Golden State Opportunity

San Francisco—Set against the sycamore trees in the Civic Center Plaza there was a wino encampment. Disheveled men lay about wrapped in dirty blankets. “San Francisco is a great city to be homeless at because they’ll take care of you,” a black policeman told me as he climbed onto his motorcycle. “Give you a meal anytime. They come here from all over the world.”

A visitor from a distant land might nonetheless conclude that civic pride was not among the city’s virtues. In fact, the values of the regnant liberal culture (epitomized by the word “compassion”) are in direct conflict with civic virtue as traditionally understood—that is the problem. From down the street leaflets were blowing and loudspeakers were echoing. You could hear the sound that all Americans have come to recognize over the last quartercentury—the angry cawing of left-wing demonstrators, their harangues reverberating off nearby buildings.

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Tom Bethell

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San Francisco—Set against the sycamore trees in the Civic Center Plaza there was a wino encampment. Disheveled men lay about wrapped in dirty blankets. “San Francisco is a great city to be homeless at because they’ll take care of you,” a black policeman told me as he climbed onto his motorcycle. “Give you a meal anytime. They come here from all over the world.”

A visitor from a distant land might nonetheless conclude that civic pride was not among the city’s virtues. In fact, the values of the regnant liberal culture (epitomized by the word “compassion”) are in direct conflict with civic virtue as traditionally understood—that is the problem. From down the street leaflets were blowing and loudspeakers were echoing. You could hear the sound that all Americans have come to recognize over the last quartercentury—the angry cawing of left-wing demonstrators, their harangues reverberating off nearby buildings.