Breakdown In Civil Order

[Jarhyn]

I wonder at those who fail to care about everyone's rights, all at the same time.

As if I should have to pick and choose whose rights to care about; the very nature of rights is that they belong to everyone or no one.

Everyone deserves a right to a home in the society that called them, without their consent, from the void so as to exist. If nobody can or should prevent that, then everyone has to live with the consequences of doing and allowing it by providing for those they do it to.

This is the very first and most important obligation we as humans have, and we earn this obligation by doing the things that create more people.

If people really want to do something about the consequences of it rather than merely moral grandstanding, they will seek to mitigate harms of their policies to enable and encourage the creation of humans to the maximum possible extent; they will not seek to create winners and losers, but to make everyone a winner.

If people don't want camps in public places, they ought make good places to camp, for those who must camp, and acceptable places for those who do not need to camp, and acceptable places for them to acquire and use drugs that they need to use, and places for those who want to use less/no drugs, and mailing addresses + reading/writing rooms for those who need it.

Is it going to cost us some effort? Of course. There are plenty of people who would do all the hard work there, so long as the money was there to support them for doing it! All we have to do is sacrifice some of the resources we already have.

This, like all the things that conservatives balk at, is something that will yield no direct salable output. There is no "growth" to be had or "profit" other than actually rebuilding the social order. There's just people at the bottom of society being mostly caught and kept from falling through the cracks, or at least cared about and for as they do because we know humans will fairly universally seek for help when they themselves start slipping.

 

[TSwizzle]

Which citizen's rights are you worried about?

All citizens rights matter, and we will stand and fall together on the strength of our willingness to defend the rights of all of our neighbors. {snip}

Which citizen’s rights are you worried about in particular?

 

[Politesse]

Which citizen's rights are you worried about?

All citizens rights matter, and we will stand and fall together on the strength of our willingness to defend the rights of all of our neighbors. {snip}

Which citizen’s rights are you worried about in particular?

What are you trying to catch me out, or something? I meant what I wrote. Yes, you are also a citizen, deserving of all the rights and responsibilities of your other countrymen. And if you understood what all of them are -- and aren't --you'd be better off.

 

[bilby]

The Supreme Court cleared the way for cities to enforce bans on homeless people sleeping outside in public places on Friday

News

Hopefully this will force the likes of LA mayor Karen Bass to dismantle these homeless encampments.

And then what? After you've unlawfully detained people without charges for long periods and stolen such property as they have, where should they go?

Why don't you invite them to come live at your house?

Because I live in a very tiny apartment. I have hosted homeless families in the past, and it's not as horrifying an experience as you seem to be imagining.

That said, if random people voluntarily opening up their homes were going to be a viable solution to the macrosocial problem of 650,000 unhoused Americans, the problem would already be solved. The vast majority of people are not willing to do anything of the sort, so it is not a solution at scale.

Can you imagine any reason why the vast majority of people are not willing to open up their homes to complete strangers? Can you think of any risks associated with such an action that many people might very reasonably be unwilling to take?

Of course it's not a reasonable solution. But neither is just letting homeless people camp on sidewalks and inhibit the daily lives of everyone else. There shouldn't be anything objectionable to recognizing that having a whole camp of homeless people setting up shop in public places is a problem.

Public places are public.

You are essentially saying that you (and, you rather insultingly presume, we) feel more entitlement to those spaces than anyone who has nowhere else to go; You feel that as it is reasonable not to want homeless people in your private space, it is therefore also reasonable not to want them in your public spaces, either.

The problem being that these are not your spaces to begin with, and your opinion about who else should be allowed there is consequently entirely a you problem. You are being greedy and entitled, by wanting public spaces to be reserved exclusively for you, and for people you approve of.

Well, tough shit - homeless people are members of the public too, and can occupy public spaces if they wish - and they will; Particularly if they have no other options.

 

[bilby]

One might think that you are invested in protecting the right of homeless citizens to camp in public spaces

I can't speak for @Politesse, but I certainly am.

and use drugs in the open

Homeless people are not all drug users; and homelessness and drug addiction are two completely different problems.

a bit more than you're concerned about the right of all other citizens to have access to clean and safe public spaces free of drug needles and trash.

If your problem is with drug addicts discarding needles, then crack down on drug addicts discarding needles. If your problem is with littering, then crack down on littering.

Collective punishment is abhorrent and immoral. You should not be evicted because your neighbour is delinquent on his rent; Why should a homeless person be moved on because his neighbour is littering, or discarding dirty sharps in unsafe ways?

 

[TSwizzle]

Which citizen's rights are you worried about?

All citizens rights matter, and we will stand and fall together on the strength of our willingness to defend the rights of all of our neighbors. {snip}

Which citizen’s rights are you worried about in particular?

What are you trying to catch me out, or something?

Catch you out? No, not at all. I’m asking you what rights you are worried about in particular because you didn’t address the question.

 

[Politesse]

Which citizen's rights are you worried about?

All citizens rights matter, and we will stand and fall together on the strength of our willingness to defend the rights of all of our neighbors. {snip}

Which citizen’s rights are you worried about in particular?

What are you trying to catch me out, or something?

Catch you out? No, not at all. I’m asking you what rights you are worried about in particular because you didn’t address the question.

I did. As plainly as I can. Either all of our rights are guaranteed, or we are being picked off demographic by demographic. There is no one I am willing to exclude from consideration, because every exclusion is a wound to civil society that is harder to fix than to inflict.

 

[TSwizzle]

Just in the last month in Santa Monica, FOX 11 has reported on a 73-year-old woman who was pushed over on Ocean Front Walk, two tourists who were stabbed on the Third Street Promenade, and a woman grabbed by the ponytail and dragged towards a bathroom. All of the arrested suspects were homeless.

News

This is what happens when the “homeless” are allowed camp on the sidewalk.

 

[ZiprHead]

This is what happens when the “homeless” are allowed camp on the sidewalk.

How does a sidewalk make someone dangerous?

 

[Politesse]

Just in the last month in Santa Monica, FOX 11 has reported on a 73-year-old woman who was pushed over on Ocean Front Walk, two tourists who were stabbed on the Third Street Promenade, and a woman grabbed by the ponytail and dragged towards a bathroom. All of the arrested suspects were homeless.

News

This is what happens when the “homeless” are allowed camp on the sidewalk.

You're arguing that the assailants were all camping on a sidewalk at the time, and that this was the motivation for their crimes? Or are you seriously misdiagnosong the problem and thus advocating for "solutions" that would make the problem worse rather than better?

 

[bilby]

Just in the last month in Santa Monica, FOX 11 has reported on a 73-year-old woman who was pushed over on Ocean Front Walk, two tourists who were stabbed on the Third Street Promenade, and a woman grabbed by the ponytail and dragged towards a bathroom. All of the arrested suspects were homeless.

News

This is what happens when the “homeless” are allowed camp on the sidewalk.

If all the arrested suspects in these three crimes were black, would that be a justification to drive all the niggers out of town?

If all the arrested suspects were male, would you be calling for men to be prohibited from public places?

Advocating collective punishment, or even implying collective guilt, for all people who share an irrelevant characteristic with three criminals is despicable, and you should be deeply ashamed of yourself (as should the staff of Fox11).

 

[TSwizzle]

Residents of an apartment building in Santa Monica say they have been terrorized by a man who walks around completely nude at all hours of the day and night and worry someone could get hurt if the behavior escalates. People living at an apartment complex on 20thStreet near Pico Boulevard say it’s bad enough that the male resident walks around naked at all hours of the day, but what’s worse is the harassment and racism they face in addition to his screaming obscenities and continually trashing his apartment. Another female resident, who did not want to be identified, said the man often screams racial slurs at her and has walked into her apartment. “He’s called me slave, B-word, N-word,” she told KTLA’s Mary Beth McDade. “He told me he’s going to kill me.”

News

We really are living in an open air psychiatric ward.

 

[bilby]

Residents of an apartment building in Santa Monica say they have been terrorized by a man who walks around completely nude at all hours of the day and night and worry someone could get hurt if the behavior escalates. People living at an apartment complex on 20thStreet near Pico Boulevard say it’s bad enough that the male resident walks around naked at all hours of the day, but what’s worse is the harassment and racism they face in addition to his screaming obscenities and continually trashing his apartment. Another female resident, who did not want to be identified, said the man often screams racial slurs at her and has walked into her apartment. “He’s called me slave, B-word, N-word,” she told KTLA’s Mary Beth McDade. “He told me he’s going to kill me.”

News

We really are living in an open air psychiatric ward.

That would appear to be a mental health issue, not a homelessness issue.

I presume that you have consistently voted for tax increases to pay for mental health care services, and for politicians whose platform includes more spending on such services?

Or have you created this problem by your lack of support for the mentally ill, and now want to blame a hated minority for the consequences of your own political actions (or inactions)?

 

[Politesse]

Residents of an apartment building in Santa Monica say they have been terrorized by a man who walks around completely nude at all hours of the day and night and worry someone could get hurt if the behavior escalates. People living at an apartment complex on 20thStreet near Pico Boulevard say it’s bad enough that the male resident walks around naked at all hours of the day, but what’s worse is the harassment and racism they face in addition to his screaming obscenities and continually trashing his apartment. Another female resident, who did not want to be identified, said the man often screams racial slurs at her and has walked into her apartment. “He’s called me slave, B-word, N-word,” she told KTLA’s Mary Beth McDade. “He told me he’s going to kill me.”

News

We really are living in an open air psychiatric ward.

And who is trying to expand access to mental health services? As near as I can tell, both of our political parties have abandoned the very concept of caring for adults with mental health challenges. So what do you expect is going to happen? If no services are available, it becomes the common citizen's problem to solve. The libertarian dream, yes? You and me, the old lady down the street. If there is no government, it's just up to us. But people don't like seeing the receipts for their heartless previous decision-making, so they essentialize the consequences of abandoning healthcare as the actions of "bad people" coming from "somewhere else", or the "other party's fault", rather than owning up to and doing something concrete about the problems we need to address.

 

[Derec]

One of the thugs who murdered the 68 year old New Zealand woman in Newport Beach was convicted of a robbery in 2023. And yet, he was already out, despite having had previous felony convictions as well. Too many violent criminals get slaps on the wrist by these fauxgressive prosecutors and judges.

3 charged with murder after tourist killed in Newport Beach; suspects eligible for death penalty: DA

Three men have been charged with murder and other offenses in connection with the death of a tourist from New Zealand who was fatally run over during an attempted robbery at Newport Beach's Fashion Island mall, prosecutors said Friday.
Leroy Ernest Joseph McCrary, 26, of Los Angeles, Malachi Eddward Darnell, 18, of Los Angeles, and Jaden Cunningham, 18, of Lancaster, "are eligible for the death penalty if they are convicted of the special circumstances murder of 68-year-old Patricia McKay in the commission of a robbery with a felony enhancement of causing the death of an elder over the age of 65," the Orange County District attorney's office said in a news release.
In addition to the special circumstances murder charge, McCrary has been charged with one felony count of attempted second-degree robbery, and one felony count of evading while driving recklessly. McCrary has prior felony convictions for residential burglary in 2018, criminal threats in 2020, and robbery in 2023, all in Los Angeles County, the statement said.
[...]
According to police and prosecutors, Darnell and Cunningham, both wearing masks, approached McKay and her husband as they were walking outside the Barnes & Noble store at Fashion Island.
One of the suspects put a gun to the head of McKay's 69-year-old husband and demanded his watch as they forced him to the ground, prosecutors said. When they were unable to get the watch, the suspects allegedly turned their attention to McKay, who was holding multiple shopping bags.
Cunningham is accused of dragging McKay into the street in front of a getaway car being driven by McCrary.
According to the DA's office, McKay's husband jumped in front of the vehicle in an effort to protect his wife, but McCrary, with Darnell back in the vehicle, accelerated and forced the husband out of the way, then ran over McKay, trapping her under the vehicle and dragging her 65 feet.

Had McCrary been in prison where he belonged for the 2023 robbery conviction (with priors for burglary and making criminal threats), maybe this murder would not have happened. Note that these previous felonies happened in LA County, where the fauxgressive George Gascon is making a mockery of the District Attorney's office.

 

[TSwizzle]

Note that these previous felonies happened in LA County, where the fauxgressive George Gascon is making a mockery of the District Attorney's office.

Gascon’s days are numbered. He will be booted out in November.

 

[Loren Pechtel]

I wonder at those who fail to care about everyone's rights, all at the same time.

As if I should have to pick and choose whose rights to care about; the very nature of rights is that they belong to everyone or no one.

Quibble--there are some edge cases.

If people really want to do something about the consequences of it rather than merely moral grandstanding, they will seek to mitigate harms of their policies to enable and encourage the creation of humans to the maximum possible extent; they will not seek to create winners and losers, but to make everyone a winner.

You can't have a society where everyone is a winner. Such a society would inherently not reward effort and that would be a very bad thing.

Rather, we should be aiming to prevent anyone from losing too badly.

If people don't want camps in public places, they ought make good places to camp, for those who must camp, and acceptable places for those who do not need to camp, and acceptable places for them to acquire and use drugs that they need to use, and places for those who want to use less/no drugs, and mailing addresses + reading/writing rooms for those who need it.

1) You have the same problem we have with the wilderness--too much camping causes problems. That's why most of the most popular things have lotteries for permits. You want to climb Mt. Whitney (highest in the 48 states) you pay I believe $6 for your lottery entry, you get to put down a range of possibilities. You're in the draw for each date you put down but can only be drawn once. If you're drawn you pay a certain amount per person (the original is for the entry, it can have up to I believe 12 people on it) to actually get your permit. There are only a certain number per day. Camping by the homeless has the same issue.

2) All too often the homeless are disruptive. Nobody should be blocking a pathway, whether it's for vehicles or pedestrians. And they most certainly should not be blocking it with something that doesn't know to get out of the way.

3) As for addresses--Italy has a system of fictitious streets. It wasn't created for the homeless, but rather for those who didn't have an address because of the nature of their job. (Something that's pretty much a non-issue these days, although there are a few people with travel heavy jobs who would see so little use of a residence they choose not to have one.) I'd like to see that brought here and expanded. Every post office gets a fictitious street, anyone can "move" to said street and will be issued the next available number on it. This becomes a valid address, they can get an ID with it and they can take that ID to the post office and get mail that was sent to that address. (Expanding upon the general delivery that already exists. While the terms vary you can generally send mail to a person, general delivery, city. It goes to the post office, you show your ID to claim it. Back in the stone age when snail mail was it we picked up mail in a lot of cities of the world that way.)

This, like all the things that conservatives balk at, is something that will yield no direct salable output. There is no "growth" to be had or "profit" other than actually rebuilding the social order. There's just people at the bottom of society being mostly caught and kept from falling through the cracks, or at least cared about and for as they do because we know humans will fairly universally seek for help when they themselves start slipping.

All too many of the conservatives want the unfortunates to disappear.

 

[Loren Pechtel]

a bit more than you're concerned about the right of all other citizens to have access to clean and safe public spaces free of drug needles and trash.

If your problem is with drug addicts discarding needles, then crack down on drug addicts discarding needles. If your problem is with littering, then crack down on littering.

Collective punishment is abhorrent and immoral. You should not be evicted because your neighbour is delinquent on his rent; Why should a homeless person be moved on because his neighbour is littering, or discarding dirty sharps in unsafe ways?

The problem is attempting to crack down on the undesired behavior is never successful. There's also the problem that deterrence from criminal acts doesn't work very well on those whose focus is on their next fix.

You can reduce the needle problem by providing injection sites, but in doing so you create a focal point of people desperate for their next fix and thus a place most people want to remain well away from.

I do not have good answers but your answer is simplistic and won't work in the real world.

 

[Loren Pechtel]

Just in the last month in Santa Monica, FOX 11 has reported on a 73-year-old woman who was pushed over on Ocean Front Walk, two tourists who were stabbed on the Third Street Promenade, and a woman grabbed by the ponytail and dragged towards a bathroom. All of the arrested suspects were homeless.

News

This is what happens when the “homeless” are allowed camp on the sidewalk.

What is the relevance of camping on the sidewalk?

I don't trust Faux reporting but I would be very surprised if the true relevant factor is all of them were mentally ill.

Mental illness is a problem often without a good fix. Even when there's a "treatment" regime that "works" it often causes considerable unpleasantness and therefore non-compliance.

 

[bilby]

a bit more than you're concerned about the right of all other citizens to have access to clean and safe public spaces free of drug needles and trash.

If your problem is with drug addicts discarding needles, then crack down on drug addicts discarding needles. If your problem is with littering, then crack down on littering.

Collective punishment is abhorrent and immoral. You should not be evicted because your neighbour is delinquent on his rent; Why should a homeless person be moved on because his neighbour is littering, or discarding dirty sharps in unsafe ways?

The problem is attempting to crack down on the undesired behavior is never successful. There's also the problem that deterrence from criminal acts doesn't work very well on those whose focus is on their next fix.

Yes, that is a problem. But it's a problem of drug addicts, not a problem of homeless people.

You can reduce the needle problem by providing injection sites, but in doing so you create a focal point of people desperate for their next fix and thus a place most people want to remain well away from.

Again, a problem; And again not a problem caused by homeless people, but by drug addicts.

I do not have good answers but your answer is simplistic and won't work in the real world.

My answer is to target the people who are causing the problem, rather than targeting a different group of people.

That's not "simplistic"; I expect it to be difficult and only partly effective. But it is an absolute certainty that targeting people because they are homeless, without giving a moment's consideration to whether or not they are also drug addicts, will both be less effective in reducing the scale of the problem, AND will create an additional, unnecessary, easily avoidable and inhumane problem - the punishment of people who are in no way associated with the original problem.

If you want to find a simplistic approach here, it is to be seen in the demands of people who treat homelessness as synonymous with drug addiction, littering, and mental illness, because it's easier to identify and harrass homeless people than it is to identify, discourage, or assist people in one or more of the latter three groups.