Quote:
Originally Posted by bomberjet
I could post the meme of "man we've tried nothing and we're all out of ideas again". I didn't really want to re-hash this topic again as we've beat it to death.
In basically all areas of life I'm one who believes the rules and laws should be enforced. Sports. Call the bloody penalty in overtime. Every time.
Life. You're breaking the law, you should be fined or arrested, whatever it is. You're squatting on public land. You're moved along. Chronic offender, arrested. You're loitering on the sidewalk, throwing trash everywhere. Writing on the walls (have you seen Main St project?!) Arrested.
Struggle with that for a while. Disperse the crowd. Instead we're just letting the crowd have their way with our downtown and our livelihoods really.
The simpleton in me believes that. The social issues causing this, obviously more complex. But at risk of upsetting the people, we'll just do nothing.
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I think it stems from misplaced or misunderstood empathy or compassion. We’ve been inculcated to believe that it is compassionate to not want to disturb people who are doing all of the above mentioned things, but alas it is not. It is not compassionate to allow people to rot on the streets, spending their days tormented by addiction and often serious mental illnesses. It is also not compassionate to not enforce criminal law. Our empathy would have us not do stuff like involuntarily commit people into psychiatric hospitals or arrest people for crimes, but this empathy is a road directly to hell for both us and the people who continue to live in those unacceptable conditions. But that’s only one half of the equation, we also need social standards and cultural norms that deter and motivate people who end up in those situations who are not by nature addicts and mentally ill.
People say it’s not simple. I would counter and say that the solutions are simple concepts, however they are infinitely complex in implementation and rely heavily on people adopting ethics and morality that permit for the cultural and political changes to be made that will allow this problem to be resolved.
Would love to see waterfront extended though, and the architecture on main is criminally under used and appreciated.
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