At 04:50 PM 7/30/96 -0700, Mike Duvos wrote:
Alan Horowitz writes:
On Mon, 29 Jul 1996 jbugden@smtplink.alis.ca wrote:
Think of how many of our laws are being enacted that tacitly make being poor or indigent a crime.
Horseshit. This is a poorly-disguised re-tread of one of the standard lines of the Patrice Lumumba University brand of leftist agitprop.
Here in Seattle, we have an city attorney who specializes in creating ordinances to annoy and harrass the underclass, often paving new roads over former civil liberties in the process.
The process of regulatory torment of homeless folks is divisible into two methods: restriction of anonymous behavior (e.g., travel, public speech, business transactions), and restriction of behavior to property-owners (sleeping, eating, assembly, recreation). The former is or should be disturbing to crypto-anarchy friendly folks because it limits the ability of every person to travel or make purchases or otherwise engage in economic activity anonymously. The latter should be disturbing to crypto-anarchy friendly folks because of the relationship between physical presence and regulatory jurisdiction - a government which requires you to establish your relationship to something valuable within its jurisdiction (like a car or real estate) before allowing you to exercise human/economic rights effectively establishes its ability to regulate you by seizing or otherwise burdening your relationship with your possession. In practice, the no-anonymity requirement is frequently conflated with the latter, in that demonstrating your relationship to valuable property implies susceptibility to punishment (and/or sufficient socialization/indoctrination) and long-term presence for later enforcement, such that a request for identification (with corresponding dossier check for previous instances of "antisocial" behavior) is likely to be unnecessary or penologically nonproductive. Which is a long way to say that street cops don't usually torment people with nice cars and/or houses, so those folks don't need to be so concerned about making sure their "papers" are "in order". So the unconstitutional and oppressive character of the various laws Mike Duvos refers to is mitigated by their lack of evenhanded enforcement. If a cop can demand ID from someone who "looks like he doesn't belong here" he can demand it from you. (modulo driving, this isn't legal. But give Justice [sic] Rehnquist and Clinton and random congressional maniacs a few more years and see where things stand.) Both requirements are reducible to the notion that a person must be punishable before they may act - in the extreme case, a person must be punishable before they will be allowed to exist. I find it very difficult to harmonize this position with the idea that governments exist to serve people, not the other way around. But maybe I just don't have my head right. Because homelessness itself is not inherently problematic (or easily distinguishable from "legitimate" activity), it's difficult to define it as a crime beyond Mr. "strong libertarian [sic]" Horowitz' "threat to public order and decorum". Cities have learned to regulate everyday activities since those are the only ones they're certain homeless people will engage in. Police officers have, in general, the good sense to avoid applying these regulations to people who look like they don't present a threat to "public order and decorum". Today those laws are applied to people who may smell bad and don't want traditional jobs. Tomorrow they may be applied to people who won't use only government-approved crypto or who want to defend themselves with guns or other weapons. And just as some people "don't have a right to live in Seattle" if they won't toe the line, other people may find they "don't have a right to live in the United States." * (* Other people (apparently not "strong libertarians") buy into all of that suspicious crap about the Bill of Rights and people being allowed to be themselves even if other people find it upsetting or non-decorous. But they probably don't appreciate how difficult it is to be a policeman, so we'll just ignore them, they're probably leftists. If they don't like how things go here, they can just get the hell out, hmm? Banning T-shirts with crypto code printed on them - that's one thing. But banning ratty old T-shirts that haven't been washed is totally different.) The regulation of ordinary social and economic activity is not a "homelessness issue", it's a "freedom issue". If you admit that it can legitimately be regulated but reassure yourself with your trust in the discretion and good judgement of the regulators, your liberty is more a matter of grace than of right. Have a nice day. -- Greg Broiles |"Post-rotational nystagmus was the subject of gbroiles@netbox.com |an in-court demonstration by the People http://www.io.com/~gbroiles |wherein Sgt Page was spun around by Sgt |Studdard." People v. Quinn 580 NYS2d 818,825.