The statistics show that any number of citizens are one or two paychecks away from being on the streets themselves. Surely they wouldn't want to be treated this way, so why tolerate it when done to others?
Most people don't ever seem to think about this fact, believing instead that employment is the same as security and never stopping to think about what their bills are and how long they could pay them if they found themselves unable to keep earning (sickness, loss of work, an accident, etc.).
This sort of law also violates all kinds of rights, both natural and constitutional, and not just those of the homeless people.
I get your point but would argue that there are no constitutional rights, only constitutionally protected rights, rights being inherent, inalienable, and equal in all people. A minor distinction but an important one.
Just for sake of example, for anybody's who's a Christian, the Bible commands us repeatedly to feed and care for the poor.
I'd ask which laws you believe to be higher, those of your faith and morality or those of other men and women that you don't know.
Preventing a person from doing so is interfering with their free exercise of religion.
I completely agree. I may not be religious in the traditional sense but I hold that my personal creed is my religion and any purported violation of it is a nullity and not anything that I am obligated in any way to obey.
Or what about the freedom of assembly?
Again, I'd say that people create governments and governments create persons. Any legislation created by a governmental body (governments are corporations) only applies to it's employees while they are acting as employees.
That being said, I don't subscribe to the idea that some people have the right to rule other people.
Unfortunately, most people only know what they learn from government run training institutions (schools), government licensed media (news and television), and their parents (who typically learned the exact same way)... and never consider the idea that they own themselves.
If enough people learn about jury nullification (the right of all people to judge not only whether someone did or did not do a thing but also whether the "law" they are accused of breaking is just and the possible punishments are just as well) then things will become much easier to change.
The idea that people own themselves and no one has a right to violate the rights of another is, of course, a very subversive idea that governments of all shapes and sizes work hard to stamp out and replace with respect for arbitrary authority.
Oh, I agree fully. I've just found over the years that a huge number of people I speak to don't acknowledge the existence of natural rights, so when trying to make a point on the internet, I've gotten used to using the phrase "natural and Constitutional rights" to sort of cover all the bases, as it were.
I consider God's laws the highest. The next highest authority is what people sometimes call the Law of Nature, which I also believe comes from God. Finally, among human laws, I believe the Constitution to be the law of our land and obligatory upon everyone. I think any federal laws that aren't pursuant to its delegated powers are void, and have no authority whatsoever to compel obedience. I think the states have a lot more leeway than the federal government, but I also believe that they're bound by the Laws of Nature. At the end of the day I think that the only just laws are those which refrain us from harming the rights of another.
All unfortunately true. An ignorant populace is more easily controlled.
That's a pretty big "if." I don't see it happening, and not just because people get arrested fairly regularly for trying to educate others. There's also the fact that fewer and fewer cases go before juries and the shameful truth that most Americans just don't care enough. They would rather get out of jury duty than use it as an opportunity to promote justice or serve as a check against the powers of the government.
I couldn't have said it better myself. Anyway, thanks for getting back to me. I honestly don't think we're that far apart on most of those issues.
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