As a human maximalist, I could care less about what those cows think. The problem we face as a society is that too many of us are cow maximalist to the point we're prioritizing these cows lives over our own. Buying that cheese burger at McDonalds is a vote for more cows which has far more negative externalities than eating veggies.
In the sense that they were the secret police of the Nazis, sure that’s incorrect usage. In the sense that ICE camps are being compared to WW2 concentration camps by people who were in WW2 concentration camps, and in the sense that the Gestapo played a key role in the WW2 camps, it’s uncomfortably accurate. After all, when it comes to who to detain and how, most of them are just following orders…
Eisenhower called it the "military-industrial complex". He observed how lobbyists and Pentagon reptiles could lead Congress around by the nose, voters be damned. He didn't anticipate the ways in which journalism would be co-opted into the constant push for more war, always constantly more war. This was foolish of him, since the Spanish-American War during his childhood was also started by lies in the press. He also didn't mention the part the unsupervised services would play in destabilizing societies at home and abroad, although since the Mosaddegh coup was his doing I guess he probably didn't have to say a damn thing about that.
with his next breathe he ranted about how The Iran Deal was the worst deal he's ever seen, because he knows deals.
Trump is not a dedicated foe of The MIC.
Many people take a more pragmatic, evidence-based approach that leads to a better outcome.
In the interests of not being passive-aggressive, I'm saying that your absolutist approach is a bad idea and in many cases makes things worse.
I do recognise that there are people who prefer a worse outcome, because they want to see people directly punished, and also people who prefer a worse overall outcome if it makes their lives any better at all (effectively offload all the bad outcome onto other people).
At no point will we be able to accomodate every desperate person who shows up in a top-tier city with a good apartment there quickly. Supply, density, and affordable housing programs can all be drastically increased, but not enough for the literal billions of people in the world who would take you up on that. Even the Soviets had to assign people to live in less desirable places.
Letting everything else fall apart (libraries, parks, transit, sidewalks, bike paths, etc) as we hold out for this to change doesn't strike me as pragmatism.
I*m working from memory here, but evidence generally finds that having an actual safety net and giving folks homes to live in works. Making sure folks have mental health care works. Even with folks that insist on trying to stay on the streets ... it seems simply taking them home enough time works.
You could also build centers with toilet facilities for people to live outside if they choose - like campsites, only nicer.
If the people are criminals, the solution is to have better re-integration programs and focus much of the criminal justice system on helping folks instead of being cruel and punishing folks.
You are correct, however, that it is outrageous and an absolute failure of government.
Being poor isn’t a crime. Many homeless people never commit crimes.
Your tough-guy jingoism also just ignores all the evidence that shows that just punishing people at the lowest end of society simply doesn’t work. Send them to jail (which costs more than college) and they don’t get out and say “oh, now I have the skills to get my life back in order”.
Being homeless is terribly uncomfortable and punishing already. Nobody who operates on your simplistic sticks-and-no-carrots approach would ever be homeless in the first place.
If you want people to be arrested for theft and rape, do that. Merely sleeping without a roof over one’s head should never be illegal, and I applaud anyone who fights against it being so, at any level.
The rape and thievery would lessen if camping laws were enforced. The vagrants would be pinched for trespass and illegal camping and drugs and whatever else.
I have reconsidered my nomenclature, and because many of these "homeless" have homes, I am going to substitute the word vagrant.
We have a person who has no other place to sleep. Right now we turn a blind eye to their sleeping in a park, and spend some time and money cleaning up afterwards[0]. Instead you would like to throw this person into a prison where we will spend even more time and money taking care of them from sunup to sunup? I don't see that as an effective solution to any of the problems at hand.
[0]:Which I agree, it would be better we didn't have to.
If they consume 100 square feet of land that would cost $1500 per square foot, the value is $150,000. (normal Manhattan prices, which should be less than the prime spots taken by these tents) It is unimproved, pushing the rent down, but small, pushing the rent up. Calling those even, a month of rent should be about $1,000.
That comes to something like $33 per day, or $12,000 per year. A possible solution presents itself: sell camping permits.
Uh, his suggestion is a newpaper, magazine or other forms of publications these journalists work for. Except if you subscribe to the publication instead of the journalist, you get the benefit of the publication's editors.
