4 ms·
I was picking up some lumber today (USA) and they were blaring some country song about "Try that in a small town" which was basically a gun owner's fantasy abou
by yodelleehoo 1mo ago
I was picking up some lumber today (USA) and they were blaring some country song about "Try that in a small town" which was basically a gun owner's fantasy about shooting people. One of the lines was something like "we look out for our own". And that right there describes half the USA: outsiders not welcomed. ingroup/outgroup is nothing new, and its not like any country has really fixed it, and the countries that have seemed to "figure it out" are wildly racist (Nordic countries, Japan, etc.) or authoritarian (China), but that's that underlying attitude: it an outsider's fault. And even IF you are "one of their own" and you fall off the wagon, you find yourself with a bus ticket to a Blue State sanctuary city courtesy of your local Red Leaders.
I live in a city that is a dumping ground where Red States have bussed the homeless populations -- out of sight out of mind -- and even before this, homelessness was a growing due to skyrocketing rents, medical costs, and simply falling behind the treadmill. And now gave crazy new drugs, crazy new inflation, and even more unchecked greed, there's really no stopping this so called "antisocial" behavior.
Why care about a society when it doesn't give a fuck about you>?
Then again, when I was in college in the mid-80s, Freshman year a bunch of young white engineering boys in my dorm were laughing about how they smeared shit all over the bathroom walls of a McDonalds. So, it's been going on forever, but now the scale is massive. I include "white" because a lot of people think this is a non-white, non-rich, non-christian problem.
- pkulak 1mo agoPortland?
- yodelleehoo 1mo agoSomeday! Two more choices. ;)
- mycall 1mo agoIt takes a brave person to be selfless. The golden rule is how.
- scheme271 1mo agoThat thing about cities bussing their homeless elsewhere seems to be a pretty common urban myth. I don't think anyone has really shown that it's definitively happening on any large scale manner. And it should be relatively easy to show given that governments publish their budgets.
- gamblor956 1mo agoGovernor Rick Perry of Texas openly bragged about bussing the state's homeless to California for years. Abbot does the same thing; he simply doesn't brag about it anymore. The LAT did a series of articles (back in 2018, and sporadically since then) in which Steve Lopez tried to humanize the homeless in Hollywood. It took him over 2 days to find someone who has actually a local. The vast majority of the homeless came from...Texas. They were given bus tickets by local authorities and told that California would overlook their drug issues and even give them free drugs.
- slg 1mo agoThe last census I saw of the Los Angeles homeless population found that the percentage of homeless people in LA that were never housed in LA was higher than either the percentage of homeless people who had a severe mental illness or substance abuse issue.
- gamblor956 1mo agoRight, that was my point. Most of LA's homeless aren't from LA. They're not our homeless.
- annzabelle 1mo agoMy understanding is a lot of it is voluntary migration. If you you're not paying rent, you don't have a job, and you've burned all your social support ties, you might as well get a greyhound to a place with good weather, good social services, and where people will look the other way on your visible symptoms of mental illness and drug addictions.
- DeluluDon 1mo agoArrogance has nothing to do with race. Those assholes had zero discipline.
- yodelleehoo 1mo agoThat was literally my point. Take a breath.