Connoisseurs of American cinema will recognize the title of this post from what is perhaps the greatest movie of all time, Caddyshack. That has nothing whatsoever to do with what I'm going to write now, I just wanted to demonstrate that I have some class.
A little story that got buried over at FoxNews.com and was almost impossible to find on the other major news sites caught my eye today. It seems the Soviet Socialist City of Berkeley has decided to crack down on all sorts of embarrassing sidewalk behavior by its citizens. The ruling politburo there has developed a plan that "cracks down on yelling, littering, camping, drunkenness, smoking, urinating and sex on sidewalks and in parks." (italics mine)
Granted, there are few things more annoying than tripping over a gaggle of humping couples while walking to Starbucks in the morning.
"How did you sprain your ankle?"
"I saw a friend of mine down the street, got distracted and accidentally stepped on a threesome. Between that and the peeing campers, honestly..."
What's that, you say? You don't have a problem with people screwing, camping and using your sidewalks as lavatories? That's because you probably live in a sane, rational city that is not only geographically located within the United States but governs itself as such. Berkeley, of course, fancies itself a sort of 50's-era Moscow.
There are a few enlightened liberal cities like Berkeley sprinkled throughout America that want to be benevolent socialist nannies to homeless people. For example, Berkeley has about 7 per cent of its county's total population but is "home" to around 40 per cent of the county's homeless. Government funded programs provide some food, a little shelter and maybe some basic medical care. What most of them are short on are the two things that homeless people need the most: jobs and homes.
Berkeley is basically saying "We'll open our arms to you but you're too icky to hug." It's practically given a personal invitation to each homeless person in America to move in and now it's annoyed that they're hanging around all the time.
"We weren't aware that they would be here all day and all night. We thought they might just grab some soup then go off to the homeless place and do homeless stuff. It's so difficult being compassionate when your sidewalk smells like wee-wee."
What's Berkeley's plan then? More feel-good socialism, naturally. The sidewalk shenanigans law will go into effect but the city will build more toilets and have an army of social workers roaming the streets. At least the toilets will give the homeless some place to hide from the social workers.
At the end of the day, the homeless of Berkeley will still be homeless, with very dim prospects. They will, however, be just a bit harder to see which will enable the other residents of the city get back to the business of feeling good about all they're doing to help the homeless.
Cross posted at Grizzly Groundswell and Real Clear Politics (Vote for it!)
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