I'll go for that debate

Reader Jeremy forwarded this article from an author who would like to challenge a red stater to a debate about how blue state communities are so superior to red staters. Here's a taste......

What if I were to trot out the irrefutable stats about, say, education levels, or teen pregnancy rates, or abortion? How about college graduation rates, marriage stability, or even adoption? What about general health? Obesity? What if I were to casually mention, with sufficient factual backup, how blue states tend to trounce nearly every red state across the board in these key markers?

First, his piece focuses on divorce rates, teen pregnancies and obesity as red stater's hypocritical "family values". That seems hilarious to me given that this guy is probably a proponent of teaching Sarah has two mommies in school. I thought blue state types agreed a long time ago that a nuclear family with a mom and a dad and children was so passe.

But he conveniently leaves out the other family values. How about violent crime? I'm thinking you're more apt to be raped, robbed and murdered on a San Francisco street than you ever will here in my nice community of "Redville".

Is homelessness a family value? I've been to San Francisco and let me give you an eye witness account of my time there. The pervasive smell of urine everywhere. I witnessed not one, not two, not three but four different people lifting trash can lids and eating out of the garbage. I saw a naked stoned dude near Golden Gate park shit himself before some cops finally arrested him. Speaking of Golden Gate Park. It's a beautiful park if you are able to get through the internment camps for the homeless.

Here's what Wiki has to say about Golden Gate Park......

The large chronic homeless population living in Golden Gate Park has often resulted in police "sweeps" aimed at clearing homeless encampments from the park. Some visitors and nearby residents argue that such encampments bring unsafe and unsanitary conditions, e.g. areas strewn with used needles and syringes, garbage, and human excrement.^[2] Critics of the crackdown on homeless encampments in the park argue that the situation has not worsened in recent years, and that campaigns against homeless people have often been undertaken by mayors of the city for symbolic, political reasons.^[3] In 2006, the American Civil Liberties Union brought a lawsuit against the city government on behalf of ten homeless people alleging property violations by the City during sweeps in Golden Gate Park the year before.^[4]

Now those are some wholesome "family values" we can all huddle around......... as long as you don't get poked by a syringe. But Mark is probably right. Most of these people probably aren't divorced or overweight.

To me, I would think that having a job would be a "family value". Anyone want to offer a wager as to the unemployment rate in blue urban counties over red suburban counties?

Or how about the welfare roles?

I'm thinking that red staters are fatter because we have less HIV running around the community. Do you really want to compare life expectancy of an average urban dweller to rural types when a black man is lucky to live to age thirty without a gunshot wound?

Pollution?

Congestion?

Tax rates?

Public Schools in urban areas?

Do you think our prisons are more populated with violent criminals from "Redville" or "Progress" City.

So Mark Morford I'm ready to have that talk about how wonderful life in "Progress" city is. Do you really want to go there?

Finally, I leave it to San Francisco Mayor Newsom on the quality of life in "Progress" City...........

It could soon be illegal to sit or lie on public sidewalks anywhere in San Francisco, a law Mayor Gavin Newsom says would make city life safer for pedestrians and merchants, but that homeless advocates and others say would amount to profiling against the poor.

Newsom will introduce two separate versions of a sit/lie law today at the Board of Supervisors. One version would prohibit sitting or lying on public sidewalks in about 20 commercial corridors throughout the city and is modeled on a similar law in Seattle that was upheld as constitutional by the U.S. Court of Appeals.

The other would prevent the behavior everywhere, including in residential neighborhoods, and is believed to be a first nationwide.

^{Yeah us unedumacated bumpkins out here in "Redville" always worry about some asshole sleeping in front of our house.}