After reading this Matthew Yglesias post, I am beginning to understand how David Dinkins got elected.
BTW- From what movie did this post derive its name?
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Come for the politics, stay for the snark.
The worst democrat is better than the best republican.
Authoritarian republicans are opposed to freedom for the rest of us.
if you can’t see it, then you are useless in the fight to stop it.
Republican obstruction dressed up as bipartisanship. Again.
I see no possible difficulties whatsoever with this fool-proof plan.
I did not have telepathic declassification on my 2022 bingo card.
This fight is for everything.
Let there be snark.
Usually wrong but never in doubt
No offense, but this thread hasn’t been about you for quite a while.
They traffic in fear. it is their only currency. if we are fearful, they are winning.
Meanwhile over at truth Social, the former president is busy confessing to crimes.
And we’re all out of bubblegum.
I’d like to think you all would remain faithful to me if i ever tried to have some of you killed.
A snarling mass of vitriolic jackals
Shallow, uninformed, and lacking identity
Teach a man to fish, and he’ll sit in a boat all day drinking beer.
They fucked up the fucking up of the fuckup!
Let’s delete this post and never speak of this again.
You cannot shame the shameless.
It’s always darkest before the other shoe drops.
Never entrust democracy to any process that requires republicans to act in good faith.
Their freedom requires your slavery.
Balloon Juice has never been a refuge for the linguistically delicate.
Russell Wardlow
Yeah, good old “wackiness.” It’s obvious that Matt never understood the Broken Window Theory, even while seeing it in action in his own home. Sad, really. People with attitudes like that towards behavior in public deserve whatever fucked up city that results.
Yan
As a New Yorker, talk about how effed up NY City politics is! And to think that Bloomberg may be the better alternative against the other boomer nannies, shudder.
My pet peeve: went to Shea stadium last night. “No smoking in the sitting area or the concourse”. Is there any other space in a stadium?
Sad to see the city slip into degeneration as the nannies take away people’s legal pleasures.
apostropher
“It’s obvious that Matt never understood the Broken Window Theory”
It’s obvious that you don’t understand dry wit.
howie
The Money Pit.
Russell Wardlow
Then explain it to me, Apostropher.
Are you suggesting Matt is being sarcastic? I don’t think so.
Kimmitt
Er, yes — Matt is saying that in doing the things which reduced crime, Giuliani also did things which reduced a kind of colorfulness that Matt likes. He also says that it was worth it, but that it’s sad it had to be that way.
Veeshir
I would just say that Matt’s post is pretty much by somebody who has never been seriously attacked in NYC.
I can remember when I was 16-20 and hanging out with a few friends in Times Square and I was happy, ecstatic in fact, to see a cop. I mean that we were the ones that people should have been afraid of, not the other way around.
Yeah, it was more fun when you could break the law with impunity. I bought my first joints before a YES concert in front of MSG right in front of a cop on a horse. I wasn’t going to buy them because I figured they were oregano but the guy lit up right there. I even blew my hit out into the horse’s face.
But he does get it right, it’s a small price to pay for a more civilized NYC. Times Square is not very scary these days, well, except for the fact that I don’t trust that damn mouse.
Of course if you miss the old days head over a few blocks to Hell’s Kitchen. Although that’s starting to be yuppified because it’s relatively cheap.
Dean
This sorta crap appears all the time, and not just in NYC or at Matt Y’s.
The WaPo ran a story about how the opening of a “Whole Foods” supermarket in one of the poorer neighborhoods was a sign of the yuppification/gentrification of the neighborhood, and then proceeded to quote lots of folks who lamented the closing of liquor stores, bodegas, and the like.
Better paying jobs? Sure, and local hires at that, but hey, there was more “character” when the neighborhood was more dangerous, ya know?
Russell Wardlow
Kimmit,
Your comment shows you’re just as clueless as Matt. The Broken Window Theory posits that allowing such “colorfulness” to go unchallenged tends to lead to much more serious forms of crime and misbehavior, because it wears down people’s vigilence and civic pride.
Kimmitt
Yes, that’s the point. “It’s sad it has to be that way.”
Russell Wardlow
So it’s sad that we have to stop people from publicly having sex?
Ooooo-kay.
Dean
No, no, no.
It’s sad that pan-handlers aren’t allowed to harass people on the subways. (It lends character to the subways, you know.)
It’s sad that people aren’t allowed to defecate and piss in the street. (The scent of pisswater lends character to the neighborhoods, you know.)
It’s sad that people aren’t allowed to sleep in doorways, or get rousted from the grates. (And that’s a violation of their civil rights, you know.)
And the worst part is that the X-rated theaters are gone and people can take their families to Times Square. I mean, where is one to find XXX-rated videos and peep shows and character?
Now, that’s sad.
a
he said “posit”; he loses.
Kimmitt
“So it’s sad that we have to stop people from publicly having sex?”
Yes, that’s what Matt is saying. You obviously don’t agree, and more power to you.