Hamburg just started enforcing that pan-handlers mustn't sit down. They haven't outlawed it, but they're pretty actively trying to not make it a common occurrence in the city center. Tent cities, completely open drug consumption, ignoring theft < 1000€, ignoring car break-ins etc would absolutely not fly here. You might get some of that on a local level in a very progressive district of Berlin, but not in other major German cities. So at least for Germany: yeah, I think it is.

That's not liberalism at all, that's just dumbness. You seem to label everything you dislike liberal.

It's dumb to jail homeless and mentally ill people, but it's just as dumb to just stop jailing them without providing them the help they need.

The most liberal cities in the world don't have big homeless and crime problems because help and housing is provided.

> That's not liberalism at all, that's just dumbness.

I don't know, I'm not the judge of that, but it sounds a bit like a very mobile goal post. Usually, "liberal policies" are removing or weakening penalties and enforcement. A liberal drug policy will decriminalize drug use. liberal = tolerant, so liberal policies tolerate a lot more things.

And SF is in many regards more liberal than European cities. Whether it's your preferred kind of liberal politics, or whether it's combined with other effective policies etc, is a different question.

Would it be considered a liberal policy to tolerate someone walking into a store, conspicuously stealing ~$500 worth of goods, yelling, punching, and throwing furniture at anyone who confronts them and then returning the next day to do it again?

To me that looks like a society that has completely abdicated its responsibility of using legal force to protect the rights and safety of its inhabitants, rather than just an honest disagreement on what variation in values and lifestyles that are accepted.

From where I'm sitting: yes, that would be considered liberal policy. It rejects the individual's responsibility and claims society is at fault for individual delinquency and should tolerate deviance.

> To me that looks like a society that has completely abdicated its responsibility of using legal force to protect the rights and safety of its inhabitants, rather than just an honest disagreement on what variation in values and lifestyles that are accepted.

It does to me, too, that's one of the reasons I moved to the suburbs, and it wasn't anywhere as bad as in SF and other US cities. But I felt that the priorities were backwards and I understood that the majority of people wanted them pushed further in the direction I considered wrong. So I moved, because why stay and suffer if you don't believe in those policies but most of your neighbors do?

It’s hard to fathom a society where the majority will not defend themselves against literal violence.

In a sense it’s closer to the original Christian ideal than most, but I don’t see how that can lead to peace, joy and prosperity long-term in a society where a minority abuses it.

> Usually, "liberal policies" are removing or weakening penalties and enforcement.

Are they? In the US "liberal policies" are also associated with higher taxation and government regulation. So which is it?

A brand can be associated with multiple things at once. If your question is why they don't want to decriminalize tax-fraud, you'd have to ask them.

> providing them the help they need.

Statements like this seem to be exactly why people are frustrated with SF's policies. What is the "help they need" that will be sufficient to keep them from being a problem? I've known addicts and schizophrenics, and it's near impossible to fix them, even with an affluent and caring family to support them the whole way. What will an incompetent state actor possibly do that is better, other than just lock them up to keep them from harming others?

basically the help they need is not becoming homeless in the first place. because the stress of that would make most people insane. once you go a few days without sleep, anyone is going to become psychotic. and then once you’ve been psychotic it just gets worse. so basically they just need basic housing and a place to wash their clothes. if you don’t want to give them that just kill them or stop complaining

You should submit your new baseless theory about schizophrenia and addition to the AMA. Sounds like you've solved this Nobel-worthy problem.

Another comment in this thread said:

> Since I moved [to SF], I have seen people break into cars (numerous times), fill suitcases with products from Target and Walgreens and leave without paying, casually smoke meth in a crowded bus, empty their bladder and bowels in the middle of the sidewalk, etc. all of this brazenly and in broad daylight.

I'm not aware of any major European city where this kind of behaviour is tolerated, much less common.

I can confidently say that pretty much nothing I've heard about SF (haven't spent much time there myself other than passing through) would be tolerated in Moscow. It's unthinkable. The worst thing you run into here would be a drunk guy at night or something like that. Moscow isn't exactly an example of a liberal-leaning city though :)

As for smaller cities in Europe like London or Berlin, they're also still reasonably safe (I didn't like night buses in London but that's about it) and the crazy stuff is mostly contained.

I guess a huge part of this is that most countries over here at least have something resembling a working social system.

I don't know that it really falls under the normal definition of liberal. But it's certainly the epitome of American neo-liberal ideals. This isn't really the same as liberalism in Europe (yet). The bulk of the general problems in SF and the US can be correlated to the number of mental health beds available. In Europe most countries have a rate of around 120 per 100k. In Asia it's upwards of 300. In the US. It's around 12.

Liberalism in the US heavily resists the usage of asylums and actually helping people in general. In Europe that's not really the case.