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Moderator cut: Off Topic Given the increasing concern over terrorism, and the proven fact that the gang and drug cultures share a common contempt for the trappings of a responsible lifestyle, might it not be time for civil authority to institute a carefully-worded and monitored crackdown on the small, perpetually-undisciplined percentage of the population who seem to institute a disproportionate share of the petty crime and mayhem on our streets?
Every community has its share of idlers, loafers and parasites, not to mention those who sustain themselves via illegal enterprise; when the average citizen seldom traveled far from his/her home community, their names were common knowledge. But an increase in individual mobility, via both the personal vehicle and the expansion and overall reduction in costs of the air transport network, has made it far easier for the shiftless and the irresponsible to expand their "lifestyle", and the burden created by it, among more than one community.
That burden continues to increase -- thanks in no small part to the incentive given to the administrators of the societal safety net to expand their influence (and payroll) rather than to increase efficiency (and better serve the truly-deserving) by weeding out the "professionally indolent", and making it easier to identify them via a central database.
The basic entitlement reforms of the 1990's bought some time, but the burden is again increasing, and the abusers are harder to identify -- that minority is quite capable of frustrating the current laws by any number of tactics, as any police officer who deals with the gangsta element can substantiate, and refines their strategy at every available opportunity. Perhaps it's time to reinstitute one of the more broad-based measures against a demonstrated pattern of unproductive behavior. No telling what might "turn up in the net".
If a person didn't have at least a penny on him, he was a vagrant and cops could bring him in for vagrancy. More useful were statutes against malingering, hanging around with no purpose. Cops could tell malingerers to move along and if they didn't they could be brought in.
Both kinds of statutes should be brought back because they were very useful is keeping order.
That is the exact form of social control all the would be tyrants use at the start of their tyranny. Funny that the Vagabonds without money get jailed while the tourists are left alone until they run out of money.
2nd trick op - Be careful what you wish for because you may wind up on somebody's little list. All the cops have to do is stop you, take all your money and ID and use a bit of Bully club and, guess what, they have an instant vagrant.
As soon as we start serving our own citizens and working on our own problems, we won't have to worry about vagrancy laws. We have homeless people living on the streets while we are talking about bringing in Syrian refugees that will cost us millions of dollars in relocation fees and welfare. We have stopped enforcing immigration laws and illegals are draining public assistance funds meant for OUR own citizens, the elderly, the disabled, the veterans, homeless, mentally ill..................
We need to make some serious adjustments to what the country considers important and doing that doesn't begin with updating "vagrancy" laws but in serving our citizens that need help. Why should an American citizen sleep covered by a cardboard box when illegals are living in Section 8 housing?
I really think it's a HORRIBLE idea to JAIL PEOPLE FOR BEING HOMELESS AND POOR! How would you like it if you were in that situation? You could lose your job, and you could have your home foreclosed; it's not outside of the realm of possibility. How would you like it if you were out trying to make a NECESSARY LIVING and the police jailed you?
We should not at all punish people for being poor any more than we should punish people for not taking care of their health. (Obama Care hopefully taught us that) We should, instead, use some common sense and show some compassion; we should provide places where poor people can get help. We can MONITOR our poor more closely; we can even require that they SEEK HELP if they are homeless (as long as the help is provided), but jailing them, treating them like criminals, and making it harder for them to find work and earn a decent living is just cruel and unusual.
As soon as we start serving our own citizens and working on our own problems, we won't have to worry about vagrancy laws. We have homeless people living on the streets while we are talking about bringing in Syrian refugees that will cost us millions of dollars in relocation fees and welfare. We have stopped enforcing immigration laws and illegals are draining public assistance funds meant for OUR own citizens, the elderly, the disabled, the veterans, homeless, mentally ill..................
We need to make some serious adjustments to what the country considers important and doing that doesn't begin with updating "vagrancy" laws but in serving our citizens that need help. Why should an American citizen sleep covered by a cardboard box when illegals are living in Section 8 housing?
I agree that we SHOULD NOT put the citizens of other countries above our own citizens, and I also agree that the screening for refugees needs to be improved. America is a nation of immigrants, and closing our borders would make little sense financially. Although I think we should continue helping immigrants everywhere, I don't think we should make it easier for them than we do our own citizens. Imagine if our poor had the work ethic, and opportunities, of some of our immigrants?
Moderator cut: Off Topic Given the increasing concern over terrorism, and the proven fact that the gang and drug cultures share a common contempt for the trappings of a responsible lifestyle, might it not be time for civil authority to institute a carefully-worded and monitored crackdown on the small, perpetually-undisciplined percentage of the population who seem to institute a disproportionate share of the petty crime and mayhem on our streets?
This nation once had such laws - they were known as vagrancy laws. They were used to keep poor people in the South "in their place". A solution that is often proposed by right wing conservatives to those who don't like their employment prospects is that they should "vote with their feet" and move to a different town for new opportunities. The reality was that the local governments used vagrancy laws to arrest, jail, and hire out to private contractors those poor workers who attempted to move away to other towns and cities in an attempt to better their lots in life. After all, if the poor people in Winona, Mississippi all moved away for better jobs with higher wages elsewhere, then there would be no one to work the Winona landowners' fields for incredibly low wages.
Your proposal is an incredibly bad idea that's already been tried in this nation and shown to be absolutely horrible. In practice, vagrancy laws were simply a codified form of defacto serfdom.
Let me elaborate a little further by saying that while I view much of the "homeless" issue as the result of mental problems and irrational behavior by people "on the fringes of sanity" who might have gotten better care (but lost their freedom) in an earlier day, they aren't the biggest problem.
Also, that I live in a small community of perhaps 3000 people, on the outskirts of one with 20,000, in a county with 70,000; those numbers are still small enough that each small town or neighborhood can identify its chronic misfits, and sometimes nip the problem of, for example, an aging eccentric, in the bud.
The problem I'm concerned with is embodied in the individual below, whom I've written about in an earlier thread:
I've been acquainted with the individual cited above for almost 25 years. Some friends and I tried to get him pointed in the right direction on several occasions, and were left sadder, wiser, and poorer because of it. This individual has never continuously held a job for more than a few months, has had brushes with law enforcement in at least eight states, and served "county time" on several occasions which included both Unemployment Compensation fraud and attempts at identity theft -- including my identity -- his deviant lifestyle encouraged and dependent upon greater mobility he clearly does not deserve.
He's still out there -- easily identifiable by the rotten teeth he's turned down chances to fix (at state expense) due to his fear of dentists. By some strange miracle, he doesn't do drugs, and though he forfeited over $1000 on his person when arrested a few years ago, time and nature will likely ensure that he'll spend his last years in some publicly-funded hovel. And ironically, bills from credit cards, even for the lease of a car, still turn up occasionally at addresses he provided during the years we tried getting him off the street.
I'm sure there are examples like this embarrassment everywhere in the nation, and likely many more of them in larger cities. A few years ago, while visiting the West Coast, I had the experience of dealing with a derelict -- a disfigured woman -- whose body odor was so strong that it emptied a city bus.
The problem seems likely to worsen as the American economic recovery stalls; an inescapable by-product of globalization and the end of our dominance, plus the good intentions of people who turned our weaklings loose into a society with which they can't cope.
Last edited by 2nd trick op; 11-25-2015 at 02:27 AM..
That is the exact form of social control all the would be tyrants use at the start of their tyranny. Funny that the Vagabonds without money get jailed while the tourists are left alone until they run out of money.
2nd trick op - Be careful what you wish for because you may wind up on somebody's little list. All the cops have to do is stop you, take all your money and ID and use a bit of Bully club and, guess what, they have an instant vagrant.
Tyranny emerges from disorder. That's how the Communists took over Russia and China, how the Nazis took over Germany, how the Fascists took over Italy. Each created chaos and took over once they created it. Revolutionary France was the same way.
Periods of repression in England came about is response to chaotic conditions also.
Orderliness is associated with sobriety, in both senses, and maturity and moderation. These qualities are not ones with which tyranny keeps company.
Tyranny emerges from disorder. That's how the Communists took over Russia and China, how the Nazis took over Germany, how the Fascists took over Italy. Each created chaos and took over once they created it. Revolutionary France was the same way.
Periods of repression in England came about is response to chaotic conditions also.
Orderliness is associated with sobriety, in both senses, and maturity and moderation. These qualities are not ones with which tyranny keeps company.
Sobriety, maturity and moderation in modern day America?
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