Comedian Adam Carolla compares LA’s homeless problems with Seattle’s
Jun 30, 2018, 9:02 AM
(AP file)
Adam Carolla rarely hesitates to make his opinion known.
The comedian, who is appearing at Seattle’s Moore Theatre on Sept. 13, had quite a lot to say on Los Angeles’ homelessness crisis, striking upon more than a few similarities with Seattle’s problems.
“Our mayor, Eric Garcetti, announced a few years ago that it was his number-one priority,” Carolla told KIRO Radio’s Dori Monson. “And it’s gotten 10 times worse since then.”
Carolla compared this promise to a student declaring that algebra is their number-one priority, then bringing home Fs in math for the next two years.
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He has a plan, however. After all of the illegal immigrants have been sent home, Carolla wants to move the detention centers from the Texas-Mexico border to Los Angeles and use them as housing for the homeless.
“We’ll have one facility for them and one for their shopping carts filled with garbage,” Carolla laughed.
Like Seattle, Carolla has found that Californian cities tend to impose strong regulations on law-abiding citizens while letting homeless addicts get away with whatever they want. For instance, he has to jump through a series of hoops just to tear down a building on his property.
“The city will not sell me a permit to tear down my existing structure unless I put chain-link fencing around eight of these oak trees that aren’t even near where I’m working,” he said. “So that’s one end of the spectrum.”
On the other end of the spectrum, he said, an illegal immigrant can drive without a license or insurance and face no consequences.
“Are we a lawless society or are we over-regulated?” he said. “The answer is this: if you have money, then you’re over-regulated because you can cut them a check. If you have no money, you build your house wherever you like for free.”
A firm Capitalist, Carolla sees no way that Socialism can work. He compared giving handouts to freeloaders to bears that come sniffing around a dumpster.
“The people it harms the most are the people who get the most free stuff free stuff,” Carolla said. “That’s the irony.”
On the national stage, Carolla said that he has found both positives and negatives about President Trump.
“I like that he’s a cheerleader for this country, that part about him I do like,” Carolla said, but observed that “some of his tweets are a little out of hand.”
Carolla is good friends with people whose political views differ drastically from his own, such as comedian Jimmy Kimmel, but he said that politics have no effect on the friendship.
“We don’t sit around and argue about politics,” he said. “We enjoy the other 99.9 percent of life.”
Carolla will perform in Seattle on September 13, 2018 at the Moore Theatre.