I have to admit that there is some truth to your statement.
I did that once, too.
I’m still … not entirely okay.
Yep just to reiterate:
- No-one claimed that San Francisco is crime-free; the point was that Maher was repeating a completely false republican talking point about the legality of shoplifting
- California is far from the highest-crime state and San Francisco is far from the highest-crime city, in a country in which crime is falling significantly. Spreading this kind of anecdote absent that context is also buying into a misleading narrative. Incidentally, from the linked article:
Way back in 1991, Joe Mantegna hosted Saturday Night Live and one skit featured him playing a character appearing on a talk radio show to downplay the cities crime problems. One caller said something about looking a man in the eyes before he mugged her and Mategna replied with something like, “You made eye contact? What did you expect to happen?” blaming her for what happened. I couldn’t help but think of that skit when I read your post.
Speaking of missing context, the section of the article you left out is:
but vehicles with busted windows and sprinkles of broken glass remain a common sight in the city. Visitors and residents are constantly reminded to remove valuables from parked cars.
It was advice Schiff neglected to follow.
In August, the city’s police chief announced a crackdown on fighting auto smash-and-grabs
which may have to do with why the break in rate has fallen in recent months (although, per the presumably inadvertent phrasing of that sentence, we might expect it to go up instead).
Regarding your first point, I’d argue that Maher is repeating a talking point about the criminality, rather than legality, of shoplifting. Nobody disputes that shoplifting remains illegal in SF. It’s just that fuck-all was being done about it. This may be changing - I haven’t been compiling statistics but I feel like I’ve been seeing more security guards at big stores like Target and Safeway over the past year, and they seem to more often be armed.
Missed the edit window…
California also does have at least one law - the “locked door loophole”, that most likely amplifies this type of property crime by making it harder to prosecute. These are the types of policies that deserve (and are finally getting) scrutiny. Obviously this law applies to all of California (and SF is not the only city with break in problems), but other policies are SF-specific. For example, during and immediately post-pandemic, the local criminal justice system decreased its conviction rate and increased dismissal or diversion. Whether or not this is a better overall outcome is a separate discussion, but in conjunction with the high recidivism rate for property crime (also mentioned in the article), it added to the feeling that there were no consequences for nonviolent criminality.
My experience is that in the past six months my coworkers’ car has been broken into twice while in the parking lot at work. In both cases, despite security footage available, no arrests were made and I doubt the police put any priority on it, so my coworker just had to pay for replacement windows. An aside from the main topic being discussed to paint a picture of my overall experience, I recently called homeless services to remove a man from blocking my apartment’s narrow entryway where he was standing staring through the door’s window night-to-morning for three nights straight (my neighbor felt threatened after he tried to ring his way in late on the third night), only for him to return at dawn and wake me up by screaming and pounding on our front door for half an hour. This time we called the police who drove up, asked him to pipe down, and drove away. He then accosted me later in the day, which underscores a common complaint among SF residents that when all social services options are exhausted, problems remain. Both my apartment and my workplace are in average neighborhoods in terms of income and safety. I have no idea if this type of thing is normal in other cities because this is the first time I’ve lived within central city bounds (my LA experience was in one of the large adjacent cities), but it’s certainly different that anywhere I’ve lived before and sometimes feel absurd.
I continue to maintain that SF is overall a great city and I’d rather worry about getting my car broken into than being mugged or murdered. It also seems to be getting significantly better since the height of the pandemic, when I really felt like broken glass was everywhere. If we could keep the low violent crime rate while also reducing property crime (which seems to be the trend) it would be even better.
That’s not “missing context”; that’s the whole point of the article. The article is trying to depict SF as rife with vehicular crime, and makes numerous fact-free statements like the one above.
A statement made, indeed, in an attempt to handwave the only bit of actual data in the article (apart from the Schiff anecdote); that reported car crimes have dropped by two-thirds in less than 2 years.
Bill Maher’s exact words: “when normal people read that san francisco has basically legalized shoplifting they think democrats have gone nuts”
Now, the “read” part is because he was alluding to a WSJ article, but he continued on as if it were undisputed truth.
I didn’t see a positive thread on Bill Maher, so I’m just going to add this here.
Maher’s “New Rule” this week was excellent; highlighting the issue of Democrats bending over backwards to try to appear fair, while Republicans piss all over such congeniality at the same time as they appear on RW media complaining of unfairness.
I’ve seen several people point out this issue recently but Maher’s summary is one of the very best I’ve seen
Maher’s actually been banging that drum for a number of years now. He’s been complaining the Democrats wont’ cut loose like the Republicans out of some midguided effort to maintain decorum.
Thank you for an even-handed and positive take in a thread in which bashing Bill Maher from all directions seems to be fashionable.
I’ll add that last Friday’s show was also excellent. The panel featured Frank Bruni, an author, New York Times contributing writer, and professor at Duke, and Douglas Murray, a British author and a notable conservative commentator. Although Murray has been criticized for some of his ideology, even of you don’t agree with him he brings a reasoned intellectual perspective to the issues.
That aside, Maher once again hits it out of the park with another great “New Rules” segment, this one where Maher rightfully skewers the media for being more interested in clicks and sensationalism than in actually delivering accurate and informative news:
And now back to your regularly scheduled “Bill Maher defending perverts and predators” content;
You’re just bashing on a sexual predator because it’s “fashionable” aren’t you?
I rather suspected that the haters might not be able to resist seeing positive things said about Maher, so this sort of backlash would likely be just a matter of time. Not that long, apparently. 
I don’t see what your point is because, of course, you don’t have one. I’ve been clear again and again that there are things that Maher has said on his show that he should be criticized for, but that the show overall has value and elicits informative discussions from interesting and knowledgeable guests. That’s it, no more and no less. And there were some good examples just above that I’m sure you ignored in your quest for whatever the fuck it is you’re questing for.
In particular, you ignored some lengthy and thoughtful comments Maher recently made on his show on Democrats’ apparent lack of spine, and about the failure of media to live up to the journalistic standards a democracy is entitled to expect of them. Instead, you think it’s a big deal that Maher said – on some podcast that wasn’t even his own show – that “people have done so much worse things [than Louis CK] and gotten less [punishment for it]”.
I don’t particularly like Louis CK and have no particular reason to support him, but what Maher said strikes me as a balanced statement. The Zoom masturbator Jeffrey Toobin has been back on CNN for a while and offering insightful comment. Not everything is black and white, not everyone is irredeemable. So you know what? Fuck off with your sanctimony.
If I ever need someone to block the only way out of the room I’m in and make me watch him jerk off without my consent, I’ll give Louis CK a call.
If I want standup comedy or political insight, there are plenty of people out there who are funnier, smarter, and capable of keeping their dick in their pants and smart enough not to make excuses for or engage in whataboutism about it.
Fuck celebrities who think their fame means they can get away with being sexual predators and fuck anyone who defends them over it.
This is becoming, if not already is, this,
The guy’s a serial sexual assaulter and the most you can say is you “don’t particularly like” him.
Your bar is so low it might as well be underground. No wonder you are mystified that people dislike Maher.
First of all you’re misunderstanding my meaning. I know very little about Louis CK and am not passing judgment on his moral character one way or the other, I just meant that I don’t particularly like his style of comedy.
Secondly, though I refuse to be baited into defending him or worse, getting into yet another pointless digression here, applying hyperbolic labels like “serial sexual assaulter” or “sexual predator” in this sort of situation (you’ve used both terms) simply dilutes the meaning of the terms. Those terms apply to people like Harvey Weinstein who will probably be in prison for the rest of his life. What this guy did is properly termed “sexual misconduct” and, for better or worse (and I personally couldn’t care less one way or the other) he’s made a comeback with the support of many major entertainers.
Maher was just throwing out an offhand comment that sometimes people deserve second chances. You know who’s done far worse things than Louis CK and gotten less punishment for it? Donald J. Trump, to name one. Is Bill Maher wrong?
So to get back on topic, my view is that Bill Maher is often deliberately provocative and can be annoyingly smug and has some stupid beliefs, but also has a many good insights and, most importantly, is able to attract some very knowledgeable guests from both sides of the political spectrum and stimulate good discussions with them. I find many of those discussions informative and entertaining. I think those who hate Bill Maher so much that they refuse to watch are missing out, but that’s just my opinion and is certainly their choice to make. I assure you I’m not getting any royalties from Maher.
Make up your fucking mind.
I at least read the Wikipedia entry on him. Did you? That’s what I know about him – the basics, but nothing in-depth.
Assholes like you with content-free drive-by “gotchas” that just waste time are what drive people to the “ignore” button. Fuck off, you’re a useless waste of space.
Look at the people he chooses to defend - Louis CK, Woody Allen, Al Franken, Bill Clinton, Andrew Cuomo, Hugh Hefner, and so on.
Why do you suppose he spends so much time worrying about rich white men who’ve been caught preying on women?