You can't sleep on public land in Missouri starting Jan 1 | Hacker News Reader

You can't sleep on public land in Missouri starting Jan 1

kcur.org

7 pointseevilspock6 comments

seems like a crude way to address the homeless problem. US ideological culture means that it is unable to authorise the state intervention required to remedy homelessness, so instead goes the opposite way by denying every citizen their natural rights. It's public land, which surely means the people can sleep on it

It's almost certain that the state will spend more money enforcing the new law than it would have cost to provide services and shelter to the people they are trying to make go away.

The law, in its majestic equality, forbids rich and poor alike to sleep under bridges, to beg in the streets, and to steal their bread. — AF

inevitably. We can even see it become a revenue generation channel, fining people for a having a sleep in the park in the summer. Missouri residents should be upset at this, a massive intrusion over what surely is a 'natural right'

What this does is put people at the mercy of property owners. In other words, simply to exist one must either own land or pay someone rent (if this was implemented everywhere which is how one should evaluate its morality).

Reminds me of Are you a Real Libertarian, or a ROYAL Libertarian?:

> When the state granted land titles to a fraction of the population, it gave that fraction devices with which to levy, and pocket, tolls on the fruits of the labor of others. Those without land privileges must either buy or rent those privileges from the people who received the grants or from their assignees. Thus the state titles enable large landowners to collect a transfer payment, or "free lunch" from the actual land users.

https://geolib.com/essays/sullivan.dan/royallib.html

It does seem as if a common trope of libertarianism is "the power of the state is to protect the things that matter to me, and not the things that matter to you". The protection of those things is presented as axiomatic, but it's worth reconsidering some of those questions.

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