San Fransicko: Why Progressives Ruin Cities

by Michael Shellenberger

Amsterdam is one of the few large cities in the world where one is relatively safe walking around in almost every neighborhood, even in the middle of the night. Its treatment of people suffering from mental illness and addiction is world-class.

everybody knows that when you want to get something done you need a hierarchy, with a clear line of command and with leaders at the top who have both authority and accountability.

The ACLU has, in the past, done much good to protect rights, but they have taken an extreme position against conservatorship such that they are actively contributing to the current crisis.

The key time to offer drug treatment to a person suffering from addiction is when they are revived from the brink of death with Narcan.

Too often progressive idealism creates greater loyalty to a highly romanticized view, one that allowed progressives to justify defunding and shutting down core institutions, including psychiatric hospitals, police stations, and homeless shelters.

We ripped down an ugly, problematic system that in some ways worked, and in a lot of ways didn’t, and failed to replace it with anything adequate to managing the challenge.

Shelters should be safe, clean, and humane. But they also must be low-cost, basic, and not so nice as to serve as an incentive to homelessness.

Disorder and the loss of freedom go hand in hand. Political leaders who fail to maintain order are often replaced by leaders who sacrifice freedom.

Many of the people who enjoy some of the highest levels of prosperity and freedom in human history are also the least grateful, and least loyal, to the civilization that made it possible.

freedom is in danger of degenerating into mere arbitrariness unless it is lived in terms of responsibleness.”22

we must return to a view of freedom that is universal, and not just for people designated Victims. We must affirm equal justice under, and enforcement of, the law.

we should complete the American project and build what Frankl proposed: a Statue of Responsibility.