Being homeless means not being free − as Americans are supposed to be | Hacker News Reader

Being homeless means not being free − as Americans are supposed to be

theconversation.com

16 pointsPaulHoule8 comments

A classical liberal would say that freedom consists in the right to choose your occupation and enjoy the fruits of your labor, exchanging one's earnings for food, clothing, and shelter. Freedom is not the provision of all necessities by the state.

A classical liberal would believe in the social contract. If society adds a chain then society has a debt.

For example, a municipality doesn't need to provide a toilet to the extent that it doesn't have a problem with the freedom to not own one. If the municipality wants to achieve hygienic high density then it should pay its debts.

What does the state owe in exchange for banning murder?

(I imagine the answer might be "protection from non-state violence." But then by analogy what they owe you in exchange for banning public defecation isn't public toilets, but an environment where there isn't shit laying around in public.)

The first exchange is as fair to the wild man as anyone else, property rights over land or something is I think where that topic goes..

If you had no reasonable way to acquire a toilet (like all of mankind until quite recently) would you choose to explode for the reassurance that the poo you step in is from dogs and wildlife? Earlier people apparently didn't choose extinction.

The article specifically addresses this point. The argument is that both public and private spaces are highly regulated, so having a space of your own is nessasary for freedeom. If society would let the homeless people do as they like in public spaces then this argument wouldn't hold. However, such a policy position also gets massive political backlash.

Implying you can be free with that threat of homelessness.

Nobody is truly free to do whatever they want. We all have constraints and dependencies that limit what we can do. So it makes more sense to talk about degrees of freedom.

Also, I have met Americans that seems to think that they are more “free” that people living in Western Europe or Australia. Which always makes me laugh and re-realize how much our personal beliefs are shaped by the stories and myths we are told in our childhood. Believes that are so deeply programmed into us that we never question it.

Every birth should come with 1 acre of land :)

Reply on news.ycombinator.com