Justin Keller
Keller recently penned an open letter to the mayor and police chirf of SanFrancisco, whom he inexplicably believes should care about his dickish opinions.
Open letter to SF Mayor Ed Lee and Greg Suhr (police chief)
I am writing today, to voice my concern and outrage over the increasing homeless and drug problem that the city is faced with. I’ve been living in SF for over three years, and without a doubt it is the worst it has ever been.
Ooh, three whole years? Well, you've clearly established yourself as one of the city's most prominent residents, let's all begin hanging on your every word!
You've been in SF for 3 entire years. Wow. I lived in San Francisco back in the 1990's and I promise you that the homeless were already there long before you arrived. Some of them had been there since the Summer of Love. You moved into their city, what did you expect? It's like moving to Paris and then asking "what's with all these freakin' patisseries?" Why not write a letter to the mayor of London asking him to do something about the warm flat beer? (seriously, England, get your shit together beerwise. It's pretty much your only cultural drawback besides your smug sense of superiority.)
Every day, on my way to, and from work, I see people sprawled across the sidewalk, tent cities, human feces, and the faces of addiction. The city is becoming a shanty town… Worst of all, it is unsafe.
Oh, unsafe? Really? Have you been attacked by homeless people?
This holiday weekend, I had my parents in town from Santa Barbara and relatives from Denver and Rochester New York. Unfortunately, there was three separate incidents and countless times that we were approached for money and harassed.
Oh, my God! No wonder you're upset. there is nothing more terrifying than having a dishevelled man hold his hand towards you and ask "spare some change, man?"
The first incident involved a homeless drunken man in the morning coming up to their car and leaning up against it. Another bystander got frustrated with the drunken man, and they got into a heated pushing and shoving altercation.
Leaning? Against their car? How inconvenient! I mean terrifying! Good thing there was a bystander there to escalate the situation!
The second incident occurred as we were leaving Tadich Grill in the financial district. A distraught, and high person was right in front of the restaurant, yelling, screaming, yelling about cocaine, and even, attempted to pull his pants down and show his genitals.
Are you sure about that? Because I gotta think that if this man had attempted to pull his pants down, he probably would have succeeded. It's not all that tricky to lower one's trousers. And if being high on cocaine could prevent you from removing your pants, how would any Wall Street guys ever mange to reproduce?
Did you not see Wolf of Wall Street?
Finally, last night Valentines, I was at Kabuki Theater inside watching a movie. About two hours into the film, a man stumbled in the front door. He proceeded to walk into the theater, down the aisle to the front, wobbled toward the emergency door, opened it, and then took his shirt off and laid down. He then came back into the theater shielding his eyes from the running projector. My girlfriend was terrified and myself and many people ran out of the theater.
You ran out of the theater? Because a drunk guy passed out then "shielded his eyes from the projector?" I mean, ganted, this is definitely going to diminish your movie-watching enjoyment, but making a mad headlong dash for the exits seems a bit of an overreaction.
Aieeeee!! A shirtless man! And he's shielding his eyes!!!
What are you going to do to address this problem? The residents of this amazing city no longer feel safe.
No longer feel safe?
Oh, I remember the good old days of THREE FUCKING YEARS AGO, when a man could stroll down any dark alley from the Western Addition to Polk Gulch in complete safety and serenity. Why, n o one even thought twice about leaving their doors unlocked, and Sheriff Taylor only gave Deputy Fife a single bullet in case of emergency. Why, we'd saunter out of Slim's or the DNA lounge at 2:00 am and Promenade along the sidewalks of SOMA with a song in our hearts and a spring in our step!
It's a big city, you're not supposed to feel safe, idiot! You want to feel safe? Move to Sausalito, or Woodside or Atherton. The City is supposed to be at least somewhat gritty, that's half the appeal. (The other half is nudie bars)
I know people are frustrated about gentrification happening in the city, but the reality is, we live in a free market society. The wealthy working people have earned their right to live in the city. They went out, got an education, work hard, and earned it. I shouldn’t have to worry about being accosted. I shouldn’t have to see the pain, struggle, and despair of homeless people to and from my way to work every day.
Well, cry me a fucking river, douchenozzle!
Okay, we live in a "free-market society." (For now. #FeelTheBern) So you and your fellow techbros are free to move in to a city, gentrify, drive up prices for everyone else, causing them pain, struggle and despair, but you think you shouldn't have to see the results of your actions? You want to live in a "free market society" but when you find the unintended consequences of your free-market actions unpleasant, you want the big, bad government to step in and make things better for you, so your delicate sensibilities don't get offended?
I am telling you, there is going to be a revolution.
Right, because no one grabs torches and pitchforks and mans the barricades like high-tech startup entrepenuers and venture capitalists!
Storm the capital, my fellow programmers!
I am telling you, there is going to be a revolution. People on both sides are frustrated, and you can sense the anger.
Um, both sides of what? You mean the pro-kill-the-homeless side and the anti-kill-the-homeless side? are they both that angry?
The city needs to tackle this problem head on, it can no longer ignore it and let people do whatever they want in the city. I don’t have a magic solution… It is a very difficult and complex situation, but somehow during Super Bowl, almost all of the homeless and riff raff[1] seem to up and vanish. I’m willing to bet that was not a coincidence.
Sure, let's do what countries like Russia and China do during the Olympics and just start rounding people up and, what, putting them in camps? Imprisoning them? Dropping them off in Tiburon?
Money and political pressure can make change.
Yeah, in most places that's known as corruption, but whatever.
Democracy is not the last stop in politics. In-fact, the order of progression according to Socrates via Plato in the Republic goes: timocracy, oligarchy, democracy, and finally tyranny. Socrates argues that a society will decay and pass through each government in succession, eventually becoming a tyranny.
Tyranny. Like the kind of government that would arrest and imprison people for being too poor to have homes? Because some rich scumbags who have enough money to exert pressure don't like their morning commute sullied by the sight of the less fortunate? Is that the kind of tyranny Plato warned about? In a book written in the 4th Century BC, so it's totally relevant to 21st century political landscape?
[1] I want to apologize for using the term riff raff. It was insensitive and counterproductive
Right. Because when you're making the case that a group of people should be disappeared from your city like a leftist under Pinochet, you certainly wouldn't want to come across as insensitive!
