Previous post
Every Rose has its thorn; and for the city of Portland, progressive policies have been a thorny mess.
The Pacific Northwest has been a place for the offbeat, the quirky, the “free-thinking” Bohemian-types who wear Birkenstocks with socks, drive sticker-covered Subarus, spend their paychecks at REI and worship the mountains (when they do come out on a sunny day). The people of the Pacific Northwest have become characatures of themselves (see Portlandia).
When you think of the people of Portland, you think of quirky, flannel-donning, beanie-wearing residents who just love anything “liberal”. If you took one glance at homeschool mom, Tara Faul, you would think she is part of the group of people who voted for the policies that made Portland the pit of despair that it truly is.
Faul is not. She and her family bought a house in Portland. She has watched, as the city disintegrated into the filthy, crime-ridden mess that is is. And, she is documenting its demise. She is on X, under the handle, Garbage Ghost:
"Multnomah County passes resolution for immediate ceasefire in Gaza"
And we have to pay these circus monkey commissioners for their performance https://t.co/UJ36beaJwv
— garbage GHOST Tara Faul⚡️ (@cocainemichelle) March 8, 2024
Faul about had it when a man with a machete came waltzing through her neighborhood while her children were playing outside. Just another day in the life in Portlandia for some. Some of the progressives who voted for the liberal policies that have been the downfall of Portland have since left. In fact, some left the minute their cars were being vandalized. Faul is a moderate. And while Faul eyes Zillow, she remains in the city.
It was making me angry, and I would come home mad all the time or just despairing. So I was like, ‘You know what? I’m going to try to make this into an art form.'”-Tara Faul
Why a wall of smattered poop is an art-form is beyond me. But, Faul is making a statement that many, in her shoes, are afraid to make and for that I give her props. In fact, the sanitary conditions have been so lacking in Portland that Shigella cases have been recorded:
It’s not just the poop-ridden streets and buildings smeared with human feces, alleyways and parking lots in Portland proper. Tara Faul has also documented the sad state of open drug use on the city streets. Now, the rocket scientists are rethinking Ballot Measure 110.
What do you mean really smoking fent/tranq on the streets of PDX is not a good idea?
Opioid overdoses have surged across the state since Measure 110 passed. In 2019, 280 people died from unintentional opiate overdoses in Oregon. In 2022, that was up to 956 deaths, according to the state health authority – a 241% increase.”–Conrad Wilson, NPR
But…
A number of “researchers” have said there isn’t evidence that Measure 110 is the cause.
As the liberals who came up with this junk still profess from their ivory towers. (I, for one, hope some cracked-out addict smears this tower with all the crap they can muster from a pile from Skidmore Street.)
Oregon Governor, Tina Kotek, plans to sign legislation to make drug use/possession a criminal act again, bit is it too little, too late?
Living outside of Seattle, I can attest to the demise our I-5 corridor cities have experienced. The festering rot has made its way up from San Francisco. In fact, for the first time in what seems like decades, I was in Seattle last weekend navigating a landmine of human poop myself. (Lucky me.) My son saw live-action fentanyl usage going down near Westlake Center as we drove by. For the first time, I questioned whether or not I should carry NARCAN in my glove compartment should one of my loved ones come into contact with deadly fentanyl. The darkness, the depression and the general feeling of despair is ever-present. People seem miserable. Even the liberals sending their kids to AntiFa summer camp are miserable and they don’t even know how miserable they are.
Take this and magnify it tenfold, a hundredfold even, and you have Portland. Portland, a city once known for its restaurants, bars and shopping is largely avoided by all across the political spectrum. Even the most liberal of the liberal who don’t live in Portla
nd avoid Portland like the plague these days. They don’t want to be in the middle of a street riot. They don’t want to see the ongoing misery of homeless, sick, drug-addicted people. They, all about their “inclusion” and “safe places”, don’t want themselves or their loved ones to feel…
… unsafe.
Tara Faul is shining light where the news and social media aren’t. They want us in darkness. Portland’s rose is black, dead and moldy with questions of whether it will ever bloom again.
Featured image via coffee on Pixabay, cropped and modified, Pixabay license
Cameron says: Portland’s rose is black, dead and moldy with questions of whether it will ever bloom again.
It can. But there are a lot of very harsh measures that have to be taken. And until Portland residents get tired of living in squalor, it will never change.
370H55V I/me/mine says: Back in 1975 the Midwest Research Institute in Kansas City did a ranking metro areas on quality of life by various metrics including crime, education, housing cost, employment opportunities, etc. Portland came in first, and Minneapolis-St. Paul (where I was living at the time) fifth.
While individual rankings are subjective, the evidence clearly showed the I-5 belt between Bellingham, WA and Medford, OR, and the I-94 belt between Madison, WI and the Twin Cities came out on top. Imagine that. Heh.
Blackwing1 says: Just like in Minnesota, Oregon has vast swathes of federally-owned forest land. I’m thinking that if you’re actually going to get SERIOUS about stopping crime, rather than just the lip-service that they’re currently giving it, they could use that resource.
Set up nice gulags for convicted violent criminals, where they would first camp out over summer while building their own barracks out of timber “locally-harvested for sustainability”. They’d also install their own trip wires and boundary fences. Once fall hits they’d be out in the snow harvesting by hand (also “sustainably”) timber for market. Let them plant gardens by hand (once again, “sustainable”) and harvest and can their own vegetables and fruits. The simple equation to be used on those who refuse to work is that the state would refuse to feed them. The camps should be as self-sustaining as possible to minimize costs, and guards frequently rotated to avoid corruption and abuse, with the only major expense being citizen oversight.
After a while you could use forest details as punishment…sitting politely in a classroom and actually learning something might start to look like a much better deal than spending 10 hours a day swinging an axe or pushing/pulling a crosscut saw in the snow, cold and wet. Discipline would be harshly imposed…anybody acting up in class is simply sentenced to additional hard labor in the forest. Attacking a guard should be a capital offense, with a summary court followed by summary execution.
But the “graduates” of such a course of correction would have the opportunity to realize that working for a living in an ordinary job is a *snap* compared to life in the camp, and some small percentage of them might actually turn their life around.
No doubt somebody would refer to this as “cruel and unusual punishment”, but considering that the Founders came from a culture where torture and capital punishment like drawing-and-quartering were NOT considered cruel and unusual, they’d be wrong.
You could clean up every major city in the US within a year by implementing this tomorrow, but it will never be done…because none of the collectivist/statist/authoritarians in either the Dem-wing or Rep-wing want to tip over their apple carts. They’d much rather see anarchy and the end of rule-of-law so that they can implement their own tyrannies.
Luke says: I am a lifelong Oregonian, and lived in Portland from the late 1960’s up until 5 years ago give or take. While I appreciate what Tara is doing, in the end it is fruitless and she will bring nothing but pain to herself and her family. Why insist on documenting things that we all see, knowing that the majority will only be upset with you?
My advice is to move to West Linn or Lake Oswego. My wife and I found a condo in a beautiful neighborhood with relatively low HOA and buy in cost. Great schools, clean streets and neighborhoods, and best of all residents that are normal and civilized. I am no prude, and had done pretty much everything by the age of 25. So I am not talking from a place of inexperience when it comes to drugs and alcohol. But eventually you want an orderly existence, and that is pretty much gone in Portland now unless you are wealthy.
4 Comments