Democrat Policies Murder Compassion
A friend from a relatively peaceful, rural part of the country recently posted a sad photo to her social media. It was a picture of a homeless man, dirty, toothless, and clearly confused, laying in a sleeping bag right next to the outdoor patio of a San Francisco restaurant. The people on the patio were eating their lunch, seemingly oblivious to the horror show right next to them. The homeless man was staring off into the distance, likewise oblivious to the patrons mere feet away on the other side of the patio rails.
My friend was disgusted. Not with the man, but with the people who clearly had chosen to continue their meal despite the degradation in their eye lines.
“This is f***ing pathetic!” she shouted, virtually. “I don’t care what is happening here. What kind of a monster just casually eats lunch while someone is homeless and starving to death right next to them?”
She ended her tirade with a favorite flourish of social media rants. “If you plan on making excuses for these people, unfriend me now!”
I did chime in, but my reasoning was not welcome. I did not obey her command to unfriend her, but I eventually decided to let her wallow in her own ignorance.
I tried to tell her that it’s very easy for someone like her to make a sweeping judgement about a photo that captures one split second in time. I told her that she doesn’t understand the situation in San Francisco right now, or in most major cities for that matter. I told her that I knew what she didn’t know – that is, that man probably had been offered food. Many times. He had probably been offered shelter. The police had probably been called often. I knew there was a high probability that man was insane, high, or both. I knew San Francisco is overwhelmed with clinically insane homeless people who are unmedicated and often descend into violent rages when approached by anyone.
The people eating next to him may have looked uncaring, but San Franciscans have been extremely generous when it comes to giving their tax dollars to solve the homeless crisis. The truth is, those people probably knew better than to approach that man. The truth is, those people were probably just numb to it all by that point. The city refuses to actually solve the problem with the billions of tax dollars that are dedicated to the solutions every year. The police are limited by policies that don’t allow them to enforce vagrancy or petty crime laws. The businesses are prevented from solving their own problems by using scenic obstructions such as planters or artwork to prevent the homeless from camping and pooping within feet of their establishments. Almost no one is allowed to do anything, and the only people allowed to do anything choose to do nothing.
So everyone lives with it.
That is the only choice you have in an American city center these days. Live with it. Democrats have almost exclusive control of every major American city, and their policies have led to a nationwide homelessness and crime crisis that should seem inconceivable given our republican form of government. Every city should look different according to how each area decides how to govern themselves, and yet every Democrat city looks exactly the same…miserable.
And yes, city life is a bit heartless these days, but I don’t believe that is because most Americans are heartless. I believe Democrat policies force people to be heartless.