New York’s Upper West Side — likely the most liberal neighborhood in the U.S. — organized and hired a lawyer to get 300 homeless men evicted from the Lucerne Hotel, where the NYC social services department had moved them as refugees from COVID-19.
Neighbors complained the men “menaced” them, urinated, defecated, and used drugs in the streets. Is the ouster of the homeless a triumph of American civic action, or a deep insight into the actual morality of America’s “compassionate” Progressives?
Background Resource:
N.Y. Will Move Homeless Men from Liberal Neighborhood After Backlash
[The New York Times, September 8, 2020]
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Bill Whittle Network · Evicted: Most Liberal Neighborhood Gives 300 Homeless COVID-19 Refugees the Bum’s Rush
28 replies on “Evicted: Most Liberal Neighborhood Gives 300 Homeless COVID-19 Refugees the Bum’s Rush”
What really astounds me is the widespread, voluntary compliance with all these shut down, lock down, social distancing, crowd limiting, mask wearing decrees – and these are (royal?) decrees, not laws. And if one takes the time to do just a little research, one easily can see that most, if not all, of these decrees are arbitrary.
I’m waiting for a critical mass of ordinary people to all at once decide, “I’m not doing this any more,” and not riot or even demonstrate, but just practice a little peaceful civil disobedience by not complying. I have a sneaking suspicion that think I will be waiting for a long time. What I see is a disheartening lack of courage and manliness among too many people. But that’s what you get with a society that turns its back on God. (And just so there is no confusion over definitions, when I say “God,” I mean the God of the Bible.)
The only God there is. Good on ya!
There are 6 causes of homelessness: the closure of insane asylums; the banning of boarding houses (particularly where the pension or pay check goes directly to the landlady); public access to police records (legal & illegal) by landlords & real estate managers; Education debt which legally does not count to your credit rating but lenders know that’s a lie; left-wing education that rejects capitalism & working for a boss (the beggar is his own boss); drugs & particularly that there is no legal place you can take them or safe alternative/ cure being worked on.
In Australia the also put some Covid quarantine people in a hotel but forgot that the laundry comes and goes each day. It cross contaminated a dozen other businesses using the same laundry. The leftist premier (~state governor) Dan Andrews is fighting for his political life against massive bad press. We called him dictator Dan years before the first Covid 19 news report.
I may have to revisit my thoughts on theft. After reading “The Fed and the Future of America’s Debt”* today, it occurs to me that not taxing the populace while increasing spending (or irresponsibly allowing entitlement spending to run on auto pilot and debt to grow out of any semblance of control) such that future generation(s) who had no representation are obligated to repay debt incurred in today’s time frame, is in fact a most vile form of theft, lying, dishonor, and gross criminality, at least morally if not legally.
I wonder if grandparents can sue the government on behalf of their grandchildren on this basis of “taxation without representation”? Probably not, as I suspect children are legally subsumed under their parent’s responsibility and thus “represented” thereby. But perhaps some young adults can argue that they were not represented when those obligations were imposed on them – but probably the same parental argument applies there, too. Where is our multi-generational Edmond Burke when we need him?
[* https://lawliberty.org/the-fed-and-the-future-of-americas-debt/?utm_source=LAL+Updates&utm_campaign=8eaa70e722-LAL_Daily_Updates&utm_medium=email&utm_term=0_53ee3e1605-8eaa70e722-72504701 ]
The ONLY legitimate function of a Government is to bring violence under rational control by being our agent of self defense and to provide a non-violent path to redress of grievance. (Judiciary, Police, Military, and a Legislature that ONLY fulfills that purpose) there is no other activity that the government is competent to perform. This is the only valid way to implement the intent of the First Amendment.
This does not mean we give up our right of self defense. It simply means the “normal”, “usual”, “law and order” way is the government provides, supports, and sustains that defense. This has to be paid for. If you wish such services you should pay for it. All of the other services that our Government offers is not legitimate. Taxation for those purposes is theft and a violation of individual rights. I don’t care how many of my fellow citizens vote for their favorite free lunch, it is WRONG to do so.
When and if the government can’t do its proper task, our right of self defense takes over. Then we are responsible for using the force necessary to end the violation of rights. If that force needs to be lethal, so be it. Hence, the Second Amendment.
We need to be careful not to conflate or confuse the process of government (the HOW) with the scope of (legitimate) government (the WHAT). The COTUS mostly specifies How the new federal centralized government would function, i.e., what processes it would follow, and later augmented with selected amendments adding or changing those processes. But it also does contain some specifications of What will, or more usually, will not, be considered proper scope of governmental legislation or enforcement, both in the core Articles and in selected amendments (BOR, etc).
The process of specifying taxes follows the How process legitimately, being passed as legislation and signed into law by the executive. In that regard it is not theft, but representatives acting for the people per the consent they have previously granted. The fact that some legislation has passed and been signed into law in the past for the FDA, FAA, HUD, DHS, FBI, CIA, NSA, DOD, DOS, DOE, EPA, etc. etc. falls within your area of concern as to whether these agencies and the scope they have been designated by Congress is legitimate as governmental functions. Some more clearly align with the core elements you suggest and most of the rest do not.
In today’s modern complex technological world I would still want some of those (non-defense and non-law enforcement related) functions to be performed, but would be happy to have private sector firms (equivalent to say, Consumers Union or Underwriters Laboratories) set themselves up to provide those functions. I would then pay for those functions via fee costs buried in the cost of foods being inspected, airports used where the planes take off and land safely, etc. Hopefully, and presumably, market competition among these firms would keep costs low and quality at least as high as provided by the govt. already. But to get there from here you basically have to dissolve the Democrat Party and all of the little dictators who belong to it, plus those RINOs who favor businesses over markets.
“When and if the government can’t [or won’t] do its proper task, our right of self defense takes over.” AGREE.
But to get there from here you basically have to dissolve the Democrat Party and all of the little dictators who belong to it, plus those RINOs who favor businesses over markets.
Agreed except I don’t know how to “favor business over markets”. If there are no markets, there are no businesses. It is nothing but a bunch of organized criminals fighting over the spoils of an out of control government using its momentary power to favor some over others.
If I have violated no one’s rights, putting the government gun to my head and taking the products of my life is theft NO MATTER WHAT PROCESS IS FOLLOWED. The pretense of “due process” not withstanding. Just because 99.9999% of my fellow citizens voted for the taking does not make it just.
A collective has no more rights than any one member of that collective. There is no right to violate rights. As soon as it is “generally” accepted that this can be done, there is no way to stop the taking. The smallest minority, the individual, can be violated at the whim of the collective or, as it is in our current situation, at the whim of those who pretend to control the collective. Rights, as such, would no longer exist.
We all have a choice. We either respect the rights of others or it is might makes right. If we respect rights only when it is convenient to do so but will violate them at whim is, by itself, a violation of individual rights. Our lives AND our technological civilization depends upon that choice.
To respectfully explore Lionell’s views on taxes and theft, the core issue becomes where, when, and how do we give up some of our rights when we consent to a republican form of representative government over us? We agree to give up our state of family/ clan/ tribal allegiance [i.e., not a pure individual state of nature] for a form of collective [I kind of hate to use that word, but it is basically collective] protection against violence from others. We also let our respective law making bodies decide issues and promulgate laws/ rules with which we agree to comply, usually based on a majority rule basis [and occasionally via a plurality or super majority].
On that basis, tax laws passed in accordance with the applicable constitutional criteria are not theft, but our “freedom” in action, an exercise of our “liberty”. We can argue about the real world difference between theory and practice as far as our “representation” and the subsequent accountability goes, but the principle is still valid. And the founders/ framers realized that a direct democracy would be even worse with respect to taxation of the well off minority by the less well off majority. The alternative is my privately funded security force bumping up against your privately funded security force, ending in the strongest force (and its leader) dominating and tyrannizing all of the rest of us.
Either here or elsewhere I have already expressed my nominal preference for rule making/ passing by some level of super majority: fewer laws get passed, with greater concurrence on acceptance and compliance, but potentially also harder to repeal if the law proves flawed in practice. This probably occurs when bad compromises are accepted in lieu of just not yet reaching an agreement on the issue. Better to not pass a law than pass a bad one? Fewer formal laws also means individuals would have to exercise greater levels of tolerance, respect, tact, integrity, honesty, and responsibility in their social, business, and political interactions. That is, greater virtue overall. Not zero laws; just better, probably simpler, accepted ones.
And a little more on repealing flawed laws: maybe then only a simple majority should be adequate as an indication the original concurrence on level of compliance with that law was no longer in force. In other words, the original passage with (say) a 60% majority now faces a situation of at best (say) 48% acceptance. The desire to comply should not have to drop to 40% or less for said law to be removed from enforcement (in a representative, consent of the governed environment).
Bill at 3:00: Coming Apart was written by Charles Murray, the author of The Bell Curve fame (along with his coauthor Richard J. Herrnstein). Mr. Murray, great guy, serious scholar, badly treated by the “woke world”.
I suspect the common ancestor of apes and hominids 7 million years ago also had the same alpha males dominance characteristic of “wanting to have power over ‘people’ and telling them what to do”. Mankind is late to that party! And if you happen to have a sister or SIL named “Karen”, it is not limited to the male of the species.
Scott, how do you happen to know about the “rules” in a shelter? 🙂
But Bill hit a home run with his remark about Santa Monica: “the second virtue signaling cost you something, virtue signaling went away”. And after a short search, I found Article I, Section 9 says “No Title of Nobility shall be granted by the United States.” It would appear that too many Dem reps have forgotten this part of the COTUS and the phrasing of their oath of office: “… I will support and defend the Constitution of the United States against all enemies, foreign and domestic; that I will bear true faith and allegiance to the same …” [see https://history.house.gov/Institution/Origins-Development/Oath-of-Office/ .
Bill, i think your comment on the aristocratic manner and overlord manner is right on. We little people must be shown our place. Problem is there are a lot of us not buying it.
Test post. There’s a problem with the website and I’m trying to gather info to help resolve the issue.
This came through, but everyone’s avatars seem to have gone away.
And now they are back.
Yeah, I was getting a “Account blacklisted” message last week. I emailed Scott and Shelley and they said it’s a glitch so I’m trying to get some info on it to send to them. Now I’m getting a 403 Forbidden landing page when I try to connect clean from my real IP. That happens to all pages on BillWhittle.com and I can’t see any of the content. When I connect via my VPN I can view content but I get a different message when I try to post. I’m trying to get everything to repeat so I can capture screen shots to send them, so they can work on fixing the problem.
I have not seen or experienced any issues viewing and posting at 2-3PM EDT.
It’s sporadic and appears to be related to my ISP’s IP bloc. Though that’s just a guess at this point. I’m still trying to gather information that the BW team can use.
Scott’s comment at the end, about a cry for help, is accurate.
There was a time when people who were unable to meet there own needs were committed so that they could get help. Unfortunately, the places in which people were placed were terrible. Instead of improving the quality of the care, our betters decided to just eliminate them. So now people are on the street. Even in small cities this is a problem.
People who need a hand up, need a place to be pulled to so that they can get treatment and then return to society.
Then help them with your own resources. I do not have the right to stop you. However, you do not have the right to take my resources so you can do what you believe is “good”. I call it theft even if it is done by the use of the government gun. It is unremittingly evil to the core!
Don’t misunderstand me. I am not advocating for a new federal program. But if my local government wanted to spend our tax $$ on something to help the people of my locality, that is up to us and should in no way affect you.
Our rescue mission does what it can, but true mental illness needs professional help.My point was that we had the ability to get people help and when the care went badly, we just eliminated the care rather than improve the care.
Did 100% of the people who are going to pay the taxes agree to the taxes? If so, I have no problem. Doing it without such a 100% agreement is nothing but theft! At least for those who did not agree with the program. I do not agree!
Unfortunately, such things are never held locally for long. It spreads to cover the county, state, and the country in the name of doing a common good. This represents some people deciding that the product of other people’s life is theirs to take and spend and are willing to use the Gun of government to make it happen. Again, this is nothing but theft.
You say you only want to take a fair share? Exactly what is a “fair share”? It is always and forever MORE. No matter how much is taken, if there is anything left, more will be taken. Again, this is nothing but theft.
I say again, if you want to help them with your resourced, I have no right to stop you. If you want me to help them, convince me that it is in my interested to do so. If I am still not convinced, you go your way and I will go mine. DO NOT use FORCE to make me provide the resources for you doing what you think is good. This is nothing but theft pure and simple!
Lionell,
I agree with you completely that charity via taxation is theft; however, please point me to where Ralph said anything about taking a “fair share”. I cannot find that statement in his posts.
I mentioned that because that is what the discussion usually devolves to. “We all must pay our fair share!” It always means “more”. This is because after you pay your “fair share” they always ask you to pay your “fair share”. To that I say nonsense.
My fair share is exactly what I voluntarily choose it to be (PERIOD). It is in proportion to the value I place on its presumed target. The value I place on the so called homeless is ZERO! I am NOT their brother or their keeper.
And yet it had had not done so …
It does not lend credibility to your argument when you assume what another is thinking.
P.S. — Full disclosure … I assume you don’t really give a sh__ what I think.
That is quite correct.
This is MAGA country! Right?
No one has a right to inflict their psychoses upon the rest of us. It is NOT our collective responsibility to take care of them. If you want to help them, that is your choice. However that does not grant you the right to help them with anyone’s resources but your own. I don’t care how many of my fellow countrymen voted that ALL of us are responsible, we are not thereby made responsible.
I know, it is pretended that we are one big family where one’s resources are really supposed to be owned by the collective. The non-productive and improvident EXPECT and DEMAND their fair share of the product of the productive. The reason: it is exactly because they are non-productive and improvident. You are productive and that is exactly the reason you are expected to be their involuntary slave and owe them everything you produce. This is called Social Justice but it is anything but Justice.
There are an unlimited number of people standing by to profit from the ancient scam that we are our brothers keeper. All hoping to get more than they produce and willing to take it by force if necessary. Once they consume the productive, they will have nothing to support their lives. This reveals their dark inner secret: they really do not want to live. They want you do die is as painful way as possible. Only then will they die happy. Their joy is your suffering.