How Different Are We?
There’s a big hullabaloo about homeless people in Hawaii, now. for the life of me, I can’t figure out what the deal is. Homeless folks in Hawaii like to set up in parks and what have ye, since the weather is nice and they can approximate normal life. That’s a no-go to our government. Why?
If people need someplace to stay, they don’t have the money for a home, and they find a nice patch of land in a park to occupy, then why would anyone boot them from that area? Well, they are drug addicts, safety hazards, etc. would say the critics of allowing homeless folks to squat. Then bust them for those crimes individually, rather than busting them for the state of affairs that lead them to existing in such a way!
Last year, they booted a bunch of folks who were living at Mokuleia Beach. Courtney and I were right pissed about it. Here were folks who had set up semi-permanent shelters, were sending their kids to school, and trying to get by. Some haole tourists, or kamaaina campers didn’t like the ‘eye sore’ of homeless folks occupying their beloved beach, and the true campers (i.e. homeless folks) had to go. How did that turn out? Not so well.
Ah, some might say, you live in a nice community, so you don’t know how dealing with these people causes stress in your life, etc.! Fuck that. I lived a couple blocks from Mokuleia for 3 years, and I got along with them fine. Sure, there were a few more B&Es than I was used to, but I honestly think it was area kids doing that shit. Hell, it was more disruptive living in Allston, halfway between BU and BC , than it was living near all of those teddible homeless folks. Ask Seamus. We spent several hours offroading, siteseeing, and motorcycle riding at Mokuleia during the height of squatting, and we didn’t have any trouble. All of the littering was from local campers who spent the day, threw away their beer cans, and left.
I guess I don’t understand why I am a libertarian. What made me so different from democrats and republicanics? I love Ayn Rand, but I think OS stuff is the bomb-diggity. I have no intention of paying for sex, but I think prostitution should be legal. I am fully ready to kill someone on the battlefield, or anyone who fucks with my family, but the thought of the state executing someone via lethal injection makes me sick.
How different are we libertarians?
~ by kinshay on 2006-04-17.
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The Corcoran Brothers 
omg i am not only shrieking with laughter, but I AM TAKING AWAY ALL YOUR LIBERTARIAN POINTS!
on a slightly more sober note, the safest i felt when i was in spain was when i was at the okupas (squats). squatters there do some kick-ass things with their spaces, including community libraries that offer free-use, internet-able computers, help with homework for students of all levels, a cooperatively run bar, a theater space, and a general meeting space for activism conferences and the like. but UH OH they had taken over someone else’s PRIVATE PROPERTY to use it for the PUBLIC GOOD.
i admit i am blatantly trolling. i couldn’t help myself.
Ah, but the areas I am talking about are all public spaces. If I as a rich haole have the right to take a camper out and spend some time on Mokuleia Beach, why can’t someone who is homeless and has a Hawaiian last name? As long as they clean up after themselves and don’t commit any crimes, then why should the gubmint hassle them?
but what about private spaces that aren’t being used? or are being left vacant as tax write-offs?
They can’t go there. That’s private property.
but… why? i know when it gets down to the micro level, it gets really sticky. i’m not against people having possessions, but it definitely rubs me the wrong way on the macro level. in seville, casavieja was the squat i spent the most time at. i talked about it in the first comment. it wasn’t just a home, it was turned into what i think was a pretty valuable community center. it’s on-paper owner was leaving it vacant and had been doing so for years, as a tax write-off. and in a place like seville, the people using that center couldn’t just find another place. land speculators buy it all up (and either charge outrageously for it, or leave it empty until they think the profit they could make off occupying it would outpace the tax write-off).
The true ‘why’ is that I am able to separate my moral and political views. I find it morally reprehensible to financially squat on land you have no intent to use while folks are arrested for physically squatting on the same tract, but I won’t dictate how people should use their capital. The beauty of capitalism is that stuff tends to work itself out when it is allowed to work in the truest sense. Hell, the uselessly outdated business models of modern airlines would be gone if it weren’t for Bush and Congress, and we’d probably be paying a lot less for tickets (and in taxes) if it weren’t for the bailout.
More on the demarcation of views: As I mentioned, I will never pay for sex, since that is morally (and hygienically) repugnant to me, but I won’t have that inform my political stance, and I won’t tell other people to do it. Likewise, I think that any number of other sexual proclivities are devoid of moral value (BDSM, scat and waterworks, and, yes, gay stuff), but I don’t think that the fact that I am agin it should mean it be illegal.
Apart from sex, I think that people who kill should be killed, but it isn’t the government’s place to take that life. If the state decides that someone needs to die, then where does the onus of responsibility fall? On the whole state, the judge who signed the warrant, the governor, whom? I know people will mention that I feel killing for the state as part of land warfare makes me a hypocrite, but that is different. Soldiers have informed choice, and through posse comitatus will not be killing citizens, so they are responsible for their own actions. That might seem like splitting hairs, but it makes perfect sense to me.
We should do this more often. I haven’t had to think this much about writing since I wrote a 30-page paper on Japanese swords, 7 long years ago.
but do you always have to separate your own “moral” (i don’t like that word) and political views? maybe it’s just my background in feminism speaking, but the personal is political and vice versa. i guess i just don’t get why money has to be so central to things. so some absentee landowner paid money at one point and on paper they own a building they never use. what’s so sacred about that?
and i really don’t understand why you said that about sexual proclivities being “devoid of moral value.” i understand “gay stuff” or bdsm not being to your own personal taste, but where the hell does morality enter in to that? truthfully, i’m kind of skeeved out that you even said it.
i definitely agree that the state shouldn’t have the right to kill (though i oppose the state sanctioned war as well).
Morals from the Latin “mores”, meaning acceptable in a certain social circle. Probably the wrong word, so I’ll use “personal beliefs” instead. Change the above to reflect the new word usage, and I stand by my point.