A little respect for the perceived "enemy."

I think that I am solidly in favor of homeless people in Sacramento having much, much better lives.

But, there are some people who lay claim to being more, more, more on the side of homeless people than is even possible!  These are the super-animated homeless advocates! The homeless allies with a booster rocket! The homeless-people lovers that will concede nothing to any rival advocates whom they see as weak-willed and mamby, pamby. The Super Duper Homeless Advocates are staunch! strong! powerful! uncompromising! They see every issue as having only one dimension, THEIR SIDE! THEIR VIEW OF THINGS!

For the Dupers, only THEIR one-dimensional understanding of homeless people and the homeless circumstance is valid. Only their takes on what all should be done to save the homeless is doable and good enough. In the Dupers' eyes, homeless people are sainted, the very focus of all that Jesus wanted for man (and woman- ) kind.

The Super Duper homeless advocates decry homeowners who say they see homeless people trash their neighborhood or defecate on  their lawn or dig through their trash containers. The Super Dupers view the homeowners as "heartless haters," and mean-spirited dehumanizers that should be understood to be "the enemy."

At issue here is NIMBY, an abbreviation for Not In My Back Yard. The term Nimby also applies to people who object -- often in a very animated manner -- to people and projects and buildings and whatnot that come into their neighborhood that might lower their property values or lessen  tranquility in the neighborhood.

Nimby
/' nimbe/
noun

a person who objects to the siting of something perceived as unpleasant or potentially dangerous in their own neighborhood, such as a landfill or hazardous wate facility, expecially while raising no such objections to similar developments elsewhere.

A potential irony here is that if homeless people really get their lives straightened around -- getting  jobs and apartments and homes and happiness -- THEY would then rise to a point of being on the lookout for projects or people or circumstances that could disrupt their solid, peaceful lives. And when a new batch of homeless people come along with an approved project of creating a Tent City nearby, that could create discord, with the happy old-school no-longer-homeless people being disapproving of the new bunch of invading homeless people.

People tend to be agile at defending what they have and ignorant of what other people don't have.

[A source for this post is a Facebook discussion group, and also memories of Safe Ground during its negatively eventful days during the John & Tracie administration.]