As for illicit use of public space, you're technically correct.

But morally incorrect? Perhaps politically incorrect? :) I kid of course -- technically correct is probably the only kind of "correct" I care about.

 Personally, I think if the city were providing basic services to the homeless, it probably wouldn't be happening, and I don't care about the public space laws if the city can't do the right thing.  But I'm a bleeding heart lefty, I guess.

And I'm the libertarian type which says that the city is under no obligation to be providing "basic services" (i.e. food) to the homeless.

Welfare is an evil cycle of dependency, and that technically correct fact doesn't change no matter how good it might make bleeding heart lefties feel.

Memory is a strange bell, jubilee and knell.

"Welfare is an evil cycle of dependency, and that technically correct fact doesn't change..."

Really, Wetkarma, of all the things you could state as "fact"... At least admit that there is a debate over the efficacy of welfare. I mean, "evil" is a fairly subjective word for welfare, doncha' think?  Unless, of course, you're unhinged enough to really think that bleeding heart liberals like Colecanth (and myself) are actually trying to hurt people on purpose with welfare (I'm not! Colecanth... maybe, I don't know). With that one sentance you made your argument (fairly reasonable until this point) a radical and souless departure from reality.

Otherwise, yes, the Chamber of Commerce has no legal obligation to pay for anything they don't need to pay for (which is, as Colecanth said, different from having "no reason" at all to do so). I suppose in your perfect world, no one would ever help anyone else without an entirely selfish motive, and then the poor would all starve and die and then... yeah, I've never figured out the happy ending to that one. Sorry.

Meanwhile, we do agree that these "evil" people trying to feed starving people should get a permit, go elsewhere (or just give up on the human race),
{ k }

Well I'll give you a little anecdote from my life.  I am one of five siblings raised in the inner city.  My father hurt his back at work and was out of work for an extended time.  He lifted a barrel and popped a disk.  At the time my mom didn't work, she had a bunch of kids at home.  So while my dad collected some workman's compensation, we were still under the poverty line and received some welfare assistance.  As soon as all the kids were in school full time, my mom went to work as a home health aide , assisting alzheimers patients in their homes.  Eventually my dad quit that job he was never going to be lifting heavy things again, and he became a bartended for a while and then a truck driver.  As soon as we could afford to get off welfare we were off.  It was a matter of pride for my family.  The assistance was only welcome when it was really needed.  But when the bread winner goes down, it is damn good to have a safety net.  It was a transition.  But in the end it all worked out.  With both parents working we managed to get by.  

Now many of these homeless and hungry people could also have a situation.  Like I mentioned above.  Hurricane Katrina didn't just uproot families and destroy homes, they also destroyed businesses and killed peoples' careers.  Yeah there needs to be a welfare system to serve these good people and get them back on their feet.  Welfare does not make dependency, what makes dependency is not having a good paying job, a home etc.  After all, we are all dependent on that, on having an income.  Saying welfare creates an evil dependency, is in my opinion completely false.  Dependency is there because of the situation, not the solution.  Do some people abuse the welfare system?  Hell yeah.  Does welfare create that abuse?  No.  

As soon as we could afford to get off welfare we were off.  It was a matter of pride for my family.

The welfare haters don't want people to know that your story is more typical than not. Even before welfare reform, most people who go on assistance are off within 24 months. It's important to make a distinction between the typical welfare recipient, like your family, and the hard cases who spend years and even decades on assistance but nuance isn't very popular.

It's also important to make a distinction between dealing with the acute symptoms of homelessness and its chronic causes. Does it make sense to deny an obese person medical treatment for a heart attack? After all, defibrillation isn't going to treat their obesity. Most people would see that you need to take a two pronged approach, treat the immediate problem immediately and the overarching problem in the longer term.

Cloud, I don't disagree with you that there are more problems and they all need addressing.  The "anti-welfare" crowd appear to take the reform approach that is "throw out the baby with the bath water" and make assumptions like welfare causes dependence on welfare that is not truly a cause and effect relationship.  The causes of dependency and abuse of Welfare is not its existence.  The reform that many have advocated to get people off the cycle of welfare and make them go to work is correct in spirit, it seeks to optimize a person to achieve a higher condition of self sufficiency.  That being said, there are some who will require assistance all their lives.  And there are many who will abuse it without a second thought.  Hey, free money!

When I went to high school, I wore a lot of hand me down ripped old clothes and cheap sneakers.  My family was not rich, and we were not on any assistance program at that time.  Some of my classmates lived in the housing projects not far from where I lived.  They had $100 sneakers and always wore the latest (expensive) fashions and gold chains.  Their mothers didn't work.  Their fathers well who knows who their fathers were.  I knew kinda what was up.  And I also knew people who valued the welfare check more than having a career or a job.  Welfare mothers who get weekly manicures and pedicures, lounge around all day eating ho-hos and laughing all the way to the bank.  Scam artists.  When I saw these things first hand it made me so angry and in favor of meaningful welfare reform. These people did not deserve welfare.  I remember hearing about the old days, where you couldn't get any assistance if you owned a TV, a radio or a refrigerator.  You had to sell that stuff to make an argument that you were destitute.  See the film Cinderella Man for an example.  

Anyway, it is "easy" by comparison to get assistance these days.  That being said, I don't think we need to let people become absolutely destitute before providing assistance.  Welfare reform should single out the lazy and the scam artists, but should not punish the truly needy running into hard times.  

To quote Wikipedia:

In most cultures, the word is used to describe acts, thoughts, and ideas which are thought to (either directly or causally) bring about affliction and death --the opposite of goodness, which itself refers to aspects which are life-affirming, peaceful, and constructive. Aspects regarded as "evil" are thought of as immoral, corrupt, corrupting, inhumane, selfish, wicked, and terroristic.

Welfare promotes a cycle of dependency which cripples people from achieving their full potential. By giving things which have value away for free, you incent people to behave in a manner where the goods in question do not have to be earned. If you can grok why park rangers tell you not feed wild animals, then you should grok why government has no business engaging in what Coelcanth advocates -- it is the creation of a bottomless money pit.

Only in the last two decades as the Welfare "free for all" system has been dismantled/reformed has successful social progress been made. The effects that liberalism sought from the creation of the welfare system have only begun to occur now that that system has been dismantled.

And here we have Coelcanth advocating the exact same policy approach that destroyed thousands of lives in America because it would make his lefty heart feel good.

Yea..thats fucking evil.

Memory is a strange bell, jubilee and knell.

Only in the last two decades as the Welfare "free for all" system has been dismantled/reformed has successful social progress been made.

That's simply bullshit.  "Social progress" actually did happen before Clinton signed the Welfare reform act (which was less that two decades ago).

The Welfare Reform Act includes many ways of making people disappear from their statistics.

As someone who has recieved welfare in many forms, let me tell you it hasn't "destroyed my life" or "kept me from my potential".  It has "fed my family during a terrible illness" and "kept us from using emergency rooms for basic care".

You libertarians are assholes.  Every single fucking one of you is a jackass who has never truly known want and yet thinks you will always be able to pull yourself up by your bootstraps.  You've been lucky, and think it means you are strong, smart and resourceful.  Go to hell.

...Dwayne was hoping that he would pay exactly the right amount of attention to Francine's clitoris.

"Social progress" actually did happen before Clinton signed the Welfare reform act...

I wonder what you mean by "social progress." Since the topic is welfare, then it's probably safe to assume that you meant some variation of "a reduction in poverty." (Please correct me[1] if I am mistaken.)

Since you have claimed that inherent to Clinton's welfare reform were measures to "making people disappear from their statistics," I won't bother looking up welfare statistics, and instead examine poverty statistics . I have prepared a simple graph (source data is here) to illustrate two trends of poverty over the last quarter century. As you can see, poverty was on the decline during the early 60s, and that trend continued, more or less at the same rate, for several years after the Johnson Administration's "war on poverty." After that we do not see any dramatic changes to the overall poverty rate, although the rate for families headed by women rose substantially from 1980 through 1983. The rates for the two sets then trend together (up a little, down a little, no significant change overall) until...lo and behold! Welfare reform helped the poor!

I'm being facetious, of course. I don't think either the war on poverty or welfare reform had much of an effect on aggregate "social progress," nor do I think there was ever any good reason to expect any such effects. You, I think, would disagree, and I'd love to hear the reasons for that disagreement.

There are also other ways to measure poverty. I chose the ones above because they are broad measures and easy to understand. Homelessness of the sort that might benefit (at least in the short-term) from someone providing food in a public park almost certainly doesn't comprise families. We could look, for instance, at statistics of the very poor and bemoan the lack of progress, as those numbers[2] do not trend the same as families in poverty. We could also examine the trend in near poor and see good news, but, again, the figures do not indicate that the 1996 welfare reform had much of an effect at all, and certainly had no negative effect.

1. Given the overall context of this discussion, i.e., homelessness, it is unfortunate that there are no good data on US homelessness over time. There are only a couple (so far as I know) decent surveys done on homeless Americans, but the statistics from those studies are mostly misrepresented by homeless advocacy groups. (There are also the homeless advocates who simply lie, pulling numbers out of thin air, and who are abetted by lazy, sensational, or ideological journalists.)

2. One of the problems with the poverty data is that there were new methodologies put into place beginning in 1980.

As someone who has recieved welfare in many forms, let me tell you it hasn't "destroyed my life" or "kept me from my potential".  It has "fed my family during a terrible illness" and "kept us from using emergency rooms for basic care".

Your point is a good one.

If I had known you then, I would have wanted to help you as well.

I am a small government Libertarian. I think people should be compassionate and help each other when needed and whenever it is possible.

For me, Libertarianism has little to do with wanting the government to not tax my "riches" (of which I have none) but more to do with wanting less governmental interference in my life in general.

I think government usually manages to screw up acts of good work in the private sector (this write-up is case in point.) In your case, maml, they managed to not screw it up, and kudos to them and to you. I am glad things clearly got better for you.  

 

If I had known you then, I would have wanted to help you as well.

You pay taxes, right?  Thanks for your help.

...Dwayne was hoping that he would pay exactly the right amount of attention to Francine's clitoris.

"You pay taxes, right?"

Actually, no. I hide my riches in an off-shore bank account.

But I would have bought you a sandwich. And maybe invited you over.

And here we have Coelcanth advocating the exact same policy approach that destroyed thousands of lives in America because it would make his lefty heart feel good.

Actually, I wasn't offering an opinion on the welfare system in general, only on providing minimal sustenance to the most down and out of our population.  But run with it, if you like.

Actually, make that Goddamn Right!  The welfare cycle IS evil and not only hurts the folks that get it, but it also creates despondency in the people who support it. I am so fucking sick of folks who can do just fine on their own sucking off of the public teat.

http://www.corporations.org/welfare/

If we could just end this horrible cycle of abuse, then maybe the average citizen would have more resources to support the organizations that could really help the homeless.

It's the end of the world as we know it, and I feel fine

Lou? I think I love you.

That is all,
{ k }

I understand and appreciate the libertarian argument in general, but find it hard to support in this specific case.  

As to welfare being a cycle of dependence, I tend to agree.  Welfare-to-work programs have had some success.  But for those at the absolute bottom, I'd assert that there is no way to get off the bottom (e.g., get a job) if you don't have food or have an untreated debilitating illness.  Call it welfare if you like, but the alternative is not very appealing.  

I guess I'd like to see libertarian principles applied to farm subsidies and federal bailouts before seeing it applied to the homeless.

Isn't it kind of funny that we have a libertarian arguing that the government should prevent people from doing what they want with their own possessions (in this case, giving food away)?

The Homeless problem is not primarily about being too poor to have home. Being poor is almost an effect rather than a cause.

In a significant number of cases, the underlying issue is some form of mental illness with a mix of drug abuse. Whether it be autism or just classic dementia/schizophrenia.

Feeding homeless people in a park doesn't help address these issue in fact it helps to perpetuate the situation that the homeless find themselves in.

It might make the people doing the feeding feel good, but it has no tangible effect on the issue of homelessness.

Memory is a strange bell, jubilee and knell.

Feeding homeless people in a park doesn't help address these issue in fact it helps to perpetuate the situation that the homeless find themselves in.

Because they don't die of malnurishment?

...Dwayne was hoping that he would pay exactly the right amount of attention to Francine's clitoris.

You lost me with that one.  Feeding homeless people perpetuates the situation because it fails to treat their mental illness but keeps them alive?

You lost me with that one.  Feeding homeless people perpetuates the situation because it fails to treat their mental illness but keeps them alive?

So you'd rather they die than live with untreated mental illness?  I'll assume not, so what's wrong with feeding them again?

...Dwayne was hoping that he would pay exactly the right amount of attention to Francine's clitoris.

maml, I may be wrong, but I think you two are on the same side here.

Whoops, it seems we are.

I need a little anger management in my life right now.

...Dwayne was hoping that he would pay exactly the right amount of attention to Francine's clitoris.

I have a friend who is now homeless.  She lost her job and is sleeping on a friend's couch with her 9 year old son.  She doesn't have money for first and last month's rent.  Barely can scrap enough to feed herself and her son.  She is having difficulty finding a job.  It's a bad situation.  And being homeless doesn't make it any easier.  How hard is it to get a job when you don't have a home?  Very hard.  

Welfare is an evil cycle of dependency,

Indeed.  Once the homeless are dead, they no longer come around begging for help. Cutting them off will speed the process.

think if the city were providing basic services to the homeless, it probably wouldn't be happening

Sure it would, unless by "providing basic services" you mean "jailing." The majority of long-term homeless fall into two categories: illegal drug (ab)users and those with neurological disorders. If the city were providing basic services, it would be criticized in ways which would force the homeless back onto the streets. Civil order taxpayers would rightly demand that all applicable laws be enforced, which would turn the drug users back to the streets. Civil rights advocates would rightly demand that private citizens not be forced on to medication regimens, which would allow some to wander away from the services provided and encourage others to the non-medicated who hole up in the city facilities.

Even if you are right about the criticism (and I think you're selling short existing homeless programs), there's an inescapable fact.  Basic human needs are going to be met one way or the other.  If you don't attempt to serve the basic food/shelter/medical needs of the homeless, they will be served via crime, jails and/or the hospital ER, which are a hell of a lot less desirable and cost-effective.  A jurisdiction that ignores the homeless is being both inhumane and inefficient.

A jurisdiction that ignores the homeless is being both inhumane and inefficient.

Cruelty and wastefulness is all the right wing wants out of government.

The majority of long-term homeless fall into two categories: illegal drug (ab)users and those with neurological disorders.

In fact the majority of long-term homeless screw themselves up just fine on legal drugs like alcohol and nicotine. The ones who have a bad-enough crack or meth habit to be on the streets typically die too quickly to be considered 'long-term.'

But nice attempt to criminalize homelessness.

Reputation is what other people know about you. Honor is what you know about yourself.

- Lois McMaster Bujold

... or nice how Ms. Bujold reworded that unattributed quote.  But, I'm not really a fan of science fiction, so I rather like Abe Lincoln's version best.

But that whole thing of character and reputation gets all meshed up when, who really knows another's character and all we have to judge them by are their actions?

Illegitimi non carborundum.

Spoken like someone of impeccable reputation, Mayor. I bow to your greatness.

"You (fill in hated group of choice) are assholes.  Every single fucking one of you is a jackass."

Well, you just have to put the right group in the the blank space.  "Nazis" works, but "orphans" doesn't.

"Libertarian" also works.  Not that I'm comparing you to a Nazi.  Nazis actively sought to exterminate millions of people, Libertarians just stand by and watch people die.

...Dwayne was hoping that he would pay exactly the right amount of attention to Francine's clitoris.

Orphans are totally assholes.

Jackasses, Captain! Orphans are jackasses. Nazis are assholes. It's kind of like the difference between a bitch and a ho. Or something.

Needing some sleep,
{ k }

If madryantist's comment was meant to be some kind of parody or satire or irony, they should really work on their parody and satire skills.

As should I, apparently. :-)

Wetkarama, can I ask that you please don't ever speak for me again?

I honestly am puzzled as to what you have parsed in my writing as speaking for you.  I'm not willing to respond to maml because I find personal attacks to be boring. That said, calling libertarian philosophy evil when the historical evidence shows clearly the failure of the left's own liberal policies is ironic.

Its almost as if the left, like certain members of the right don't live in any reality-based community.

I've already gone over why feeding the homeless has little to do with helping the homeless, your addition of "giving them legal advice" hardly begins to address the core contributing factors. But hey..as long as YOU feel that what you are doing is a GoodThing(tm), then it doesn't really matter whether it actually is beneficial. Right?

Right?

Memory is a strange bell, jubilee and knell.

This is yet another instance of where I'd PM someone if the opportunity existed, but since we have to "have it out in public"...

1. When you say "I suspect that the lefties here might feel a lot differently were it a local park in their neighborhood being ruined" you are implying that the lefties on TnT (of which I am a member) only care until it's in their back yard. Therefore, you are attempting to speak for me, sir. Understanding this point doesn't require parsing language, merely the reading comprehension skills that you hopefully gained back in third grade. You said exactly what you meant to say, and it's disingenous and even a bit cowardly to act otherwise. That is something I never expected of you.

2. "That said, calling libertarian philosophy evil when the historical evidence shows clearly the failure of the left's own liberal policies is ironic." We've already clarified, ad nauseum, how we simply disagree and always will on this fundamental point. We can both back up our point of view with endless data and research and historical analysis and moral philosophical debates until we literally decompose, but at the end of the day it comes down to a difference in attitude we have regarding the poor, no matter that we might agree about a million other things. I know I am not going to change your mind, and until I make my first million I don't think I can really afford your philosophy (and even then, they probably don't make a shower that cleans that deep). So, let's just let sleeping dogs lie, huh? You stop saying (repeatedly) that YOU THINK helping people is really harming them, and I'll stop saying that I THINK helping people actually helps them.

Because I can't be the only person bored by reading the same exact argument over and over again,
{ k }

damn -- that 5 was for koos not you, wetkarma. Jojo should not be able to moderate comments anymore.

*psst!*  wanna hear a secret?

Unless something's totally screwed up, you should be able to go back and change your moderations as you see fit.  Instead of the '5' you gave your parent post, just change the value to something else and click the 'Rate' button again.

"When this is all over, I'm... aw, who am I kidding?"

But unfortunately the the selectedindex of the moderation type isn't restored from the database when you refresh the page and it is also not permanent so if you moderate multiple times in a thread you have to either re-set the type or lose it.

So if I were to mod somebody 5 - brilliant, and then later mod somebody else 1 - illiterate, the "brilliant" description drops from the db and won't show up in the post header any more, because it's been updated to 5 - No opinion.

Major bug but easy to fix.

tnt needs to track moderation. stats page!

hmm... I had rated Jojo's comment #28 as 2/brilliant, Jojo's #39 as 2/informative, then your #44 (this comment's parent) as 3/informative, clicking the Rate button after each rating.  As far as I can tell, all my ratings are still on the page.  Is there anything special you did for this to happen?  How exactly did you refresh the page?

"When this is all over, I'm... aw, who am I kidding?"

Anything.  I just rated your comment 3 interesting, then immediately after clicking the moderation button scrolled down the page and moderated another post, and now my moderation of your post is 3 no opinion.

Because the DB updates to whatever you have currently selected but the selected index of the moderation name field isn't set to match the db when you hit the page so it defaults to no opinion.

tnt needs to track moderation. stats page!

I rated #24 as 3/interesting, hit the button, scrolled up the page, and rated #1 as 2/informative.  I can still see my ratings.  Something's going on, but I don't know what... if you could tell me what Web browser and OS you're using, I'll see if I can duplicate the problem and figure out why we don't see the same things.

thanks

"When this is all over, I'm... aw, who am I kidding?"

It's IE7 beta under windows xp. The behavior's the same under vanilla IE at the office. I do have the "Use dynamic interface elements" checkbox checked on my tnt display preferences if that matters.

Regardless of what's going on on my end though there's gotta be some difference between the code that sets the moderation value and the code that sets the moderation name- the moderation value is well-behaved. Specifically the value drop down box remembers my moderation and the name box doesn't.

tnt needs to track moderation. stats page!

I'm only here to reiterate what marduk said. Except bolder.

{ k }

That is the best damn secret -- ever, dan!

I shall now try to redeem myself.

This is especially true when it comes to feeding the poor and the homeless in my own neighborhood. And giving them legal advice. And treating them as human beings, not dish rags.

Koos, in what way do you think you are NOT libertarian?

You are doing everything as a private citizen that Libertarianism embraces.

Because I also expect the government to help those less fortunate than myself. Because I honestly think that without government-provided services the poor will not be able to survive.* Because I think a fully-functioning free market without government intervention is the biggest scam ever perpetrated on the American public.

I want to be a consumer advocate for the AG's office and help write MORE LAWS that REGULATE BUSINESSES for what I consider THE GOOD OF THE WHOLE, for Pete's sake. That's, like, the poster boy for the opposite of libertarinism, right?

{ k }

* BTW, I'm no saint, and I recognize that there are a lot of people out there who give A LOT more than me, but it's still not enough - it's NEVER enough.

OK, OK -- you are clearly the "poster boy for the opposite of Libertarianism." You're right there are lots of ways you are not at all Libertarian. That was a dumb thing for me to say.

But I was just excited and heartened by the fact that you do these things on your own. If more people would, then it would be a different world.

The fact the government HAS to step in to provide these services is a testement to the general lack of passion and compassion of humanity. In my very small opinion.

Because I honestly think that without government-provided services the poor will not be able to survive

There seem to be plenty of poor people surviving in, say, Bangladesh without any government-provided services.

I want to be a consumer advocate for the AG's office and help write MORE LAWS that REGULATE BUSINESSES for what I consider THE GOOD OF THE WHOLE

Leaving aside the issue of whether laws should regulate businesses for "the good of the whole," what if you get these laws passed and your idea of TGOTW turns out to be, um, wrong?  Anyway, what kind of new laws would you like to see take effect?

That's one of the remarkable things about life. It's never so bad that it can't get worse. - Calvin

This is so off-topic, but in what way do you think you are libertarian then?

The libertarian party, (much like the republican party) has fractured into multiple factions.

The one I most closely self-identify with is neolibertarianism. I subscribe to (nearly) all the tenets of neolibertarianism and I vote a libertarian ticket (when possible/otherwise I vote anti-incumbent) thus I think of myself as leaning libertarian.

Where I break from the neolibertarianism is on the issue of the Iraq War (didn't particularly object to it, just didn't believe it was the country to move on to from Afghanistan). I posted my views back on Plastic in an article unfortunately not available in Googles cache. It would have been this link however. I see the war on terror as a culture war vs. actually being on "terror".

I significantly deviate from neolibertarian belief on the subject of healthcare. This is an issue I've changed my mind on over the past 2-3 years; gradually concluding that universal he