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PaperclipPerfector  1d ago (text post)   6347 thread views

Culture War Roundup for the week of July 28, 2025

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Yesterday, I was out for a late morning run, coming up my city's main commercial and restaurant street towards the capitol square. As I approached a stoplight and took a little break in the sweltering heat, a man across the street was blaring music on Bluetooth speakers; mildly annoying, but common enough in the public square. What startled me was another man on the other side of the road who began rapping (for lack of a better description, since it was basically just yelling with a slight match to the cadence) a stream of invective - he was going to kick people's asses, motherfucker this, n-bomb that, people better not fuck with him, and so on.

Reflecting a bit, this made me think of the recent discourse on asylums and what to do, and it occurs to me that I think many people are still missing the actual point. The man I described above didn't show outward signs of any particular mental illness, I have no idea if he uses drugs, and while he did look like a vagrant, I don't know whether he sleeps rough or not. Do any of those things actually matter to me? In some sense, it would matter if there was a serious and treatable mental illness (e.g. schizophrenia), but I don't actually care whether he has diagnosable narcissistic personality disorder or is merely what we would colloquially describe as an asshole. What's to be done if there is no such diagnosis and no drug-induced psychosis, but merely an asshole yelling at people about how he's going to kick their ass? My answer is basically that I want police officers to exercise their discretion to inform him that his options are that he can knock it off, do it elsewhere, or they'll arrest him for disorderly conduct. We don't need to escalate to immediate criminalization, starting with "move along sir" is fine, but no, you don't get to keep yelling at people all day.

So much of the discourse about bums persons experiencing houselessness seems like we're just talking past each other. At the end of the day, I genuinely don't care what the state does with these people, I just want them removed from my neighborhood. This attitude is derided as not solving the problem, but that claim merely highlights that we don't agree on what the problem is. For the people that insist on handling root causes, that part will be up to them, I'm perfectly satisfied with literally any solution that removes the people that throw chicken bones and vodka bottles on the ground in the park. I'm not actually very interested in whether they're addicts, mentally ill, or simply terrible people. The answer from the BeKind crowd seems to be that everyone has the right to behave the way they want to and that I'm a very bad person for wanting these guys removed; this seems like an unsolvable impasse in preferences for how to live.

Just give police discretion to knock heads around like they used to. A summary judgement followed by public lashing of a sort. Or put them into those public mocking where passers by can throw garbage at them while they’re locked into something. That would end the problem in most cases I would assume.

It is extremely clear to me that allowing low-level casual brutality against those the local beat cops deem repeat troublemakers is absolutely critical to keeping societal order.

It’s also merciful to its victims. Many a repeat shoplifter or drunk who likes starting fights might be saved from a lifetime in and out of jail by getting beaten up by the cops a few times as a teen.

Yup. And while we are granting wishes for things that are good but will never happen, Corporal punishment should also be brought back into schools

All these ideas fall to the same issue. You can't trust the people with discretion. Do you really trust a high school (or middle or elementary school) principal to decide who is worthy of corporal punishment? Especially given the outside incentives? Beat cops may be better people than the criminals they arrest... but only by a little bit, and they'll be happy to beat up anyone they dislike, who gives them lip, or who gets in their way.

That’s fine, bring back the lash then. Have judges order public lashings. The effect will be similar, so long as delays in arrest - punishment aren’t too long

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