When you run a city on the values of (personal) truth, (social) justice, and the (anti) American way of life, there are bound to be consequences, no matter how hard you try to ignore them. That may include the spike in violence in New York City, the crime and homelessness throughout California, or the general collapse of Portland, Ore., on every front. For Seattle, it includes those things and a fentanyl crisis that is claiming lives at an alarming rate. The rate is so high that the King County Coroner is running out of places to store the bodies.
According to a report from KTTH, Dr. Faisal Kahn, Director of Seattle & King County Department of Public Health, stated that Dr. Faisal had said during a meeting of its board that the Medical Examiner’s Office was struggling to deal with the issue of storing bodies due to the rising number of fentanyl-related death. They are using the space on a regular basis because they have very limited storage space in their coolers.
This is part of the ongoing problems in the city with increasing homelessness and rampant crime.
Many people want to end their lives. The Pacific Northwest is a magnet for them. Rantz points out that the state has been insisting on not stigmatizing drug usage, fearing that it might discourage people from seeking treatment.
David Horsey, a cartoonist for the Seattle Times, claims that the tech boom has led to a decline in affordable housing. Horsey is referring to the way leaders refer to the homeless as “unhoused”, while “illicit economies and in need” are being used. ”
Horsey and Rantz note that fentanyl has been a very common drug among the homeless. It is often transported across the border by associates and cartels and then distributed throughout the country.
The “housed” population is even worse off. These encampments also reached playgrounds and fields.
Seattle refuses to admit that it has a problem or is sticking to its story.
The city was required to keep all information about its involvement in the incident. Zilly ruled that the municipality participated in CHAZ/CHOP directly by providing portable toilets, hand washing stations, and dumpsters for participants.
Also at issue is whether or not the city permitted the “right of access taking” by the rioters, which impacted local businesses. Seattle must also pay “attorneys’ fees for plaintiffs that demonstrated that city officials destroyed significant evidence regarding their decisions during the armed occupation of six blocks of the city by BLM and Antifa rioters, including their decision to abandon the Seattle Police Department’s East Precinct that led to the creation of the zone,” according to the Post Millennial. Zilly dismissed claims of violations of due process rights, negligence, property taken, and civil rights violations.
Affordable housing can definitely be a factor, but there are a large number of homeless people who have chosen to live their lives in this manner. And there are also people who choose to live in an antisocial manner, even under the banner of equity. And if your guiding principle is to reject anything that may remotely smack of conservative values because your attitude is “anything but,” you can bet people who value lawlessness will seek sanctuary in your city.
Performative progressivism, and progressivism in general, look good in terms of speeches and causes that tug at one’s heartstrings. In practice, however, these things lead to poverty, violence, social stagnation, and decay. And the productive citizens who make life possible soon decamp to places where life can go on unaffected by chaos. The large number of cars with California, Oregon, and Washington plates in my state would bear that out.
I would be tempted to paraphrase Frasier Crane’s “Goodnight Seattle, we love you” to “Goodbye Seattle, we loved you.” But Seattle is doing this to itself. Like a toddler standing among the pieces of a shattered Lego project throwing a tantrum that makes the neighbors close the windows, Seattle officials refuse to acknowledge that progressive policies have laid waste to a city, and, apparently, not many want whatever is left.
