This is Council Member Sara Nelson explaining a different bad idea, but you get the point Seattle Channel Screenshot

Comments

1

"tough-on-crime Davison the power to slap more wrists, throw more people in jail, and ruin more lives."

Make that "to save their lives" with the wake up call they need to start turning their lives around.

2

1 euthanized calf? BFD, hunters killed hundreds from the Yellowstone herd this spring to "stop brucellosis".

https://www.spokesman.com/stories/2023/mar/04/activists-decry-bison-hunt-north-of-yellowstone-na/

3

Man, that song/video was pretty entertaining. A full two or three minutes longer than it probably needed to be perhaps, but entertaining nonetheless.

4

SO MUCH TAXES TO JAIL PEOPLE instead of the normal procedure.

WHY ARE WE LETTING COUNCIL JACK UP OUR CITY TAXES???

8

@4
I know right?
Should just continue to let them pass out on the streets because that’s compassionate.

9

Why wasn't the music video at the end one of Tina Turner's hits?

10

“
 it may just give tough-on-crime Davison the power to slap more wrists, throw more people in jail, and ruin more lives.”

Sure, in the years he spent in the encampment, he robbed other campers at gunpoint, and ‘accidentally’ set some of their tents on fire — but what really ruined his life wasn’t his overdose, but the city jail time he got for it.

11

To expand on @10, the maximum sentence under the proposed legislation would be 90 days. Of course, that assumes the offender elects not to pursue the robust diversion program that comes along with the recent criminalization of simple possession.

Unrelated, but does anyone understand why the Stranger keeps using that same photo of Nelson? They have run it at least 5 times that I can find.

12

No, gross misdemeanor is 180 days or more. Keep up, @11

14

@12 only the most egregious cases (multiple violations) would ever get sentenced to the full time and even then they would probably end up getting released early. The notion this is going to lead to some massive influx in inmates is just gaslighting. No one is going to serve any serious time but it just might make some of our junkie neighbors decide to move on to other areas that are going to be more lax about enforcement like say Portland.

15

@11, @14: The Stranger simply believes that Seattle is over-policed and overly-punitive, and lawless encampments all over the city (wealthy neighborhoods mysteriously excepted) do absolutely
nothing to change the Stranger’s beliefs.

@13: The Stranger also believes the November 2021 elections in Seattle never actually happened, and nothing we can type here will change that belief, either.

16

Wow! That pro-Kevin blurb on the Republican manufactured debt ceiling crisis is some of the most credulous, stupid, missed-the-point "reporting" I've ever seen on The Stranger, and I've been reading for decades.

18

Sara Nelson looks like she wants to speak to the manager of Drugs in that photo.

19

@12 Sorry, I am doing my best to keep up. Can you please show me where the proposed ordinance makes use of a controlled substance in public a gross misdemeanor? Here's a link to the draft:

https://www.seattle.gov/documents/Departments/CityAttorney/Legislation/SCAO_Prohibiting_Public_Drug_Use_Proposed_Legislation.pdf?utm_medium=email&utm_source=govdelivery

I think my problem might stem from the text in proposed 12A.20.120. subsection B, which provides: "Use of a controlled substance in a public place is a misdemeanor." I assumed the term "misdemeanor" had a different meaning than "gross misdemeanor." Looks like you have a different interpretation of the clear, unambiguous language of this proposed ordinance. Interesting! I look forward to your comments, thank you so much.

20

@18, Yeah, that's why the Stranger has been running it over and over again for the better part of a year. I think the "Karen" stereotype is a bit misogynistic myself, but some people seem to like it.

23

@17: The City Council and the Stranger, by refusing to admit just how much (and how hard) addiction drives camping and related petty criminal behaviors, has created a favorable atmosphere for the return of drugs laws. (The Stranger’s own ‘addictions,’ to defunding SPD and to blind abolition of Seattle’s laws, have exacerbated this trend.) Seattle has now reached the point where even the liberal electorate supports drug prohibition, in the hope the miserable consequences of de facto decriminalization of hard drugs can be reversed, by either locking up the users, or driving them away.

24

@23 It's not just Seattle both Bellingham and Tacoma have had enough as well:

https://www.seattletimes.com/seattle-news/politics/laid-back-bellingham-gets-tough-on-drugs-its-a-sign-for-the-rest-of-wa/

https://www.king5.com/article/news/health/tacoma-city-council-drug-possession-legislation-reform/281-95923b76-c4de-4bb6-bb1a-2027d09e5d9f

28

Did Kshama take her show on the road to Tacoma?

29

@26 I think his campaign was sound. He came in first in initial voting but lost in the runoff. Chicago has a weird election system for mayor coupled with it being in the spring (TS would date say it’s undemocratic) lowered turnout and once Brandon Johnson sold his soul to the teachers union it was too much to overcome. It is Chicago after all so some amount of graft is baked in. The sad part is the African American residents in the south end will continue to pay the price so the teachers union can line its pockets.

30

@27: The Stranger has expressed sympathy for disabled musicians who try to perform in the old buildings which Seattle’s most cash-strapped music clubs use for venues, https://www.thestranger.com/music/2023/05/16/78994309/i-stopped-performing-music-because-venues-are-ableist

Can’t wait for the Stranger to tell those same musicians to suck it up and maneuver around tents on narrow Seattle sidewalks, because “victims of capitalism” need a place to take a dump.

31

@29,

Don't get me started on teachers unions! If there's a more entitled, self-indulgent and overpaid profession than public school teachers I can't even imagine what it is. Selfish bastards need to suck it up and take whatever feeble pay society tosses their way. Talk about a cushy gig, the goddamn freeloading bastards don't even work summers!

32

@31 I see what you did there. So very clever. I have nothing against unions and certainly not teachers but having a politician who is charged with managing them completely beholden to their whims is probably not great. He’s already rewarding them with positions in the administration

https://www.chicagotribune.com/news/ct-brandon-johnson-chicago-teachers-union-deputy-mayor-education-20230511-m4hokgkxvrcjropfmqum54rgae-story.html

What could go wrong?

33

On a per reader basis, The Stranger does more to hurt progressive Democratic and liberal causes than any "news" media short of Fox News and the like. Even right-leaning Fox-wanna-be CNN does less to hurt our causes.

It is so blatantly batshit crazy, that I sometimes can't help but wonder if it's some sort of secret DINO/Republican-backed rag disguised as "left-wing" propaganda designed to alienate as many Dems as possible from progressive/liberal policies. If so, it's working brilliantly. If not, then I don't know what their defense is for the asshat trolling.

34

@9 Phoebe, that would have been classy. But for Hannah, Tina Turner is her grandparent's music.

35

@23 tensorna, and next is going to be crime in general... I've warned about the coming backlash for years - that by ignoring and brushing aside the very real decline in public safety and quality of life, the backlash will swing the pendulum much too far to the right. Like extremists of any kind, give them an inch and they take a mile, and when the majority of people have finally had it, they tend to vote that way, whether it's ultimately in their best interests or not.

37

https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2023/may/25/amanda-gorman-poem-ban-parent-proud-boys-daily-salinas

whitesupremacistlatinx

38

"The biggest people with the biggest ideas can be shot down by the smallest people with the smallest minds.

Think big anyway."

39

@36: "A bunch of trolls sitting around the fire arguing over who gets to grind up the bones from the nights harvest."

And that bothers you why?

Double, double toil and trouble;
Fire burn and caldron bubble.
Fillet of a fenny snake,
In the caldron boil and bake;
Eye of newt and toe of frog,
Wool of bat and tongue of dog,
Adder's fork and blind-worm's sting,
Lizard's leg and howlet's wing,
For a charm of powerful trouble,
Like a hell-broth boil and bubble.

Double, double toil and trouble;
Fire burn and caldron bubble.
Cool it with a baboon's blood,
Then the charm is firm and good.

40

@33, @35: Agreed, and one doesn’t have to be a tough-on-crime, law-and-order right-winger to see the decline in public safety and quality of life. What good is a neighborhood with a high walk score if the walk now requires stepping around tents full of unstable persons, and the dirty needles and human waste those tents emit? The Stranger and supportive commenters dismiss such complaints as evidence of privilege, but if they think allowing encampments is “compassionate,” then Mr. George Orwell has a thing or two to say to them about their (ab)use of language.

41

@22 Davison, Nelson, and Pederson are “angling for the ability to prosecute gross misdemeanors” by advancing legislation relating to a misdemeanor? And they are modelling this approach on Bellingham ordinance making public consumption a misdemeanor (https://mrsc.org/getmedia/0e7bb84c-3696-48af-aed7-d7dc739b6460/b45o2023-04-009.pdf?utm_medium=email&utm_source=govdelivery )?

I have to admit I am struggling to follow your reasoning here. How does developing a new misdemeanor create the ability to prosecute gross misdemeanors?

43

OK, the criticism that government acts fast to enact oppressive laws and slowly to implement beneficial ones is fair, and some of that has to do with the incentive structure. But there are also legitimate reasons that they happen at different speeds.

Note: When I discuss the "purpose of drug laws" below, I am not referring to the stated intention or even the real intention of the people promoting them. I am referring to the reason why they remain persistent and popular in our political environment, which is separate from the conscious reason why people might support them. Behavior within an ecosystem evolves over time and, just like genetic evolution, the intention of the participants is not determinant of the reason the behavior is a successful strategy.

The purpose of drug laws is to project an image that the state is "doing something" about a problem that people care about. By setting penalties for drug use, they appeal to a widely understood model of behavior change, positive punishment, which is flawed and unhelpful but still widely accepted as valid. This makes a large number of people feel like the problem is being worked on. It also gives people an outlet for their frustration, because it frames the situation as a matter of personal responsibility, so they can be frustrated at the addicted people who do not have the social standing or resources to defend themselves, allowing this frustration to be vented in perpetuity. And frustration which is vented is frustration which is not channeled into building actual solutions.

In contrast, if we want to figure out how to achieve an actual goal that has results in the real world, like reducing carbon emissions or drug use or violence or anything else that most people agree should be reduced, then we need to actually make sure that the actions we're taking are effective, not just actions that play well in a soundbyte. This means that we legitimately need to collect data, analyze alternatives, experiment with different solutions, etc. I'm not trying to deny that officials will use the necessity of these activities to hide the fact that they are effectively doing nothing, and we need to hold them accountable to making progress even when progress takes a long amount of time. But if we don't take the time that is needed, then we won't be effective, and that needs to be acknowledged as well.

44

@43: Thank you for agreeing with my point @23. A punitive anti-drug policy now has support in Seattle precisely because nothing has been done about the thefts, assaults, traffic in stolen property, illegal camping, and other crimes which primarily support drug habits. Your prescriptions (ha!) are all correct, but useless, because the City Council, fully supported by the Stranger, won’t even admit drug use is the root cause of most homelessness in Seattle. The voters must continue cleaning out the Council, replacing Sawant, Herbold, and Morales (and possibly others) with Members who will recognize this reality.


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