I'm curious to know why you see them as a guest in your home, rather than the other way around?
Fundamentally, one can see people living on the street as belonging to a complex subgroup in our society: one which can be both symbiotic and parasitical.
It is symbiotic in the sense that it provides a culture with which many can identify, especially those who have experienced hardship or difficult home lives as children. In this way street communities can provide a sense of catharsis -- almost a group therapy session. Belonging to a community can provide mental comfort which can seem even more important than physical comfort. In other words, street communities can take our tired, our poor, our huddled masses yearning to breathe free.
However, in many cases they can also be parasitical. Consuming societies' group benefits, in a way similar to herd immunity, while also spreading danger in the community, either through violence or excessive drug use.
I think what many people, both in the street communities and not, may fail to realize is that it is entirely possible that a street community can represent a local optimum, but not a global one. There may be a way to provide people both the sense of community they desire and a way to integrate them into the larger community so that they can contribute in more impactful ways.
After a couple of miles, the road passed by an apple orchard. The wobbly hopped over the fence, and sat down to rest under the shade of a big apple tree.
The wobbly sat there enjoying the shade for 20 minutes, until a farmer came across him. "You can't be here!" exclaimed the farmer, "This is my land!"
The wobbly looked up at the farmer and asked "Really? What makes it your land?"
"What are you talking about you dirty tramp, I inherited it from my father!" replied the farmer, almost bewildered at such an indignant question.
"Hmm, and what made it his land?" asked the wobbly.
"Why, he inherited it from his father!" replied the farmer, now really angry. "It's been in my family for three generations!"
"And what made it your grandfather's land?" asked the wobbly.
The farmer, now barely able to contain himself, yelled proudly "Why! My grandpappy fought the indians for it!"
The wobbly nodded, stood up, pulled back his sleeves, and replied "Uh huh. Then I'll fight you for it, right now."
The point being that a lot of these conceptions about who belongs and who doesn't are based on private property, but that there fundamentally isn't any real justification for private property. Even John Locke's attempts to justify it break down.
I can understand two groups being in conflict with each-other, but I can't understand conceptualizing one as the "guests" of the other group simply because they don't own property.
Its negation breaks down too, computer-hoarder.
So I guess my answer to the story would be: fine, you can fight the owner for it, but the real owner isn't me, it's the United States government. If you are so inclined to fight the government, fine, but don't be surprised when people who find the abstraction useful and productive, or even simply find the other mechanisms of the government productive, decide to fight back.
I'm not sure if you have a point.
I mean, if we're talking about absurdity of points, you are saying that a single travelling poor man sitting in the shade is something that is worthy of invoking the power of the federal government to combat.
The concept of private property is useful enough on the whole that governments are willing to enforce it, and leave discretion for right-of-access to the owner of said property. This allows the property owner to assess people in terms of risk they pose to said property and either grant or deny access.
If said farmer has had problems with transients damaging his property in the past, he will certainly appreciate the right to deny access, with the power of the government backing the decision.
I am not an American, but I've been online for nearly 20 years now, and I've seen a lot of US politics pass under the bridge. I've never seen anything that goes contrary to the notion that 'the United States government' is 'the federal government [of the US]'. The two terms are used interchangably in online discourse in my experience.
If I am wrong in this, can you please provide me with some links to explain how 'the federal government' of the US is a different entity to the 'the United States government'. I'd be very interested to read them, because it would be a very curious oddity in the way politics are described over there. Does 'the federal government' operate at a higher or lower level than 'the United States government', or do they operate in parallel? It's an intriguing concept.
If you're talking about the parent of my last comment, it should be abundantly clear that I'm saying 'no, you did', which is directly refuting his point, with a quote, no less. The rest was a bit of poetic license called 'taking the piss'.
The government of the united States is exactly that, ranging from the lowest town council member to the President. You do understand the concept of sets and subsets, right? The federal government is a subset of the government. That's why it has that additional qualifier.
Your post is basically, "I don't really know anything, but I sure do read a lot of blogs." If you're actually interested in US govt. & politics open a first year textbook. The Constitution (and amendments) quite clearly describe the subdivision of governmental powers into 4 different areas: the legislative, the executive, the judicial, and the states.
Looking through google for 'the United States Government', most of the results refer to the three branches, but describe other powers as falling to the states as a different entity, if they're described at all. Certainly if you look at news sources for terms like "called on the United States government", they're all federal-style issues, not state - state issues tend to be specified as such.
You may also want to change the leading paragraph of the Wikipedia article, since it's peddling the "I don't really know anything" viewpoint, given how powerful WP is as a source.
So, as I asked, do you have any reliable, definitive resources I can actually access, or are you content to just call me uneducated with a lazy, hand-wavy dismissal? I'm happy to be proven wrong, but not in the lazy way you're going about it.
'James Madison asserted that the states and national government "are in fact but different agents and trustees of the people, constituted with different powers."'
This is where that 'broad intellectual foundation' comes in. You may think that it is, sure, but why? Not everyone does, and there's a whole lot of philosophical discussion on this very topic. Our conception of 'private property' has only been around ~200 years, and humanity's been around just a bit more than that.
I am, however, perfectly willing to entertain many possible critiques, if they are shown to be practical and better than the alternatives. Feudal property law, for example, I don't find to be nearly as flexible or efficient (which was around for quite a while, as well). It's no accident that our notions of property came into greater strength with the industrial revolution. If you look at the states with both strong public and private property systems, like the Scandinavians, you'll find that our system has also been far from static.
Speaking as someone with a minor in philosophy, I have to agree with Paul Graham[1] that unfocused philosophy based on general principles (like "what is 'property?'") is terribly useless. If you want to make a difference, innovate.
From the end of his Theses on Feuerbach: "Philosophers have hitherto only interpreted the world in various ways; the point is to change it".
I would say Marx succeeded in producing a lot of interesting practical results which could actually be implemented. On the other hand, some of his stuff smacks more of religion than it does of praxis. His "law of value," for example, seems very unfalsifiable, in a sense. He speaks of the approach to true value when supply and demand equilibriate, but his conditions of equilibrium are often either poorly defined or simply tautological (e.g., the true value of a good is when it meshes with the law of value, thus the law of value is the true value of commodities).
Indeed, many of Marx's ideas have been through the crucible. Some, like a command economy, have mostly been burned to disintegration. Others, like the provision of health care to anyone who needs it, financed by the people according to their ability, seems to have had huge success among most of the civilized world.
All in all, I don't have problems with Marx's approach, just the idea that rehashing ideas from a century ago in pretty much identical ways counts as innovation.
I guess the War of 1812 was more important than anyone could have dreamed at the time?
You really need to read more. Like... a lot more.
(the ~200 figure comes from the Inclosure acts, which, as Wikipedia says, "the majority were passed between 1750 and 1860". Even that is obviously a rough time period, and only one of many significant historical events. Even if we take Locke's birthday, 29 August 1632, as the birth of private property in the current sense, that's still roughly 380 years ago, which is still pretty new as far as human history goes.)
Even if we just want to talk about private property as a legal institution, we can go back at least to the code of Hammurabi, and probably further if I could be bothered to do the research, which I can't. Even during the middle ages there was an active merchant class. And arguably feudalism is just the extension of the property concept to encompass ownership of people.
If you find that you have the ability to defend your exclusive use of something, you're either appealing to a sovereign, or you have become a sovereign. To be a sovereign, you need a very large stick.
Imagine that no one 'fought the natives for it'. Instead the land was a vacant waste with no one living there and nothing growing there. Over the years through hard work, dedication and sacrifice the land was amended and the trees grew creating the orchard. The only thing the farmer asked for in return was to sell his surplus. Lowering the cost of apples to all.
Then some jackass jumps off a train and expects it all handed to him for free or he'll attack the farmer.
I can understand the idea of not wanting to participate in a capitalist system, but I can't understand what makes someone 'evil' just because they've created something that you haven't.
Similarly, the wobbly wasn't demanding an apple, but enjoying the shade. Was the farmer selling shade? Lowering the cost of shade to all?
The idea of a one-sided "fuck off, this is MY land" seems to be a new-world Anglo thing - back in Europe a lot of countries have a form of right to roam that sits in conflict with property rights. While there is certainly a 'my land!' aspect, there's also the competing philosophical idea that people are free to travel over it or use it recreationally
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Freedom_to_roam#Right_to_roam_i...
Either way, you disprove your own point. The farmer has a more legitimate claim because he worked for it, he didn't attack someone for it like the guy who showed up wants to.
Dear Randian, These statements imply that you consider the native people "no one" and native vegetation rather than industrial crops "a vacant waste". I think those are rude presumptions.
> Any white person who brings the element of civilization has the right
> to take over this continent.
>
> http://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Ayn_Rand
In the less artificial world (where orchards are not usually created out of barren moonscapes)- it's always a little odd - and self-serving - the degree to which people think improving land magically cancels all previous taint of expropriation.
Funny that is the childish misconception I had as a child about America before settlers came here. Just an empty lush land, as gift of God, waiting to embrace its new owners.
I think that things don't have to stop at the orchard. Years ago, there used to be a big flophouse on Columbus Ave, full of trash and indigents. Transients. Beat "poets", the sort of people glorified by City Lights books.
And then they tore it down and built the TransAmerica pyramid! Now that's progress.
How so? It's a perfectly reasonable explanation of how to avoid an Hobbesian free-for-all.
And unlike in your Wobbly story, they wouldn't be able to produce that same value "if only" the greedy OP quit hogging that land he lives and works on.
You ever wonder why the street kids don't exercise their freedom to roam in less wealthy areas? Food for thought.
I'll answer sincerely if you don't understand.
I presume Moxie's genuine. I'm not quite sure how to interpret his question, but I'd like to hear more of your thoughts.
--nate
The way I see it is that we're all guests in any new environment when we first get there. Over time, after investing love blood sweat energy tears, these places gradually become our homes. Sometimes it feels like it happens fast, sometimes it feels like it takes forever. Sometimes we are embraced by whomever is there before. Sometimes we're not and we displace (ask me how I felt moving to Avenue D back in the day). Sometimes we're not and we're the ones displaced.
For me personally, the Haight didn't start feeling at all like home for quite a long time. Years. But over time I started recognizing the shopowners. Getting to know them, their names, where they lived, what was on their mind. And my neighbors (those that stay long enough to get to know). And the cops (on the rare occasion you saw one). And the postal carrier. And the street cleaning crew. Etc.
And, especially relevant to this thread, I began to recognize the local transients. I might see a handful guys over and over again who have been walking the streets of our neighborhood for a decade or more. (Which I guess technically makes them in-transient, but they're likely not under the same roof every night like I am.) This is their home, too.
But what I don't see is the same faces among the street kids. I see new kids every day. They're here one day, gone the next. It's rare that I'd see a kid last a week. Maybe a handful I've seen come back after a year or two. But that's the exception, not the norm.
So my point about it being "our extended home" is that, after these many years, love or hate the Haight, it has become my home, and it is the home for the others that have invested something of their lives in our neighborhood.
For most of these street kids, the ones the author is writing about, the ones that I see every day, they don't consider it home. They don't treat it as their home. But I do. And so do my neighbors.
Does that explain it a bit better?
Edit: Moxie in another comment mentions the (true) squatter scene, which is a very important (and itself diverse) subculture to recognize. I agree completely. I'd suggest that the Haight is also their home as much as it is mine. Hell, a million times moreso if we're talking actual blood sweat and tears.