I lived in the Sacramento area, near the American River in Rancho Cordova, as a kid and young adult between 1972 and 1982. You'd never see the homeless (we'd have called them "bums") living along the river back then, not a one, and especially not women.
I feel, a little, for these people but you can see that they have created their own mess by constantly making terrible decisions throughout their entire adult lives - them getting deep into drugs and alcohol being their biggest mistake.
Tattoos on their forehead!? Saying they've worked hard their entire lives (which I doubt), that they raised children (on welfare?), that they don't have enough money to feed their pit bull, themselves, and pay their rent? Why have a dog to feed if you can't feed yourself? For protection? How long before your homeless-camp pit bull tears someone apart? I understand why the cops have shot six of these dogs, killing three.
I've seen plenty of genuine, not-their-fault, poverty in Africa, South America, Central America, Southeast Asia and elsewhere. These cigarette smoking, tattooed-covered, American homeless trashing-out parks along the river in Sacramento had plenty of chances to have a decent life, chances that billions of people living in genuine poverty outside of America never had. These folks have fucked up again and again and again - their problems are now our problem. They remind me of a young panhandler I encountered many years ago in San Francisco, in the Haight, who asked me for money while saying, "I promise not to by crack" and then giving me a smirk.
If you're a fuck-up in your forties, fifties, or older you'll never get your act together on your own. I'd remove these filthy homeless camps and put these men and women in genuine barrack-type camps out in the country where they'd have no access to drugs and alcohol and where they'd have to do honest work for three square meals a day and a flop. I'd also give them classes on basic life skills (McDonalds is currently paying $15/hour and can't find workers), and after a time allow them back into society, provide them a half-way house to call home, provide a solid chance at making it, with the promise that they'll be sent straight back to the work camp if they start living in the streets or parks again.
Yeah, concentration camps for the losers! That's the ticket. Then they can pull themselves up by their own bootstraps. Like that rich kid I met whose dad bought her two yoga studios - which made her and her hard body so so spiritual. When asked her opinion on Universal Health Care for our benighted land, she answered angrily 'We can't SUBSIDIZE health care!' With people so polarized, it's going to get very weird and even uglier 'round these parts.
"Yeah, concentration camps for the losers! That's the ticket. Then they can pull themselves up by their own bootstraps."
Nope on both accounts: A work camp ain't a concentration camp (no starvation rations, no vicious attack dogs, no gas chambers, etc.), and it'll cost the taxpayer plenty to house and feed these fuck-ups before they get their act together, if they ever get their act together.
One thing's for sure: these folks most definitely won't be pulling themselves up by their own boot-straps. It'll take taxpayer money to help them to become decent, useful, citizens instead of remaining as quality-of-life ruining (for themselves and others) parasites. It all starts by forcing them to go cold turkey with the drugs and alcohol - once they sober up and are "clean" for a few months they'll have a chance.
I agree with you that it's going to get uglier, especially if what Linh think will happen happens. If Americans start fighting over food, if the system breaks down, if people have to take the law into their own hands, they won't be nearly as soft on crime, nor forgiving, as are George Soros's no-bail, big-city, slap-on-the-wrist DA's.
Hopefully, after the violence, America becomes a better place. Maybe we'll start concentrating on matters at home instead of going abroad stirring up shít (starting wars/killing people).
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check out "Seattle is Dying" if you get a chance
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bpAi70WWBlw
I lived in the Sacramento area, near the American River in Rancho Cordova, as a kid and young adult between 1972 and 1982. You'd never see the homeless (we'd have called them "bums") living along the river back then, not a one, and especially not women.
I feel, a little, for these people but you can see that they have created their own mess by constantly making terrible decisions throughout their entire adult lives - them getting deep into drugs and alcohol being their biggest mistake.
Tattoos on their forehead!? Saying they've worked hard their entire lives (which I doubt), that they raised children (on welfare?), that they don't have enough money to feed their pit bull, themselves, and pay their rent? Why have a dog to feed if you can't feed yourself? For protection? How long before your homeless-camp pit bull tears someone apart? I understand why the cops have shot six of these dogs, killing three.
I've seen plenty of genuine, not-their-fault, poverty in Africa, South America, Central America, Southeast Asia and elsewhere. These cigarette smoking, tattooed-covered, American homeless trashing-out parks along the river in Sacramento had plenty of chances to have a decent life, chances that billions of people living in genuine poverty outside of America never had. These folks have fucked up again and again and again - their problems are now our problem. They remind me of a young panhandler I encountered many years ago in San Francisco, in the Haight, who asked me for money while saying, "I promise not to by crack" and then giving me a smirk.
If you're a fuck-up in your forties, fifties, or older you'll never get your act together on your own. I'd remove these filthy homeless camps and put these men and women in genuine barrack-type camps out in the country where they'd have no access to drugs and alcohol and where they'd have to do honest work for three square meals a day and a flop. I'd also give them classes on basic life skills (McDonalds is currently paying $15/hour and can't find workers), and after a time allow them back into society, provide them a half-way house to call home, provide a solid chance at making it, with the promise that they'll be sent straight back to the work camp if they start living in the streets or parks again.
Yeah, concentration camps for the losers! That's the ticket.
Then they can pull themselves up by their own bootstraps.
Like that rich kid I met whose dad bought her two yoga studios - which made her and her hard body so so spiritual. When asked her opinion on Universal Health Care for our benighted land, she answered angrily 'We can't SUBSIDIZE health care!'
With people so polarized, it's going to get very weird and even uglier 'round these parts.
"Yeah, concentration camps for the losers! That's the ticket.
Then they can pull themselves up by their own bootstraps."
Nope on both accounts: A work camp ain't a concentration camp (no starvation rations, no vicious attack dogs, no gas chambers, etc.), and it'll cost the taxpayer plenty to house and feed these fuck-ups before they get their act together, if they ever get their act together.
One thing's for sure: these folks most definitely won't be pulling themselves up by their own boot-straps. It'll take taxpayer money to help them to become decent, useful, citizens instead of remaining as quality-of-life ruining (for themselves and others) parasites. It all starts by forcing them to go cold turkey with the drugs and alcohol - once they sober up and are "clean" for a few months they'll have a chance.
I agree with you that it's going to get uglier, especially if what Linh think will happen happens. If Americans start fighting over food, if the system breaks down, if people have to take the law into their own hands, they won't be nearly as soft on crime, nor forgiving, as are George Soros's no-bail, big-city, slap-on-the-wrist DA's.
Hopefully, after the violence, America becomes a better place. Maybe we'll start concentrating on matters at home instead of going abroad stirring up shít (starting wars/killing people).
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