I saw this thread by Jessica Valenti:
The more I read these panicked articles about places like NYC and San Francisco being 'unsafe', the more I realize it's not about crime at all – just discomfort with poverty being more visible
— Jessica Valenti (@JessicaValenti) June 16, 2022
Go in and read it if you want, but in a nutshell she says that if you don’t like seeing vagrants on your streets it’s because you’re a bigot who hates poor people.
All of of modern Leftism is about turning vice into virtue.
Are you a pedophile drag queen showing your anus to litte children? Well have Pride and know that you’re expressing your “authentic self.”
But among the ugliest of this trend is wealth Leftists figuring out how they can turn their own selfishness into virtue.
In the late 19th Century and early 20th Century, it was a moral compunction for the wealthy to contribute to society for the point of bettering society.
The Robber Barrons, for all the awful things they did, built universities and libraries and art centers. They created beautiful edifices for the masses. They felt it was an appropriate use of some of their largess to uplift the poor and ignorant and make them better.
Many of those institutions still exist today, e.g., The University of Chicago (founded by John D. Rockefeller), Rockefeller Foundation, Carnegie Mellon University, Carnegie Hall, etc.
These men created, along with their business empires, the idea of the philanthropist in it’s current use.
Lesser wealthy people also contributed.
It was a social movement to give what you could to uplift the lower classes by being a patron of the arts, literature, or education.
Now look at the wealthy Liberal elite today.
They tell you that if you try to clean the poop off the streets, move the homeless out of tent cities, or educate the poor and downtrodden you are a bigot who hates poor people.
It’s a virtue to let the homeless live in squalor because that’s not judgmental.
It’s a virtue to let some poor black child not learn math, proper English, and behaviors that will lead to success, because that is respecting his black culture. You’re a white supremacist if you try to teach him the principles of whiteness like getting the correct answers in math and writing in complete, grammatically correct sentences.
These virtues allow the wealthy to not donate money and not donate time and not contribute to society while convincing themselves they are good people for it.
Only the wealthy Leftist can step over the vagrant with a needle in his arm and past the minority child who can’t read at grade level and say “these people are living their authentic lives, how dare I give up my time and money to force my White values on them, it’s best that I spend my money on myself and not be a bigot.”
These people should be called out for what they are, selfish narcissists who use Leftism to justify their selfishness as a virtue.
Some Guy once said something about that sort of thing. “Whatsoever you have done for any of these, the least of thy brethren, you have done it for Me.”
Some have appeared in modern times, e.g. the Gates Foundation.
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But it seems to me, most of them funnel money to other places, rather than doing things themselves.
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Carnegie built a university, for instance, and libraries. The current slew of foundations would be much more likely to fund studies about where to build a library, it seems to me.
These “people” will GLADLY spend YOUR money for lefty causes labeled to “help” the disadvantaged.. they need them because they promise to help them so they vote democrat. Fuk em. They in for a suprise
On your comment about the “robber barons,” perhaps you’ve swallowed too much statist kool-aid there. After having it on my “to read” list for years, I’m in the midst of “The Myth of the Robber Barons,” by Burton Folsom, Jr. He shows that there were two types of entrepreneurs in that era–the market entrepreneurs, and the political entrepreneurs. Vanderbilt, for example, was the former–he started a steamship line with his own and invested capital, and both improved service and drove down fares relative to Fulton and Collins, who depended on government subsidies. Hill, for another example, built a transcontinental railroad from St. Paul to Seattle, entirely with private capital, and his freight rates were lower than the more well known railroad (with the golden spike and all that) until the political types behind the latter started the Interstate Commerce Commission to force Hill’s rates up to where they could “compete” with him, government subsidies and all.
As for Boris’ comment about the Gates Foundation, yes, our local library got a grant therefrom for the public-access computers, but Gates seems to fund mostly lefty political causes, rather than anything of social value.
YMMV,
Ivan
I have recently heard of a new (relatively new) idea of YIMBYism.
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We have all heard of Not In My Back Yard, but there are a (apparently) a lot of people fighting to get stuff put into their neighborhood. They actually WANT to see the homeless moved to their neighborhood.
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I see it as nothing more than a their virtue signaling going to 11. And, of course, everyone who lives in the area will have to suffer right along with these idiots.