"adjust your attitude with their billy club"

At 6:28 AM 7/31/96, Alan Horowitz wrote:

>I am a strong libertarian. Sell crack cocaine, rent your pussy to horny
>middle-aged businessmen, do any non-violent,
>non-damaging-to-others-property you want, but damn well maintain public
>order and decorum. Or I will scream to my councilman for the cops to
>adjust your attitude with their billy club.

When the local cops adjust my attitude with a billy club for dressing like
a hippie and lounging around in a public place that my taxes have helped
pay for, I'll remember that a "strong libertarian" said that he was doing
the right thing.

....

In my town, the City-State decided to crack down on the homeless by
arresting people for "giving away food" in a public park. They charged the
soup providers with various failures to have Health Department permits and
for not having a permit to operate a restaurant, pay various fees to the
City-State, and so on.

I went to a City Council meeting when this was happening (1991-2) and spoke
up in the public comment part of the meeting. I pointed out that the very
same park at which these "food criminals" were doing their dastardly deeds
in was a park at which other people and groups were cooking hot dogs and
hamburgers, ladling out bowls of chili, serving potato salad, and generally
"distributing food." All, of course, without benefit of licenses, health
inspections, OSHA inspections, and so on. I suggested arrests of the picnic
groups begin immediately, using the same exact charges used to harass the
homeless helpers.

The Council members, most of them leftist liberals, had no answer.

--Tim May

Boycott "Big Brother Inside" software!
We got computers, we're tapping phone lines, we know that that ain't allowed.
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>>>>> In article <ae24e2ee02021004242f@[205.199.118.202]>, tcmay@got.net (Timothy C. May) writes:

    > At 6:28 AM 7/31/96, Alan Horowitz wrote:
    >> I am a strong libertarian. Sell crack cocaine, rent your pussy to horny
    >> middle-aged businessmen, do any non-violent,
    >> non-damaging-to-others-property you want, but damn well maintain public
    >> order and decorum. Or I will scream to my councilman for the cops to
    >> adjust your attitude with their billy club.

Someone please, please, please tell me this guy was being facetious.
Please?  Even if it's not true?  Pretty Please???

In a libertarian society, so-called "public decorum" is dictated by
who owns the property you are sitting on.  If my building code
(i.e. the code of laws set by the person who owns the building I live
in) says I can blast my boombox, your opinion can go to hell: find
another place to live if you don't like it.  Or petition the person
who owns the place.

Burning toxic waste is intrisically damaging to other people,
blasting your boombox is not (unless it is so loud as to actually
cause ear damage to bystanders, but given the volume of music
tolerated at rock concerts, I find this highly unlikely).

-Robin

On Thu, 1 Aug 1996, Robin Powell wrote:

> Burning toxic waste is intrisically damaging to other people,
> blasting your boombox is not (unless it is so loud as to actually
> cause ear damage to bystanders, but given the volume of music
> tolerated at rock concerts, I find this highly unlikely).


"Given the loss of privacy tolerated by 99.9999% of American citizens in 
the past twenty years, no one has a right to complain about the 
government taking new powers for itself."


You cannot have it both ways. If you are free to define what is or is not 
a public nuisance when you do it; likewise am I.

> When the local cops adjust my attitude with a billy club for dressing like
> a hippie and lounging around in a public place

   I am a defender of your right to not be harrassed by legal-definition 
nuisances, not a fashion cop.  I gave up on trying to clean up the 
unwashed masses, a long time ago.

But if your definition of "lounging" includes (say) playing your boombox as 
loud as you want in the park - then mine includes making a buck by burning 
toxic waste.