I don't know a name for this emotion

[mellowtigger]

*sigh* Sometimes, I just don't understand government or the people who vote to make it the way it is.

This morning, I looked out my kitchen window and saw a City Of Minneapolis Regulatory Service car sitting motionless in my alley. Was it here to complain about my back yard? I'm not sure what would be the problem. This looks okay from this weekend, right? Or was it here about my neighbor, which had 9 vehicles parked in the back yard recently? It's been bad for weeks/months, but 9 vehicles was a new record, so I took this photo yesterday.

If this is "broken windows policing", then I'm not a fan. These vehicles are not directly harming anything, so why waste taxpayer money on monitoring? I'd much rather have somebody driving around listening for obnoxious noises to track down, so they don't rattle my home windows.  The local noise pollution wears down the mind.  Why doesn't government spend this money instead on monitoring the powerful for stolen wages, missed taxes, or abused authority?

After my experience as a 54-year-old man being arrested at a homeless encampment facing eviction, I can sympathize with this 78-year-old woman arrested for feeding the homeless. There is also video of her arrest and her speaking about it.  Why is this happening? Is it really just religion? What breeds this contempt for humanity?  Seriously, why is this happening?

Why are people voting into office the representatives who make these laws and regulations? Why is anyone using their power in this world to enable such awful things like criminalizing poverty?  Our lives could be better.

Comments

[geowench]

Because it's your fault. If you are homeless or poor or in ill-health, it's YOUR fault. Legacy or our puritan heritage, or something. I really think this idea that bad luck is a sign of your own poor management/decisions is a big reason why our gvt doesn't try to solve problems like hunger and homelessness. Because those people deserve it. And those in power or who have more $ are there because they also deserve it and/or are in god's favor.
(Just to be clear, this is NOT how I think, but I do genuinely think it is part of the whole criminalizing poverty mentality.)

[mellowtigger]

Yes. I should've thought of this influence. A decade ago, it was already obvious that an entire political party wanted everyone to think we are just "temporarily embarrassed millionaires". I think this mindset pairs quite well with neoliberal prosperity theology.

"Neoliberalism claims that we are best served by maximum market freedom and minimum intervention by the state. The role of government should be confined to creating and defending markets, protecting private property and defending the realm. All other functions are better discharged by private enterprise, which will be prompted by the profit motive to supply essential services."
- "How the neoliberals stitched up the wealth of nations for themselves", The Guardian, 2007 Aug 27

Essential. Profit. That's how we got where we are. Now we have to find a way to change the human psychology of why we got here.