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/r/fednews is going wild about what's going on with the Institute of Museum and Library Services. This is in-line with this executive order. If this really does goes forward and a significant chunk of federal funding is cut from museums and libraries nationwide, I might really just start go kick a rock somewhere. I love libraries, I love museums, and I really don't think they're that wasteful either. I've read and somewhat understand where other posters are coming from with regards to institutional-ideological-capture, but on this I am struggling to see how that weighs so much compared to the good being provided.
Literally over the weekend on a day trip, my wife and I stopped at the local town's library for a midtrip break and I was absolutely astound at the many services this small town library provided. There was weekly notary service, children activities, a display of locally important quilts, a plethora of tax-season offerings, etc. Personally, in my childhood, my school library was open on Saturday and it was common for my mum to unload us kids there for the day and let us roam the stacks as we please. As a middle schooler, the library was great for a socially anxious kid. And in adulthood, on every exploration walk I've made, if there's a library open, I'm walking in.
For any trip to any world-class city, museums are the first thing on my list. The artifacts, the stories, the experience of seeing things you've only seen in books or through the internet with your own eyes, letting those electrons hit those retinas. Washington DC would be a lot less inviting or exciting without the many museums that dot its map. Even the small libraries can be a great experience as they often document a subject I've never thought of before.
The US greatest treasures are its national parks and forests and public land. Thankfully at least that nature would survive when there are less humans, though I still fear for the actual long term consequences. Not so the libraries and museums. Can someone explains to me why this is a good thing?
In my city, the public libraries are completely unusable because they are filled with drug addicted bums who sit in front of the library computers all day, presumably shitting themselves based on the wall of smell that hits anyone walking in. I don't know why there should be libraries at all if they are just going to be containment centers for "persons experiencing unhousedness." No one cares about this state of affairs until the suggestion comes in of funding these "libraries" a bit less, in which case Redditors working for the federal government start clutching their pearls about how this will somehow ruin the already completely unusable libraries, which are sacrosanct (except for the fentanyl junkies shooting up in the bathroom).
I am completely in favor of cutting off the federal funding to these people.
Does that really make them "unusable?" I used to live in a city with a bad homeless problem, and the libraries naturally attracted a lot of homeless like you describe. The bathrooms were a nightmare. But the library was still perfectly usable. I never felt unsafe going in there, just a bit gross and sad about the state of society.
On the other hand, I also saw homeless outside doing... much worse things. So I'd much rather have them in there as a "containment center" then just about anywhere else. Sure, in a perfect world, we'd get them housing, treatment, a job placement, etc... but that's not the world we live in.
If you are a single young man who is willing and able to fight, you are probably fine. If you are married with a wife and kids, do you really want them around those people?
Good point, it's much better to have them out committing crimes on the streets instead. Or were you suggesting that we simply execute all of them?
As someone who lives in a city that's really gone to shit because of feral homeless, this kind of strawmanning is a pet peeve of mine. All that it would take to clean up the problems with the homeless is enforcing laws currently on the books. They harass somebody? Prosecute them. They jerk off in a library? Prosecute them. They dump out a garbage can on the sidewalk to look for reimbursable cans? Prosecute them. The problematic homeless are constantly committing crimes, JUST PROSECUTE THOSE CRIMES. That's all it would take!
I can't say that I would object too hard if my city adopted Judge Dredd rules and started executing vagrants, but there's no need for any tyranny at all besides the tyranny of basic law enforcement.
You say "just enforce laws" but what you mean is prison. All the homeless people will be sent to prison, because that's what happens when you enforce laws and prosecute people every time they break laws. This would of course cost 10x more money than the current library system, and lead to horrific human rights abuse in prison but... oh well, out of sight out of mind, right? You call it a strawman to to talk of executions, but your proposed solution is really not much better, and I'm tired of people like you who sneer that there's some quick easy solution that could be implemented overnight if only the local government could stop being pussies or whatever.
Prosecutorial discretion is a bad thing. If all laws were enforced to the hilt 100 percent of the time, then legislators would be very quickly incentivized by public outcry to make the definitions and the penalties for those crimes more reasonable.
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Well, if it's not much better, can we start executing criminals then? No skin off your nosenat this point, right?
man, what? I'm in favor of allowing them to stay and chill at the library. It seems like you're just venting and want to yell at someone on the internet at this point.
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