The Telegraph has a harrowing story about life in 21st-century San Francisco.

By now we all know in our bones that the city is in deep trouble, but while we all know the statistics the reality of life in the deep Blue city can’t be captured by bare numbers.

🗣️ “He started approaching me and as he got closer, I put my arm up and said ‘I’m sorry I don’t have any change. He then stared and lunged at me.”

Christina Voyles shares her story of an assault in San Francisco that resulted in HIV preventative treatment https://t.co/XMAy9c2Zso

— Telegraph US (@TelegraphUS) August 30, 2023

Every city experiences violent crime, so in a sense, Christina Voyles’ story is merely one of many. What makes it shocking is the nature of the violent crime, which can be described as a result of a conscious decision made by city leaders to prioritize the needs of derelicts over those of its average citizens.

San Francisco plays an outsized role in the American consciousness. Renowned for its beauty and its cultural vibrancy, its major advantage has always been that it provides a unique quality of life. New York City is known as the city that never sleeps. Chicago has been known as the gritty midwestern economic powerhouse. San Francisco is the city of Chinatown, the Golden Gate Bridge, and the Victorian “painted ladies” and unconventional lifestyles.

Now, though, it is the city where you look down as you walk to avoid the poop, and you keep your head on a swivel to avoid mentally ill homeless people.

Christina’s life was forever altered by one of the latter.

One day, as Christina was having lunch outside, enjoying the good winter weather before heading back to work, she was the victim of an unprovoked attack by a homeless man.

“He started approaching me and as he got closer and closer, I put my arm up and said ‘I’m sorry I don’t have any change,” Christina explains. “He then stared and lunged at me.”

She remembers him grabbing her by her hair and scraping the inside of her mouth, as he threw her around: “I could not get him off, and I remember thinking I had to get away from this construction cement wall that was next to us because there was a corner and I was afraid he would knock me into it.”

“I was just screaming for help as he was dragging me around,” Christina adds.

After 10 to 20 seconds, which she says “felt like forever”, two construction workers managed to pull him from her. They then held him down while someone else called the police.

“The emergency services came and there was an ambulance for him that took him away, as he claimed he was having a heart attack.

Christina’s shock was an afterthought to the police, not because they were indifferent or cruel, but because the focus of the city was on coddling the homeless man. He was released from jail (he didn’t have a heart attack) shortly after the event, and despite a history of increasing violence he was put back on the streets to terrorize others.

Just another day in San Francisco.

You may not believe it, but San Francisco is not that dangerous a city compared to others plagued with violent crime. Its crime problem is focused on property crime, about which the city leaders seem indifferent.

But in some ways worse than the crime itself is the pervasive sense that the city is out of control, or rather in control of the deranged. People who live in the city because of its beauty and culture are now living in a dystopia of sorts, where civilization itself is collapsing. The city no longer exists for them; they are the tax base that subsidizes people who are simply incapable of living as civilized human beings because they are addicted to drugs or mentally ill.

San Francisco has become an insane asylum. Even people who never experienced crime directly are having their lives ruined by the destruction of what makes San Francisco a place worth living.

In the days that followed, Christina never stopped going to work, but she describes how she wasn’t coping very well: “I was jumpy, every little thing freaked me out.”

“I wanted information about him. I wanted a picture of him so I could recognise him if I saw him again. I ended up contacting the police department,” she explains.

Christina describes how they were really helpful, and provided her with a picture of the attacker and filled her in on what they knew about him.

“He was in his 60s and he was really well known to police as a homeless person who was becoming increasingly violent over the years.

“They also told me how he had just got out of jail a couple of days before and he’d already attacked somebody else,” Christina adds.

This is no way to live.

Liberals are correct when they argue that a wealthy society should invest resources in helping the destitute. Even in medieval times, when societies were as poor as dirt, efforts were made to ensure that nobody starved.

But no society can be run solely or primarily for the benefit of the destitute. The wealthier and happier a society is the more generous it can be, which means that the best way to help the helpless is to ensure the wealth and happiness of everybody else by ensuring that society functions well.

This is one of the reasons why socialism always breeds ugliness and despair and why people who prattle on incessantly about the needs of the downtrodden wind up creating places where everybody but the privileged few in charge, eventually, becomes downtrodden.

Joyfulness and generosity are intertwined. Places, like San Francisco, are losing their joy.

It’s sad and corrosive.