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Notes -
Left work late the other night to find a druggie going through in my car in the parking lot. First time that's happened, but should have expected it from seeing them stagger around after all the shops are closed down.
I'm assuming it's the fentanyl stumble, because sometimes you see them standing in weird positions staring at nothing, but maybe someone more versed in modern druglore can correct me.
The level of crime here is still low, but the jump from "literally absent" to "a general background level" has ruined the high trust that made this community great.
There are no more open cash boxes at vegetable stands (the last one got smash-and-grabbed a month ago). A friend had all his plumbing gear stolen out of his truck (you can't even fence that stuff locally!). I never used to carry a gun here, but started recently. I never used to lock my door while I was out, but started after my neighbor's place got ransacked. When I was a kid I used to leave the keys in my truck like everyone else, in case a friend wanted to borrow it.
All the petty crime here is carried out by dysfunctional scum who were attracted by the scraps thrown to them by do-gooders. Some of them were deliberately recruited in "rehabilitation schemes" and dumped on us when they inevitably failed. Those responsible quickly moved on to providing "safe drug use supplies" for their former charges at the local community center. All taxpayer-funded, of course.
In fact, I know all the people responsible for importing this biowaste to our community, and they all live in newly-built mansions down long driveways with automatic gates and security cameras.
Meanwhile I have a lot of my net worth in equipment that basically can't be secured right off a main road, relying on the fact that until now nobody just wandered in to steal your stuff.
It might seem stupid to complain about when we still have basically no murders, but it enrages me that we lost something precious, and it was deliberately inflicted on us by smug pricks who will never face any consequences for it. They won't even gain anything from having done it to us, other than the joy of seeing us suffer while they remain comfortably immune.
Not sure where I'm going with this, but like Goodguy's personal story the other week, it's a general reflection on the inadequacy of crime statistics to capture its impact on communities.
And a growing appreciation for the importance of meting out consequences in an equitable fashion.
me at party: well, the community feels unsafe
guy: crime isn't that high though?
me: so, what about the homeless people living by the train tracks? seems sketchy
guy: oh, I don't go there
me: what about being a woman and jogging the river path alone when it's dark?
guy: oh, yeah that sounds bad
me: the local Starbucks has sugar and stirrers behind the counter now. the Whole Foods doesn't dispense plastic utensils anymore unless you ask and only has a single entrance/exit now despite having been built with several
guy: ...
me: I had a baby stroller stolen off of my driveway because I left it out overnight
guy: ...
I'm glad we have below the median murder rate for the US but this shit sucks.
I've never liked this type of rhetorical device, as it reifies the notion that Women's Lives Matter More, that feral behavior of Persons of Unhousedness are only problematic to the extent women are Most Affected.
Heaven forbid a woman feels UnsafeTM when she's jogging alone in her sports bra and volleyball shorts at night.
In contrast, if a man is walking home after work and gets assaulted/battered by a Person of Unhousedness, he should just Deal With It for such experiences are Part and Parcel of Big-City Living. His Male Privilege should provide protection against bite, stab, and blunt wounds; he should be a Decent Person and have some Empathy for those less privileged.
I started reading this without looking at your username and at some point I was like "wait, why is this guy turning this topic into a man/woman thing?" Then I saw the username and I was like "oh yeah, it's a Sloot post, he does that with 99% of all topics".
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