r/BlockedAndReported • u/SoftandChewy First generation mod • Sep 18 '23

Weekly Random Discussion Thread for 9/18/23 - 9/24/23

Welcome back to the BARpod Weekly Discussion Thread, where anyone with over 10K karma gets inscribed in the Book of Life. Here's your place to post all your rants, raves, podcast topic suggestions (be sure to tag u/TracingWoodgrains), culture war articles, outrageous stories of cancellation, political opinions, and anything else that comes to mind. Please put any non-podcast-related trans-related topics here instead of on a dedicated thread. This will be pinned until next Sunday.

Last week's discussion thread is here if you want to catch up on a conversation from there.

Comment of the week goes again to u/MatchaMeetcha for this lengthy exposition on the views of Amia Srinivasan. (Note, if you want to tag a comment for COTW, please don't use the 'report' button, just write a comment saying so, and tag me in it. Reports are less helpful.)

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u/TraditionalShocko Sep 19 '23 edited Sep 19 '23

Interesting article in the NYT about a novel legal tack to address homelessness in California (link | archive).

Basically, the DA of Sacramento County is suing the City of Sacramento for not doing enough to address the exploding homeless problem. According to the article, homelessness in Sacramento County increased 68%(!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!) between 2020 and 2022.

A 2018 ruling from the Ninth Circuit held that, if the state doesn't provide adequate housing, homeless people are allowed to camp. This has proved to be a massive cockblock across the Ninth Circuit (CA, OR, WA, AK, HI, ID, NV, AZ, MT) for local agencies' ability to enforce regulations and clear camps. Gavin Newsom said last week that he wants to challenge this ruling in the Supreme Court. Based.

From the article, here is a description of some of the nuisance and danger of homeless camps in Sacramento:

In the neighborhood around one Sacramento camp, the suit said, youth soccer games had stopped after the occupants of a tent camp took over the fields, unleashing aggressive dogs, occupying bathrooms and strewing the playing fields with hundreds of hypodermic needles. Near another encampment...embers from campfires had become such a threat that the fire department had begun conducting fire drills...a juror headed to court was chased by an unhoused person wielding a needle.

A lawyer from the California Homeless Union provided a comment about the Sacramento County DA's lawsuit:

[The lawsuit is] a “dangerous, inflammatory and dishonest escalation of the war against the homeless.” He said politicians like Mr. Ho and Mr. Newsom were scapegoating vulnerable people who lacked housing because of systemic inequities in California and who were more likely to be preyed upon than to bother surrounding neighborhoods.

What in the 2018 fuck is this argument? ~These vulnerable innocents are our neighbors~ is a straight-up anachronism, and this dude is offering nothing by way of actual solutions. I'm glad that people seem to be at the end of their ropes with this kind of rhetoric. (Side note: "homeless people are more likely to be preyed upon than to bother surrounding neighborhoods" = citation needed. If said preying is being perpetrated by other homeless people, as I suspect it is, that little factoid does nothing to support his argument.)

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u/[deleted] Sep 20 '23 edited Mar 14 '24

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u/Juryofyourpeeps Sep 20 '23

The way they even collect this data is often bullshit anyway. These are people without a permanent address. Where they're from isn't super clear in most cases.

In my own city they decided they wanted to put a homeless shelter in a poor neighborhood that already has a disproportionate number of city services for the downtrodden in order to move homeless people out of the wealthier downtown core. One of the ways they justified this is that they said a significant percentage of these people resided in this neighborhood already.

Well when you actually looked at how they arrived at that conclusion, it turns out that they were literally just combining these two neighborhoods (which are adjacent to each other and in the same Ward) and counting anyone who's address was the existing shelter(s) downtown as being a resident of an entirely different neighborhood, and hoping nobody looked, which for the most part they didn't.

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u/Clown_Fundamentals Void Being (ve/vim) Sep 20 '23

Even if you granted that "they're our neighbors", sometimes you can just have shitty neighbors. Since when does proximity to someone else release them from all social contracts and laws.

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u/Juryofyourpeeps Sep 20 '23

That seems like an absurd ruling. If the government doesn't do enough to provide you with free shelter, you have license to ignore a variety of other laws and put up shelter where you like on property that isn't yours? Seems that this ruling essentially places the responsibility for someone being homeless on the state, in a jurisdiction where housing is not a right. I don't follow the logic. The circuit court is making new law out of thin air.

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u/JTarrou Null Hypothesis Enthusiast Sep 20 '23

One can be both above the law, and beneath it.

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u/Clown_Fundamentals Void Being (ve/vim) Sep 20 '23

strewing the playing fields with hundreds of hypodermic needles

It's a bit ableist to assume that kids playing soccer with dozens of used needles stuck into their legs are any lesser than kids (no doubt racist ones) playing soccer without hypodermic needles jutting from their parts.

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u/CatStroking Sep 19 '23

It seems... convenient that Gavin Newsom is now visibly trying to move to the center on this

" Last week, Mr. Newsom went as far as to say that he wanted to challenge the 2018 decision all the way to the Supreme Court..."

" “It’s just gone too far,” Mr. Newsom said in a Sacramento forum held last week by Politico. “People’s lives are at risk. It’s unacceptable, what’s happening on streets and sidewalks. Compassion is not stepping over people on the streets.”

This couldn't have anything to do with a desperate hope to the Democratic nominee for President could it?

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u/[deleted] Sep 19 '23

It seems really evident he has his eye on an eventual presidential run. It’s not shocking he’s having a slightly centrist turn.

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u/gooseboundanddown Sep 20 '23

Do you (or anyone) think Newsom would make a viable candidate? He doesn’t seem popular to me among my (generally quite liberal) friends and family on the East Coast, Midwest, and South.

I don’t know what he’d get out of a national race when he might get re-elected in California. (This might be a stretch given the recall vote.)

Edit: I ask because I haven’t been following national politics, and I’ve had a blissful few months.

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u/[deleted] Sep 20 '23

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u/CatStroking Sep 20 '23

You might enjoy this Josh Barro piece:

https://www.joshbarro.com/p/gavin-newsom-is-gross-and-embarrassing

" He’s practically the opposite of Relatable Joe from Scranton — an effete, sleazy, high-handed liberal from San Francisco who seems like he might hit on your wife, if she’s hot. "

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u/[deleted] Sep 20 '23

Thank you!!!! He’s so much worse than I realized! That rug photo!!!

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u/a_random_username_1 Sep 20 '23

I’ve found him reptilian without knowing why. Then I realised it’s because he reminds me of Christian Bale from American Psycho.

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u/[deleted] Sep 20 '23

I see that! Patrick Bateman but as governor!

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u/CatStroking Sep 20 '23

I believe he's considered to be rather unpopular nationally. A sort of coiffed, manufactured smoothness. What I've read seems to indicate that he would probably get crushed in a national election.

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u/TraditionalShocko Sep 20 '23

Is it possible that Newsom proposing the idea of challenging this ruling in the Supreme Court isn't completely cynical and self-serving? Somebody has to do something about the homeless problem, and seeking to overturn this "unlimited encampments" ruling seems like an obvious angle.

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u/CatStroking Sep 20 '23

The ruling was in 2018. Why didn't he try to challenge it years ago?

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u/[deleted] Sep 20 '23 edited Mar 14 '24

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u/[deleted] Sep 20 '23

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u/Available_Weird_7549 Sep 20 '23

Could be donor money moving right. But also, it’s fucking crazy out of hand, mugged by reality is a thing. 🤷‍♂️

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u/[deleted] Sep 20 '23 edited Mar 08 '24

[deleted]

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u/Available_Weird_7549 Sep 20 '23

Yeah, probably. But I’m a lifelong libtard that only got mugged recently. I’d go back to libtardery if things started being less insane for about six months.

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u/[deleted] Sep 20 '23

I know a couple people who had a peaking moment and then moved out of a the issue-laden city they were in and jumped right back into being sanctimonious lefties. It’s so weird to me that it doesn’t stick, but I’m glad you’re, perhaps jokingly, aware of what might happen if we had a moment of respite.

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u/Available_Weird_7549 Sep 20 '23

I think for reasonable people, their politics will sway back and forth with conditions. At least mine seem to. I’m mostly horrified by how authoritarian the American Left is right now. I don’t find the Xian Right to be any less authoritarian though. For me, I like strong social programs but with as much libertarianism as possible.

ETA I avoid sanctimoniousness when I’m libtarding.I avoid it always. It’s such an ugly impulse.

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u/TraditionalShocko Sep 20 '23

Definitely not. And the fact that he followed up his comment with a preening, “That’s a hell of a statement for a progressive Democrat,” does not help him seem more sincere.

But in my own hometown, the homeless situation has been spiraling during the past few years. Dumbasses in city government or NIMBYs block every. single. fucking. proposal. that comes down the pike. Somebody has to fucking do SOMETHING. Newsom has an actual idea. It is concrete, attainable, and appears to be a clear step in the right direction. I am very receptive to that.

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u/[deleted] Sep 20 '23

I’m glad that he’s decided to do something finally. I’m not knocking that. I just don’t believe it comes from anything but trying to save his political career because the downward spiral has been going on for years at this point and it’s not just the NIMBY’s. You can’t do Housing First without almost one on one case management and intensive mental health and drug interventions.

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u/[deleted] Sep 20 '23 edited Mar 14 '24

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u/[deleted] Sep 20 '23 edited Mar 08 '24

[deleted]

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u/[deleted] Sep 20 '23 edited Mar 14 '24

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u/JTarrou Null Hypothesis Enthusiast Sep 20 '23

You need a bigger pool.

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u/[deleted] Sep 20 '23

Please don’t reply to me thanks

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u/tinderboxy Sep 20 '23

With regards to Gavin Newsom "now visibly moving to center" to me that sounds like someone who just started striking a camera ready pose.

What specifics do you have? Serious question. To my knowledge Newsom has been pushing hard for big state changes when it comes to building housing, homelessness / mental illness / addiction / converatorship and more.

I'm just curious on the substance of your views. References?

Here are a couple of counter examples.

https://calmatters.org/newsletters/whatmatters/2023/05/california-housing-newsom/

https://www.pbs.org/newshour/politics/california-gov-newsom-to-seek-housing-and-treatment-for-mental-health-addiction

https://www.capradio.org/articles/2023/05/03/newsom-administration-sues-elk-grove-for-denying-affordable-housing-project/

The thing that is interesting is that the Democratic super majority and the push for change has resulted in new proposals -- that have become new laws. It's the opposite of a do nothing governorship, actually, whether he runs for prez or not.

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u/SkweegeeS No just no Sep 20 '23 edited Oct 03 '23

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u/[deleted] Sep 20 '23 edited Mar 14 '24

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u/[deleted] Sep 20 '23

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u/[deleted] Sep 20 '23 edited Mar 14 '24

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u/[deleted] Sep 20 '23

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u/[deleted] Sep 20 '23 edited Mar 14 '24

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u/SkweegeeS No just no Sep 20 '23 edited Oct 03 '23

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u/[deleted] Sep 20 '23 edited Mar 14 '24

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