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Group of homeless moms and families are taking over a house – this time in L.A

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Re: Group of homeless moms and families are taking over a house – this time in L.A

#11
post #7
post #4

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is wrong on so many levels. First; no, it's not basically theft. Theft is when you take away something without permission. They are not taking away the house, they are using it. So, it's basically not theft. Second; this is a vacant house, it's not currently used. By not renting out houses to an affordable prices, the landlords are creating artificial scarcity. Desperate people make desperate choices, if you don…

They are taking away the ability to use the house. They have not received permission to do so. This is theft. And of course you’re good with that because you’re a communist and communism is an extended apology for organized crime. What is “an affordable price”? Who determines this? You? The attraction of communism is that every communist thinks they are the one philosopher-prince who will arrange everything just righ…

[edit] The tone of the reply was a bit snarky, I admit.

What makes you think I subscribe to the ideology of communism? What makes you think it was responsible for millions of deaths (as opposed to say, tyrannical dictatorship?) What are your proofs that is - as you say - objectively evil?

Re: Group of homeless moms and families are taking over a house – this time in L.A

#12
post #6
post #4

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is wrong on so many levels. First; no, it's not basically theft. Theft is when you take away something without permission. They are not taking away the house, they are using it. So, it's basically not theft. Second; this is a vacant house, it's not currently used. By not renting out houses to an affordable prices, the landlords are creating artificial scarcity. Desperate people make desperate choices, if you don…

It is illegal use then, what will envolve to theft as soon as they decide to stay indefinitely, what they actually already did, and will realised as somebody try to push them out with or without police force. I don't care if it state or private owned property is: "occupying" homes is theft in my eyes, as it fundamentally shaking the work and merrit based society.

You make the assumption that we have a work and merit based society at all. I don't agree with that, but for the sake of argument, let's run with it.

Even if you have a work and merit based society, you still have to provide the necessities of life to those that are unable to provide for themselves; the sick, the elderly, the unable. This includes those that do not have any abilities your society values. If you have a society that makes good use of it's people and is able to provide everyone with a position of merit, you're fine.

But as soon as you have mass of people that are not able to work and provide merit, you've got a problem. Because you have to somehow stop them from taking what they need anyway. You can do that with police and the military, but in the long run this is not stable.

Given that I don't think that we have a work and merit based society, my conclusion is that we have even more of a responsibility towards those left behind.

Re: Group of homeless moms and families are taking over a house – this time in L.A

#13
post #8
post #5

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As a society, the moment that you allow for private property, you take over responsibility for the livelihood of everyone. Property is theft on the common good. If you steal from the common good, you have to deal with the consequences. If you deprive people from making their own living, you have to accept that these people will find ways and means. You didn't build that.

As a society, the moment you allow for freedom of Religion, you take over responsibility for everyone’s practice of religion. As a society, the moment you allow the right to bear arms, you are responsible for providing everyone who wants one with a gun. The “commons” are waste land until they are improved by human effort. (I’m assuming you are not a nomadic hunter/gatherer.). That is the ultimate basis for property r…

Your counter-examples (thanks for providing them, by the way) don't quite work. Sure, they work grammatically, but not contextually. Both the right to bear arms and the right to religlious freedom are immaterial rights. There's not necessity to bear arms for my survival, there's no necessity for religlious freedom for my survival. There's however the necessity of food and shelter for my survival. As soon as you take these away by assuming property rights, you take on the burden of supporting everyone that might have used said assumed property for their own survival.

Since we all started out as nomadic hunter/gatherers, this assumption of the "commons" being a wasteland does not quite hold, don't you think?

Re: Group of homeless moms and families are taking over a house – this time in L.A

#14
post #10
post #5

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As a society, the moment that you allow for private property, you take over responsibility for the livelihood of everyone. Property is theft on the common good. If you steal from the common good, you have to deal with the consequences. If you deprive people from making their own living, you have to accept that these people will find ways and means. You didn't build that.

You sound like someone who isn’t aware of the wonderful events where tens of millions of people suffered and died of starvation and political prosecution where such schemes were plentiful. Perhaps living in the USSR was indeed the golden years for you?

You sound like someone ... [insert boring and repetitive, possible derogatorive epithet that doesn't provide anything useful to the conversation and end with a snarky, rhetorical question].

Re: Group of homeless moms and families are taking over a house – this time in L.A

#15
post #13
post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As a society, the moment you allow for freedom of Religion, you take over responsibility for everyone’s practice of religion. As a society, the moment you allow the right to bear arms, you are responsible for providing everyone who wants one with a gun. The “commons” are waste land until they are improved by human effort. (I’m assuming you are not a nomadic hunter/gatherer.). That is the ultimate basis for property r…

Your counter-examples (thanks for providing them, by the way) don't quite work. Sure, they work grammatically, but not contextually. Both the right to bear arms and the right to religlious freedom are immaterial rights. There's not necessity to bear arms for my survival, there's no necessity for religlious freedom for my survival. There's however the necessity of food and shelter for my survival. As soon as you take…

Yes, we all started out as hunter/gatherers millennia ago. We are not now. We have been mostly improving the wastelands ever since. (I say mostly because occasionally we re-waste them again but thankfully less and less often these days.)

Re: Group of homeless moms and families are taking over a house – this time in L.A

#16
post #13
post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As a society, the moment you allow for freedom of Religion, you take over responsibility for everyone’s practice of religion. As a society, the moment you allow the right to bear arms, you are responsible for providing everyone who wants one with a gun. The “commons” are waste land until they are improved by human effort. (I’m assuming you are not a nomadic hunter/gatherer.). That is the ultimate basis for property r…

Your counter-examples (thanks for providing them, by the way) don't quite work. Sure, they work grammatically, but not contextually. Both the right to bear arms and the right to religlious freedom are immaterial rights. There's not necessity to bear arms for my survival, there's no necessity for religlious freedom for my survival. There's however the necessity of food and shelter for my survival. As soon as you take…

At the most you’ve established that homeless moms need to live somewhere. It is not necessary to live in a particular house in L.A. for survival.

Re: Group of homeless moms and families are taking over a house – this time in L.A

#17
post #15
post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Your counter-examples (thanks for providing them, by the way) don't quite work. Sure, they work grammatically, but not contextually. Both the right to bear arms and the right to religlious freedom are immaterial rights. There's not necessity to bear arms for my survival, there's no necessity for religlious freedom for my survival. There's however the necessity of food and shelter for my survival. As soon as you take…

Yes, we all started out as hunter/gatherers millennia ago. We are not now. We have been mostly improving the wastelands ever since. (I say mostly because occasionally we re-waste them again but thankfully less and less often these days.)

I'm not sure that I would consider i.e. cutting down the amazon rain forest and turning them into pastures for cattle or fields for mono cultures as an improvement of wasteland.

Pretty much the same happened to the European rain forest and is currently happening to east-Asian rain forests. What we've been doing is changing the environment to suit our needs as agriculturalists, but that's not an objective improvement from wasteland to garden-of-Eden.

Indeed; exactly with this transformation from "wasteland" (as you would maybe call it) to predatively exploited ecosystem (as I would call it) we (as agriculturalists) have infringed on the rights of all hunter/gatherers that have been there before. We've set up enclosures to limited their ability to travel from hunting ground to hunting ground, we've slaughtered their prey animals (i.e. bisons), all the while claiming that their are uncivilized and barbaric and that this is all for their best.

Re: Group of homeless moms and families are taking over a house – this time in L.A

#18
post #16
post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Your counter-examples (thanks for providing them, by the way) don't quite work. Sure, they work grammatically, but not contextually. Both the right to bear arms and the right to religlious freedom are immaterial rights. There's not necessity to bear arms for my survival, there's no necessity for religlious freedom for my survival. There's however the necessity of food and shelter for my survival. As soon as you take…

At the most you’ve established that homeless moms need to live somewhere. It is not necessary to live in a particular house in L.A. for survival.

If I've established that, I'm already very happy we've had this exchange.

Now we can bicker about the details. :D

Re: Group of homeless moms and families are taking over a house – this time in L.A

#19
post #15
post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Your counter-examples (thanks for providing them, by the way) don't quite work. Sure, they work grammatically, but not contextually. Both the right to bear arms and the right to religlious freedom are immaterial rights. There's not necessity to bear arms for my survival, there's no necessity for religlious freedom for my survival. There's however the necessity of food and shelter for my survival. As soon as you take…

Yes, we all started out as hunter/gatherers millennia ago. We are not now. We have been mostly improving the wastelands ever since. (I say mostly because occasionally we re-waste them again but thankfully less and less often these days.)

The Amazon has 50,000 species of beetles which is good for beetles I guess but what makes it wasteland or not is what it does for humans. There as well we can discuss whether cattle or biodiversity is a better improvement but that is a different topic.

Re: Group of homeless moms and families are taking over a house – this time in L.A

#20
post #18
post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

At the most you’ve established that homeless moms need to live somewhere. It is not necessary to live in a particular house in L.A. for survival.

If I've established that, I'm already very happy we've had this exchange. Now we can bicker about the details. :D

Sure. It is possible to be against theft and for compassion at the same time.

However I am not in CA and it seems “society” over there has decided its not interested in housing homeless moms.

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