“Why do we hate the poor so much?”

Chuck, you may very well “hate the poor” but I think most of us just hate street thugs.

It’s beyond redemption for you to assume that all poor people are violent street thugs. Many (most?) poor people live lives that respect the law and common civility.

Stop being such an elitist bigot.

For Pete's sake, it's a political cartoon!
What symbolism in the cartoon shows anything about the poor?
Horsey is a spectacularly good cartoonist!

This one's my Fave.
Well done, Chas.

Lots of bleeding heart liberal grew-up-with-the-Seattle-PI readers rolling their eyes over this one.

Not this one.

Nobody hates the poor. Such a tired old canard.

When the poor commit crimes those particular individuals are hated, but the same is true for the rich as well.

It's true, when I was living in Baltimore this guy kept shitting on my stoop, breaking my windows, drunkenly yelling all night, stealing everything and leaving used drug paraphernalia everywhere.

It really pissed me off, so I confronted him one day and was about to really tear into him. But then he showed me an ATM receipt and I saw he had a middle class bank account, so then I was cool with all of his behavior, because it is the poor I hate, not people fucking up the basic social contract on a daily basis.
.

8,

If your theory is correct, why does your side lose every damn election in Seattle since.... oh, I dunno... the eighties?

Has it yet occurred to you that the only person rolling eyes is.... you? Were it otherwise, don’t you think you could scramble enough votes together to win an election for even the most minor civil post? You guys can’t even get elected to the civil service commission, a position so minor it’s unpaid and nobody is even sure what it does.

So, no, an entire generation isn’t rolling its eyes. You are, and you’re alone.

Stop pretending there is this cast underground of Seattle conservatives here. You’re an extinct species.

"The Poor" are the greatest victims of the Thugs.
And they don't have the option of cowering behind locked doors surrounded by armed police.
Why does Chuck hate poor people?

A couple months ago I met a friend that was doing jury duty at the courthouse so we could have lunch together. The scene outside of the courthouse was tragicomically bad? Jurors stepped out the 3rd ave doors at noon and a woman that was fighting with people at the bus stop made a dive for their ankles, grabbed tight then screamed “Give me money! Give me food!” An SPD officer was standing a few yards south and ignored the entire scene, puffing away on a giant vape pen while the jurors yelled “no!” It was effing gonzo and not good for anyone involved. Sucks balls the city ain’t taking that shit seriously.

He's sort of right. There's an abundance of people who clutch their pearls and speak of Seattle as a den of criminal activity, and they're the ones who have been voting for the status quo propositions and representatives that have exacerbated for decades our once mild homelessness situation. I started riding the ST 522 in front of the courthouse fifteen years ago and homelessness was a problem in that area then. Nothing has improved under greg nickels, ed murray, nor jenny durkan. We have too many people who have elected our leaders because they're overly sensitive to change and, similarly, they have no qualms complaining about the consequences of their life decisions.

Yes, pete holmes is the reason there are so many people on the street...

Don't forget McGinn, we had a "socialist" mayor briefly so that's probably why conditions have stagnated for decades. If only it weren't for those pesky few who deign to break the mold things would be different.

conflating poverty with crime/substance abuse is a conscious, intellectual fraud. the poor are invariably more likely to be victims of crime than the affluent and less likely to be substance abusers.

So, you are such a twit that someone screaming for food and help is YOU DON’T UNDERSTAND THEM?
Basic empathy is too much effort? What a fucking namby pamby.

I was lucky I had two parents that cared about me. We were poor but I had that. You and your selfishness and greed create misery for others and I won’t even get into the trillions of dollars in offshore accounts that is a machine for poverty. Grow up.

You even condemn them you are such a immature snot.

"universal childcare, strong social institutions, reliable public transportation, job security for low-wage earners, and affordable high-standard housing. Why do so many people believe that our culture, with its brutal economic restrictions, offers everyone an abundance of free choices?"

Our culture? We no longer have a culture in Seattle. We're multi-cultural, which means everyone subscribes to a different set of rules. No one agrees on basic behavioral standards. No one trusts each other in multicultural societies.

Charles, the problem is you. You've completely misread the cartoon.

@12: What do cartoonists do? What do comedians do?

When their content annoys or upsets their audience, isn't that what the viewer wants or expects? Sometime it takes exaggeration or other gimmicks to make a point and more often than not it upsets all our delicate sensibilities at one time or another.

But we love it, don't we? Even Charles.

Nobody holds the copyright on compassion for the poor.

I do not hate poor people. I hate people who come up to me on the street while I'm waiting for the bus and punch me in the arm. The Third Avenue courthouse entrance may be closed but the bus stop right in front of the courthouse is still open. Oh boy! Street theater for the poor working stiffs who commute by bus!

People hate the poor because they fear deep down that with bad luck they could become down and out with no where to turn. All it takes is a bad divorce, or a serious illness that render them unable to work and wipe out all their assets. So they demonize the poor as the 'archimed115@other' - people who are inferior, lazy, stupid, etc., because that helps them tell themselves that they're safe from ever becoming one of 'those people'.

Ugh, don't know what happened there! Weird.
*demonize the poor as the 'other'

"Let's break all of this down to its one question: Why do we hate the poor so much?"

Wait, Charles, are you implying that the criminals are poor? Are you saying that only poor people commit crimes? That is complete and utter bullshit. I have a long list of middle class and rich criminals. Fuck you, and fuck your condescending I-hate-the-poor attitude.

See Charles, I can destroy strawmen too. You are completely ignoring the cause of the problem, as is Horsey. Leave it to another Seattle Times employee (of all people) to summarize it quite nicely:

"But in dithering Seattle fashion, neither government seems able to agree on an overall strategy — whether to get tough or get compassionate. Some judges are calling for more security, while some County council members argue the true answer is more mental-health and drug treatment. Stalemated, they haven’t done much of either. Ditto over at the City of Seattle.

As a newspaper columnist, I am licensed to never offer constructive suggestions. But isn’t the answer obvious here … both?

Yes we need to work on more mental-health and drug treatment. But the courthouse entrance also clearly needs some freaking security."

Yep. My guess is judge Rogers knew exactly what he was doing. This was a shot across the bow at the Durkan administration. Your first job as mayor is to handle the cops. You can't let them become fascists (message to you, president-want-to-be Pete) nor can you let your city fall into anarchy. The problem, in a nutshell, is that we spend too little on social services, too little on cops, and too little training cops. We do all that because we are limited to how we can raise money (by the state). The biggest victims of this crime are, of course, poor people. In this case, the poorest of the poor. Those down and out, wanting to get back on their feet, or just trying to find a fucking place to sleep at night are the most likely victims of this type of crime. After the courthouse closes, who do you think is hanging out down there, Charles? Rich people? Give me a fucking break.

I'm thrilled that Jim Rogers issued the order. Because when poor people are victimized, no one (not even you) seems to give a shit. But inconvenience rich and middle class people -- force them to walk around to serve jury duty -- and suddenly people are paying attention. As well they should. As Westneat pointed out, the number of cops in that precinct went from 129 to 95. What the fuck? How can an area like that -- in a city that is growing, with literally billionaires walking the streets -- cut down on the number of cops in that area? We were already way under-copped to begin with (well below that bastion of liberalism, Boston). But what happened? Did those cops get sent to Magnolia, to deal with petty crime? Did the mayor cut the budget? I have no fucking idea. I'm not a fucking reporter. But maybe a reporter should do a little investigation instead of talking shit about a damn good cartoonist who raised a damn good point, not freak out about his less than articulate prose.