And what a strange consensus it is. The prevailing belief seems to be that preventing people from slowly/quickly killing themselves on the street (or, more accurately, dying from addiction) is somehow not "progressive" and the moral thing to do is to pretend like these people have made the choice of their own volition and that we cannot judge them for this choice.
In reality, the people who are just rotting away on our streets would be better served if they were brought somewhere against their will and kept there until they were better. Society would also be better served if we did this. The government choosing to involuntarily constrain people isn't something that should be done lightly, but sometimes it is the lesser evil. We've completely abandoned these people and somehow done so in the name of compassion. It's really depressing.
Facilities like asylums and jails are super costly though. And extra expensive to operate if you don't want to treat the inmates as cattle.
We also cannot seem to fund any actual drug programs, because US citizens hate the idea of anyone getting something for free.
This is intensified in spaces administrated by government due to the incentives of government and the type of people who are best retained and fill out the org chart of such organizations and it is obvious because these spaces are most public but it's a thing everywhere, for example your hospital has security that could kick out "bad people" (whatever that means) but it still has a crappy waiting area not because they don't want to make it inviting for people who care about you to stick around lest they be there to raise a stink in the event you are mistreated.
There are comparable examples of this sort of "make things worse for people who are doing fine things" in all sorts of public and private contexts beyond just seating. I wish it was just the benches.
Cheap housing isn't a panacea, but if there was sub $500 dollar rent in NYC you'd see a lot less homelessness.
pstuart•1h ago
Don't worry about it, as at least we can drop tens of billions of dollars to show the Iranians how big and powerful we are.
canjobear•39m ago
next_xibalba•30m ago
SilverElfin•12m ago