More Soma! (as always, Eric Blair pegged it)

So what district does he represent?

The typical guy shunting through was dead in 24 months, regardless of age, by relapsing straight into the grave. The actual roll call of the dead was striking, well over 60%.

As you might imagine a hefty percentage had/have serious mental problems that drove their habits.

Meth is a mind destroyer, period.

Those able to kick it remain permanently damaged — typically paranoid/ perpetually anxious.

Hence, I wouldn’t be the least bit surprised to find out that this fellow was on a cocktail of meth/pot/booze.

——-

ONE trait I’ve seen common to the ex-meth heads I’ve known is the persistent use of the right-hand lane of the freeway — even when it makes zero sense and causes them to weave relentlessly past slower traffic.

**** changed lanes over 80 times driving up from San Jose to SFO. Half of his time was spent staring at the rear view mirror in abject fear. Naturally, he was unable to hold any job at all. He ‘lost’ the car to the cops by not registering it in his name: he’d received it as a gift for nothing — but it needed fresh tags. Estimated value at the time $3,500 bucks.

His prior automobile was his ‘house’ and he destroyed its engine, they do need oil from time to time.

And to compound his problems, he burns every friend he comes across, steals from his immediate family time and time again, and generally profiles as a VERY mental case.

Yet, it is impossible to get him committed.

There are millions like **** out there.

Prison guards can tell you, most of their charges are mental cases/ incredibly stupid. It didn’t take Columbo to bag them. Prison is a terrible place to treat mental illness.

(OT Yes, Occam’s I was stationed at NAS Alameda -1963-68. One of my best tours of duty.)

75% of the homeless are mentally disturbed or addicted.

SF is struggling with a massive homelessness problem, and spends a fortune on shelters and other programs for the homeless, but characteristically fails to grasp the fundamental issue: most of the homeless are mentally ill, as you point out.

Shelters and programs don’t accomplish much for them because they won’t accept the requisite restrictions on their behavior (e.g., no drugs or alcohol). They’d rather live on the streets, and do whatever they want. SF’s solution: provide more for them.

It’s things like this that make me wonder if leftists are simply and cynically trying to drop a monkey wrench in the works, an echo of neo’s perennial fool or knave question.

(OT: I take it you were stationed at Alameda NAS? I learned to swim there as a boy. The Navy provided a launch that took a number of us kids from Hunter’s Point across the bay to Alameda for swimming lessons during the summer. Fond memory!)

I assume the reporter lives a rather cushy life in DC, but I could have done a better job from my sofa.

BTW, today, the Left had their yearly remembrance of Rosa Luxemburg and Karl Leibknecht. Thousand turned up.

Occam’s, I remember some of the people in Philadelphia who were “given their rights” thanks to the ACLU et al. The self-righteous do-gooders didn’t give a s**t about them, but then do-gooders rarely care about people caught in their grand schemes.

The emptying of the mental institutions was a sad day for California and later, for the whole country.
75% of the homeless are mentally disturbed or addicted. Here in Seattle we have a large tent city of homeless. The garbage, crime, drug abuse, and nuisance factors around this “home” for the homeless ends up in constant moving of the tents and inhabitants to new locations because of citizen complaints. No one has gone on a shooting spree yet, but there are constant knifings, beatings, overdose hospitalizations, robberies, public indecencies, and more.

I fail to see why homelessness is considered superior to institutions where these people are safe, well fed, and have at least some mental health care. Yes, it costs money, but so do policing and ER visits.

Rather than gun control, we need to figure out how to get these mentally disturbed people back into a better environment for them and the public in general.