One of the most glaring facts about left-wing governance is that it simultaneously imposes huge costs in money and freedom on law-abiding citizens while subsidizing and enabling lawlessness and decline among the people most inclined to break the law, degrade society, and ruin things for everybody else.
The incentives are totally backward.
Here is the tree code: https://t.co/Ugv3hNDf3o
A tip of the hat to @keegan_tweets for inspiring me to look up these rules.
— Mary Katharine Ham (@mkhammer) September 3, 2026
The city of Seattle has a municipal tree code that is almost 10K words long. It has a system of 4 tiers outlining what can be cut. If you want to cut trees in Seattle, you must apply to the city to be an approved provider and prove mandated insurance. If you want to cut them on your own property, you have to hire registered removers. All these law-abiding people are subject to civil penalties if not permitted, insured, and in compliance. I’m sure the tree removal here is on the up-and-up, though. And if not, I’m sure the rules will be enforced.
Mary Katherine Ham pointed to this reality and the practical effects in Seattle.
No doubt, if you drive through a neighborhood filled with homeowners anywhere in Seattle, you will see the results of the enforcement of draconian rules placed on property owners. Anyone who owns a home knows that if they stray too far outside the boundaries of the laws, rules, regulations, and permitting process, they can face legal consequences, including fines.
In some cases, you can even lose your home, although thankfully for most of us, that is an edge case. My wife keeps a sharp eye out for things that could catch the eye of a city inspector, and every year we get some sort of notice or other about trimming weeds that grow up at the edge of the alley, or we spend money getting trees trimmed, using one of the city-licensed tree firms.
We have a friend in the tree removal and trimming business, but we couldn’t use her because the City of Minneapolis licenses firms to do the work, and she declined to deal with all the rules and regulations, so her firm works in the suburbs.
Seattle’s tree regulations span 10,000 words, but they only apply to people whom the city chooses to enforce them on. Homeless people create disaster zones filled with trash, needles, dangerous fires, and all sorts of other hazards, and when they want to expand their disaster zone by chopping down trees, the city looks the other way.
Rules for thee, but not for the people who ruin everything they touch.
If anybody had a yard that looks anything remotely like that homeless encampment, they would be fined out of existence. But when homeless people do it, it’s celebrated as “urban camping.” Money pours in from the city and NGOs to keep everything going, and the result is a city that is both expensive to live in and that is declining around you.
These are the practical effects of liberal governance, and while it is all justified by language couched in terms that evoke sympathy, it’s the results that matter, not the guttural noises emitted by politicians who are feeding the homeless industrial complex.
When liberals see the dump these people are creating, their hearts melt and they volunteer more of their own and your money to keep it up, believing they are “helping.” They aren’t. We spend billions upon billions on the homeless, and the problem gets worse, not better, and the number of homeless people living in squalor keeps going up.
What they are doing is subsidizing NGOs and bureaucrats who profit off the suffering and decline, and hollowing out their city and destroying civilization.
Get ready for more liberals to get into office, and more of the same after November.
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