RUINING PEOPLE’S LIVES FOR SOCIAL POSITIONING:

There is nothing that the aspirational class will not use as fodder for competition. And since Neely’s murder there’s been a great competition online, among a certain species of liberals and leftists, to be the most unconcerned with instability in public places, to be the loudest voice saying that you could never be afraid of a mentally ill person, on the train or in the park or on the street. Well: congratulations. Congratulations to you.

It would be nice if they competed by doing worthwhile things, but it’s been set up so that that’s nearly impossible. Plus:

A movement that insists that homeless men ranting on the train should be seen as a regular and unproblematic part of life is, for one thing, a movement that hates mass transit – if you tell ordinary people that taking the subway or the bus means that they’re going to be exposed to chaos and instability, and they have no right to complain about it, then people will stop taking public transit, they’ll stop voting to fund public transit, and public transit will wither and die. I’m so, so proud of you for being the bravest boys and girls and feeling zero discomfort about homelessness, mental illness, and crime. But the normies care. They just do. And they outnumber you. More, that kind of oh-so-cool attitude will simply convince regular people that our movement doesn’t care about them and can’t be trusted to establish basic order.

Well, to be fair, it doesn’t, and it can’t.