Portland as bum Mecca

Is Portland really a Mecca for bums?

Created on Wednesday, 15 September 2010 17:00 | Written by Jim Speirs |

My View • Local tolerance for vagrants leaves Rose City visitors uneasy, unhappy

by: Christopher Onstott, A group of street musicians play outside Pioneer Courthouse, technically in a zone off limits to sidewalk sitting. Visitors to Portland complain that the city’s street culture can be aggravating and threatening. Others point proudly to the city’s tolerant makeup.

Regarding Peter Korn’s ‘Would Rudy Giuliani put up with this?’ (Sept. 9), my daughter was visiting Portland from San Diego last July. She has not lived in Portland for more than 12 years, so she eagerly desired a walk in the historic, relaxing and quaint downtown center.

What she/we found was shocking: On two occasions we witnessed men openly urinating in public, needles being passed from person to person, and a feeling of being overrun by filth and garbage. There was not a block that we walked that didn’t have dozens of aggressive, obnoxious and smelly panhandlers demanding money.

As she texted her friends in San Diego, telling them of her sadness at seeing what Portland had become, she made eye contact with a bum who stopped her. She recognized him from San Diego, saying this guy and his friends were people who used to sit on the streets of Ocean Beach (a San Diego beach community) and try and bum money when my daughter and her work associates would go for a lunchtime walk.

She struck up a conversation with the man, asking how long he’d been in Portland and why he and his friends were in this city. He answered by saying that Portland had a great reputation for tolerance and actually helped the vagrants to conduct a wide range of illegal activities. He stated that police could do little, and everyone in the growing homeless community was letting friends from other states know what pushovers the elected officials in the city were.

The man sounded moderately educated when he rattled off a list of handouts and benefits provided by the city that actually promoted homelessness, which were never offered in other cities.

He laughed out loud when my daughter asked him if he wanted to return to San Diego. ‘Why,’ he replied, ‘when Portland invites people here to live off the taxpayers?’ Then, saying something like, ‘Who wants to live in a place that enforces laws? No, Portland is the place to stay, no police, and absolutely stupid politicians!’

He hesitated before concluding with, ‘Hey, can you believe it – they’re actually going to build places for us to live; this is Mecca for the nation’s bums.’

My daughter shook her head when he asked her if that information was worth a buck.

In San Diego a few years ago, city leaders and the business community started a campaign against homelessness that included the following component: Taking a cue from the National Parks that often post signs saying ‘Please don’t feed the bears,’ many businesses in Ocean Beach have posted stickers saying, ‘Please don’t feed our bums!’

That activity – plus elected officials who actually care for their citizens and strict law enforcement – allows a person to walk for miles in the heart of that city and never witness anything close to what we see in a one-block area of Portland.

What Giuliani did speaks for itself. What our elected officials do also speaks volumes. In Portland, bums and addicts rule the streets, and in City Hall, their cabal of associates ‘aid and abet’ in the commission of crimes against Portland.

Jim Speirs is a fourth-generation North Portland resident, former instructor at Portland Community College and, for the past six years, the historical editor for the St. Johns Review.

-Some may wonder what this article has to do with the blog, but personal responsibility is what I’m all about. I lived in Portland for a number of years and now live in Boise, ID and I am not sorry for the move. In Portland wherever you go you are assaulted by scumbags that never truly realized that the party was over and will spend the rest of their pathetic existence polluting taxpayer funded property and urinating/shitting on front lawns. Portland has gotten a nationwide reputation as a place that feels sorry for idiots who hate work and clog streets with their filth. 

We aren’t talking about the mentally ill, we are talking about people, most of whom never served in the military and never thought ahead to a better life. I do not make pablum puking left wing excuses for this trash and I could give a damn about their myriad addictions. The bottom line is that there cannot be a Government agency to take care of every need free of charge! We, the working people, made good decisions and others did not, that is what personal responsibility is all about! I don’t give a damn about how their mommies and daddies treated them, I had shitty parents. The difference between me and a bum is that I chose to be responsible instead of blame everyone else for my misfortune. 

There are no good solutions to this that doesn’t involve some asshole like Steven Spielberg, Jimmy Carter or George Clooney who’s only richie answer is to pawn it off onto the middle class working public. The middle class is still trying to recover from the banking recession caused by the Wall Streeters, ( Righties ), and still struggles to get to the point when they can retire. I, myself, give to charities that help real people in need such as the mentally ill and have no time for stinking hobo nonsense. Don’t get me wrong, I am no Republican, just a Common Sensican who can see that personal responsibility is no longer important to impart to our children. I, for one, still teach my children my Grandmother’s old refrain of “Sure you can skip school or not go to college, as long as you can support yourself out of my home on a burger flipper’s salary.” Hard lessons for a hard world. Lefty coddling created these problems along with Righty greed. The Left tells you that you can take alllll the time you want to find yourself, and if you don’t want to go to college, than that’s OK. The Right takes advantage of the situation and steals all of everyone elses share of the money while the Left basks in ‘Choices’ that make no common sense. We live in a country where the public school system is one of the worst of any industrialized nation and both Liberals and Conservatives just sit on their hands! 

This is a shared thing, and if we are to get back to a semblance of personal accountability, then people need to move towards the middle of the political spectrum and get some sense.

Stupid Dog, he’s just a BOUNTY HUNTER!!!

Hello all of you Cheeto-staind fingered computer geeks!

I was just reading the story on the Communist News Network about the genetic aberration who possibly procreated with the Wal-Marter that he killed along with her oldest child(RIP to the child). The jerkoff, a Mr. Mayes something Wal-Marty, seemed creepy and subhuman in all photos. He also fit the profile of a trailer-bound talking ape. The Thomas Kinkade-loving simpleton mom of course thought that this idiot would be quality peeps to mix faulty genetic material with. The two kidnapped girls that he took look normal enough so the jury’s out on him being the donor yet! Said Jagoff kills mom and older daughter and goes on a tour of the Deliverance landscape with the two young girls.

The story ends happily with a bullet ripping the top of this asshole’s head off to expose the peanut inside. Usually these pieces of shit have to shoot themeselves in the asshole to actually cause brain damage but I guess this jerk had different physiology from the typical cousin-fucker. AAAAnyway! The veritable plethora of quiz kids that inhabit this region of Mississippi were all thanking the great cosmic Kim Jong Il, the ‘Dear Leader’ that they think visits them and delivers Easter eggs, for keeping these kids safe and granting a favorable outcome!

Well here I go! Pretend that I am Arnold Horshack behind the other Sweathogs, raising my hand high to ask Mr.Kotter a question, (fuck you if you are lost on the reference). Why did ‘Gawd’ fuck with them in the first place!? Was this another example of his devine plan to convince us all that ‘He’ exists? I would say that it was a good example of what happens when society thinks that licencing heavy machinery operators is more logical than licencing parents! GOOOD had nothing to do with it I’m quite sure! This is just a prime example of mixing shallow gene pools! Adding god just makes these idiots seem even more incredibly defective!

Arnold Horshack gone now, lets be straight. What people attribute to god, normal, thinking scientific folks would call psychological abuse! Thats right GOOOOD is the king of abusive parents in the cosmic scheme of it all! If this was your mother she would be being brought up on charges of extreme cruelty and child abuse! Reasoning would state that we find a way to regulate parents without Orwelling their asses but keep checks and balances on them to keep heathen C.H.U.Ds from having children! Life and liberty are RIGHTS! Child abuse is NOT a RIGHT! An all inclusive bill of rights would include a clause to protect future generations from the god-fearing crazies of the Earth.

Thank you SWAT for making this jackass feel that he needed to spare the taxpayer the burden of looking at his ugly face on (snicker) ‘Death Row.’ what a joke of a name, and thank you Flying Spagetti Monster for keeping the girls safe in your noodly appendage. God was too busy letting some other little child watch his parent being bludgeoned to death by a crazy shitbag! Thanks fer yer time and as we optimists say, “as long as you look the other way, I will steal your beer and the glass will remain half-full.’

Response to the…

Response to the anti-choice folks out there in cyberville. We are just a collection of cells that, like shit, are only stacked so high. This includes both inside AND outside the uterus! We must, as a people, do something to stem the tide of overpopulation because when ( quotation sound with fingers ), OUR LORD does take his followers home there won’t be enough clouds for all of them and then Heaven will have to deal with a homeless population!

I wonder if it would effect us unwashed non-believers ‘Left Behind,’  if that many folks urinated off of the side of the clouds or even dropped the ol’ deuce once a day?! Imagine being hit by a speeding celestial piece of shit as you were taking posession of your non-fat latte from the coffee hut! Steps people, we need to take steps!

Seriously though, I know that some folks like Angie Jackson are better at explaining things in a more, how would you say, utilitarian format? Facts, timelines, and no bullshit, just what is needed and no more!  I, on the other hand, DO tend to explain things with a few more pleasantries but do not in any way diminish the expertise of Angie’s literary scalpel. She tends to wade into a subject as a physician to surgery. She opens it up, analyzes it and excises the cancer from it’s innards! I LIKE IT! I thrive on the debate and love to see the illogical squirm in their seats when confronted with an opinion that cannot be refuted or the author’s mind swayed! We all know that Ant-Choice and Christianity cannot be supported unless you strip individual freedom and go back to dancing around the campfire invoking the Allmighty Celestial Kim Jong Il, the Dear Leader of the theist.

I will return very soon to follow up with a bit more juicy fact instead of rant oh theist dogs of Pavlov! So continue waiting until the bell rings again. Until then, go forth non-believers and leave us alone all ye faithful!