[ExI] Homelessness (was Re: Social right to have a living)

[Samantha Atkins]

On 07/01/2011 04:43 PM, Jeff Davis wrote:
>
> They were hippies.  It's a narrow class of liberal.  And even a narrow
> class of hippie. The macrobiotic, Koom-bah-yah, crystal vibration,
> back-to-nature kind of hippie.  Not all us old hippies slash liberals
> are of that type.  Not being a liberal yourself, it's understandable
> you would not be fully versed in liberal phylogeny.

I was a hippie and for a while there I guess I was a [modern usage] 
liberal as well.  Ayn Rand was the beginning of getting over the default 
hippie stances on many [political and economic especially] things and 
fired up critical inquiry on the rest.  Thanks be unto Rand. :)

>> I don't state this to be provocative, but to point out that
>> homelessness isn't the end of the world,
>> just the end of access to a
>> certain kind of civilization for those who are homeless.
> Interesting apologism for that sort of conservative heartlessness
> exemplified by Reagan's "they're just camping" comment.  Don't go
> there.

Just because a human being is needy in various ways, even really serious 
ones, does not mean that person has an automatic valid claim on any part 
of the life or possessions of any other human being.   I don't think 
this is at all heartless.  I think it is the only view compatible with 
human freedom - with humans not being in involuntary servitude to others.

> Homelessness IS the "end of the world" -- which is to say the end of
> dignity and the beginning of a sanity-destroying horror -- for most
> homeless folks, in the same sense that falling from a tall building is
> "the end".  It's not relevant, but glib and heartless, to observe that
> one remains perfectly healthy until impact with the pavement.
>

As someone who has been homeless (early 20s) that is a bit overstated.  
Yes it was rough getting back on my feet.  The key was inside my own 
head.  As long as I thought I was the victim of something some "they" 
did to me I was stuck.   At one time I was even lame enough to think it 
was obvious I was better than "those people with a job, in the System" 
and that it was a major injustice I didn't have what I needed without 
bothering to trade any sort of values at all.

I am not saying that every homeless is like this but all too many 
liberals seem to look at the "plight of the homeless" from a position 
not that far removed from what I thought way back then.

- samantha