I don't drive at all. Gave my car away on 9-12, have not driven one since, and in SF/Bay Area I don't need one (or want one, I know people who pay almost as much to park their car as they do in rent, which is not cheep either, and that's not even counting the $4.50 a gallon gas and the $5-7 bridge tolls), and walking and biking are good for me in many ways. I am aware that for some reason - perhaps some social scientist could do a study, on how and why so many Walter Middy and Pollyanna types get behind the wheel and become some sort of cross between Rambo and the Incredible Hulk. That car seems to change personality almost like a drug. Very strange. But not unknown or unique either. The same people will often react the same way if you give them a gun and make them a security guard. (Cops tend not to be like this, perhaps they are that way all the time, and the shift is not perceptible, or the screening process is different.)
And I know we are kind of agreeing, in part. The real issue is the root of violence, and if the level of violence is cultural, social, or genetic or ... (most likely) ... some combination of all those in a murky soup where the actual levels are hard to determine.
And I'm not even going to argue that all violence is bad. It may well be tragic, but often its the only solution. And there is a third choice to fight or flight, and its that frozen like a deer in the headlights deal, which is the worst of all possible worlds.
And SF is very polite, that might be socio-economic as its income standards are pretty high (as is the education level that seems to accompany higher incomes) and rich people don't get into bar brawls at the country club at the same rate that fights break out in poorer bars. I've had people tell me that they think it's the climate (which sort of trips me out, as the people in the real Mediterranean Climate - Italy, Spain, Greece, Egypt, Turkey, Israel - are not exactly noted for being even tempered compared to the more Northern Climates.) Or perhaps all the pot stores, opps, excuse me, dispensaries for medical marijuana, have everyone mellow to the point of coma. I've always thought that the diversity thing plays into it, though I'm not sure how. I know I've never seen a fight at a gay bar, or at the Opera or ballet.
And MuniMetro is bad during commute times, sort of, but no match for the #38 Stockton bus, known in town as "the Orient Express," where little Chinese women half my size have body checked me out of the door like it was the Stanley Cup playoffs.
Your first sentence lapses toward a debate-point type ploy. We're not doing Froensics here are we?
Ah, I might not go to church or believe anymore, but other aspects of a classical and classic Jesuit education seem harder to shake.
