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naraburns  nihil supernum  1yr ago (text post)   34406 thread views

Culture War Roundup for the week of March 13, 2023

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vastly poorer, shittier, more corrupt, more violent countries don't have the problems that the above article notes exist in the Los Angeles metro.

Because they're not rich enough to (1) afford ubiquitous personal car transportation, (2) isolate themselves from the effects of luxury beliefs like "we should prioritize the feelings and welfare of criminals over having orderly public places"

Los Angeles is the second city of the richest country on earth. The median income in Los Angeles is $70,000 a year.

Right, rich enough to afford personal cars for most people, and luxury beliefs allying the guilty-feeling, effeminized elites and the underclasses.

It’s a myth that the rich don’t care, local government meetings are full of rich people protesting this.

With respect, no it's not. I live in LA, and have a job that involves me pretty deeply in local administrative politics and land-use. Not as deeply as some, sure, but enough.

Those meetings are window dressing (which is why most rich people don't actually show up to protest at them). The real work happens behind the scenes, with lobbying groups working with police and quasi-governmental organizations like "business improvement districts" to bring administrative nuisance abatement proceedings against any business which provides low-cost services or becomes a known transient hangout, CEQA lawsuits blocking new housing developments (which will have to include some low-income units by law), and intermediate administrative groups like "neighborhood councils" slow-walking any and everything they can. But that's nothing compared to the ability of the activists to mobilize support for all the "nice"-sounding luxury belief positions that all the rich people espouse in public - even the ones that hypocritically fight hard behind the scenes against it all. Meanwhile, the median rich person just forts up their home (have you seen the walls and cameras on all of those Santa Monica/Venice Beach houses?) or hires private security.

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