I was hoping this was only a specter in my dreams but no, this is evidently of the world I share with you all.
I lack the mental agility to fully grok this guy and tear him down appropriately. There is so much wrong here that I don’t even know where to start with him. But I still think he should be treated to a special Straight Dope luau. My culinary skills begin and end with digging his pit and lining it with banana (or do they use taro?) leaves. The rest I leave to you, my, er, friends.
Also, cultural insight & perspective on this topic is welcome as mine is admittedly extraordinarily narrow and racist when it comes to Hawaiians. Maybe it’s always been cool to bash the defenseless there?
Holy shit! How is that not illegal? If you don’t have a residence, it’s legal for some random yahoo (elected official or not) to destroy your possessions? Unbelievable.
In terms of legality, he appears to be focusing on destroying shopping carts, not the items stored within. It is probably fair to assume that the homeless do not have legal “title” to those carts, if such a thing exists. The carts are pretty much universally stolen from their rightful owners, so a homeless person complaining about it is going to be admitting to theft or possession of stolen property. Since the homeless person isn’t going to assert property rights over the cart, the shop owner would have to.
I wonder if we would have the same visceral negative reaction if this guy simply took the carts back to the shops they were stolen from?
Edited to add: the guy is clearly a dick, and should actually be doing something positive to reduce homelessness, rather than trying to make homelessness worse for the homeless.
Right, and that would send the relatively positive message, “Hey look, it really doesn’t matter how destitute you are, stealing is not OK. Mkay?” Even so, removing these folks’ only real means of storage & mobility is a dick move in and of itself no matter what the lesson. And to do it so violently…and here is where I have trouble putting this in words because I will inevitably become guilty of profiling…I suspect your average homeless type (not counting voluntarily homeless summer beach bums, which I could see as annoying) might have very vivid and negative, possibly crippling, memories of violence. I think it would be fair to say the effect of someone smashing your shit would arguably be less profound if you have some more shit back at home.
This sounds like a self correcting problem. It shouldn’t be much longer before he fucks with the wrong mentally ill person. Hopefully the cameras will be there to catch it.
I don’t think it would be as intense a negative reaction since when I first saw this story I felt a distinct urge to find the shark that’s been snacking around the islands and introduce the two.
You’ve identified the source of the anger very clearly - fighting a problem by attacking it’s victims is giant asshole behavior.
And I’m not sure what the motivation is for the homeless person to take that one-way ticket anyway. If the option is be homeless in Hawaii or be homeless anyplace in the continental U.S., I choose Hawaii every time.
Which may partially explain why this guy is making homeless in Hawaii a less attractive option.
I have no cites so am willing to accept calls of “urban legend”. But I’ve heard of similar practices in big cities on the mainland where, with a biting winter on the way, homeless are given a bus ticket to someplace nice like L.A. or Miami.
Apparently it is voluntary, but there are worries that it could be abused if left in the hands of the police. What do you think would happen if other states set up a “Fair Trade” program? For every homeless person sent over, another one is sent back?
But even if the carts are stolen they still have a rightful owner somewhere. So what Brower is doing is illegal - he’s destroying somebody’s property even if that property isn’t in the possession of its owner. Hopefully the next publicity Brower gets will be due to his arrest.
How much would it cost to send out a large truck to round up all loose carts and then return them to the stores for a nominal bounty? I object to destruction for the sake of destruction.
And let’s face it, there is a political angle at work here. Conservatives are going to love to make this national news - they get to showcase an elected Democrat being an asshole to poor people. Brower’s going to be all over the media and who’s going to step forward and defend him?
