Have you been to a city? They're thriving in many ways. I am grateful for my city. In my mind the biggest hazard is concentrated power in local areas of the city, and wasted budgets, but not <<this equivocation about the hazard>>
To be clear, not advocating for the military on the streets.
However, the people who do sympathize with that will forever increase as ineffectiveness in policing crime does.
If the military is on the streets, and there is broad support for it, then objectively speaking it's because we're at a tipping point of imbalance in policing crime.
The question then becomes, even with the military outside of their windows, would the people who start stuttering the word "fascist" in response have hindsight regret in not better enabling civilian policing to inhibit crime?
Or will they continue to deny the tipping point?
At what point is undermining of civilian police the same thing as advancing us toward military streets?
No one can have everything. If a balance isn't kept, then aberrations in norms will begin to occur. Going either way.
In Seattle I'm sick of people who think the whole city burned down in 2020 or that you can't go downtown without a homeless person stabbing you with a needle. People who don't live here and watch Fox News are afraid. People in the suburbs who never go into the city are afraid. Anyone who spends any time in the city knows otherwise. For more than a decade I've walked the streets in every neighborhood here weekly, often after dark, carrying thousands of dollars in camera gear, not bothering to hide my watch, phone, or whatever, and never been harassed.
I remember that "Defund the Police" is the general mantra of one side of the isle.
You aren't paying attention. I stated that I was born and raised in a (major) city, and I still live in an area that many on HN and virtually all bourgeoise urban-bubble people would not live.
And so who are you trying to gaslight, exactly?
I don't assert that Seattle is perfect, but Seattle is a cakewalk. One of the nicest and per-capita wealthiest cities in the country. But with a sizeable population of bored grown toddlers. A subgroup of whom are professional terrorists, while living in a priveleged city on the World scale. Spare me your faux "urbanite on a walk" homily.
The nine months of rioting in 2020 were nine months of partisan terrorism purposefully leading exactly up to an election. Funny that, in the context of those so concerned with democracy.
We were terrorized, absolutely. It caused me to think twice about voting at all, out of fear. During one weekend in which police were hamstrung by the mayor in favor of rioters, we had two large bombs go off in my neighborhood. While the power happened to be off for 72 hours. Have you ever felt the deep vibration from a close domestic terrorist bomb in the dark? Twice? How about during election season?
Would you like to go into my personal experiences with urban crime? How many gun barrels have you stared down? How many times have you been punched in public by a stranger, while just standing there? How many times did that lead to a full blown street fight, out of self-defense? How many times have you been robbed on the sidewalk? How many friends of yours have been targeted and murdered on the sidewalk? How about while in grade school? Yes, I'm Caucasian. I'm overeducated, including graduating on a full-ride from a school that existed a long time before the United States did. That makes no difference.
You deserve a string of derogatory names, but decorum prevents.
And I remember that that was about focusing police on policing and spending more on having specialists provide social support and the kind of things that prevent crime, which cops aren't trained to do or any good at.
More than one.
>How many times have you been punched in public by a stranger, while just standing there?
More than once.
>How many times have you been robbed on the sidewalk?
Once, as a child because I wasn't paying attention. As a teen? Several attempts on the subway, on the street and other places. As an adult? On the Brooklyn Bridge.
So. Where exactly did all this stuff happen to you, eh? I call bullshit on your "horror stories."
All that stuff was 30-50 years ago. As I mentioned (and linked[0] to statistics), I'm old and things have changed a lot.
[0] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=44879420
Edit: Actually it was 35-50 years ago, but who's counting?
And things are, right now, exactly as you described in this comment[0], right?
There was nothing clearly stating any dates or years.
Just like you did, I assumed what you said all happened in the past three weeks.
Especially since I said[0]:
"Once, as a child because I wasn't paying attention. As a teen? Several attempts on the subway, on the street and other places. As an adult? On the Brooklyn Bridge."
Because we grow up fast here in NYC. A month ago I was a child. Now I'm pushing 60. All in the past three weeks!
#Especially since I said[0]:
#"Once, as a child because I wasn't paying attention. As a teen? Several #attempts on the subway, on the street and other places. As an adult? On the #Brooklyn Bridge."
That was for the robbery and before that you said:
#>Would you like to go into my personal experiences with urban crime? How many #gun barrels have you stared down?
#More than one.
#>How many times have you been punched in public by a stranger, while just #standing there?
#More than once.
Nothing specific there. Why are you so antagonizing about it and trying to straw man something with my comment that doesn't exist? I only told you how I read (I'm probably not the only one) your comment and pointed out some context was missing and when you explained it, I accepted it.
Besides that, not believing someone is not an argument. On these issues, it means that you lack realistic perspective and have nothing to say.
Aside from what it makes you to discount someone's very real trauma, as your only patter.
As someone like you who has also been the victim of violent crime, I definitely do not want the military patroling any city. I hate violent crime, but that is not the way to solve it, period. It takes community policing and the slow process of raising people out of poverty, desperation and hopelessness, by undoing the damage that has been done to them through decades of economic oppression.
The only city in the USA that fits that seems to be Oakland.
And this seems to be the incident: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/2020_boogaloo_murders
Would you like to read that carefully?
https://mynorthwest.com/local/peaceful-protests-planned-in-s...
https://projects.seattletimes.com/2020/local/protest-timelin...
https://spdblotter.seattle.gov/2020/09/24/police-arrest-13-d... https://spdblotter.seattle.gov/2020/07/26/officer-injuries-p...
https://www.thestranger.com/slog/2020/07/28/44178586/so-what...
Can you help me out?
mrangle also later said [0] they live “in a major city between Boston and DC”. So they aren’t describing Seattle. (Or actually any city in the US based on what they have shared so far)
Should I not believe that people's post's here defending cities are from legitimate experience (at least as stated, in their bubbles)?
What happened to the "believe" people ethic?
I don't live in Oakland. What do you want me to read carefully, super-sleuth? To what purpose? In spite of your masterful rhetorical question, you're wrong about the event in question and location.
Consider that a lot of the country was terrorized in a manner that you and much of the nation is blind to. These are people who will be forming opinions and voting for a long time to come.
Given that the Press's obvious mandate was to whitewash the violence so that it continued.
You can't be good with nine months of nationwide riots and then ever think that you understand the impact or can get a handle on everything that occurred via zero-start google searches.
You are describing an unnamed war-torn hellscape that matches no city in America. It’s like something out of a fictional writing class.
Which of those two types of comments are something you would believe?
>Consider that a lot of the country was terrorized in a manner that you and much of the nation is blind to. These are people who will be forming opinions and voting for a long time to come.
We are _trying_ to consider them. But we are unable to make the leap from reality to the fantasy world you’ve been describing, so it’s really hard.
>Given that the Press's obvious mandate was to whitewash the violence so that it continued.
I guess it is a pretty good thing we live in a modern world with an internet that lets anybody that wants to share actual evidence. Unfortunately it also allows people to post they made up accounts they use in a conservative fireside story telling event, but those are identifiable by including outlandish details that would be easily verifiable, but also refusing to provide evidence, like names of cities.
Not really. Maybe you just have really punchable face? Given the diarrhea you're spewing, those traits combined would probably make most people want to beat the crap out of you.
Which would explain quite a bit. Hey. Let's be careful out there![0]
All of these around 2021-2022-2023. We moved out of Seattle in 2023. Maybe these snecdotes are not a big deal for you. For me they are scary.
Where is this "broad support" coming from? The actual people living in Washington DC, or rural outsiders who have conjured up some picture in their minds of "crime infested cities?" If you did a poll of everyone in DC, would the majority be in favor of increased policing?
It always seems like the people who are most vocal about crime in big cities are always the people who don't live in or visit those big cities.
I live in NYC[0] and I'm old. It's never been safer in the many decades I've been alive.
And the police have little to do with that. They're just the biggest and best-armed gang.
[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Crime_in_New_York_City[1]
[1] In fact, NYC saw fewer murders in 2024 than any year since 1958 -- long before my parents ever met.
You questioning my experience and where I live isn't an argument.
In liberal circles, we "believe" people. Remember? Especially those with bad experiences.
You questioning me just means that you can't tolerate people with differing experiences having opinions and perspectives that are counter to your own.
What I said is factual.
You're a sheltered person with a false entitlement to an opinion on this specific matter.
I live in a major city between Boston and DC. I've implied enough of my experience to warrant telling you to shove your rude scare quotes up your a*.
I've also lived in NYC. I have family that still lives in NYC. Who was just punched in the face for the second time in a couple of years, walking home at night. And that's in "safe" lower Manhattan.
What does where you live have to do where I live?
Just like the "person who walks with cameras", the only thing that you are communicating is that you are privileged and awful on a couple of levels. One of which is having zero perspective and real experience living in an urban area that is outside of wealthier zones and, especially in poorer cities, is only barely managed by police. Bourgeoise bubble living does not entitle you to having a policy opinion on how the poorer areas of cities should be managed, what it's like living in them let alone growing up in them, and on how they are doing on the street level. "Relativity" aside.