The U.S. Supreme Court refuses to review a 9th Circuit Court of Appeals decision that Boise, Idaho, violated the 8th Amendment rights of homeless people by levying a small fine for sleeping on the sidewalk. Is keeping public spaces clear of vagrants “cruel and unusual punishment” if no suitable homeless shelters exist?
Join Bill Whittle, Scott Ott and Stephen Green on a Royal Caribbean cruise in May 2020. Live versions of our shows and informal chats, punctuate the sunny delights of the Bahamas and life on the open sea. Get details and reserve your cabin at BillWhittleCruise.com
Bill Whittle Now with Scott Ott comes to you 20-times each month thanks to our Members. Join them today and find your people.
- with your podcast app.
- Watch us now on Amazon’s Fire TV by downloading the Bill Whittle Network app.
- Ask your Amazon smart device, “Alexa, play Bill Whittle Network on TuneIn radio.”
- Support Bill Whittle on Patreon.
8 replies on “Cruel and Usual: Supreme Court Lets Homeless People Sleep on Sidewalk”
My brother-in-law is a city sheriff. One evening he gave my wife (his sister) a tour. Upon leaving they saw a man with no shoes going through a garbage can for food. He was well know to my BIL, every week or so he gets himself arrested so he can get a shower, a few meals and clean clothes. There is something not quite right with him mentally but he knows enough to figure this out. He doesn’t need to be in jail, but he does need to be institutionalized. We did away with such institutions due to the quality of care. The need did not go away.
Not stating that all homeless are like this, but we have turned our collective backs on those who are because the solution that existed did not please us as a society.
You don’t think something like that homeless camp would exist in TX, Bill? Allow me to invite you to Austin. Drinks are on me.
Here in Wisconsin, in the city of Milwaukee (which once elected an actual Socialist mayor back in the 60s) we had a tent city such as Bill describes exist under a bridge overpass for a few years. From reports I’ve heard and read, the well meaning but misguided help provided by people probably kept it going as organizations brought tents, blankets and other things that kept the homeless warm through some of our bitter winters. They were eventually evicted this last October under the auspices of the state roads department (who actually owned the land, it wasn’t truly “public”) planning to do work on the bridges and / or planning to store equipment there for local road work. Others have a more cynical reason: the upcoming DNC convention next summer. Can’t have the homeless showing up in any background shots of the marvelous city on the “fresh coast”. (which actually isn’t that bad of a marketing and tourism slogan. There are a number of water based entertainments available in a city on one of the Great Lakes.)
The problem is the existence of something called “public property”. Something that is owned by everyone is owned by no one. Property is a thing that can only be used by one person at a time. Only the owner can give permission to a non-owner to use his property. Ownership and right to use are concurrent concepts. Without that concurrency ownership as such does not exist.
The consequence of public property is that all things that could have been private property will be used and abused out of existence. Then there will be nothing worth owning. Enter coercive government action that will, by FORCE, create assignment of permission to use. Said permission need not be earned. Political favoritism, graft, and corruption will eventually rule the use. It will be the situation that might makes right and to hell with cooperation based upon respect for individual rights.
As always, a society has a choice between freedom and respect for individual rights or the Law of the Jungle in which Might makes Right! What cannot be chosen are the subsequent consequences of implementing the choices. There is no third alternative.
Bill missed an opportunity to put a nail in the coffin of the cruel and unusual punishment claims. Fines are commonplace, and it is absurd to claim that they are “unusual” — regardless of any perceived cruelty.
… however, he may have made the point more subtly than my slow brain could hear.
I think he tried to put the argument down by saying a fine cannot be considered cruel without specifying at which amount it ceases to be cruel. His example of the IRS demanding $5 mil or half a mil or 50% of your income makes the question “Is it a just punishment?”.
The so called progressives say each should pay his fair share. However, to them, fair share always means MORE without specifying how much is too much. This means taking everything from those who create the wealth is “fair” for them.
If you have something BECAUSE you built it and someone else doesn’t because he didn’t, won’t, or can’t, you have no right to it. This is BECAUSE you built (earned) it. Those who are to receive your wealth have a right to it BECAUSE they DID NOT earn it.
The bottom line is that there is nothing that is fair (just) about their so called progressive policies.
I think that the argument against “unusual” is easier to make than the one against “cruelty.” The former can easily be based upon raw counts of fines; whereas, the latter is more subjectively based upon one’s definition of cruelty.