America is not made for people who pee
nytimes.com
nytimes.com
If you're in SF, try finding a bathroom to use even if you do have money to spend somewhere. Everyone has closed their bathrooms because of COVID protocols -- I have no idea if this something mandated by law, or something that businesses are doing, but it's nearly impossible to find a place to relieve yourself unless you're near a park with a public restroom.
I don't have a lot of confidence that the local government in SF is ready to solve this on their own, but just like homelessness, it's much larger than a one-city problem and hopefully more attention on things like this will help everyone chip away at the issues.
The feces problem in SF is exacerbated by opiates. Heavy opiate use causes extreme constipation and opiate withdrawal causes the opposite. Housing and drugs are the top of funnel problems in SF contributing to everything else. New York City seems to not have anywhere near the level of public feces as SOMA / Downtown SF even throughout the pandemic.
- NYC: http://m3.mappler.net/nyrestroom/
- SF: https://www.google.com/maps/d/u/1/viewer?mid=1xRGER_GLPdRdOA...
No disagreement as to the opiate issues in SF exacerbating the problem, but it seems reasonable to think that anyone (drug problem or not) would prefer to use a bathroom than squat on a sidewalk.
It's called harm prevention and this is cheaper (both in monetary and human capital) than just ignoring the problems.
America has binned the medieval Roman Catholic notion that we are moral agents, which gave rise to the enlightenment, for the older “church knows best” construct.
The church being “free market fiscal economics” manipulated by elites who think they know best. Just like the kings, priests, and barons of old.
If someone with wealth hasn’t decided you are “privy lege” given fiscal trade rules, you don’t get to piss.
This is so wildly fantastic given the size of modern US government and the size of the national debt. We're passing so-called stimulus/relief packages of unprecedented size, expanding the money supply, etc.
The idea that "free market fiscal economics" weighs on US policy at any level is a complete farce. There's no evidence and it's a certainty that liberals and big-government types hold the most power by far in US government and this has been the case for decades.
Limited government and free market ideology has a caucus of maybe 10 people in Congress. All significant legislation is voted firmly against their favor.
It's the jerks that ruin the idea.
If you went to San Francisco or New York, how did you manage your requirements for restroom infrastructure?
During that time, I found no such public restroom facilities in the US. Paid facilities at gas stations, fast food places, restaurants, and various other businesses, yes. But one way or the other, you always paid for those.
I did see a little bit of public restroom facilities in Europe, and they were okay for what you paid for them. But the paid facilities, especially in France and Belgium near the highways, could be little more than holes in the ground with places to put your feet on the sides. We quickly learned to spot trustworthy businesses like McDonalds and other US companies that would have better paid facilities.
Hotels, conference centers, and the like had better paid restroom facilities than any other places I’ve ever seen before or since, but even movie theaters had Madame Pissoir at the door who could be quite rude and offensive if you were in dire need and would be happy to pay once you were done, but you couldn’t wait.
Even here in the US, we continued to carefully look for McDonalds or Starbucks as a sign that here would be good restroom facilities, and that we would be happy to purchase something there so that we could use their restrooms. At least they were never as rude and offensive as Madame Pissoir.
[1] https://fee.org/articles/why-is-there-a-shortage-in-public-r...
Also, the restrooms didn't match the expected number of people on the building. As if there's no building code in terms of a public place and number of restrooms that must be available.
I was expecting something similar to an airport which is what most countries do in terms of density of public restrooms, but it was much less (I went to Texas, so other states might have been different)
Also, your comparison is way off. Not all police departments are the same. Unarmed doesn’t mean “not a threat” or “can in no way be a threat”. I can simply approach you in an angry manner and be a threat. Does it justify death? No, but a three year old?
How much of a threat are the "unarmed law-abiding civilians" in the comment you replied to?
It's just that police in Europe and Asia don't really face dangerous and determined criminals.
That's just laughable. People in the US are not more dangerous than people in Europe or Asia. Lots of dangerous individuals get stopped by police without killing them with 41 bullets. What is more dangerous is the police's behaviour, behaving like an occupying force. US police would also rather kill someone trying to escape from s minor offence than let them get away. Different way of thinking. One values lives above killcount.
That’s in the 4th or 5th paragraph. That’s the human anatomy the title is referring to.
Perhaps the submitter thought the title was linkbait, but I don't see it that way and have reverted it now. Generally we try to avoid euphemisms and Bowdlerisms here. It's better to assume that readers are smart enough to handle things for themselves.
So they are basically saying that America is not made for people who have actual human bodies, that need to pee and poop.