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Comment by kgwxd | Hacker News Reader

How are the 'progressives' causing anything when they've not gotten a single thing they've wanted, ever? What's going on now is a directly traceable result of the 'mainstream' politicians in both parties doing what they've been doing for decades. These problems are a direct result of the progressives not getting what they're fighting for.

For worse (certainly not better), we have 2 parties. One is far, far worse for the general population than the other. Yes, if the current elected leaders are not making your life better, vote them out, but that doesn't mean blindly for the other party. Vote for better democrats, progressive and (actual) working class representatives that aren't brought to you by Amazon. It's the only party that gives people like that a chance. No matter how small that chance might be, it's infinitely better than 0.

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Please don't lie and try to gaslight.

Current SF DA is an ultra progressive that doesn't want to jail criminals, and thinks stealing is redistribution. Also, the proposition 47 passed in CA that makes stealing a midemenor, . Both very 'progressive' ticket items. Also, police got less funding as well.

How are they working out for SF?

How are the open drug markets working for SF? Currently there are 570 people dying over overdose, every year. More than twice than covid, which we all admitted it was a national emergency.

Time to admit, 'progressive' policies are failures. They are just a left wing form of anarchy, and normal folks are getting fed up with them.

You are cherry picking local initiatives that some progressives have won that have basis on European ways of handling these sort of issues but have been hijacked or undermined by others who want them to fail.

> Also, the proposition 47 passed in CA that makes stealing a midemenor

With the whole hijacking of BLM the police have become very cavalier towards even attempting to do their jobs. What started as a request to not shoot unarmed black people has morphed into police protesting by not enforcing their duties and using their unions as cover. This is to help encourage the failure of these proposals and revert to an exreme right wing policy.

In places like Oregon they don't even follow the will of the people (eg. ballot initiative to decriminalize all drugs just gets ignored by the mayor/police). The purpose of this law is to follow the Dutch model where people are given the drugs in a controlled environment and offered treatment options to wean them off. At least thats the end goal. But like everywhere else in this country where these bills get passed, they will be sabotaged by people at all layers that want to keep the crappy status quo(ie. a permanent racial underclass that serves the upper classes\corporate interests)

You are also ignoring all the big ticket items that they never get. Did you see how Bernie Sanders was totally curb-stomped by the DNC and afterwards they went back to sleep? Where is universal healthcare? tuition free college? federal jobs program? Green new deal Infrastructure/Jobs/R&D investment? Almost nothing progressive gets passed and when it does it gets sabotaged immediately.

> that have basis on European ways of handling these sort of issues

I suggest you try shoplifting in any European country and see what happens.

Entering the European prison system is not a life ending experience like it is here in the US. Once you get out of prison, you have a record and because of that you are ineligible for many jobs. That leads to a cycle that lands you back in prison. Like they say, once you are in the system it is extremely hard to get out.

Its even joked about in American media[1]:https://youtu.be/q7GiJHBNqvU?t=54

These laws that are causing all this chaos are a desperate attempt to break this cycle but clearly poorly implemented. But the fundamental truth is that we cannot achieve the European method without overhauling the whole system. That takes either a very brave politician at the top or people elected in the various multiple layers that form the current apparatus. I don't see progressives capable of doing this. It is near impossible to get just one person elected so overhauling the prison system? Forget about it.

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