Palo Alto pastor resigns after tweets about city: 'An elitist shit den of hate' | Hacker News Reader

Palo Alto pastor resigns after tweets about city: 'An elitist shit den of hate'

m.sfgate.com

50 pointsspking19 comments

It's actually a pretty fascinating read...

https://www.cityofpaloalto.org/civicax/filebank/documents/65...

Apparently some NIMBYs in Palo Alto got upset because there are too many cars/buses picking up/dropping off kids to sing at a church or something, so it's gone to a fight with the city council.

The complainants appear to be of the trophy-wife variety with lots of resources and time on their hands, so they did some digging around on the Internet. Amazingly, one of the NIMBYs discovered that one of the young pastors at the church appears to be (a: homosexual, b: completely disgruntled and c: vocal on twitter).

Since the army of trophy wives aren't particularly bright, they add this to their complaint packet which ends up in public record, of course the press picks up on it because some of the tweets are funny and in effect the whole thing will likely cause more damage to their home values by highlighting to the world what an "elitist shit den of hate" Palo Alto is than any busloads full of kids in the afternoons ever could...

Another choice bit: one of them wants to stop "mental health professionals" from using the church (presumably to provide services to the community), because its allegedly a zoning violation. How petty is that?

His frustration is justified. He's calling out the massive hypocrisy of claiming to be liberal and about "social justice" while doing everything possible to exclude people from housing even to the point of forbidding a church from housing people.

This is a problem across the state. Here in SoCal they talk about wanting to be a sanctuary city/state while also opposing any new construction or any other measure to address housing. I suppose all these sanctuary seekers will live up unicorn butts. I don't have a problem with immigrants but we must build housing to meet demand.

It's becoming obvious that well-off 'progressives' strive to crown their status with the ultimate pet: human beings in need. Horses are not so in vogue any more.

Like all pets, they are to be kept in the appropriate place, like horses that is. Not in the living room.

I think there are two issues they have, one of which I agree with:

1) We should support and rely upon state assistance, not charity.

2) Religious organizations present an inherent level of risk, have a special tax status and must be constrained.

These are valid points in isolation, but they ignore the meta problem which is that policies backed by communities all over California have created an unprecedented housing affordability crisis. Without this crisis this just wouldn't be happening at all.

I think it is deeply and systematically hypocritical to claim to be "liberal" and for "social justice" while supporting a restriction of housing availability that amounts to stealth red-lining.

I agree. Many who don the mantle of being "liberal" are anything but.

A small percentage of people have genuine ideological commitments, but most are driven by self-interest.

> Stevens said. "If the same energies used to organize neighbors around minor parking issues, young girls choirs, and 'nasty tweets' were honed to fight actual injustices, Palo Alto would be a very different city. Palo Alto needs more action, less lip service."

That seems accurate.

Probably so, but fellow pastors should have counseled him that if he spent as much energy at prayer as he did tweeting at "a small group of progressive ministers and Leftist political activists to whom my rants were geared" (haha wut? that's not how online works) he would never have had these difficulties.

Calling 'Christians' out for being hypocrites is a thing that all good clergy has done since before there were Christians.

Yeah that would have been great if he had communicated that to his congregation directly. Instead he was badmouthing them to his buddies. Except he was doing it online, where it was guaranteed to bite him in the ass eventually.

Apparently HN isn't big on the power of prayer, but even if it doesn't change the universe it can still improve our thinking. All of this is obvious with even a little reflection.

Yeah, god forbid a pastor speak some truth.

Why is this news? I guess I'm not seeing what's interesting about the story.

The broader discussion about culture and justice is interesting. A associate community organizer (it sounds like that's the kind of pastoring he's into) putting his foot in his mouth? Not as much.

My guess would be because Palo Alto's right next to Stanford and an important part of Silicon Valley, esp since Palantir HQ is in Palo Alto.

There is a bug in human beings, and this is universal. Our expectations from the rest of society and others on ethical and moral issues are gigantic but we just can't give.

We 'empathize', we relate, we cry about suffering in the movies and in the arts, we root for the victimized, but on a day to day basis it all breaks down and we simply do not want to make any sacrifice to make a more humane society come true.

The worse we become the more shrill and desperate our posturing, to try to convince others, but maybe ourselves.

It’s a shame he allowed his language to overshadow the truths he spake. He left himself open to the “think of the children” gambit.

Everything he said was true. Residents love having a few extremely desperate, homeless people living in old vans around to look down upon, sneer at and change sides of the street while walking on the sidewalk. It’s not like any of the residents would ever talk to, much less ever help, anyone whom were on the street... that would require actual interaction with the “little” people. If anything, residents would find passive-aggressive ways to harass the homeless like leave them cleaning supplies, bags or soap. Oh and gotta love the teenagers and elderly of Palo Alto whom feel entitled to directly harass the homeless people at all hours of the day or night... because after all, what would the police do? Nothing but arrest the homeless for being poor.

PS: I’m curious what Chuck Jagoda will say about this.

Imagine how pissed he'd be if he lived in Birmingham: https://twitter.com/WoodfinForBham/status/996412005199249408

"Palo Alto is a ghetto of wealth, power, and elitist liberalism by proxy, meaning that many community members claim to want to fight for social justice issues, but that desire doesn't translate into action,"

Seems like a smaller version of the brand of liberalism that emanates from Hollywood / media world.

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