Posted on 04/14/2006 4:47:28 PM PDT by NormsRevenge
Did the House and the Senate vote an Amendment out and send it to the State Legislatures for approval?
Did the 'living Constitution' just get up and Amend itself under its own power?
I could really use your help because, once again, my copy of the Constitution doesn't include the Homeless Amendment yours seems to have.
L
Well, OK, you asked for it...
In his diary, Jefferson wrote:
The poor who have neither property, friends, nor strength to labour, are boarded in the houses of good farmers, to whom a stipulated sum is annually paid. To those who are able to help themselves a little, or have friends from whom they derive some succours, inadequate however to their full maintenance, supplementary aids are given, which enable them to live comfortably in their own houses, or in the houses of their friends. Vagabonds, without visible property or vocation, are placed in workhouses, where they are well cloathed, fed, lodged, and made to labour. Nearly the same method of providing for the poor prevails through all our states; and from Savannah to Portsmouth you will seldom meet a beggar.
Jefferson thought this was such a good idea, he wanted to introduce legislation to provide the first homeless shelters in America:
"Be it enacted by the General Assembly, that the Aldermen of every county wherein such provision, as is herein after required for setting the poor of the county to work, shall not have been made, shall, so soon as conveniently may be, purchase the inheritance, or procure a lease, of one hundred acres of land, or any less quantity that is sufficient for the purpose intended, in the county, and thereon cause a house to be built, if a proper one be not there already, and kept in repair, and shall cause all persons in their county, who are maintained thereby, or who seek relief therefrom, to be put into such house, to be there maintained and employed in such work as they shall be able to perform; and may also, by their warrant, apprehend and send to the same place all persons found wandering and begging alms, in the county… and shall put such beggar to work for any time not exceeding twenty days."
Later in the same bill, he proposed that those who REFUSED to work should be FORCED into such a shelter:
"…All able bodied persons not having wherewithal to maintain themselves, who shall waste their time in idle and dissolute courses, or shall loiter or wander abroad, refusing to work for reasonable wages, or to betake themselves to some honest and lawful calling, or who shall desert wives or children, without so providing for them as that they shall not become chargeable to a county, shall be deemed vagabonds, and shall be sent, by order of an Alderman, to the poor house"
Hmm, seems that Jefferson had the same position that I hold. Let's see what other Framers had to say about providing for the poor:
"…I am for doing good to the poor, but I differ in opinion of the means.—I think the best way of doing good to the poor, is not making them easy in poverty, but leading or driving them out of it."
-Benjamin Franklin
So, my FRiend, I would be careful in spouting off what the Founders beliefs were regarding this subject. They certainly seem to have supported the ideal of "promoting the general welfare" but with a tough-love stipulation of receiving any assistance.
This is all very interesting, but we still have not addressed the practical problem of where are the homeless to go. Their very status means that they must either be in a public place -- where they are not wanted -- or trespassing on private property. That's it. Period.
I have already noted that it is politically impossible to build enough shelters to house the homeless -- and many will choose to be outside rather than clustered together with people with whom they may not want to associate -- because the homeless are not the homogenous group many are implying they are.
We can dehumanize them by constructing a 'crazy bum' caricature based upon what we've seen on the streets or on TV. That allows us to advocate putting them in jail. Doing so will only serve to deepen their problems. Having a criminal record only serves to reduce employability. And some people don't do well in any sort of institutional setting.
I have already addressed how it was cruel for the ACLU to advocate that chronic substance abusers and the mentally ill be put out on the streets if they supposedly don't pose a danger to themselves. They should be institutionalized -- but not in jail.
What about the rest of them? The majority of you don't know what the homeless are really like, because most of them are fully aware of the hostility they face and do their damnedest to be as invisible as possible.
Many are only this way temporarily, for a period of months or so. Many of them actually have jobs, too. How will getting a prison record and being warehoused with violent criminals enhance their ability to pull themselves from their bootstraps and not offend us by being visibly poor anymore?
OK, it's illegal for them to be in a park. Well, guess what? The law is WRONG then. Unless there is some place else for them to go, then all we are doing in effect is criminalizing poverty.
Because, as I said, when you're homeless, your only choices are to be in public places or trespassing on private property.
Welfare benefits and whatnot do not 'create' homelessness. And most of those programs are targeted toward families w/children. Single people can typically only get food stamps that will only pay for about 75% of what a person would need to feed himself. Most are required to make about one employment contact per working day in order to continue getting these benefits each month. So these 'bums' are not being conjured up from gov't handouts. Sorry.
They exist. They are people. Many of them are decent, intelligent and have never harmed anyone. They don't deserve to be put in jail and they are not going to dry up and blow away because it is made even harder for them to survive.
This isn't a matter of being a bleeding heart to consider what effects that the policies we advocate may have on those on the lower rungs. It’s a matter of practical sense.
I'll also take note of the fact that he wrote it in his diary but it somehow he neglected to include it in the Constitution.
L
And I have to say, I encounter the homeless every day. There is one shelter in Dallas, it is full every night, and they are all kicked out by 5:00am. Sometimes I help the ones who truly seem down on their luck. You can tell who they are, they are the ones who are embarassed to ask for help, not the professional homeless who know how to scam people.
For many, it is a vicious cycle of poverty that is very difficult to escape.
Umm, yeah- that would have been difficult, considering Jefferson wasn't even a Constitutional Delgate. He was in Paris at the time.
But it does show that you greatly exaggerate your self-congratulatory knowledge of what "the Framers actually had to say on the subject."
L
My experience with the homeless is pretty limited. I have done volunteer work at a Catholic Homeless Shelter. (I work in a Catholic School) I have also worked EMS and dealt with the problem from that angle. At the shelter, I met several homeless that were down on their luck. They were given a bed and a shower. Their clothes were washed each night and they were given medical treatment as needed. Rules of the shelter required them to be out by 6am. They were given assistance to find employment. Mostly, those that were down on their luck, were able to find employment pretty quickly and move out of the shelter into other arrangements.
In EMS, I encountered an entirely different type of homeless. These would be what you refer to as bums. We provided transport for medical conditions, and tried to get them into shelters when the weather was bad. A huge majority of these people had serious mental problems. They didn't want to be bothered, with shelters, medical attention or anything else. Some were very lucid, some were incoherent, but I doubt that any were employable. They lived from dumpster to dumpster, didn't bathe and had a variety of "bugs" (parasites, lice, worms, you name it). They refused assistance of any kind, including medical treatment. Many died on the streets.
You are probably right about their need to be institutionalized. I wasn't aware that things had changed so much in the 60's and 70's, but it does make sense. I don't know what the answer is for them. I think that private charities do a pretty good job with the "down on their luck" homeless, which is a good thing. they are not nearly as successful with the other group.
The point I have been trying to make (not very well apparently) is that putting the true bums in jail is a very costly process, that doesn't seem to make much sense. I doubt seriously that either jail or a homeless shelter will do more than temporarily removing them from public places. Either way they are living off the taxpayers. Why not choose the least expensive option?
Thanks for your information. it was very interesting.
Yes I agree. Ultimately it would be best to get them entirely off the public dole, but that requires a change in "character"/"morality" whatever you want to call it. We've got over 40 years of government programs, as well as the accompanying war on American values, to roll back before we can get there unfortunately.
Thanks for your information. it was very interesting.
Same here!! Thanks for your insights! I really appreciate them. Have a good night.
By the way I really recommend that Mona Charen book. It really opens your eyes to what the liberals have done to the system.
Facilities are lacking, and there is little political will on the left or the right to build and staff any more of them. Republicans worry about short and long-term costs, and Dems worry about civil liberties violations. Also, the general public hears the word "institution" and immediately thinks of One Flew Over the Cookoo's Nest".
And where are these people's families? Isn't that the first net that should catch these bums?
They either don't know, don't care, or have given up long ago.
I will check it out. I haven't seen it but it sounds enlightening. Happy Easter.
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