Marc Benioff: I no longer believe National Guard is needed for SF
cnbc.com
cnbc.com
Money talks
> Opposition to Benioff’s initial suggestion also came from Garry Tan, CEO of startup incubator Y Combinator. He wrote on X that “We don’t need the National Guard,” but he used his post to go after liberal local officials and judges perceived as too lenient.
The San Francisco reddit discussion of this included such lines as "Welp, picking up my frog costume from Temu asap.", and "San Francisco must out gay them": https://www.reddit.com/r/sanfrancisco/comments/1o7mexv/trump...
Why would you need security in any civilised place tho. That’s insane.
Disclaimer: I live in Texas.
... Wait, wtf? Is this real? What's the concern? Like, this sounds like a joke about America, rather than a real thing that happens in America.
There are definitely social situations where additional security is warranted, that should be clear to most Americans. That security has to come at the expense of those who finance contrived social situations on private property, though.
Which is really stupid. If I was going to an event and suddenly heard it was so dangerous there that the national guard had been deployed, I would not go to the event. Who would?
I mean if it was this easy why was the police created at all? We've always had soldiers.
Military Police especially, but many units get actual training and experience in dealing with scenarios. They train for riot control and facility protection. They do it in combat zones, and have been pretty much in a roll non-stop around the world since 2001. The idea of a National Guard that resembled the one of the 80s didn't exist after especially 2003. I know NG infantry units that went on more deployments over a 9 year span than Active Duty units because of training schedule issues.
--- Leaning on an LLM a bit for the next part, but check this out:
Horn of Africa:
Vermont National Guard deployed a unit to the region in January 2025.
In July 2025, an Indiana Guard unit began a rotation with Combined Joint Task Force-Horn of Africa.
Kuwait:
The Pennsylvania National Guard deployed soldiers to Kuwait in February 2025.
The New York Army National Guard also sent soldiers to Kuwait and Africa in September 2025.
Kosovo:
Idaho Army National Guard soldiers deployed to Kosovo in August 2024.
In April 2025, the Louisiana Guard's "Tiger Brigade" held a deployment ceremony for an overseas mission that could include time in Kosovo.
Poland:
Massachusetts Guard soldiers returned from a NATO support mission in Poland in September 2025.
Germany:
In April 2025, the Kentucky Guard MEDEVAC unit prepared for a deployment to Europe.
Vermont Air National Guard deployed F-35A aircraft and airmen to Kadena Air Base in Japan in January 2025.
The national guard does not have a policing mandate or mission, they do not deploy police forces, aren’t deploying military police, do not have criminal justice training and none of the list you responded with before addresses any of this.
Guardsmen guard. Why do you want military riot control again?
The original comment was like: if I were police I’d be pissed off that untrained and unaccountable non-police are trying to do my job (and I have to clean up their mess)
You point a cap gun at Officer Dipshit and 40 cops are going to unload on the holder of that cap gun and maybe 1 of them hits the target and the rest go into the crowd.
The legal situation has allowed police to be cowards and use disproportionate force. On the flip side, local NG troops should be FAR more disciplined as tensions rise, but ultimately their level of force they could bring to the table is far, far, far higher than local PD if it came down to it.
TLDR, private fatso should be far more restrained than local police, but poking that bear would not be advised. They should be holding up far better under pressure and riots than PD who are legally allowed to be cowards. Most police aren't used to dealing with the scale of riots many NG are, but that is unit dependent.
I'm not "missing the point", I'm telling you to expect more humane treatment from an out of state NG unit than your local police. The training in riots and arms are FAR higher with than NG unit, and many have far more experience in actually dealing with rising tensions. They're not there to enforce laws, they are Force Protection. Again, I'm talking riot control and facility protection. NG are not civilian police, they're not training in that mission, but also they aren't being sent to perform it. Two different roles.
I'm certain it was sincere reverence.
http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/articleshow/124475145.cms
The story here is fairly simple; stupid guy says something stupid, is humiliated by the people pointing and laughing at the stupid thing he said, backs off.
In all honesty, if he hadn’t backed down he would have faced zero important repercussions.
Right now the Chinese are still relying on US tech but what happens if they actually manage to become self sufficient? What if those data centres at the Tibetan Plateau no longer needs Nvidia?
And they will all try to ignore it for as long as possible.
For anyone who thinks this is just “money talk,” try wearing a “Make America Great” hat in San Francisco.
That’s all I need to say about the sad state of politics here.
In other words, it is free speech.
Should free speech be met with violence?
I do not know. I'm not MAGA while do have both progressive and conservative views (deepening on the subject) but the current environment is really really sad.
Free speech is overrated. We, the intellectuals, must make sure everyone is properly educated and understands that their thinking is dangerous to progress and humanity. /s
I would imagine you might be met with scorn and ridicule but most people would just ignore you and walk past just like we do the crazies shouting about Jesus on a megaphone outside the Levi's on Market St.
Says a lot more about the “sad state of politics” than a MAGA hat (MAGA, the people whose official stance this week is 'political people being racist/saying they love hitler/rape in group chat at age 28 is totally ok') in San Francisco.
SF has gone dramatically downhill. I remember what it used to be like, a lovely city. Walking around SF now is depressing.
That's the logic that got Benioff in trouble.
FWIW: people like you have to realize that the Guard is not and has never been a law enforcement apparatus. The policy goal of "sending in the troops" to US cities is not and has never been crime (the metrics for which are getting better and not worse, yes even in SF).
The goal of putting military force in charge of directing civilians on city streets is and has always been giving the President, who commands that military, direct control over city streets. Right now if the white house doesn't like a protest or doesn't want it to happen, there's nothing they can do bureaucratically using their executive power to prevent it. It's a local thing. If the guard is already there waiting for orders, they can.
It sounds like hyperbole, but it's really not: the transparent purpose to this big National Guard kerfuffle is the military suppression of dissent at the direction of the President.
https://www.npr.org/2022/05/09/1097517470/trump-esper-book-d...
That time it failed because the pentagon leadership and generals stood in unison against it and he backed down. The guardrails have been rejiggered this time and it's only the courts that protect us now.
And the answer, very transparently, isn't crime.
I live in the PNW and regularly visit most of the major cities there and in NorCal. What exactly is more depressing there than any other city of any economic relevance in the nation?
https://www.cbsnews.com/news/fox-news-brian-kilmeade-apologi...
The sad part is that Trump talked so much nonsense and sh*t that you can find a quote to match almost any idea or policy, so any policy can be branded as his.
Crime is down, mic of the city is gentrified and the total number of homeless in CA and SF is roughly in the same range it’s been since Reagan was governor.
A lot of this BS about CA and how bad things are seems to be from people who haven’t been here long or people overdosing on right wing media which has Non-stop been attacking CA for 30 years nightly, all the while it has continued to become more and more dominant economically.
The current attitude seems to be that everything is fine and nothing needs fixing. Then people are shocked when Trump wins (and let’s be honest, Trump is not exactly a great person).
I’ve gone to SF several times over the years for tech conferences. It started out as standard tourist excellence. Then it started rotting. The last year I went to Moscone Center, the afternoon walk back to the nearby hotel was horrific. Druggies lounging around, poop on the sidewalk, conference attendees speed marching through the maze, trying not to make eye contact.
Once back at the hotel, it was nonstop sirens after dark.
Compared to a decade back, it was a nightmare.
Update: Just saw this article, SEMICON West skipped SF and went to Phoenix this year. It was a success.
https://www.politico.com/news/2025/10/17/tech-conference-tha...
SF deserves better, much better.
People took issue with them saying they don't care how it's fixed.
https://bfi.uchicago.edu/wp-content/uploads/2025/04/BFI_WP_2...
May be partly related in CA as well
https://www.latimes.com/california/story/2025-01-27/failure-...
If you’re going to talk about reality you probably should read the sources you cite.
https://www.nytimes.com/1997/05/24/nyregion/doubts-cast-on-i...
Other cases mentioned here https://whyy.org/articles/illegal-immigrants-lie-to-get-asyl...
Regarding the sentence which introduces the newspaper, if your reading comprehension is failing you, that’s not my problem.
Similar for a lot of other parts. Market anywhere between 6th and City Hall has been grimy for a long time. The Tenderloin, I'm assuming, has been the way it is for a century (since it derives its name from police getting higher pay for patrolling it). That stuff is all stumbling distance to the downtown core, tourists and business visitors.
I used to visit SF a bunch back in the 2008-2013 period, and it was the same as you describe it now. Coming from Europe I was shocked seeing things like people in broad daylight defecating on the street, smashing a car window, stealing a purse by pushing someone over so they hit their head unconscious and bleeding, it seemed like a madhouse.
To those saying we never use the military for public security that’s simply false. NYC has had heavily armed national guard deployed as added security at transit hubs since 9/11 and they’re there to this day.
If leaders of cities don’t want others to step in, don’t give people a reason to step in.
The military cannot solve any of the domestic problems they’re being deployed to solve.
I might care a little more about how they fix the problem, but only barely. Somebody had better fix the country soon.
Just in general that kind of attitude is how you end up exchanging one problem for exciting new problems that might be even worse, assuming the poorly considered solution even fixes the original problem.
Any halfway thoughtful and intellectually honest solutions analysis needs to consider A) is this an effective way to solve my problem and B) does it create unintended negative consequences or tradeoffs. Rhetoric exclusively focusing on the severity of the problem is almost always intended to get you to disengage the part of your brain that considers those two questions in favor of supporting any approach that just promises to solve the problem, whether or not it does so or creates any new problems in the process.
Walking where, exactly? Do you just tire yourself out doing laps in the Tenderloin? I suppose the Giants season was fairly depressing, so I'll give you that - walking around Oracle Park probably was pretty gloomy this year.
Janis Joplin was a hooker in SF.
What world are you talking about? You talking about the very small window of GAP commercial San Fran? Shoe store Haight Asberry versus 'doses, doses' Haight?