City subreddits are pretty trash as is, unmasking just how unbelievably cruel and evil some people are whenever the topic of homeless people crops up. But of all the active subreddits for my city, the main one, /r/Portland, is tame. (/r/askportland is SURPRISINGLY kind, with the occasional evil piece of shit passing through.)
I thought /r/PortlandOR was evil—it’s all but an explicit hate sub—but I found an even worse one. Behold, a pale horse: /r/PortlandCriddlers.
(“Criddle” is a slang term in the meth community around here—it means stealing, or more specifically, at least how I understand it, rifling through someone’s shit with the intention of stealing, i.e. ”Someone criddled my tent”.)
I would not be surprised if someone has posted photos of me or my friends, and I’m honestly afraid to look. It would not surprise me either, if whoever tried to pepper spray me a couple months ago is subscribed to this sub. The language used to refer to homeless people is dehumanizing and disgusting and it borders on incitement. But what’s really funny is I distinctly remember getting someone permabanned by reporting a post that used very similar language. I know Reddit is a cesspool and you don’t care but it takes like a minute to report a couple posts for “hate” or “threatening violence.” And it will do something to curb the growing trend of violence committed against homeless people. A drop in the bucket, but still. It will also be kinda funny to own these motherfuckers.
A Modest Proposal
For preventing the children of poor people in Ireland, from being a burden on their parents or country, and for making them beneficial to the publick
Author: Jonathan Swift
…
I am assured by our merchants, that a boy or a girl, before twelve years old, is no saleable commodity, and even when they come to this age, they will not yield above three pounds, or three pounds and half a crown at most, on the exchange; which cannot turn to account either to the parents or kingdom, the charge of nutriments and rags having been at least four times that value.
I shall now therefore humbly propose my own thoughts, which I hope will not be liable to the least objection.
I have been assured by a very knowing American of my acquaintance in London, that a young healthy child well nursed, is, at a year old, a most delicious nourishing and wholesome food, whether stewed, roasted, baked, or boiled; and I make no doubt that it will equally serve in a fricasee, or a ragoust.
I do therefore humbly offer it to publick consideration, that of the hundred and twenty thousand children, already computed, twenty thousand may be reserved for breed, whereof only one fourth part to be males; which is more than we allow to sheep, black cattle, or swine, and my reason is, that these children are seldom the fruits of marriage, a circumstance not much regarded by our savages, therefore, one male will be sufficient to serve four females. That the remaining hundred thousand may, at a year old, be offered in sale to the persons of quality and fortune, through the kingdom, always advising the mother to let them suck plentifully in the last month, so as to render them plump, and fat for a good table. A child will make two dishes at an entertainment for friends, and when the family dines alone, the fore or hind quarter will make a reasonable dish, and seasoned with a little pepper or salt, will be very good boiled on the fourth day, especially in winter.
I have reckoned upon a medium, that a child just born will weigh 12 pounds, and in a solar year, if tolerably nursed, encreaseth to 28 pounds.
I grant this food will be somewhat dear, and therefore very proper for landlords, who, as they have already devoured most of the parents, seem to have the best title to the children.
Infant’s flesh will be in season throughout the year, but more plentiful in March, and a little before and after; for we are told by a grave author, an eminent French physician, that fish being a prolifick dyet, there are more children born in Roman Catholick countries about nine months after Lent, than at any other season; therefore, reckoning a year after Lent, the markets will be more glutted than usual, because the number of Popish infants, is at least three to one in this kingdom, and therefore it will have one other collateral advantage, by lessening the number of Papists among us.
…