farmaway's comments

I'm an American who leans politically center-right. Here's my opinionated perspective on this issue.

In recent years, public libraries across the US and UK have hosted a number of Drag Queen Story Hours. These are events where men dressed as sexual parodies of women read books to young children. Sometimes the men dance provocatively for the kids, or wear revealing outfits, or have kids climb all over them:

https://alphanews.org/drag-queen-flashes-crotch-to-children-...

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9VA72t7o24I

https://www.lifesitenews.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/03/Drag...

Several performers and sponsors of these events have turned out to be sex offenders:

https://www.khou.com/article/news/local/houston-public-libra...

https://reduxx.info/drag-queen-charged-with-25-counts-of-fel...

https://www.lifesitenews.com/news/second-drag-queen-story-ho...

Across the pond, the founder of Drag Queen Story Hour UK has tweeted "love has no age" and openly associates with pedophiles:

https://thepostmillennial.com/founder-of-uk-drag-queen-story...

At the same time, "child-friendly" and "all-ages" drag shows have popped up at gay bars and clubs across the US. These are often much more sexually provocative than shows hosted in libraries:

https://reduxx.info/children-tipped-drag-queens-during-perfo...

https://twitter.com/MrAndyNgo/status/1543662744616013825

https://twitter.com/TaylerUSA/status/1538733481492094977

Far-left militia armed with AR-15s have shown up at some all-ages shows to "protect" them from protestors. The armed militants in these photos are self-identified anti-fascists:

https://www.axios.com/local/dallas/2022/08/30/drag-brunch-ro...

These events have become the focus intense polarization. Republicans say they're sexual performances designed to desensitize kids to advances from adults. Democrats say they're expressions of LGBT pride.

There is a growing conservative backlash to "all-ages" or "family-friendly" drag events generally and Drag Queen Story Hour in particular. Many parents are uncomfortable with the sexual displays aimed at children. Some women see drag as sexual blackface. This backlash is framed by Democrats as opposition to drag shows in general, which generally speaking is untrue. It is the targeting of young children that aggravates conservatives.

Librarians host these events in taxpayer-funded venues. The elected government of the state of Missouri seeks to limit this practice.

>as much as I am a critic of SF’s policies around homelessness and drugs, it is not a dangerous city that someone will get murdered.

If you read the article, you'll find that SF is a dangerous city in which someone was just senselessly murdered.

That is interesting speculation. In any case, the victim's name is now a matter of public record:

https://www.cbsnews.com/sanfrancisco/news/fatal-stabbing-bob...

It's not a conspiracy theory. It's a dynamic I've seen in play out on the front page before, on many occasions, in real-time.

>a white tech-upper class quasi cult.

>Sam Altman and Lex Fridman

This thing with white Gentiles and Jews reminds of tennis pros from Scotland. They're described in the English press as Scottish when they lose and British when they win. Likewise, if a member of the tribe does something bad in America it's on whiteness and white supremacy, but if they do something great we suddenly remember that they're Jewish. A conspicuous pattern, and not one that I think is good for relations in the long run.

>Even a cursory search will inform you this is false

I did a cursory search and instantly substantiated the WSJ's claim:

https://www.nbcnews.com/news/us-news/after-san-francisco-sho...

>In an interview with NBC News last week, Scott suggested that California's Proposition 47, which voters passed in 2014 and lowered criminal sentences for certain nonviolent crimes like shoplifting and check forgery, is being exploited by those who want to commit theft. The initiative set a threshold of $950 for shoplifting to be considered a misdemeanor, which doesn't prompt law enforcement to make an arrest, rather than a felony, which could incur harsh penalties like jail time.

Just give up the semantic games already. Walgreens is closing many of their stores in SF due to crime. Your last link pulls the trick of acknowledging objective reality in the first paragraph, then inventing fanfiction to handwave it away for the rest of the article:

>One of the stores set to close, on Ocean Avenue, had only seven reported shoplifting incidents this year and a total of 23 since 2018, the data showed. While not all shoplifting incidents are reported to police, the five stores slated to close had fewer than two recorded shoplifting incidents a month on average since 2018.

Store owners aren't reporting thefts of under $950 to the police because the DA and police told them they won't do anything about it, which is the point I have proven that you keep trying to dodge.

Maybe you're both right.

The party in power wins by default on the little stuff. The opposition must "save their debate for more important things."

It's impolitic to mention, but black Americans commit most murders in the US despite their small share of the population. Black American women are more likely to commit murder than white American men, a sex reversal unique between large racial groups in the developed world. An average black man in the US is an order of magnitude more likely to commit violent crime than a non-black man. This effect is not fully explained by socioeconomic differences.

The overwhelming majority of black Americans are not criminals. It's important not to draw the wrong conclusions here. But the small percentage of black Americans who are criminals make up a proportionally much greater share of the whole. The reasons for this are complex and controversial, but it's some opaque combination of history + discrimination + nature + nurture.

Sad but true. This philosophy isn't exclusive to one race or demographic, either. Poor white kids fall into criminal subcultures just like anyone else when there seems to be no hope and no way out. Juggalo gangs are one example of this. It's no coincidence that they have a big following in economic wastelands like Detroit:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Juggalo#Juggalo_gangs

It's not an exaggeration. My city government has funded a "Black Excellence Center" which will use public funds to build a racially-exclusive art gallery/business incubator/cultural space for black people, who represent ~6% of my city's population and are not excluded from any of the similar places which already exist:

https://www.theblackcenter.org/

This is blatantly unconstitutional, but no one has challenged it in court and no one will. Other examples abound, such as racial discrimination in Ivy League admissions (now challenged in court, but for its impact on Asians mainly) and observed differences across race in admitted med students' MCAT scores.

Teddy Roosevelt once said that, "There is no room in this country for hyphenated Americanism" and, "The one absolutely certain way of bringing this nation to ruin, of preventing all possibility of its continuing to be a nation at all, would be to permit it to become a tangle of squabbling nationalities." Well, here we are. Separate schools, separate standards, separate funding, separate public investment, except for the one largest demographic group... all driving my country into further conflict and disunity.

The laws are almost never enforced that way and almost always flouted in that direction, so the common misperception is understandable.

>White people are way over represented on arrests for alcohol-related crimes, whereas Black people are in-line with population, for example. [0,1]

Yep, especially here in Wisconsin! I rarely drink, and find the whole culture around drinking here distasteful. I don't see the relation to Kia thefts, though.

>Adding to that, black people are also the victim of a disproportionate amount of crimes

Yes, crimes we can't freely discuss because of who commits them, another reason why obfuscation of the problem is harmful.

>Perhaps South Korea has an immobilizer law like many other industrialized nations.

Do they? I spent a few minutes searching but couldn't find an answer.

An ugly and uncomfortable truth to be sure, but truth nonetheless. I live in Wisconsin near Milwaukee and face these issues daily. You can't make this bad situation any better by ignoring it.

Milwaukee vlogger's experience hanging out with car-stealing "Kia Boys:"

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fbTrLyqL_nw

Over 10,000 cars were stolen in Milwaukee in 2021. That's one stolen auto for every 60 Milwaukee residents, young and old.

South Korea's full of vulnerable Kia and Hyundai vehicles, yet doesn't have this problem of teenage serial car thieves. American social dysfunction is a big part of the equation that results in the numbers above.

I think I've explained very clearly. Sorry if my perceived pedantry made you or the OP upset.

The point is acknowledging sensible prohibitions on, for example, the sale of alcohol to minors can be measurably and beneficially effective, and abandoning all attempts to crack down on vice because "prohibition never works" is misguided.

You're putting words in my mouth. I don't suggest that America follow China or Singapore's example to the letter, only that the statement "making vices illegal never stopped them" is wrong. There is a huge middle ground between the government hanging drug traffickers versus handing out heroin injection kits.

The first sentence simply isn't true. Vigorous law enforcement can substantially curtail illegal drug trafficking, for example. Singapore does not have a fentanyl abuse problem. They also hang drug traffickers.

This argument has similarities to the pre-2010s old saw of "China can't censor the Internet, it's too open and decentralized and routes around censorship." It turns out that a determined state with a well-funded police apparatus can accomplish quite a lot, for good or ill.