some friends there. When I visited them, there were definitely areas that were pretty dodgy in what seemed to me to be the downtown. Now, I’ve been to places that are actually dangerous, and I’ve never felt unsafe in Portugal, but I definitely did get accosted by a clammy, pale looking gentleman with a nervous tick who tried to steal my phone.
      - petre 3y ago
        It's only dodgy compared to Ponta Delgada or the well groomed areas of London, which are well groomed thanks to immigrant labour. Pickpockets and annoying sodium bicarbonate or basilic 'drug dealers' are quite common in Lisbon, but then evey major tourist destination has pickpockets. The novelty in Lisbon is the fake drug dealers. I don't know about drugs as I haven't seen any needles or addicts or even stoners on the street.
- rayiner 3y ago
  I don’t know about Portugal. But Amsterdam’s drug toleration (it’s still illegal mind you) happens against a background of pretty intense anti-drug culture. As that culture has become more permissive, drug policy has become more punitive: https://www.journals.uchicago.edu/doi/10.1086/681551 https://www.journals.uchicago.edu/doi/10.1086/681551

panick21_ 3y ago

What American cities need more then public housing, is housing. Actual policies that increase housing stock and make it possible to live in these places without a car. That is how you actually decrease total cost of living. The US has been trending up, between housing and transportation, a huge amount of people spend well above 50% of their income on that, and poorer people even more. Public housing can be part of this, but by itself it wont fix anything.

fosk 3y ago
America doesn’t have an housing problem. America has a drug problem. It’s time we stop deceiving the public.
- u32480932048 3y ago
  Too bad the Housing Authority can't help smuggle houses over the border.
  - ArtemZ 3y ago
    There are plenty of houses in America, it just happens so that most of them are in less desirable places.
    - fosk 3y ago
      I think nobody is entitled to live in any city. You and I are not entitled to live in Manhattan if we can't afford it, we are not entitled to live in Beverly Hills if we don't have the means for it, and likewise the homeless are not entitled to live where they cannot be housed. Otherwise, I would like to apply for a supportive housing unit penthouse on 5th avenue please.
      - uoaei 3y ago
        What a useless argument against a position no one is taking! Please participate in the conversation happening here, not some fantasy straw man. Comments like this are less than useless.

t8sr 3y ago

> “ compared to a lot of the rest of the world, almost every US politician is conservative.” As someone from the “rest of the world” I don’t know what people mean when they say that. I think this claim is based on a broad misunderstanding of, let’s be honest, Western European politics by people who’ve never voted in elections here. I live in Switzerland, have lived or worked in the Netherlands, UK and Czechia. The liberal parts of the US are far to the left of any of those countries. (Yes, healthcare is cheaper, except in Switzerland. It’s not a 1:1 mapping, but on questions related to drug use in the public square, I think you’d find it’s a lot less lenient here than you think.)

pythonguython 3y ago
I think if you look at actual class issues such as labor organization, healthcare, housing, public transportation, the adage of all US politicians being consevative stays (mostly) true
- t8sr 3y ago
  Hm, maybe? Public transport, for example, I very nice, I agree, but in fact it’s less affordable in most places than, say in New York. I’d much rather be poor in NYC than in Paris, London or Prague. At least in NYC, you don’t get charged more for commuting from a cheaper area, the city provides heat, there are community programs, etc. Look up some actual political programs from major parties in Western Europe. You’ll be surprised. I think most Americans have seen a sanitized version of Europe, just like most Europeans have seen the evening news version of America. Both of those ideas are caricatures.
  - riversflow 3y ago
    You honestly think NYC is a good place to be poor? lol
    - t8sr 3y ago
      I mean, "poor" might mean different things to different people. Call it working class? I'd rather commute from the Bronx for $2.90 than from Croydon (in many ways the Bronx of London) for, like, $7. I'd much rather get heating for free than pay, like, $5k in London. If you're on the street, none of this helps you much, but across many metrics, I think NYC might legitimately be more affordable to live for the working class than London or Paris.

rzl1235 3y ago

[dead]

fosk 3y ago

You got this wrong: drug use generates homelessness. Most homeless in the US are drug addicts - many of them with serious health conditions partly induced by drug use - and that’s why they can’t hold a job or get a home. In San Francisco when we give homes to drug addicts, the first thing they do is ripping the sink out to sell it and buy more drugs. There is a serious drug epidemic that needs to be addressed simultaneously as we try to help the super-minority of legitimate homeless that are bad on their luck and need 2-3 months to find a new job and get back on their feet.

xrd 3y ago
I always felt like I heard this was the opposite. That the drug addicts were the minority population, but the majority of the news stories. I feel like we both would benefit from statistics that prove either way. My feelings are generated from anecdotes I've heard over the years, and I would love to be proved wrong and change my mind. Do you know? I feel like so much of this discussion is fueled by strong feelings without data.
- fosk 3y ago
  > In 2022, there are approximately 582,462 people affected by long-term homelessness in the United States. The US homeless population is increasing yearly, particularly in younger age ranges. Tragically, homelessness and substance abuse go hand in hand. The National Coalition for the Homeless has found that 55% of homeless people are alcohol dependent, and 25% reported being dependent on other harmful substances.[0] More than half suffer substance abuse. Accounting for the fact that many of them would deny admitting to drug use when asked, this is probably a conservative number and the percentage is much higher. Also this is an US average, and it doesn't take into consideration "drug tourism" in cities like San Francisco, Portland and Seattle where drug use is literally the main goal thanks to easy drug access, therefore the drug-related homelessness ratio in some places is much higher. They also probably take into account both housed an unhoused homeless, with the nuance that unhoused homeless are more likely to be druggies and to refuse shelter. Therefore the percentage of homeless population we see every day in our streets (which is the subset of homeless more likely to affect our day-to-day lives) have very likely an higher percentage of drug use. Finally, the US actually has another problem: we can't fill up the supportive housing units fast enough! New York has empty supportive housing units [1]. This suggests that the total number of vacancies might be even higher, as more units are added to the system regularly. [0] https://www.addictioncenter.com/addiction/homelessness/ https://www.addictioncenter.com/addiction/homelessness/ [1] https://www.theday.com/state/20230529/thousands-of-nyc-apartments-for-homeless-sit-empty-amid-migrant-crisis/ https://www.theday.com/state/20230529/thousands-of-nyc-apart...

megaman821 3y ago

This is only true economically in arenas like taxes and government programs. Socially what country are you thinking of that is to the left of the American left?

eric_cc 3y ago

> I know this is difficult to digest, but compared to a lot of the rest of the world, almost every US politician is conservative. Source? This reads like a Leftist talking point. I’d be interested in understanding who trained on you on this idea.

rrrrrrrrrrrryan 3y ago
The Democratic party would be considered right of center to many Western European nations, but certainly not compared to "the rest of the world", and there's a growing chunk of U.S. politicians that are proper left of center as well.
- lupusreal 3y ago
  In Seattle, local elections are a contest between Socialists and Democrats. The former may not have much presence on the state or federal levels, but to say they don't exist in city politics is incorrect. Also, the reason they can't succeed much beyond a few lefty cities is because they can't stop saying insanely stupid shit, like the suggestion that Boeing workers should seize Boeing factories and use them to make city buses instead of airplanes. Most of America doesn't go in for this kind of nonsense. This is a real example btw: https://www.kiro7.com/news/seattle-city-councilmember-elect-shares-radical-id/246045525/ https://www.kiro7.com/news/seattle-city-councilmember-elect-...

cultureswitch 3y ago

>I know this is difficult to digest, but compared to a lot of the rest of the world, almost every US politician is conservative In what way? Compared to almost everywhere on earth, American politicians are extremely xenophilic, extremely tolerant of sexual minorities, extremely feminist, more inclined towards individual freedoms in general and perhaps slightly more capitalist. All of these things are different axes of politics that are correlated differently in different regions of the world.

z3ncyberpunk 3y ago

[flagged]

rayiner 3y ago

> I know this is difficult to digest, but compared to a lot of the rest of the world, almost every US politician is conservative Pretty much only on the issue of taxes. But the right-wing parties surging in popularity in Europe right now make Trump look like Jimmy Carter.

deleted 3y ago

[deleted]

hellojesus 3y ago

Please stop voting to steal my money for more social program waste. I already have to pay a 1% tax on all household earnings above $200k. Before haters hate, please realize I'm already paying 10% to the state on all earned income. Plus the federal rates. Oregon has consistently mismanaged funds. Giving them more money won't fix anything. They don't know how to spend it. I'm tired of keeping zero income until the end of April. Especially when all I have to show for it is constant homeless drug addicts. Lwt the private sector handle it or enforce no camping laws and sober folks up in a cell or ship them away, or just give them all fet lined drugs to permasolve the issue.