[cglan]

It feels like we (and I specifically mean the left) has decided to nearly universally stop enforcing rules on a large basis as an alternative to legislative reform.

We’ve basically decided that actually reforming the bureaucratic machine is much too hard, so instead of reform let’s just not enforce anything.

One of Zohrans ads is such an on the nose example of this. He has an ad where he says he’s gonna help out small business by cutting down the fines that they face. Which on the surface sort of sounds nice, but now we basically just get shitty businesses selling shitty things and facing small slaps on the wrist instead of actually going through and removing the onerous laws and enforcing the important ones.

Same thing going on with immigration. The system is so fucked up, that instead of reform we simply won’t enforce immigration laws.

You see the same thing with housing that abundance basically called out. The system has gotten really good at writing more and more complicated laws at the cost of things basically falling apart in the real world

These copper thefts affect millions of people. It regularly happens to the MTA and shuts down the subway. A functional society would make an example of people committing these thefts so that the rest of us can continue to contribute and live their lives without being screwed by antisocial people

[andy99]

Seems to me there’s been a weird inversion on the left towards prioritizing individual rights over rights of society.

The right to use drugs in public, to camp in a park, to steal copper, to do sexually inappropriate stuff, to break laws, all seem to be more important than societal safety, comfort, and peace now.

[cglan]

100%.

It’s very hard for me to make a case for urban living, and more apartments, and less cars when the average experience in cities in America is rampant drug use, and tons of unenforced quality of life issues.

[driscoll42]

In what world is that the "average experience" in American cities?

[cglan]

I live in a very very good area of Brooklyn and still regularly run into needles, human shit, and open fentanyl use.

LA is similar unless you never leave your little neighborhood.

DC was similar when I lived there about 4 years ago.

SF is cleaning up, but I’ve regularly walked on streets where it’s just bodies and needles

I was shocked by the Vietnamese area of Seattle. It felt like a zombie land.

I mean, if we’re talking city core yeah this it the average experience. I say this as someone who loves cities, American cities leave a lot to be desired and a lot of that comes from simply refusing to enforce basic laws that the rest of the world (including much more left countries) don’t hesitate to do.

[evanelias]

In what "very very good area of Brooklyn" are you regularly encountering needles?!

I've lived in the NYC metro area for nearly two decades and have yet to see a single one. Definitely saw them when I lived in Baltimore, and have seen them in Philly, but even then not "regularly" in either case.

[mlmonkey]

Have you been to Kensington in Philly?

[braincat31415]

This looks more like refusing to enforce the law rather than prioritizing individual rights.

[LargeWu]

I think it's less about "individual rights" than "lower standards for disadvantaged groups", where the latter has a very broad definition. There is such an aversion to policing on the left that any enforcement of the social contract is seen as oppression.

To some degree it makes sense: Policing doesn't stop people from being addicts, or homeless, or being mentally ill, so why should the police harass these people? The part they're missing is that in aggregate, it significantly lowers quality of life for everybody else. But we're just supposed to ignore it because ...privilege?

[mlmonkey]

Zohran reminds me so much of the former District Attorney of San Francisco, Chesa Boudin. Chesa also had pedigree like Zohran does (in his case, both parents in prison for terrorism charges, raised by lefties).

Inevitably, people saw through the virtue signalling and ended up recalling him. I voted for him initially because he sounded good on paper ("a DA with a heart") but when it actually came to running the office, he was a disaster.

Case in point: SF is overrun with Honduran drug dealers. But Chesa was convinced that they are all victims of human trafficking and refused to enforce the laws against them! His office would either not file charges against them, or just let them walk with a slap on the wrist. Naturally, in the Hondo drug dealer circles it was a well known fact that if you ever get picked up in SF, claim that you were trafficked there and/or that you are underage.

After a couple of years people had had enough of this circue, and decided to recall him. I voted to recall him at the first chance I got.

[JumpCrisscross]

> Zohran reminds me so much of the former District Attorney of San Francisco, Chesa Boudin

As a former New Yorker who grew up in the Bay Area, I disagree.

Chesa had zero public experience prior to his run, and he never moderated his position, not even after being ousted from office. In the end, he was elected by fewer than 90,000 people [1]. (Smaller than the population of Manhattan’s Chinatown [2].)

Mamdani has some experience as a city legislator. And he moderated between his primary and the general, the latter which he won with more than a million votes [3].

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2019_San_Francisco_District_At...

[2] https://www.worldatlas.com/articles/manhattan-neighborhoods-...

[3] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2025_New_York_City_mayoral_ele...

[mcphage]

> I specifically mean the left) has decided to nearly universally stop enforcing rules

The left isn’t generally in control of policing.

[paleotrope]

The police respond to upstream actions of the prosecutors and judiciary. If the people they are arresting aren't being punished they won't bother arresting them. If people aren't being punished then the population as a whole isn't going to bother reporting them to the police in the first place. This is broken windows theory in action.

[mcphage]

> If the people they are arresting aren't being punished they won't bother arresting them.

That’s a weird excuse to be soft on crime.

> If people aren't being punished then the population as a whole isn't going to bother reporting them to the police in the first place.

Well right there is the reason they should still be doing their job. Because you’re right, if the police stop arresting people, why would anybody report crime to the police?

[shagie]

> It feels like we (and I specifically mean the left) has decided ...

I'm going to invoke Murc's law ( https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Murc%27s_law ) here and call out that this is an example of ascribing all agency in government to the left (and considering the right to be a force of nature that can't do anything but what they're going to do).

> Murc’s Law is a term that describes a tendency in political journalism to attribute responsibility or agency only to Democratic Party actors, while treating Republican actions as inevitable or structurally determined. The term originated in the left-wing blogosphere and has since gained traction in commentary about press bias and political framing.

Leopards eating faces or the scorpion and the frog ( https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Scorpion_and_the_Frog )...

These sorts of things are not a "the left has stopped enforcing laws" (the left has no ability to enforce or not enforce laws), but rather there has been a concerted effort to remove the ability for government to operate and regulate people organizations.

That effort is not lead by the left. There are people who are making those choices to reduce funding for all parts of government or reduce the ability for government to pay for those things or diverting the funds. The people typically doing that or drawing up the plans for how to do this are typically not on the left.

Yes, reform is hard. It is made more difficult when there aren't resources to do the reforms. It is furthermore difficult to do reforms when the suggested alternatives are "privatize it, move it to the states (or to cities), let the market figure it out."

[AnimalMuppet]

> the left has no ability to enforce or not enforce laws

Left DAs absolutely have the ability to enforce or not enforce laws.

> That effort is not lead by the left. There are people who are making those choices to reduce funding for all parts of government or reduce the ability for government to pay for those things or diverting the funds. The people typically doing that or drawing up the plans for how to do this are typically not on the left.

Who was saying "defund the police"? And yes, some of them were actually trying to do that, to do exactly what they said.

[lostlogin]

The ridiculousness of the US two party system is key. Eg Zohan allowing shitty business practices is him using a traditionally right wing policy (to deregulate, and be "business friendly") coming from a Democrat.

Where does ICE fit into your view that immigration policy is too soft?

I just don't see how you can view America's plight as being due to soft, left wing policy. It has a right wing populist government and a partisan judiciary.

[cglan]

I think immigration currently is fucked up and there needs to be clean, legal avenues for immigrating. I don’t think immigration policy is too soft. It’s much too hard if anything.

But immigration policy =/= immigration enforcement. I think ICE needs to exist and needs to enforce the laws. Do I think maskless thugs dragging people from their homes is good? No. Screw that. They need to be dressed in uniform and follow laws. But we DO need enforcement and if you’re illegal I think you’ve got to go while simultaneously we need to offer a straightforward avenue beyond the lefts idea of simply abdicating any sort of enforcement

[fn-mote]

> Where does ICE fit into your view that immigration policy is too soft?

The post is (clearly to me) referring to left’s much more welcoming stance to immigration. (“No person is illegal.”)

[cglan]

^^ yes