[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?