Oregon’s experiment to curb overdoses by decriminalizing small amounts of illicit drugs is in its third year, and life has changed for most everyone in the city of Portland.

The New York Times certainly isn’t a conservative newspaper. If even they are saying Portland has become horrible, it must be worse than anybody can imagine.

  • Barbarian
    3·
    1 year ago

    Absolutely true, just like the Right. They’re both coalitions, and many of us are guilty of treating them both as a hive mind

    Completely agreed.

    You can’t rightfully compare the US to any other country. As soon as you try to, you fundamentally misunderstand what makes us the greatest country on Earth

    Isn’t this very elitist? I find it very reasonable to make comparisons about stuff that works, stuff that doesn’t, and discussions as to why. While I agree with your list of points as to what makes the US different with the exception of being predominantly Christian (you are, but so are many European countries, and the US does more than many European countries to equalize different religions under the law), that doesn’t mean it’s worthless to look at different solutions from different places and discuss why they might/might not work.

    Audit the entire population: Everyone living on US soil presents a valid proof of descent from documented legal immigration, or else gets deported.

    I’m not from the US, but from what I understand, that does seem profoundly un-American, especially with your previous point about heterogeneity. Isn’t that very big government authoritarian as well? Doesn’t sound very conservative.

    The rest of the points here seem to share similar problems: complete disregard for the wishes of other countries and a desire to isolate the US demographically, economically and culturally. Why is it only US states that get the rights to try and figure out their own problems without federal over-reach? What’s wrong with applying the logic of reasonable self-rule to other countries and avoiding being the world police?

    Agreed, but that’s the goal as I contend. Communists don’t trust markets.

    Here’s where that “The Left” point from earlier comes in. Vanishingly few people left of center from earlier are actually communists. It’s not exactly a very popular position these days. In the US, the main-stream left-wing ideology seems to be liberalism, and in Europe it’s democratic socialism. Neither of these things share much in common with communism, and liberalism isn’t even in the same umbrella as socialism.

    No way that’s accurate. You look at any recent video of California and every street is lined with tents. It looks like 99% of the population

    I prefer facts to subjective opinions based on videos. Here’s a decent survey on the matter. 171,000 people out of 39,240,000 is 0.43% (sorry, I might have been slightly off). Now, those people aren’t evenly distributed throughout: they tend to cluster around cities, not generally setting up tents in the woods. Still, as some conservatives like to say, facts don’t care about your feelings.

    As far as Americans are concerned, the only proven means to kick a drug habit is to accept Jesus Christ as Lord and Savior.

    What is your opinion on the US separation of church and state, out of interest?