The last panel reminded me of almost 20 years ago when the HPV vaccine first came available. Here in the US I remember the conservative backlash over it.
It wasn’t the same as today where conservatives reject the COVID vaccine because that’s how they prove to themselves that their freedom and bodily autonomy are intact or some shit. It was much more along the lines of how they like to see people suffer as long as they can tell themselves it was justified.
So it was basically “my daughter isn’t getting it because she doesn’t need it and isn’t a slut,” and of course they meant it in the way that anybody who IS a slut deserves to be punished with cervical cancer. Back then they didn’t always say the quiet part out loud.
Republicans / religious always treat women like shit. I have no idea why any woman votes R or goes to church. These people literarily think you’re less than them.
Interesting, in Canada the only backlash I really heard (and from my own mother) was that it was too new and we weren’t sure of the longer term effects. I got it anyway since it was being offered for free to people my age (I remember jokes about being guinea pigs). I don’t have HPV and the vaccine doesn’t seem to have killed me yet so win-win I guess.
“Increase social service programs so that we address the reason why they’re homeless and doing drugs in the first place.”
“No, that’s socialism and Fox News tells me I should be scared of that word!”
I don’t want to pay for other peoples’ healthcare so I’d rather pay a lot more for an oppressive police force that also takes away my civil rights.
While still paying for other people’s healthcare because that’s how insurance works.
Hell yeah! high five
That’s why the bathrooms will show ads 24/7 and the drug safe zones will feature loot drop microtransactions. All participating companies will receive carbon credits. Time to capitalize socialism.
“Increase social service programs so that we address the reason why they’re homeless and doing drugs in the first place.”
If conservatives were really about ending homelessness and getting them paying taxes instead of ‘just’ consuming benefits, then they’d be in on this plan of phased rehab and rehousing to accomplish that. It’s an investment they don’t seem to see and I worry they look down on addict as trash not victims, and merely want the homeless* to silently vanish.
*I know it’s not the latest popular word that privileged people use to feel better. Homeless apparently aren’t offended as long as people are talking about the situation and investing time in their future, because stick and stones.
We do that in Finland and there’s still homeless people and drug users in the public bathrooms. It sucks, the drug users particularly can be really threatening towards women especially who want to use those bathrooms they’ve taken over.
Drug use rooms would be a good idea.
Drug use rooms are great, for a lot of things, including helping people get sober. It’s a place you can funnel addicts to and make sure they know the resources that are available and that there are people who want them to live their best life.
Like, it’s not an endorsement anymore than when a parent tells a teenager that if they need a ride home at any time of night when they’re too drunk to drive they won’t get in trouble. And it confuses me why so few people see it that way.
it confuses me why so few people see it that way
Willful ignorance fuelled by religious indoctrination that getting out of your head is immoral.
“Increase social service programs so that we address the reason why they’re homeless and doing drugs in the first place.”
Doing drugs doesn’t imply a problem. UNODC estimates that only 10-15% of drug use is problematic. It’s not reasonable to assume that drug use is an escape from problems, any more than drinking alcohol.
Alcohol is just another (imho very problematic) drug that simply happens to be legal in lots of countries ….
Indeed, alcohol can be a problematic drug and is much more dangerous than most illicit drugs but do you assume that everyone who has a drink is doing so because they have a drinking problem?
you’re*
If you believe that laws forbidding gambling, sale of liquor, sale of contraceptives, requiring definite closing hours, enforcing the Sabbath, or any such, are necessary to the welfare of your community, that is your right and I do not ask you to surrender your beliefs or give up your efforts to put over such laws. But remember that such laws are, at most, a preliminary step in doing away with the evils they indict. Moral evils can never be solved by anything as easy as passing laws alone. If you aid in passing such laws without bothering to follow through by digging in to the involved questions of sociology, economics, and psychology which underlie the causes of the evils you are gunning for, you will not only fail to correct the evils you sought to prohibit but will create a dozen new evils as well.
—Robert A. Heinlein, Take Back Your Government
That sounds like something Heinlein would write during his earlier days. I completely agree with both the argument and reasoning, even tho he turned anti-Communist and insane before he wrote that.
Funny thing! Here’s a quote from the same book:
Of what use, then, are the American Communists?
They serve one function extremely useful to you and to the country, so useful that, if there were no Communists, we would almost be forced to create some. They are a reliable litmus paper for detecting real sources of danger to the Republic.
Communism is so repugnant to almost all Americans, when they are getting along even tolerably well, that one may predict with certainty that any social field or group in which the Communists make real strides in gaining members or acceptance of their doctrines, any such spot is in such bad shape from real and not imaginary social ills that the rest of us should take emergency, drastic action to investigate and correct the trouble.
Unfortunately we are more prone to ignore the sick spot thus disclosed and content ourselves with calling out more cops.
I mean, Lemmy itself was created by Communists if I’m correct
Honestly a great point. No one wants to create a glorious revolution when their lives are going well.
The real anti homeless infrastructure is cheap or free housing
You forgot to add “in city centers”. Nobody wants free housing where it’s already cheap.
I live out in the boonies. It’s cheaper here, but not really when you factor in the costs of travel to get literally anything. Your money is just going into different pockets.
Depends on the country, “cheap” in NL is still like 150k for a one bedroom appartment in de “middle of knowwhere”
Sparse areas have other costs. Like, you can’t get anywhere without a car, there’s fewer jobs, less social stuff. Cities have much higher potential on most metrics that matter.
There are plenty of cheap cities, but it’s the high cost coastal cities being asked to provide free housing.
City centers might be a bit much but suburbs are a lot more reasonable. And I don’t mean the single detached house style suburbs.
Let’s consider a tax on vacant homes. If landlords got charged market rent for vacancies the house prices would plummet.
Grace to second homeowners or set-length renovations.
Why grace to send homeowners? Tax those people, nobody needs to own a second house and pay some form of reduced taxes. Tax it at the same rate money on the bank is taxed (if not already) and if it is rented out, tax that rent income as well.
You’re right. It should be all 2+ homeowners. I gave the concession because my target is the ultra rich and the rich, not just the boomers that bought at the right time and have holiday homes.
In my head I could see if we all pushed for 2+ homes instead of 3+ homes then the result would be only to tax the second home and not the 3rd, 4th, etc.
Although the best result would be to tax the 2+, i need to attack the rich and ultra rich right now. Those fuckers are really ruining it for the rest of us
How is taxing 3% of inventory going to make prices “plummet”?
Sorry, I never mentioned USA. https://usafacts.org/articles/how-many-vacant-homes-are-there-in-the-us/ Its about 10%.
It’s actually social services. You gotta treat the reason they’re homeless in the first place.
To my knowledge, “housing first” programs work pretty good
That’s not enough, well it might be enough in the US, but here in NL people who are officially Dutch or have been through the process as a refuge to get housing and food etc. Should have at least some kind of shelter.
Then there are still the like 2 (estimation) people in this country who choose to be homeless for whatever reason. I don’t try to judge, but there might be some mental issues involved.
And then there are the people who came here from other countries, but haven’t gone through the official channels. Some of which came to work, lost their job and cannot find somewhere else to work. Generally this group has housing paid for by their employer, but if you don’t have one you don’t have a house, at least not here in NL.
There are probably other examples in other countries where basically everybody can have some place to live, but there are still homeless people. I don’t believe you just need free housing, you probably need some extra social security and the social opinion on homeless people or people who are at the bottom of society needs to change.
No but see they need to be punished so they still exist as an example to motivate workers and create an internal other to justify police.
Not to help them. Why would we help them? Stop trolling.
I was always scared of becoming homeless when I was a kid. It motivates people to work hard: the beatings will continue until morale improves.
And that fear would be worth every street in the city smelling like piss at all times even if it didn’t enable rampant exploitation and rent seeking!
nimbyism prevents that,
Drug use rooms?
Why not give all people living in a country homes to live in and be done with it?
Not sure if it is that easy to just built housing for everybody (excluding those 2 people in the entirety of NL who choose to be fully homeless). At least speaking from a NL point of view. If you have no income and you don’t have assets you get money and the ability to rent something. It isn’t a lot of money, but it should be enough to survive. This is sayiong that if you are actually Dutch and not somebody who came from another country without going through the system to get either asylum or become Dutch.
However, it is really hard to find housing for people in general. Even harder if you earn just enough to not have any rights for social security.
I believe the people who want to do drugs here in NL have the ability to do so in coffee shops (the drug serving once)
That is one option, yes.
But safe injection sites are a good idea even when you’re housed.
In germany they even provide safe syringes, I was impressed when I saw those dispensers in public WCs.
There’s no logical objection for it, but it goes against the interests of landlords, real estate managers, and other people who see housing as a financial investment rather than a human right. If we want to give people homes to live in that they will not be deprived of, we first have to bring out the guillotine.
*You’re
Thank you for caring and offering that correction. OP’s success needs this feedback, and I hope he takes it to heart.
*you’re
Ladies and gents and everything in-between. The drugs are going to get used no matter what.
Just give them somewhere to do them.
The problem is, and I’m sure you don’t need to hear this from me, is that if you give them a place to do drugs they will congregate there and without correct support and supervision (and that is never provided because money) the addicts and community end up at odds with each other.
Got it; Unsupervised Homeless + Safe Space = Thunderdome.
This is a problem?
(/s, but the unethical part of me…)
Well no. These would be centers where people can go do drugs. They would be supervised. There would be staff monitoring them.
Look. You have someone addicted to meth or heroin they can’t just stop… They need to keep using or they can die in the case of h and meth is extremely hard to stop cold turkey.
Centers that allow people to use can address many issues these people have.
Drug use room work, ive recently seen a documentary about one in Switzerland and they give people the possibility to consume safely.
… with a panic button and much greater access to addiction resources.
If there are 10 steps to turning a homeless person into a housed, working taxpayer, this is like step 2.
Canada has failed to move to step 3 because “just arrest those leeches” is the position of half our society.
We had some in my state and they were all closed down to to crimes like fighting and people setting up camp basically at or around the place
As mentioned before in this thread, that is because the rooms themselves aren’t sufficient, investment in social care involved with the operation of them is as important.
The language of the left in America has been so thoroughly played with by the right we have to go to absurd lengths to try and communicate any policy approach that involves public interest.
Someone should create safe injection sites and call them “jails” and then I bet right wingers would be all over letting addicts go to jails for “short term incarceration”.
Better yet, create ultra low security “prisons” that allow “prisoners” to have “unescorted temporary absences” but really they’re just free homes for the unhoused and they can sign in and out as they please.
I think that’s the language those people prefer.
Switzerland cleaned up their drug problem.
How?
They built government run facilities for drug addicts and the dosages are controlled by medical staff. The result, decreases in crime, over doses, emergency medical care, and garbage left by junkies. The USA and their pointless War on Drugs is a fucking scam because the problem is the demand for illegal drugs.
That’s not what the word scam means.
Where else are they supposed to shit, they don’t have a house, that’s the whole premise of the thing
I know it sounds wrong too. Of course, obviously, it does, but a pretty cartoon-y solution would be a no-privacy bathroom for the homeless. A private space also provides secrecy and allows crime.
The correct solution of course, is to eliminate drugs and homelessness.
And give them affordable housing and you’ll solve the homelessness problem.
