Only Suckers Pay Their Way

I paraphrase, of course. Though, judging by this piece in the San Francisco Standard, not by much:

Or, my activist lifestyle should be subsidised by others, the less important.

Ah, that community spirit, a triumph of fairness over selfishness, in a city of good people. Good people who steal as a matter of routine. Because when it comes to paying their way, well, they’d rather not.

Behold the moral clarity of Our Betters. The unwavering righteousness.

You see, stiffing others with the bill, the cost of you getting from A to B, is the very measure of politeness. It’s altruistic fare-dodging. Another terribly progressive innovation.

As one might imagine, this modish, habitual freeloading, now estimated at 20% of users, possibly higher, has had certain consequences, including the alienation of many paying customers. Say, those not impressed by orange-vested climate activists who repeatedly screw the law-abiding, and the taxpayer, while applauding themselves for their belief that “Muni should be free.”

Left unchallenged or actively reinforced, the disregard for paying bills may of course spill into other areas of life, and losses from municipal parking garages are also mentioned as a “concern.” The fiscal state of the San Francisco Municipal Transportation Agency is described by insiders as “incredibly dire,” with a deficit projected to rise from a mere $15 million to a rather more impressive $322 million.

Rafael Mandelman, the chair of the San Francisco County Transportation Authority, is one of those concerned, though more by the election of Donald Trump, and the consequently dimmed prospects of further federal bailouts, than by the culture of fare-dodging among the network’s own supposed customers. Suggested solutions to these economic woes include taxing ride-share companies, parcel taxes, increased parking charges, and bake sales.

Action of a sort is, belatedly, being taken:

However, this being San Francisco, an uphill struggle is expected:

Ms Malan, whose progressive charisma can be viewed here, is, she says, “working smarter, not harder.”

@theedoodlebop Suddenly im having the best day of my life ! #sanfrancisco #sf #hotweatherhacks #fypシ゚ #missionsf #goldengatepark #sanfranciscobayarea ♬ original sound – Tasha 🧍🏻

Again, good people, Giving It To The Man. Or at least, giving it to those unhip, fare-paying suckers.

Ms Malan, a self-styled “artist,” was later caught fare-dodging by the aforementioned fare enforcement officers, or Muni cops, and given a $130 citation – an indignity Ms Malan describes, quite vehemently, as “bullshit.”

@theedoodlebop FINE yall win this time😔 #sf #sanfrancisco ♬ original sound – Tasha 🧍🏻

It’s worth noting that the replies to Ms Malan’s fare-dodging dramas are almost entirely sympathetic. Her admirers applaud her recreational mooching, a measure of hipness, and offer tips on doing the same. “Best way to live,” says one. “God, I love this city,” adds a likeminded bint. “It’s a simple and beautiful life,” says another. Albeit a life based on exploiting, and sneering at, those more honest. The ones being left to pick up the tab.

Other attempts at fare enforcement have, inevitably, resulted in hair-trigger accusations of “racism,” presumably on grounds that Magical Brownness entitles those so endowed to an indefinite exemption from normal proprieties.

Readers may recall our previous visits to the world of glamorised fare-dodging – for instance, in Washington DC, where progressive commuters, including lecturers, lawyers and screenwriters, aired their “exhausted rage,” not at the rapidly growing number of freeloaders eroding social trust and bankrupting the transport network, but at those careless enough to notice such things.

Because noticing routine and shameless thievery is apparently much worse than indulging in it. And certainly more likely to result in opprobrium.

Some will doubtless recall Ms Claudia Balducci, a scrupulously progressive woman responsible for Seattle’s public transport network, and who, when faced with evidence that up to 70% of passengers are now fare-dodging with impunity, replied:

Which, we’re to believe, is progress. An achievement unlocked.

Oh, and we mustn’t forget this feat of Bay Area ingenuity, complete with magic cardboard and public masturbators.

Update, via the comments:

Responding to this rather convenient excuse,

Clam replies, not unfairly,

Given the nature of public infrastructure and its bureaucracy, and given the city’s pronounced progressive leanings, I don’t doubt that the transportation system may be suboptimally conceived and suboptimally implemented. But as we noted recently, rules and systems can only do so much, and whether a system works, or works to some extent, will also depend on compliance and enforcement, on human capital, the quality of its inputs, its users.

And it’s not obvious how any system that one might realistically devise could function adequately if subjected to large enough numbers of people much like our “artist,” Ms Tasha Malan, or the activist with the banana, or the research associate who excuses her habitual freeloading as being “like a San Francisco thing, I guess.”

The weight of shitty, selfish people is not to be underestimated.

Update 2:

Regarding the self-satisfied justifications for being a selfish bum, a – dare I say it – parasite – commenter [+] adds,

Well, yes. And I’m not sure how a struggling transport system can overcome the prevalence of such attitudes, unless the people running it are willing to add some serious Find Out to all the Fucking About. And I suspect that wouldn’t be regarded as “a San Francisco thing,” man.

It’s also, I think, worth pondering how those announcing their habitual freeloading, even boasting of it, don’t seem to regard themselves as being in any way uncivilised or morally questionable. 

As if their behaviour – their choices, made repeatedly – couldn’t possibly indicate something untoward or unsavoury. Something warranting shame. Perhaps they assume that “working for a climate nonprofit,” or being a “research associate for a Google-owned subsidiary,” or just living in San Francisco, a progressive Mecca, makes them a good person. An unassailable being.

It seems to me that political attitudes are to a very large extent downstream of personality and psychology, the kind of person you are. Say, the kind of adult, statusfully employed, who will make the kind of noises more typically expected from thick, delinquent teenagers. And if your super-progressive city has attracted a lot of shitty, self-entitled narcissists, the morally juvenile, creatures like Ms Malan, well, things will tend to degrade.

Whether the degradation can be reversed without addressing the underlying psychology, those shitty personalities, I leave to the reader. 

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