Jesus Christ, if that's real, the WaPo editorial board needs a slap upside the head.

Stop. Rationalizing. Trump.

The problem is that we're now forty years into neoliberal orthodoxy. There's been two or three generations of policymakers, politicians and bureaucrats who cannot even conceive of publicly-funded, publicly-run services and solutions. I've been in meetings where this gets suggested and people look at you like you're pants-on-head crazy for suggesting government just do it, soup to nuts.

Think about it: when was the last, realy, fully-public solution delivered? Not one where the private sector was bribed to do it, not one where the government gave tax breaks, not one where some douchebag got their name on the door.

You have to go back to the 1970s, at least. Anything good, anything we built, was before 1980.

To be honest, a lot of the problem is because people--not addicts, nor the people who are trying to help them--aren't seeing the benefit, and advocates have been terrible at messaging.

I'll give you an example: the common refrain is that harm reduction saves lives, and that Naloxone saves lives, and that safe-consumption sites save lives.

And while this is true, most people don't care. In fact, a sizable--and growing--percent of the population sees "saving lives" as a bug, not a feature. They're tired of being robbed, of having their property stolen, of being assaulted, of being chased out of downtowns. Many have seen their supply of empathy run dry, and a lot didn't have any empathy to begin with.

They would be quite happy if most addicts died.

I've heard a lot of people saying "You know what? Fuck naloxone. Fuck safe-use sites. I haven't had a doctor for six years, I have to dodge needles and crack pipes while walking, I can't use the park down the street any more, someone shit on my front lawn and someone stole my kid's bike. If a junkie ODs, that's one less junkie who makes my life miserable". And that's pretty much a direct quote.

We need to do a much better job of explaining to people how safe consumption sites reduce crime overall, and why safe-supply cuts out predatory dealers and thusly the economic incentives that drive crime. We really need to talk more about social services and treatment. Because, and again, this is hard to hear, an increasing number of people don't really care if addicts die.

And we need to do it, because the people who vote, are burnt out and the political right is at least talking to their insecurities and anger and anxiety, where the left offers platitudes at best and condescension & condemnation at worst.

“Duped” is doing some heavy lifting in that sentence.

These drove like crap off the lot, but in their defense they'd keep driving like crap a million miles later.

Gee, maybe you should have spent more time improving the lot of everyday people and less time playing footsie with billionaires?

A lot of neoliberal erstwhile-progressives are about to find out the consequences of selling out their principles for a seat at the rich kids' table.

Most of Europe's already found this out, Biden and Trudeau are looking at the same thing, and I expect Starmer will be out on his ass after four years of failing to help the poor and middle class, as he's so busy right now assuring everyone that he's not a socialist like Corbyn.

The other point from that thread is that the whole idea of having to price shop when you need care seems sadistic and inhumane to anyone from any other civilized country.

Even if pricing was transparent, it's still the wrong way to manage it. Healthcare should be a utility, paid for by taxes, like it is anywhere else in the world that isn't a capitalist dystopia like the US is.

Continuing the tradition of British conservative prime ministers labelling things "terrorism" when the poor get uppity.

How's Thatcher looking these days for insisting that Mandela was a terrorist?

Market-based solutions for the win!

/s, obviously.

Edited, this is what carbon taxes were supposed to replace, because everyone wanted something "market-based" even though regulation worked well for addressing CFCs. Personally, I'm of the opinion that if companies are cheating on cap-and-trade and whinging about carbon pricing that we should just straight-up regulate them. No bribes, no incentives, just "stop polluting or we fine you at 110% of your global revenue."

Because their government doesn’t want to acknowledge that religion isnt the same as ethnicity. If they did, they’d lose the entire excuse about it being their land ancestrally.

It's interesting, because this is almost exactly the same inconsistency the Nazis used to practice.

Well, I’m 46 and sometimes getting old is hard…

They're not taxing the wealthy enough to a) pay for the services we need, and b) stop cash hoarding and (literal) rentier capitalism run rampant. They could raise taxes (income, estate, transfers in- and out of the country) and they could use that money, given to the provinces and municipalities, to invest in public housing at scale.

But they don't want to, because it would expensive and it would require bold, interventionist economic policy, both of which neoliberal governments don't do--partly because we're two generations into policymakers that don't even think this way, and also because they're absolutely terrified of any blowback.

So yes, they're responsible for quite a bit. The provinces and cities own a lot of this two, but all three levels have enough neoliberal orthodoxy and political cowardice to share.