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DFHippie

Why it does not sound apolitical to some:

* not exactly amenable to liberal democracy

* the pro-leniency movement

* has gone too far,

* all across liberal cities

* it's become a free-for-all

* absolutely devastating all parties involved

* the ordinary citizens who become victims

* rampant property crime

* the vulnerable who are predated upon by drug dealers

* who themselves commit vast amounts of crime

* feed their habits

* the taxpayer

* hard-earned resources

* thrown

* a money pit

* worse than neutral effects

This reads as a list of right-wing scare phrases used in any political campaign to motivate conservative voting. This doesn't read as apolitical to people who actually live in the places these phrases are applied to and it seems to be characterizing the people in these places, "liberal cities", as either fools or sub-human villains. Also, if you are one of the people demonized you don't recognize yourself in the description.

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>>not exactly amenable to liberal democracy

I'm a big fan of liberal democracy, so this was an argument against involuntary commitment and forced labor, not an argument against liberal democracy.

The 'liberal democracy' reference is not using 'liberal' in the same context as the 'liberal cities' I referred to later.

>>the vulnerable who are predated upon by drug dealers

I wouldn't characterize that as a talking point associated with the right at all. The left is known for displacing blame for the misbehavior of drug addicts onto external forces, and this particular point does the same. Though it does sound critical of drug dealers, which is a right-ish argument.

Anyway, it's impossible to not sound political, when the problem is political. And it's impossible to not be critical of the left, when it is mostly the left that is to blame. Left-wing run cities are much worse off than right-wing ones with respect to homelessness, violent crime, drug-abuse, etc, by any metric you look at, and they got that way, from a starting state of much greater social order and more functional civic life, under decades of left-wing policies that gradually became more extreme.

> And it's impossible to not be critical of the left, when it is mostly the left that is to blame.

QED

> Left-wing run cities are much worse off than right-wing ones with respect to homelessness, violent crime, drug-abuse, etc, by any metric you look at

Unless of course you look at the generally much more left wing Western-Europe. But that doesn't fit your narrative.

Vancouver's drug policy is more left-wing than even Portugal's.

You're missing the point. The entire societies are more left-wing.

Why compare the US to Europe, and not leftist cities in the US to right-wing ones in the US?

That removes a huge number of potential confounding factors that could explain differences in outcome, letting the effects of differences in policy be better revealed.

I don't know about Canada for sure, but otherwise, in fairly general, outside America 'liberal' isn't a dirty word, whatever your political leaning.

The point isn't that "liberal" is a dirty word. It's that when you throw all those things together it sounds not like a dispassionate description of reality but propaganda meant to motivate action against domestic political opponents -- not to help people in the city and heal society but to demonize them. The "law and order" platform has been around a long time and has always sounded like this.

It should be also mentioned that HN leans left, so when similar left-wing scare phrases, such as comparing Trump/GOP to Nazis comes up, or similar "the opposition are fools" topics such as anti-mask/vax, global-warming etc; It's seen as correct and acceptable.

It's the same kind of thing as right-wingers acting hostile to any negativity towards police/military, even if criticism is valid. Criticise lenient policies in cities with vagrancy problems, and it's touching a nerve.

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