This Land is Your Land, and I Don't Have Land

[jab1]

*Originally posted by Sam Stone *
I could start a thread asking, 'What if 80% of the people in a democracy decided they wanted to KILL the other 20%? What’s stopping them?" Answer - nothing. With that kind of majority, you could pass any law you wanted. But is it a reasonable concern?

Uhm, you ARE familiar with the way the government handled Native Americans, aren’t you? And it was with the approval of the public, I might add. And let’s not forget slavery.

In this specific case, I would point out that there are charitable people in the world, who would like to help others.

It’s my belief that they are in the minority.

If those people could keep everything they earn instead of giving 30% of it to the government, they could engage in more charity.

Most people, if they could keep everything they earn, they would, and let everyone who has less go hang.

I could offer evidence that charity would expand greatly by pointing out that private charitable spending increased greatly in the Reagan years when there was a perceived need for it, and in other years when taxes were lowered.

Correct me if I’m wrong, but I thought it was because of a change in the tax code that allowed people to take greater deductions off their income taxes for charitable donations. IOW, they didn’t want to give to charity unless there was something in the act for themselves.

Thus, homeless people would no doubt find all sorts of sanctuary on the properties of churches, The Salvation Army, the Red Cross, and countless other organizations that would exist if the lack of government charity created a vacuum.

They would be overwhelmed if there was no government charity.

Go try and sleep on the ground in front of Saks’ 5th Avenue and see how long you are allowed on that ‘public’ property.

Phil said something like this on another thread. In fact, I think it was that very sequence of posts that caused the creation of this thread. (I forget the title.) I responded that it’s dangerous for people to sleep in public, being exposed to the elements and being at risk of being attacked. I once saw a guy at a shelter with a black eye and teeth missing because someone tried to rob him while he was asleep. If he had remained asleep, he might not have been beaten. He awakened, though, and was outnumbered and couldn’t defend himself. (If the shelters are full, a man may have to sleep on the sidewalk if he can’t afford a motel room. But while $20 won’t get you a room at Motel Hell, it will buy someone else his drug of choice if he’s dishonest and desperate enough to rob you. And all he has to do is wait until you’re asleep.) I also pointed out that people will urinate and defecate in public if there are no public restrooms. And all people litter, including the homeless.

Perhaps corporations would find it a very cheap way to gain public favor by providing shelters. (Ronald McDonald House does something like that now).

Only if it helps the bottom line. If the tax code changes so that McDonald’s would make more profit without those Houses, it would not surprise me if those Houses are closed.

Perhaps zoning laws (which are viable in a Libertarian society) would put a percentage of their infrastructure taxes aside to build homeless shelters, for the very selfish reason of keeping the homeless out of their areas.

Instead, why don’t we build them within the communities so the homeless won’t feel like outcasts? (Treat someone like an outcast, he’s going to feel like one.) Actually, there is a practical reason for not building shelters in the boondocks: Most homeless people do not own cars. They could not get to the shelters, nor could they get to their low-paying jobs.

Believe it or not, a huge number of homeless have jobs. (It may even be a majority, but it’s difficult to accurately survey the homeless.) But the jobs don’t pay well. So-called “minimum wage” isn’t enough, especially when it’s temporary, labor-pool employment. (Believe me, I know from personal experience.) Would Libertaria even have minimum wage? Of course not. Libertarians don’t believe the government has the right to tell businesses what their minimum wage should be. How would the homeless be helped if the minimum wage was revoked and wages dropped, but prices did not? And what makes anyone think wages would remain the same if the minimum wage was revoked?

[Sam_Stone]

Jab1: You’ve got a real distorted view of charity as it exists in the U.S. and Canada. You seem to think that people are all greedy scumbags who only give to charity if there is a tax break in it for them. In fact, private charity is a huge factor in our society. And we’re not just talking cash here, but hard work and time as well.

My wife volunteers once a month for an inner-city soup kitchen. Sometimes she’s not needed because the list of volunteers is greater than the positions available.

That soup kitchen, BTW, is run by a church. Since the church is already tax exempt, it gets no additional tax breaks for running a soup kitchen. It could choose instead to give the pastor a bigger house, a bigger salary, or outfit the church with some hi-tech gizmos and whatnot.

Ever hear of Habitat for Humanity? Hundreds of thousands of volunteers, who give mainly of their time. This is not tax deductable. How about Big Brothers? The Boy Scouts? The Salvation Army? The Red Cross?

These organizations are run by volunteers who get no taxable benefit from giving their time. And BTW, even if you get a tax credit you still lose money when giving to charity. If you’re in a 30% tax bracket, then if you give $100 you’ll still be $70 poorer than if you gave nothing at all.

And you seem to think that corporations give to charity only to avoid taxes. Again, this is nonsense. There are no tax breaks that result in your getting back more money than you gave away. In fact, most corporations give to charitable causes because A) The people in charge believe in the causes and want to help them, and B) to foster good will in the community, which in turn boosts sales.

Most people, if they could keep everything they earn, they would, and let everyone who has less go hang.

What a lovely attitude towards your fellow humans you have. I don’t believe this is true. Most people I know volunteer for charitable work. It may be to help out in the local school, or in the community league, or through their church, or in dropping a quarter or two in the UNICEF boxes at the 7-11 every day.

Many of the people who don’t actively give to charities believe that they are ALREADY giving lots of money, because the government takes 20-50% of everything they make and gives the vast chunk of that to other people.

But you’ll have to excuse me - my lunch hour is almost over, and our company is organizing a United Way pledge drive this afternoon. And next week we’ve invited the Red Cross to set up a Blood Donation center on one floor so that employees can give blood.

There’s not a tax break in any of this for either the company or the employees. The employees do it to feel good about themselves, and the company promotes it because it makes the employees feel good, it fosters a more community-oriented work force, and because the CEO of our division is a nice guy who believes in giving something back. He’s usually the first one in line. And the company supports this whole-heartedly. This company (one of the largest corporations in the world) also has special contribution-matching programs whereby the employees can give to the charity of their choice and the company will match the contributions dollar-for-dollar.

[Mr.Zambezi]

Homeless do often have jobs. I used to have a client who was a temp labor pool employer. They never paid minimum wage. HTe rate wa about 40% over minimum. TEh problem was that few employees would work when they had enough money for a flop and some intoxicants.

I have no problem with people dsuffering from their own refusal to work; however, I don’t know many people who are as stingy as you suggest.

[manhattan]

Well between my job heating up and the Yanks and the Mets both in the playoffs (hee hee!), I don’t have time for a full argument here, especially one I don’t agree with. But I do want to have the courtesy to respond to points directed at me.

Gaderene, responding to my criticism of the OP, says

Well, because another context might be different. With due respect, Manny, that’s the crux of the thread. I maintain that the libertarian context, with its effective absence of a commons, the practical exercise of rights is dependent upon ownership of property to a much greater extent than in any constitutional republic possessing eminent domain, for the simple reason that the exercise of rights on any property but your own seems to require the explicit consent of the property owner.

Well, that’s exactly right. I think my point, (which pldennison made more clearly) is that the exact same thing is true in a Statist context. The difference is that the State owns lots of property. You and I happen to have the luxury of living in a country where we think that the State is directed to make “the commons” available for some forms of protest. But it doesn’t have to work that way, and indeed does not in many parts even in this country. Just to take my city as an example: protests were banned for a time on the steps of City Hall. A gathering of more than 10 people in most of Central Park requires a permit. A protest of any kind in most parts of the city requires the State to issue a permit. Dozens of cab drivers were arrested when they conducted a “rolling protest.” As Phil likes to point out, a homeless person trying to sleep on the street outside of my apartment will be rousted. There’s no philosophical difference here between a Libertarian context and a Statist one here; only a difference in the list of property owners. Until we get our act together on the “practical” side of Statism, it seems silly to point out the “practical” deficiencies of a system that has yet to exist.

You also take exception to my objection to your use of the term Straw Man. Perhaps I was not as precise as I should have been. The whole OP is something of a straw man for the reasons above.

You’re making access to a “commons” dependent on a hell of a lot of different things–which is fine, if it floats your boat; I’m just saying that I prefer it when such access is relatively unfettered. I like the fact that we’ve got public parks where I can go and feed the ducks and read P. G. Wodehouse without having to pay for the privilege–call me a damnable Fabianist if you must.

OK, here you are moving from the political to the social. Fair enough. But here’s the thing. You are paying to use Central Park. There just doesn’t happen to be a tollbooth on the way in. (Properly, National Parks are increasingly relying on user fees and do have a tollbooth on the way in.) The difference in a Statist context is that I am also paying for the park, even if I prefer to read my Wodehouse in a bar, for which you are not paying. How fair is that? Interestingly, Central Park is a particularly good example of why your point is not a good one. Why? Because it was dying. Despite being a public park taking money from thousands of people who will never enter it, there were areas that were becoming so run down that access to them was endangered (and no one wanted to go there anyway). Guess what happened? Private citizens raised over 100 million bucks to rebuild the park. The folks who contributed (full disclosure: including me) have no special access to the park, nor did they seek any. They recognized that it was for the good of the community to have a kick-ass park around the corner from them. On the side of the Park is a newly-rebuilt planetarium and updated natural history museum that came from private monies. The benefactors (full disclosure: including me) get a few private dates each year, an occasional lecture and a behind the scenes tour, but every mook in the country can come by and check out the dinosaurs and the Hubble pictures. Do you see why it is not impossible to imagine that something like this might happen without the State owning the land?

Nobody on this thread is necessarily extolling “statist” contexts, and certainly nobody’s claiming that they’re anywhere near perfect.

Your second point is well taken. As to the first? Come on.

Since you’re bringing it up, though, it sounds as if you’re saying that a libertarian context would’ve achieved different results in these instances. Would they really? And yes, manhattan, I know that you’re just about the furthest thing from a libertarian–I’m just pointing out that your analogy might be a bit misleading.

Well, yes and no. I note that by some measures privately-owned woodlands are better preserved and/or better-replanted than State-owned ones. This is to be expected. A private landowner knows that his shareholders’ grandkids will want dividends from the woods, too. That said, I have concerns about bio-diversity and other really long-term kinds of things that I think many private woodlands owners have done an insufficient job addressing. I guess my point, again, is that is disingenuous to accuse a non-existent system of practical flaws when the existing systems have done such a poor job dealing with the same issues.

Finally, Kimstu says

Now Phil, you know neither side makes a practice of calling their own team’s fouls.

Actually, I think this is going to be my new hobby for a while. I hereby announce the founding of the Straw Preservation Association. Save that straw from the flames that ensue when you make little men out of it! Collect it, nurture it, and mix it with some mud. Bricks are what we need.