Hacker News Reader

Comment by txsoftwaredev | Hacker News Reader

Considering how poorly run San Francisco and much of CA has been they should vote out everyone "progressive".

I'm guessing you live in Texas (as do I), not San Francisco or California, and this is an expression of the "Everything in California is terrible" meme that's popular here.

Well I live in SF and I can tell you for certain it is as bad as everyone says

As another resident, I can vouch there are serious issue but the DA is largely being successfully scapegoated by the troubled police department. Pretty much all the reasons the police cite for their chronic issues and ineffectiveness are utter BS but they seem to have successfully shifted all the blame onto the DA. With the serious police dept issues, pandemic, national trends, and lopsided analysis it’s hard to say how much role the da has had but it’s easy to tell it’s nowhere even close to what most attribute. I think the recall will succeed and the supporters will find nothing changes because he wasn’t the issue.

Can you provide some more details about the types of issues the PD has shifted onto the DA?

As an outsider, the only real issue I'm aware of is the refusal to prosecute theft under $1k (edit: $950), which seems like something that is completely out of the police's hands.

Example: the DA won’t prosecute theft under $950, as you say. So the police will literally stand across the street and watch a street vendor get robbed and do nothing.

Just because the DA will refuse to press charges doesn’t mean they couldn’t have still arrested the guy for the night and returned the property, not to mention intervening in a potentially dangerous situation for the shop owner and customers.

> So the police will literally stand across the street and watch a street vendor get robbed and do nothing.

Are you saying that SFPD is not stopping crimes that are occurring in front of them because they believe that the suspect will not be prosecuted? The police are not prosecutors - if they are failing to stop crimes, the fault lies squarely with them.

Can you provide some examples of when this has happened?

Yes, that exactly is what many cops are doing.

https://www.sfchronicle.com/sf/bayarea/heatherknight/article...

Some overlap with the prior one: https://www.sfchronicle.com/sf/bayarea/heatherknight/article...

https://www.sfchronicle.com/sf/bayarea/heatherknight/article...

There was also a video of cops pulling up and watching a dispensary get robbed

There was another account on next door of a neighbor pursuing a robber after a home invasion and had to pleas with the police to even approach the guy, and they basically just got him his stuff back and tainted all the evidence so no DA would be able to actually prosecute. Not even sure if they actually arrested that guy.

And then there is the fairly recent examples of extreme racism of some of the officers that tainted criminal cases leading them to be dismissed. https://www.latimes.com/local/lanow/la-me-ln-sfpd-racist-tex...

That $950 limit is a widespread but, to be blunt, nonesense talking point that is a great example of how the police absolve their hands of their inaction and how a lack of nationwide context creates myopic assessments.

For example, In the great progressive bastion of Texas the felony theft limit is $2,500, and also the current DA didn’t make the law.

The police have been caught many times simple spectating crimes in action. That’s not the da, that’s cops on strike.

The police choosing to do nothing because the outcome may not be as they desire is ridiculous. Imagine trying that excuse at your work.

Not to mention the progressive solutions are all half-measures. Where are the solutions to the homelessness and poverty? Just reducing criminal punishment and enforcement does nothing.

More like they’re both terrible. But the police were smart enough to figure out they can blame the DA (who deserves blame, but not alone) and avoid accountability for themselves.

Yeah the pandemic does throw a wrench in the assessment. But letting the police so successfully push all the blame onto the da is only going to embolden them and reward bad behavior. If the option was to recall the top police leaders plus the da, then I’d vote yes. Punishing only one side will make the situation worse.

For folks who think SF and Oakland PD issues are limited to their systemic violence against minorities, video documented violence against protestors & intentionally making current levels of crime seem worse to help the recall it’s worth looking into some of their darker crimes.

Check out their abuse of Celeste Guap, how long it took for anyone to do anything, the number of DAs, prosecutors and AGs that looked the other way, the charges dropped and finally the lone officer to actually face charges and the plea deal they received.

Police in the bay area have been able to do anything they want for a long time. The campaign against the current DA really just stems from him doing what is still far below the bare minimum to e remind police that they are not above the law.

Move to the South Bay or the peninsula?

Corruption in Texas is super interesting in fact! The lengths that all of the segments of government seem to be taking in order to avoid taking the indicted Attorney General to trial is probably not unique but it’s interesting to see in real time.

I’m guessing he’s from Texas because his username says so.

But I’m from the SF bay area and he’s spot on. We have massive social issues here (homelessness, drug-related crimes, urban blight, etc.) which are being made worse by so-called “progressive” policies.

Just to play devils advocate: will so-called “conservative” policies improve the situation?

False dichotomy. There’s a whole universe of policy options.

But to answer your question as posed, conservative policies will probably get us out of the mess we’re in, and then we can have the luxury to consider what smarter long-term progressive policies could be enacted.

Example: there is now an organized crime theft ring coordinating smash-and-grab thefts from storefronts in San Francisco because the DA’s so-called progressive policy of excessive leniency for misdemeanor theft. To the point where stores like CVS are abandoning the city. A “conservative” policy of harsh law enforcement is probably needed to reverse this trend. (That’s not the same as saying we should have harsh punishment for misdemeanors as a general rule forever though.)

CVS is abandoning a lot of cities: https://www.cnbc.com/2021/11/18/cvs-store-closures-to-shut-a... .

Singapore and Tokyo are large, densely-populated cities that don't have the public-order problems that California cities do. I can't say if their policies are "conservative" or not based on the US understanding of the word, but they do seem to work...

California cities very recently didn't have the public-order problems that California cities do. It's a pretty recent phenomenon, and it's hard not to attribute it to the novel ideas of legalizing theft and "reforming" criminals by just letting them go.

In the case of the former, caning is a widely used form of corporal punishment. That is extremely conservative and not something we should re-create in the US.

I don't think that we should institute caning, but I do think that new forms of punishment are needed.

Jail and prison are terrible forms of punishment. Someone who goes to prison is going to lose their job, maybe lose their house and possessions, and be away from their family. And that's all to spend time hanging out with convicted criminals all day and learn nothing of value.

Compared with this, caning actually starts to look not so bad. It sends a clear message "don't do that again" without destroying someone's life.

Now, caning also can cause serious damage to your body, so I don't think it's an acceptable punishment, but it would be good to have a better method of punishment that sent a clear message but didn't wreck someone's life and leave them with little alternative but to resort to crime again.

I draw the line, myself, at permanently maiming people for petty crime, so the Saudi method of handling thieves is off the table. Birching or caning was used successfully in anglophone countries for years.

Alternatively, something distasteful and uncomfortable, like being dressed in an orange jumpsuit, shackled to other ne'r-do-wells, and forcd to police the side of a highway for litter for 12 hours a day for a month would also work, if it could be applied with dispatch.

...furthermore, consider this:

https://www.cbsnews.com/losangeles/news/victim-of-hit-and-ru...

Think hard on the developmental stage of the person behind the wheel of the car. Which do you think will have a more lasting effect on him; camp...or a whipping? Do you think the woman in the article is wrong for being outraged at the original sentence?

Some of them - like prosecuting crime and dealing with rampant homelessness - would. Some - like restricting hard liquor sales - probably wouldn't. The key is not to choose correct tribe, the key is to choose correct policy. SF - and CA - government has been consistently terrible at that for years.

There are plenty of boneheaded policies in CA, but I'm not sure what's so "progressive" about cutting tax just because you've owned the house for longer.

It’s not meant to be a tax cut. It’s meant to keep seniors from being pushed out of their home by rising property values.

Yeah, in the same way lower minimum wages are meant to keep mom-and-pop store owners from going bankrupt.

The argument I've heard is seniors getting priced out, and having to move. Considering what happens when a senior has to move away from their social group, doctor and other resources they know, I can see why that would be bad.

But this leaves them as NIMBYs, preventing more housing. Without more housing, there are fewer people to charge property tax. So you're hit with the double whammy of less taxpayers, and less income from many of them.

I lived in California, near San Francisco. Not everything is California is terrible, but everything to do with SF DA is. SF got really really terrible - and it wasn't like that a decade ago. There are many opinions why that happened but I think "progressive" social engineering experimentation played a large role. I mean, if you decriminalize theft, you get a lot of theft. Who could have thought?

As an American who doesn't live in Texas or CA it doesn't look like Texas is being run any better.

Have any examples? It may not be perfect, but that's the price for being the most free state in the world.

Uvalde is currently at the top of that list and the power problems from last winter. And while I know it's largely dependent on one's political leaning, the Texas laws against books, abortion, immorality (e.g. sex toys), and LBGT issues, among others, don't speak "most free" to me.

I'm sure someone will counter with "but in California..." and the objections will all be true, which is why I stand by my original opinion: neither one is obviously better run than the other.

It's clear that TX has been run better than CA. Many large corporations have left CA for TX. Crime in CA is significantly worse and you are not allowed to protect your life or property. You are free to steal and no one does a thing about it, plenty of examples in the news of this happening in the middle of the day. You have celebrities saying "no big deal" about getting your car broken into, just part of life in CA. Look at all the businesses shutting down, Wallgreens for example. TX isn't covered in homeless camps, drugs and feces. TX's economy is strong and will remain strong due to a business friendly environment. Housing is more affordable (though less than it used to be in metro areas) in part due to less regulations.

And the items you point to as negatives are positives for me. I'm against abortion, sexualizing children (including books). Not sure what you mean by "sex toys". Plenty of those shops around if you are in need of some.

And I've visited CA a few times and have seen it first hand. It's not a place I'd want to take my family for vacation, let alone live. I wish that wasn't true, weather is wonderful.

https://siepr.stanford.edu/publications/policy-brief/tale-tw...

>California’s state and local government revenues and spending are 60 percent higher than Texas on a per-resident basis

>K-12 spending per student is much higher in California, student outcomes are if anything better in Texas

Being too “progressive” hasn’t been the problem. Politicians claiming to be be progressive then pandering to corporate interests has.

Applying what we could call progressive ideas without thinking them through is a problem. IMHO we should vote for smarter politicians who don't have ideological baggage limiting their decision making.

> Politicians claiming to be be progressive then pandering to corporate interests has.

That doesn't have much to do with SF's problems as far as I can tell. Quite the opposite actually.

All politics is ideological but to blame a single progressive DA for the entirety of the current crime problem in SF without realizing that much of what is happening today is more likely the result of past decisions than one guy actually doing what he said he would do to me is just ridiculous but if you feel that way then convince me in the next election with whatever platform you run on, not telling me I should recall someone so you can just put in your preferred puppet without having to say what you’ll actually do and how it would be better.

> All politics is ideological but to blame a single progressive DA for the entirety of the current crime problem

Isn't that a straw man though? No one reasonable is saying that this DA is responsible for the entirety of the crime problem, and of course this uptick in crime is a nationwide problem! However, the DA isn't doing enough to make things better, and putting people in jail who are committing crimes repeatedly because they've realized there are no consequences for their actions is probably the smarter thing to do ATM. So let's instead elect a DA that will do that (like we did here in Seattle, it won't solve the problem...but it is a start).

If you listen to the recall pushers it doesn’t sound like much of a straw man to me and the idea that the DA isn’t doing enough to prosecute isn’t a new concept here but if you actually look into the details of what Chesa is trying to do there is more method to it than just a blanket non-prosecutional ideology. It doesn’t mean that people don’t face any consequences at all if they fail to meet the standards laid out for them but they are given a chance. But this idea that a progressive ideology isn’t what is needed now because we’re in some nationwide uptick in certain crimes strikes me as odd because if not now then when? And to your point, a recall isn’t an election - the appointee doesn’t have to say anything about what they’re going to do and as it stands now they get to run as an incumbent in the next election which gives them a big advantage. So people are just presuming that whoever is appointed will be the “tough on crime” DA that they presumably want without actually knowing who they’re going to get.

> ut this idea that a progressive ideology isn’t what is needed now because we’re in some nationwide uptick in certain crimes strikes me as odd because if not now then when?

People are simply fed up right now. Even the most liberal progressive will flip to a tough on crime attitude after they reach their breaking limit. If they don't see results, they will keep swapping out people until they get them. The problem perhaps is that the DA's methods would require decades to show some results, but they aren't going to be given that much time.

> So people are just presuming that whoever is appointed will be the “tough on crime” DA that they presumably want without actually knowing who they’re going to get.

Isn't that what an election would get us anyways? We would swap out something we don't think is working for something different, that might still not work, but will at least lead to a chance of an improvement.

“ The problem perhaps is that the DA's methods would require decades to show some results, but they aren't going to be given that much time.”

Or they may not take that long to show results but if we simply allow people to swap out a known for an unknown each time they’re fed up with the apparent lack of action or results of something then that just rewards those that benefit from it without having them have to do the work of convincing anyone that their person will do better because of what they’re promising to do rather than just “we’re not that guy.” I’m not convinced that things have gotten bad enough in SF that “anyone but Chesa” is a strong enough argument and I think he deserves to be allowed to work out the remainder of his term and be judged on that basis. Any opposition after that can come in the form of an actual candidate that has to run an actual campaign to at least give the people some chance of understanding what that candidate’s stances are.

Could you explain how enabling current crime wave is "pandering to corporate interests"? Corporations didn't demand to defund the police or stop prosecuting crime or develop a homeless camp on every major street, as far as I know. Did they?

How do you think San Francisco should be run?

Apparently, they want more Prop 13 in more places.

> How do you think San Francisco should be run?

By people who don't just ignore several thousand years of how various "not too dysfunctional" societies ran themselves for a few quick ideological virtue points.

Much of the shitting on "progressivism" is misguided. There's just as much progressivism and liberal ideology on the other coast and they don't have the same dysfunctionality and failings to nearly the same extents. These kinds of clowns are everywhere but at the end of the day it's the California public who is responsible for electing them and tolerating their poor job performance.

we need to get rid of the two party system.

We have, in San Francisco. There’s only one party here.

Or, counterpoint: we need to get rid of the wealthy who pervert the system.

To get the ball rolling, join or (or start) a push for ranked-choice voting in your city!

In California, excepting some rare corners, there's only one party. California has a lot of Republicans, in numbers, but they don't have any power in any major city, let alone on the state level. So your idea has already been implemented.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com