Matthew

How? The direct relationship between those two things is obviously strong and many experts who study this topic have concluded that one has a high impact upon the other. Common conservative talking point, but not backed by facts. Most homeless people are homeless in the city or local area in which they used to be a rentor. Yes. How do you imagine it happening? More than half of the country lives paycheck to paycheck. That can mean one disaster away from homelessness for many. For example, a costly medical emerency, a rent increasing by $500/mo, a loss of a job means they can't pay rent and eventually get eevicted. Some might be able to live in a hotel for a while, or in their car, or in a friend or relatives home. But if one's options like this dwindle, they can eventually end up on the street or in a homeless shelter. Depends what kind of support network one has and other factors like whether they have kids etc. It's can be extremely difficult to get out of dire poverty without some help. Also one study from a few years ago showed that between 40-50% of homeless people do have jobs. Just not enough income to actually participate in the housing market. It's an inaccurate generalization to caricature most homeless people as druggies and unmedicated schizophrenics.

Sure it is. Lack of affordable housing is the leading cause of homelessness. "A large body of academic research has consistently found that homelessness in an area is driven by housing costs, whether expressed in terms of rents, rent-to-income ratios, price-to-income ratios, or home prices. Further, changes in rents precipitate changes in rates of homelessness: homelessness increases when rents rise by amounts that low-income households cannot afford. Similarly, interventions to address housing costs by providing housing directly or through subsidies have been effective in reducing homelessness. That makes sense if housing costs are the main driver of homelessness, but not if other reasons are to blame. Studies show that other factors have a much smaller impact on homelessness." Source I'm fine with that. Though that's incredibly expensive. Republicans since the 80s have taken every opportunity to cut public funding for mental institutions. I'm fine with rules against homeless people living in public spaces so long as there is some place they are legally allowed to go. A system in which one is legally required to buy housing otherwise face criminal punishments seems quite unethical.

I think I agree with 4 years of he's elected. Plus if Trump loses I give it less than 2 years. If he wins, it also depends if Trump makes it through all 4 years given his age and physical condition. He could easily have a heart attack, stroke, pulinary embolism etc any day. But if he gets elected and stays relatively healthy, I think they'll keep the facade going all 4 years. I can't easily imagine a scenario where trump graciously hands the baton of party leadership over to Vance at the end of 4 years.

That's up there in effectiveness with fining people who can't pay their bills, or charging people for their prison stay after they get out.

That might help the minority of homeless people who are there due to addiction issues, but will do nothing for the majority who became homeless due to a rent increase or a job loss. Others are dealing with severe mental health problems. Some people just prefer a simple lifestyle that rejects the expectations of work and housing and have no mental health or drug issues. Point being that any one-size-fits-all solution is bound to fail.

I subscribe to the NYT and WSJ and got push notifications from both about it and it's top of both their pages. CNN did a whole thing on it when it broke. The aggregators i follow Ground News and Google News had it as their top story. Lefties like John Stewart and John Oliver both have blasted the guy relentlessly. Liberals have a far easier time throwing their corrupt dirtbags under the bus than conservatives do.

So in a straightforward situation where a virus is isolated to the point that its dna can be sequenced and its structures studied with an electron microscope, what do you think is happening?

That is true, but government policies aimed helping the well-being of people against the self-interest of markets are not necessarily socialism. Most governments do this in way or another regardless of the economic school of thought that guides their policymaking.

Good post, though I'm not sure if national socialism is internally consistent. There is an inherent conflict between nationalism and socialism which is difficult to resolve. The German Nazis certainly never resolved it. For instance, in their platform of 1925, the nationalist objectives were more numerous, more dramatic, and completely distinct from the objectives that were geared to be pro worker and pro social equity. In the decades the followed, the nationalist objectives were overwheling focus of their policies. This seems to suggest that the idea of a nationalist version of socialism was is mostly marketing, probably as a way to appeal to radical worker groups that were popular in the 1920s-1930s.

So you don't believe viruses exist, or you don't believe viruses are scientifically studied?

Might work. That's the current brand and the target demographic.

I've been kicked off of conservative- leaning forums and chat rooms several times within the last year. Over the last 30 years, dozens of times. Sometimes randomly after many years of being on a forum. And I'm not any kind of troll, spammer, or one who insults people literally ever. It got far worse with MAGA people. Many trump themed groups, forums, chats will boot you immediately the second you suggest some moderate perspective. Try it sometime. As far as closing down a forum, that's not a censorship thing. Stay on any independent message board like this long enough and eventually the person hosting it just decides to shut it all down.

That's clever, though I've been posting on forums far longer than this one has been operating. From my experience, if you're correct, it will be either due to the forum shutting down or right wing censorship. Both are extremely common.

A lot of people who work with or for Trump end up not liking him. Mr Vance already changed his tune from anti trump to pro trump with the hope of politically gaining from it. But naturally he'll likely be eaten up by the experience at some point. So post your prediction about how long that will take.

From a global perspective, I don't think that's true. Americans expect and receive a lot in terms of government services, independent courts, efficient and effective bureaucracies, and a political culture that is mostly devoid of casual corruption (lobbying and super pacs notwithstanding). But in terms of reasonably citicizing ethics and a clear constitutional order, the US system and the discourse of the population is lacking and inconsistent. I agree. With the ACA in 2010, Democrats used an existing republican model for that legislation. So left leaning people dislike its limited scope and reliance on private health insurance corporations. Out of pure dishonest partisan politics republicans disliked it with the usual strained comparisons to communists and Nazis. Unlike the rollout of those other things you mentioned, the ACA had to contend with 24 cable news and social media which aplified negative misinformation about it.

Frankly there are so many dumb comments here. It's an extremely low quality thread. What's the point of having a messageboard of this sort if it's just to blast irrational nonsense crap at people? You could do that on Twitter.

I think the problem isn't alarm about authoritarian tenancies, it's that everyone is so sloppy about it. Hitler has left the average know-nothing person today with an incredibly low bar of what to expect from their government. So unless a politician is gearing up for an imminent genocide, everything is basically fine. Therefore many reasonable complaints about the nuances of policy manifest as sloppy, imprecise, inaccurate, and unnecessary nazi comparisons.

Historians would say he is more of a proto-fascist. I think he's way too dumb for that comparison, but the ethno-nationalist populism he's mobilized put his movement on that trajectory.

This comment suggests you don't know what far left means.

This will not require much of an update to his stump speech. The whole movement is already based on a victim complex. The radical left immigrant commie trans furries were definitely on the roof--regardless of whatever the truth of the criminal's motives ends up being.

Yep, I wouldn't be shocked if they did that anyway, just out of habit. For real. While this is a broader trend too (negativity bias, click-baity alarmism, etc), I was real amused by the irony of listening to some guy being interviewed--a man who voluntariliy chose to attend a donald trump rally--solomley declaring afterwards that America needs to stop with all the heated rhetoric.

I agree. Also I don't think parks are really the issue. I don't have a problem with a community telling homeless people they can't live in a park. The actual policy problem here is targeting homeless people in parks via criminalization without offering any legal alternative way to be homeless outside of the restricted public spaces. Funny you mention SLC, i did a job downtown there every summer for many years. Its a lovely city, though homelessness was very noticable. But then a few years ago I suddenly noticed no homeless people anywhere. I also observed within view of my air b&b condo, what turned out to be a newly built homeless shelter-- if it can be called that. A brick complex surrounded by high fencing, topped with barbed wire, and teams of armed guards circling it constantly. I'm not sure what the situation was for those within, but I didn't see people coming and going from the entrance very often.

"The Grants Pass Municipal Code prohibits activities such as camping on public property or parking overnight in the city’s parks. See §§5.61.030, 6.46.090(A)–(B). Initial violations can trigger a fine, while multiple violations can result in imprisonment." (Source, p. 1) Interesting, tell me more about how homeless people are blamed for their homelessness. Despite struggling to justify your thoughts on criminalization, now you're jumping over and helping to demonstrate my other point.

Ok, so you don't deny that homelessness doubled under Reagan. Now you're saying it just wasn't his fault. Frankly I'm not sure what to make of your comments in general. I can't tell if you're genuine or if you're just trying to make fun of conservatives by playing this caricature.

Yes, both of those are assertions. Allowing local governments wide latitude for imposing criminal punishments and all kinds of sweeping rules aimed at preventing homeless people sleeping in public spaces, without having to offer any legal alternative for shelter. Sure, the town in the Supreme Court case: Grants Pass, Oregon. Trargeting the entire homeless population of 600 people by simply banning all camping and all roadside sleeping. First offense is a fine, after that the punishment is jail.