November 7, 2003
Here’s a good example of why this liberal holds Arthur Silber in high regard.
Anyway, Arthur Silber’s in a spot of non-trivial difficulty. Consider hitting his tip jar. We need more Arthur Silbers, definitely not fewer. [10:33 PM]
Arthur is a good guy, even when I don't agree with him. It sure is refreshing to read your take on him and his problem than the nasty comments over at Atrios.
Please excuse an ignorant question, but how does one hit a tip jar?
One goes to Arthur's main site and looks for the Paypal button. Press it and send Arthur as much money as you want to.
If you don't have a Paypal account, they're pretty easy to set up; just go to the welcome/new account page and follow the directions.
Hmm... free market capitalist...libertarian...
Isn't public mass transit a rather socialist institution?
I'm sorry. While I feel sorry for him in the general sense, I keep hearing libertarians wanting every government service privatized...excepting the ones they really like/depend on.
I read LOR quite a lot, and I prefer to make a decision on this based on the quality of Arthur's voice and thinking, and not, say, a stereotype.
As soon as I negotiate my current "issues" with PayPal, I think I'll be making a donation. Bonus: as Julia has noted, it would probably piss off Ayn Rand.
While I feel sorry for him in the general sense, I keep hearing libertarians wanting every government service privatized...excepting the ones they really like/depend on.
Indeed. That's it in a nutshell.
At the moment, I'm rather torn: on the one hand, coals of fire; on the other, well, you summed it up.
I don't feel that help for the needy should be dependent on their willingness to change or to be consistent. And to do Arthur Silber justice, he has not himself actually asked for financial help: it's just kind of ironic that someone who is dependent on mass public transit to earn a living hasn't figured out that this is exactly why libertarianism doesn't work unless you are immensely, independently wealthy.
What it really comes down to is: I'm short of money myself at the moment, therefore am reluctant to give in the first place. And while I generally feel that, after all, I'm at no risk of being evicted and at no risk of going hungry and that anyone who is is therefore due my spare change, well, I give my spare change to the homeless when I pass them on the street.
What is that poem of Byron's with the line "he nursed the pinion that impelled the steel"? I was trying to remember it, and realising that I was remembering the Stalky & Co quote in "An Unsavoury Interlude". I'm right that it's Byron, isn't it?
Thanaks, Kevin. I'll head over to PayPal (which I'd never used).
Yonmei: Byron, "English Bards and Scotch Reviewers," line 841
Sorry, I have to agree with Kevin and Yonmei. A libertarian who depends on public transit because other forms of getting to work are inconvenient or cost too much and he can't find a more convenient job is merely being hoist on his own petard when the public transit disappears out from under him. Does he have any idea how much (ew, ugh) socialist subsidy the public transit system depends on? Tough cookies, mate: this unsubsidized world is the one you want us all to live in.
Like Yonmei, I'm in considerable financial difficulties of my own. But as usual, on the day before Thanksgiving I'm going to be passing through a city with a lot of homeless panhandlers, and I will be carrying more than spare change in my pocket. I give out $5 bills: I find the recipients tend to have sufficient heart attacks of gratitude at this sum that I'm afraid to give out anything larger.
Devil's advocacy: were the economy to be run on truly libertarian means, there's (theoretically) nothing preventing gypsy cabs at varying rates being made available to all income levels (as a for instance)--if there is a niche (and there rather demonstrably is), then the invisible hand will move to fill it.
I mean, he's wrong (or at least this straw homunculus I've whipped up is; I've not read enough of Mr. Silber to reliably divine the nuances of his views on public transit): a reliable public transportation system, frequent enough that you don't have to plan ahead to use it, supported and used by all economic and professional classes, is an ideal way of moving people about the urbis--certainly preferrable to a cyberpunky free-market ad hoc gypsy cab patchwork, if much less endearingly romantic. --Then, I live in Portland, which is much closer to the utopian ideal than most, or at least LA.
Mr. Silber's idealistic politics (or, I stress again, those of this darling little thatch homunculus I've crafted for the sake of a late-afternoon rhetorical point) shouldn't be some badge preventing him from making do in this less-than-his-ideal, overly regulated world; if busses are all the democratic process can manage at the moment, busses are what he must depend on, for all that he'd have it otherwise, given his druthers.
it's just kind of ironic that someone who is dependent on mass public transit to earn a living hasn't figured out that this is exactly why libertarianism doesn't work unless you are immensely, independently wealthy.
Good old Los Angeles public transportation goes on strike an average of every four years. Meanwhile the city outlaws jitneys. And it's libertarianism that doesn't work?
I'm short of money myself at the moment, therefore am reluctant to give in the first place.
Nor would Arthur make you, or even question your decision not to for any reason you did or did not bother to come up with.
I am not a libertarian, and I am not the Kevin who was pointing out the irony of a libertarian being stranded by mass public transit working badly. So I will emphasize Kip's point that a real libertarian would certainly rather use private mass transit--such things do exist, even now--but the existence of public mass transit usually makes it impossible for private systems to compete fairly. And, as Jim notes, many locales make it impossible for private systems to compete at all.
Of course, since I am not a libertarian, I'll point out that the reason that most mass transit in the US is public (or heavily regulated private) rather than unfettered private is because during the 20th century, the private mass transit systems sucked in enough ways that the governments seized control of them to make them suck less.
(I've noted before that there's not a good word in English for the concept of "nationalizing" below the level of the national government.)
I've noted before that there's not a good word in English for the concept of "nationalizing" below the level of the national government.
"Metropolitanize" could work at the city level.
Unless you are superbly well located on both ends of the chain, public mass transit does not give you door-to-door service. It often does not give you same day service. From my door in San Jose, I can be in San Francisco in an hour. Using public transportation, I've got a fifteen minute walk, a twenty minute bus ride, a train ride, and finally a bus, cab or cablecar, or some combination of the three.
I have been in areas where the cab rates are either unregulated or unenforced--Mexico City, for example--and it's annoying to have to flag taxis down until you find the one without gringo tax.
Fare regulation saves time for all concerned, and public transportation likewise saves time and trouble, which is good for all other forms of commerce.
What are the government induced costs of owning a car in California? Taxes on car sales, taxes on gas sales, car licensing fees, driver licensing fees, etc. Didn't they just triple some fee and see car sales crash? That was a basic economic cuase and effect that eluded Gray Davis.
Tain't fair to bash Mr. Silber for non libertarian acts in a profoundly non libertarian environment.
Cars don't always give you door-to-door service either.
a reliable public transportation system, frequent enough that you don't have to plan ahead to use it, supported and used by all economic and professional classes, is an ideal way of moving people about the urbis--
That would be Tokyo you're describing. I'm newly in love with Tokyo and its mass transit. I won't soon forget sitting opposite a woman on the subway wearing Chanel clothes,
Ferragamo shoes, and carrying a very very very large Mikkimoto bag. Someone like that would never ride mass transit in the US. So far as I can tell everyone in Tokyo does.
MKK
If we're going to discuss transit and libertarianism, it is worth pointing out that without a whole lot of regulation, the low-density urban form would be quite rare, probably only found in very rich communities. Without that basic policy bias, public transit would be much more widely available and used.
Nor would Arthur make you, or even question your decision not to for any reason you did or did not bother to come up with.
As I acknowledged this myself in the first post I made about it, you don't need to point this out again. ;-)
Good old Los Angeles public transportation goes on strike an average of every four years. Meanwhile the city outlaws jitneys. And it's libertarianism that doesn't work?
In the UK, it's one of those notable facts: any city or town that has had a socialist-controlled local government for long enough will have far better public transportation (indeed, better public services generally) than a city/town of the same size that has had a conservative-controlled local government. (Planet London is an exception to much of this: but yes, the socialist-controlled GLC improved public transportation in London enormously.) The obvious lesson I draw from this is that if you depend on good mass transit, vote socialist, at least in local elections.
On my first visit to the US, I stayed in Los Angeles, Baltimore, and Seattle, and discovered that to inhabitants of all three cities, "the traffic" was complained about as we Brits complain about "the weather" - and with the same feeling that of course there was nothing they could do about it. Since that first visit my host in Los Angeles gave up her car, learned to walk to work (takes her half an hour) and to take the bus or walk to the nearest shopping mall (half an hour on foot, five-ten minutes on the bus)... and she stopped complaining about the traffic. ;-) My hosts in Seattle and Baltimore have moved to Sun City in Arizona and to Montreal...
(Oh, and: no. Libertarianism doesn't work. Not unless you're prepared to live as a hermit.)
Traffic is more like the tide than the weather. And giving up one's car in California means that one has a great luxury of time.
I can, and do, walk to the store, assuming it's a nice day and I want a break, and whatever I'm purchasing isn't absurdly heavy, perishable, or urgently needed. That rules out most grocery runs.
Doing something about the traffic means charting a course or scheduling around it, or voting for freeway and mass transit expansions. Sometimes the best way around the traffic is walking, biking or public transit, but that, as with many things, is a personal judgement call.
I was trying to picture a Libertarian hermit, but then I realized that nowadays we call them survivalists. Burt Gummer, Libertarian hermit.
Traffic is more like the tide than the weather. And giving up one's car in California means that one has a great luxury of time.
I can, and do, walk to the store, assuming it's a nice day and I want a break, and whatever I'm purchasing isn't absurdly heavy, perishable, or urgently needed. That rules out most grocery runs.
Doing something about the traffic means charting a course or scheduling around it, or voting for freeway and mass transit expansions. Sometimes the best way around the traffic is walking, biking or public transit, but that, as with many things, is a personal judgement call.
I was trying to picture a Libertarian hermit, but then I realized that nowadays we call them survivalists. Burt Gummer, Libertarian hermit.
Traffic is more like the tide than the weather.
No. Traffic is something that collective public action can do something about. Which is not the case for either the tides or the weather. And people generally don't complain about the tides, at least in my experience.
Sometimes the best way around the traffic is walking, biking or public transit, but that, as with many things, is a personal judgement call.
Not exactly. Walking, biking, public transit are all directly affected by decisions made by local and national government. Both Bill Bryson and Orson Scott Card have described towns in America where it is literally not possible to be a pedestrian - no-one's built sidewalks. Cities can encourage their inhabitants to use bikes by providing safe bikepaths and bike parking spaces. Use of public transit is clearly and directly affected by public collective decisions to fund and support public transit systems. Y
I was trying to picture a Libertarian hermit, but then I realized that nowadays we call them survivalists.
Any libertarian who is not a hermit (and who doesn't wish to become a hermit) is a hypocrite.
Humans have built these clever things, called dams, dikes, and levees, to control the action of the tides, as well as an inconvenient effect of weather called flooding.
In areas without sidewalks, people generally walk at the edge of the street. Ditto bicycling without bike lanes.
Traffic is like tides in that I know I will get stuck in a traffic jam if I go on certain freeways at rush hour, and likewise I know that I will catch on a sandbar if I go boating in certain areas at low tide. Yes, I can work to build bigger freeways or to have less people on the existing ones, the same as I can petition to have the levee raised or the river dredged, but it's generally easier to try to arrange my schedule such that a predictable inconvenience will not affect me, aside from maneuvering around it.
And I'll stand by my tidal analogy since tides are the press of water, and traffic is the press of human beings, regardless of whether it's pedestian, bike or automobile traffic.
I've walked across San Francisco, and aside from blistering my feet, it's doable. Walking across LA is another matter.
And I'll stand by my tidal analogy since tides are the press of water, and traffic is the press of human beings, regardless of whether it's pedestrian, bike or automobile traffic.
But the tides are inevitable. Sure, you can prevent tides from influencing your daily life by building enormous expensive constructions, but you cannot stop there being a high tide, twice a day, at predictable times.
Traffic is not inevitable in anything like the same way.
In areas without sidewalks, people generally walk at the edge of the street. Ditto bicycling without bike lanes.
Which, if the streets have many cars using them, discourages people from walking or bicycling. Convenient for the car manufacturers: inconvenient for everyone else.
I've walked across San Francisco, and aside from blistering my feet, it's doable. Walking across LA is another matter.
Which is why LA would benefit enormously if it only had a good mass transit system. Used to. But (as Roger Rabbit pointed out) it doesn't any more.
Actually, LA is so flat (or so my impression is) that if you only took away the cars and the smog, it would be a great town for cycling in.
Libertarian aside, what would posess ANYONE to live in LA?
And for public/private/grey public/semi-public transport, I present NYC, where there are public busses, private busses that interoperate (usually) with them, private busses for various purposes (loop, long distance, shuttle), medallion cabs, and gypsy cabs. Socialism doesn't always prevent competition : gaps will always exist to be filled by the canny.
Just read this thread all at once. A couple of comments.
"platosearwax" writes (in the very first comment, upthread) that "Arthur is a good guy, even when I don't agree with him. It sure is refreshing to read your take on him and his problem than the nasty comments over at Atrios." This could give someone the impression that the "nasty comments" in question were made by Atrios. They weren't. Atrios, like me, suggested that Arthur Silber is a good egg and could probably use some help. The snarky remarks were from some (not all) of his commenters.
Indeed, reading that thread at Eschaton was one of the more discouraging experiences I've had recently in the blog world. Even more discouragingly, I see the same kind of ugliness being expressed in some comments here, in some cases by people for whom I've previously had some regard.
Sorry, I have to agree with Kevin and Yonmei. A libertarian who depends on public transit because other forms of getting to work are inconvenient or cost too much and he can't find a more convenient job is merely being hoist on his own petard when the public transit disappears out from under him. Does he have any idea how much (ew, ugh) socialist subsidy the public transit system depends on? Tough cookies, mate: this unsubsidized world is the one you want us all to live in.You know, nobody--not me, not Atrios--claimed that anyone was obliged to do anything about Arthur Silber's misfortunes. But to use the news of his bad luck as an opportunity to put the boot in to a guy who has never shown anything like this kind of meanspiritedness--who has consistently argued on behalf of the downtrodden and disempowered; who is nothing like your stereotype of a Might Makes Right libertarian--is, well, a reminder that the quality of being what is technically known as an asshole is not limited to any one part of the political spectrum.
As any reader of Electrolite can tell, I don't buy the whole libertarian package. But I have plenty of respect for people who argue, in good faith, that this is the road to a more just world. Yes, there are libertarians for whom it's all about increasing their power at the expense of everyone else. Guess what: there are also liberals for whom liberalism is nothing more than the rationale for maintaining a self-appointed societal elite. And, as we can see, there are liberals for whom honest differences of opinion by people of good will amount to a justification for indulging in meanspirited trash talk. "Tough cookies, mate." You know something? Fuck off, and take your gloating with you.
Can we rewind this one back to the beginning and have everyone read the Arthur Silber post Patrick quoted? This is not the Randist libertarian of your imaginings.
I think what it comes down to, for me, is that I think that appeals to charity should almost never be used as opportunities to take cheap shots.
It's one thing to indulge in schadenfreude at, for instance, the drug travails of Rush Limbaugh. Rush Limbaugh has made millions of dollars selling a worldview in which drug addicts deserve no compassion and in which he and his listeners are especially virtuous and self-reliant. There's some pride that deserved a big fall. It got one, and we're rightly happy to see it.
It's another thing to use an honest disagreement among people of good will as a trumped-up rationale for being plain old mean about someone, just because you disagree with some part of their politics. Arthur Silber has never sold himself, Limbaugh-like, as any kind of super-superior individual. And it's really another thing to indulge in this kind of meanness in response to a mild-mannered appeal to charity which Silber didn't even ask for. It makes me not want to know the person who does it.
Though I speak with the tongues of men and of angels, and have not charity, I am become as sounding brass, or a tinkling cymbal.
And though I have the gift of prophecy, and understand all mysteries, and all knowledge; and though I have all faith, so that I could remove mountains, and have not charity, I am nothing.
And though I bestow all my goods to feed the poor, and though I give my body to be burned, and have not charity, it profiteth me nothing.
Charity suffereth long, and is kind; charity envieth not; charity vaunteth not itself, is not puffed up,
Doth not behave itself unseemly, seeketh not her own, is not easily provoked, thinketh no evil;
Rejoiceth not in iniquity, but rejoiceth in the truth;
Beareth all things, believeth all things, hopeth all things, endureth all things.
Charity never faileth: but whether there be prophecies, they shall fail; whether there be tongues, they shall cease; whether there be knowledge, it shall vanish away.
For we know in part, and we prophesy in part.
But when that which is perfect is come, then that which is in part shall be done away.
When I was a child, I spake as a child, I understood as a child, I thought as a child: but when I became a man, I put away childish things.
For now we see through a glass, darkly; but then face to face: now I know in part; but then shall I know even as also I am known.
And now abideth faith, hope, charity, these three; but the greatest of these is charity.
Patrick, Teresa, I am justly shamed. Apologies.
Yonmei may feel ashamed, but I don't.
Teresa said "This is not the Randist libertarian of your imaginings," but Patrick described him as "a free-market capitalist, Ayn Rand-quoting libertarian." I was going mostly on Patrick's description, though I did read both of Silber's posts that he linked to, and found that Silber writes, "As a libertarian, I want the government -- at all levels -- ideally out of education altogether. I want the entire system privatized." He admits it's isn't going to happen, at least not soon; but I presume he applies that principle to public transit as well.
(Suggestions that eliminating the public transit system would cause a hundred inexpensive private transit systems to bloom are hardly worth replying to.)
Patrick says "nobody--not me, not Atrios--claimed that anyone was obliged to do anything about Arthur Silber's misfortunes." And nobody -- not me, not Yonmei, not Kevin -- was replying as if we thought we were obliged to. We were merely expressing our disinclination to follow the suggestion.
Patrick suggests that this disinclination is "meanspirited." Silber "has consistently argued on behalf of the downtrodden and disempowered." Oh, gee. Even every Might Makes Right conservative out there has expressed sympathy for the downtrodden and disempowered, they're just not inclined to do anything about it. I don't count Silber among that number, but talk is cheap.
Whatever his sympathies - his education post proves mostly that he's not a bigot - whatever his disbelief that he can move society in his preferred direction, Silber remains by his own statement a libertarian who'd like to dismantle the social structure by which we live.
Meanspirited, I? No more than he. God bless those who are capable of loving their enemies. But I'm not a Christian, and I don't.
...so I gather Simon won't be phased by Teresa's 1 Corinthians 13 reference....
...or did I mean "fazed"? Lordy, this "Hooked on Phonics" is treacherous stuff...
I'm not ashamed of my opinions about libertarians and libertarianism: I'm ashamed that I voiced them in a thread about charity.
Well, I'm a little embarrassed about blowing up quite so much myself. I don't really mean to cast Simon into the outer darkness.
I'm not remotely opposed to hardnosed critiques of libertarianism, or of liberalism for that matter. I happen to think people of both inclinations need to engage with one another with more attention and respect. (I always liked Ken MacLeod's quip that his "Fall Revolution" novels are predicated on the idea that the socialist critique of capitalism and the libertarian critique of socialism are both, in a non-trivial sense, correct.)
I was talking about this with Teresa on the way in to work, and I realized that what gets my goat is specifically getting these sorts of gainsaying remarks in response to an appeal to charity. Any and all appeals of that sort happen against a background of this implicit threat: someone is going to sneer at you, deride the proposed object of charity as unworthy, and suggest that anyone who donates is a chump. I purely loathe that.
And while I admit to overreacting to Simon, I have to say that remarks like
Suggestions that eliminating the public transit system would cause a hundred inexpensive private transit systems to bloom are hardly worth replying toor
Patrick suggests that this disinclination is "meanspirited." Silber "has consistently argued on behalf of the downtrodden and disempowered." Oh, gee. Even every Might Makes Right conservative out there has expressed sympathy for the downtrodden and disempowered, they're just not inclined to do anything about it. I don't count Silber among that number, but talk is cheapdon't really seem to come from a universe of discourse I want to be part of. I'm hardnosed enough that I don't reject the idea that some people's views make them, in effect if not intent, my "enemy." But the tone I hear in remarks like this is one that seems eager for emnity for its own sake.
Yonmei, Simon: with regard to giving money to beggars: if you come to New York City, PLEASE DON'T. Some of them are homeless, some use that as a story. There are many professional mendicants on the streets of New York, and you can't tell them from the genuinely destitute.
And even the genuinely destitute are not helped by direct cash contributions, I'm told by people who work with them extensively. Even aside from the ones who just use it for their next bottle of Night Train, they are generally better served by donations (even of minor change) to a charity that can deliver services they need but have no ability to obtain themselves (even with a little money).
Also, your giving money to the harmless non-threatening beggar promotes an environment where non-harmless, threatening ones can also thrive. Most beggars don't want you to be afraid of them, but I've been intimidated more than once (not, I hasten to add, to the point of being afraid for my life, or of actually giving them money).
If you really feel a need to do something personally for the individual homeless person in front of you, buy hir a sandwich (if s/he's claimed hunger), or a cup of coffee for a more modest donation. Then you WILL know if s/he's a professional or the real thing: by suppressed fury or gratitude, respectively.
Only in America can we observe the spectacle of a gay neo-pagan handing down a stern utilitarian lecture on charity and its pitfalls that wouldn't have sounded out of place coming from a Puritan divine.
(Okay, maybe it would have sounded out of place. After all, one point of "Sinners in the Hands of an Angry God" was that life is awfully darn uncertain, even for those of us who are full of confidence that we know who's deserving of exactly what.)
Let me be the first to say that I like Xopher and I'm charmed to see how the American thread of earnest, narrow-eyed pragmatism runs true even where we least expect it.
That said, for a different view, let me also commend this.
But, Xopher, the free-market libertarian economist types will argue that giving someone $X is more efficient than giving them a sandwich that cost you $X, because they can then use the money to get whatever they value most for $X, rather than whatever you happen to choose for them.
Of course, this presumes several things:
1. That all people can purchase the same goods at the same price. In the real world, however, some restaurants try fairly hard not to let smelly homeless people on the premises where they might annoy the restaurant's (other) customers.
2. That all people are always able to make rational choices about what is best for themselves. In the real world, the existence of addiction proves this isn't always the case.
3. That the desire the charitable person is fulfilling by giving to the homeless is "improve the lot of the next person who asks by approximately $X", and not "help the next person who desperately needs help by approximately $X". In other words, charity has an emotional aspect to it; a donor doesn't just want to give, they want to help the helpless, and not all who ask for charity qualify as helpless.
Free-market libertarianism makes a lot of good points, but (like many forms of libertarianism) it dismisses as fuzzy-headed thinking anything that can't be explained by its fundamental principles.
Sometimes, fuzzy-headed thinking is the best you can do when dealing with a fuzzy world.
About giving to the homeless: and about giving.
There are many professional mendicants on the streets of New York, and you can't tell them from the genuinely destitute.
My great-grandfather came over here during the potato famine. He wasn't quite starving, but he thought it might be coming, so he moved to alphabet city (which was german and irish back then, before the Gen'l Slocum fire - see Manhattan Melodrama, the movie Dillinger was watching just before they got him - for a precis of the Gen'l Slocum disaster).
But I digress -
On St Patrick's Day I go out and buy one of those midtown monster sandwiches with piles of fries and a pickle and a bottle of juice and give it to a homeless person with a happy St. Pats, on the theory that we donkeys are here because a few million people starved, and it would be just slightly tacky to celebrate that in a way that causes recreational vomiting.
The point of which is: I've never been able to tell how badly off the person was by their expression, which has pretty much always been almost painfully startled by someone giving a gift out of goodwill rather than happening to shower manna on the man-shaped object occupying their particular corner of the subway floor.
As a rule of thumb, I tend to find that "successful" homeless people are more likely to persist than homeless people who have already given up. I'm not entirely sure that encouraging them to give up is the answer.
Indeed, reading that thread at Eschaton was one of the more discouraging experiences I've had recently in the blog world.
Yeah, me too. It has caused me to re-read my own comment in that thread a good dozen times now, both trying to make sure that there was no way that any part of it could have contributed directly to the general unpleasantness, and trying to figure out how I could have done a better job of stating my appreciation for Arthur's efforts.
Okay, I think there's a bit of confusion here between charity for the needy and patronage of the arts. When you're talking about an individual artist, this is somewhat usual, but the bald facts are that, due to a transit strike, Arthur's hit a spot of financial difficulty and is being forced to trim non-essentials like cable tv, and is giving a serious eye to the necessity of convenient home web access (as opposed to waiting for an open terminal at the local public library). After that, we're talking about telephone service, power, and finally rent.
Charity should not judge, but patronage can and does. I don't care to support someone's libertarian weblog, and since that was the angle of appeal, that's how I judged it. If it were an appeal to the "Fix Arthur's Car" fund, I'd be more sympathetic--especially since, given the transit strike, the car is not a luxury but a necessity.
When people ask for patronage for a starving artist, it's not unreasonable for the propective patrons to critique the quality of the art. Patrick pointed out a blog entry which he holds in high esteem and cited this as a reason to give. I've read some of Silber's other writings, and think they're reasons not to give, or at least to give to someone else.
It's mean-spirited to laugh at Arthur's plight, but it's a perfectly valid critique of his philosophical and political writings to point out the irony of his situation.
you know...I really like Atrios, but there are times when I can't stand his commenters. This is definitely one of them.
Teresa: Have you changed your approach to offensive posts? What did Xopher say that was so offensive that you changed every sentence in it to "Blat blat blat. Tinkle tinkle tinkle. Blat blat blat. Tinkle tinkle tinkle."?
This thread has forced me to think about my reaction to the homeless and beggars on the street. I almost never give them money, though I'll often drop coins in the case of someone performing on the street. Why do I look straight ahead and walk on as if they weren't there? It's a number of things and they mostly boil down to fear. I'll be recognized and remembered as an 'easy mark'. I'll be taken advantage of. I might establish a link that forces me to interact with this person and recognize his humanity and then feel worse than I already do. There are so many of them how can I help them? Easier to keep walking and pretend they aren't there.
I donate money to food pantries and other similar charities, but I think I really need to examine this and how I'm dealing and what I need to do.
Maybe tomorrow.
MKK
Mary Kay, I think a lot of it has to do with fear. On my home ground, in Edinburgh, I'm largely unafraid: I stop to dig spare change out of my pocket if I pass a beggar, and if I can't give when I'm asked, I apologise. A street person stopped me to ask for money recently and we had a short chat about Edith Wharton. (I was two-thirds of the way through The Buccaneers at the time.) In a strange city, though, I'm much more inclined to walk on past.
Xopher, I can't actually remember whether I gave to homeless people in New York when I was there: it is a habit with me to give when I've got it, but US money is sufficiently confusing that I can't give quickly, and if I'm in a strange city, I won't feel as comfortable about slowing down to work it out.
It's not at all an unreasonable reaction to be wary of making contact with someone who's (statistically, if it's a male homeless person in New York, anyway) not unlikely to be schizophrenic (I know, non un- is a terrible thing to say).
I'm just also wary of dismissing them as predators, because (my prejudice is) it's a pretty terrible thing to think of life at the fringes of New York as the best someone can do for themself, whatever the reason.
The middle class in New York is getting smaller and more frightened, and there are a lot more people looking for help from them. It must be a very cold world if you're one of them.
Regarding Xopher's (11/10 02:08 PM) and other's posts on dealing with the homeless, I don't know if either of you are aware, but http://being_homeless.livejournal.com/ is the blog of a homeless young woman in the Boston area. I've met her and she's very nice and intelligent and articulate. Unfortunately, a car accident left her with a brain injury that's prevented her from holding down a steady job or earning sufficient income to stay off the streets.
At any rate, here are her comments on panhandling and giving money to the homeless that I thought you guys might find enlightening, given that it comes from somebody who also lives on the street.
I also recommend reading her journal in general. I find it fascinating and thought-provoking and assumption-challenging.
I have only one reason for giving money to panhandlers: if I keep doing it, perhaps money will become less important to me.
I don't care what they do with it, or how well their expressed needs match their true needs. I used to worry about that, then I realized that once I gave something away, it's not up to me how it's used afterward.
It suddenly struck me that in hell-hole socialist Europe one can purchase a small motorcycle with a 50 c.c. engine for about 300 Euros, used. They cost nothing to run, and are ideal for a place like LA where the chances of riding into a snowdrift are slim. Do you not have them in the US?
I apologize for irritating Patrick so. What seems to have gotten his goat was an uncharitable remark in a thread on charity. But if explaining why one is disinclined to accede to a charitable suggestion isn't relevant in a thread on it, when it is it relevant?
I think Kevin Andrew Murphy has it right, and thank you, Kevin: It isn't charity that's being asked for, it's patronage. Patrick's reason for asking people to consider patronage for Silber is his admiration for his writing. And it is admirable in the ways he says. But we the readers are entitled to hold other factors more important. And I don't think it's out of line to say so.
If Arthur Silber were out on the street holding a cardboard sign reading "Broke libertarian blogger. Spare some change?" I would probably not be less likely to give him change than if the sign didn't say "libertarian."
Kevin wrote, "It's mean-spirited to laugh at Arthur's plight, but it's a perfectly valid critique of his philosophical and political writings to point out the irony of his situation." I don't think I laughed at the plight (I don't think Kevin is necessarily saying that I did), and I agree with this.
Patrick is bothered by the "universe of discourse" from which some of my remarks come. I suppose he has a point there. I am an Angry White Male. I'm just angry about different things than the rest of the Angry White Males are. In particular I am completely fed up with libertarianism, and I'm not going to argue with it any more. Which is why I made that comment about how one libertarian's suggestion was "hardly worth replying to." It isn't. I didn't want the person who made that comment to think it had passed unremarked, or that I acknowledged he had a point. But I'm not going to weary myself explaining what's wrong with it, especially because I know from experience that such work has no impact. Libertarians are like Marxists and neoconservatives that way: actual arguments have no impact on them.
But if Patrick is bothered by certain universes of discourse, what does he make of this remark?
"Why isn’t it legal to track down spammers and shoot them out of hand?"
I sympathize with the feeling that led to this comment, I do. But is it appropriate to say something quite this inflammatory about people who are merely really, really, really annoying? It gave me the willies.
Patrick writes, "I happen to think people of both inclinations need to engage with one another with more attention and respect." Maybe. But when dealing with libertarians in the actual world, I find myself turning more to the observation of a wise (if inflammatory) woman who said “Just because you’re on their side doesn’t mean they’re on your side.”
I appreciate Xopher's concern for the well-being of New York City panhandlers. But I trust the panhandlers to spend money on things of concern to panhandlers, more than I do the charities when tend to spend money on vacation homes for their executives. On these matters I am an adherent of Jon Carroll's Untied Way. Carroll says:
"Now it may be that some of the people to whom you give money will spend it unwisely. They will not use it to update their resumes; they might not even put it toward the purchase of a better pair of shoes. We are not performing triage here, nor are we sitting on a golden throne. We are doing what we can. When a person is in a doorway, the concept of 'appropriate' may be a little fuzzy. You can be sure the money has gone to someone who needs it. You can be sure that your client will spend 100 percent of the donation on self-identified need areas."
I hope that the person who quotes this with approval, and tries to follow its precepts (i.e., me) is not necessarily an uncharitable boor whom Patrick does not want to know.
"I won't soon forget sitting opposite a woman on the subway wearing Chanel clothes, Ferragamo shoes, and carrying a very very very large Mikkimoto bag. Someone like that would never ride mass transit in the US."
I see them on the New York subway frequently. One thing I like about NYC is that just about everybody rides the subway. Well, not movie stars and government officials and such, but plenty of men in suits and women in fur coats.
"in hell-hole socialist Europe one can purchase a small motorcycle with a 50 c.c. engine for about 300 Euros, used."
I don't know how much 300 euros is in dollars, or how much used motorcycles cost, but when I lived in Austin (where you need a car) I always bought 10 yr old cars for $2-3k in cash from ads in the paper, drove them till they cost too much to maintain, then donated them to Goodwill and bought another one.
If Arthur doesn't have $3k, he can get a credit card at a high rate, borrow cash from it, buy a junk car, and drive it. Maybe he could even get a bank loan at a lower rate. Obviously this is not a great way to manage one's finances, but if the choice is between being responsible for his own transportation and getting evicted/losing his job - which will start a serious downward spiral that it's hard to pull out of - it'll do - it's a stop-gap measure.
Unless there are medical reasons why Arthur can't drive, and those are the people who are really stuck.
Simon, I linked to Jon Carroll's "Untied Way" earlier in this thread.
As to your challenge:
But if Patrick is bothered by certain universes of discourse, what does he make of this remark?
"Why isn92t it legal to track down spammers and shoot them out of hand?"Gee, Simon, what I "make of that remark" is that it was made by the woman I've been married to for nearly 25 years, and I knew it was a joke.
If you're cruising to nail either Teresa or me for being so (shock horror) inconsistent as to cut one another slack once in a while that we wouldn't necessarily cut somebody else, well, goodness, you'll probably succeed. Of course, the exact nature of the rose you get to pin on your nose for this accomplishment is another question.
You'll just have to get used to it; both Patrick and Teresa are large. They do contain multitudes.
Very large. OK, so I wasn't being paranoid on previous occasions when I thought I was being critized for things that others were getting a pass on. That's nice to know.
I wonder in what sense Teresa's remark was a joke. In that she wasn't actually going to shoot anybody? But even if you take it deadly seriously she says she isn't going to shoot anybody, she just wishes she could. As a joke in the "ha ha, funny" sense I confess it eludes me.
You know, Simon, this isn't a courtroom, it's a personal weblog. Indeed Teresa and I do criticize one another, and disagree in public. And both of us try to be fair to one another and to our commenters.
But I'm not going to put up with being guilt-tripped by you or anyone else over having failed to criticize some remark of Teresa's to the extent that you've decided is appropriate.
What you're playing is a very nasty and unwelcome game, and I'd like you to either stop it or go away.
(lumping together several comments about mass transit)
Kevin Murphy lamented the impracticality of relying on mass transit in our car-focused world.
"Unless you are superbly well located on both ends of the chain, public mass transit does not give you door-to-door service. It often does not give you same day service."
I live in the Boston area, in large part because of the transit. When I was job-hunting, one of my criteria was transit-accessibility. When I found a good job that required an absurd number of connections to reach from where I used to live...I moved. Now I can commute via 2 buses, almost door to door. Or 1 bus, with a 25-minute walk at each end. Home addresses are variables, in the grand scheme of things. Some lifestyle choices are worth moving for.
Mary Kay wrote:
>I'm newly in love with Tokyo and its mass
>transit. I won't soon forget sitting opposite
>a woman on the subway wearing Chanel clothes,
>Ferragamo shoes, and carrying a very very very
>large Mikkimoto bag. Someone like that would
>never ride mass transit in the US. So far as I
>can tell everyone in Tokyo does.
Come to Boston! While I don't have the fashion sense to recognize the outfit you describe, I can tell that a huge variety of economic and social classes use public transit. The weekend I came to town to look for an apartment, before moving to the area, I was half-terrified by the mere idea of riding the subway. I'd grown up knowing that "respectable people" had to drive their own cars. Nothing else could possibly be safe. In the course of a few hours, I saw students, professors, doctors (doctors! not just medical students!) people in suits.
It takes an awful lot more to shock me now, or even catch my eye. Like the time on the subway I saw a man in formal highland dress, and it was only midafternoon. (On a Saturday evening, I'd have thought he was going to a wedding, and I wouldn't have been so startled, but this was a weekday.)
It's my impression that LA is a terrible city for mass transit. It's not just that there is relatively little in the way of public transit or support for transit (though that's a big part of it.) The local culture supports and encourages sprawl -- big houses, big yards, malls, everything zoned in big sections devoted to one purpose so efficient living requires a personal car to get between homes and workplaces and shopping. Other cities put them closer together, or even mix them in. If a person wants to live independently without a car, it seems foolhardy to attempt it in LA.
Adrian,
I'm happy with where I live, and I'm happy with my car, and frankly, I'd be very unhappy living in an environment where I had to depend on public transportation. I tried that in college, and while there were times when it was convenient and reliable, there were others where it was a sad and ugly joke. Besides which, I find a bit of hypocrisy, or at least lack of reflection, in urbanites telling suburbanites to give up their cars, while at the same time the urbanites rely heavily on food trucked into their cities. Given that I'm eating food raised in my own garden, I find my use of a car acceptable from a Green perspective.
Simon,
Though of course a joke isn't funny if you have to explain it, the "Why isn't legal to shoot X--?" is a stock gag from the same universe as Elmer Fudd blasting Daffy with a shotgun, blackening his feathers and making his fly off or spin around his head until manually reattached. We'd like something similar to happen to the spammers: humiliating, discomfiting and a waste of their time.
Since tarring and feathering is no longer a legal option (though the traditional sentence for snake oil salesmen), we'd have to make do with community service picking up litter. I'd go with one piece of trash for each copy sent of each individual spam.
When I found a good job that required an absurd number of connections to reach from where I used to live...I moved.
Which says a lot about the value of renting, as opposed to owning, in an urban setting. When one rents, one can more easily make those choices. It's an advantage not much mentioned in common discussion over whether to rent or own one's home.
Kevin,
I don't approve of "urbanites telling suburbanites to get rid of their cars." Did you think my previous comment was an order, or even a suggestion, for people who are happy to be driving? Or are you reacting to some preaching urbanites who are not part of the current discussion? I haven't heard anything like that before...but it could be a NYC thing.
I depend on public transit because I have health issues that make it painful and somewhat dangerous for me to drive. People with other kinds of issues sometimes find that driving gives them the freedom and peace of mind I've found with mass transit. I want there to be enough flexibility so people can choose the kind of lifestyle that works for them and makes them happy, rather than being stuck with a default.
When I hear people talking about how they "can't" do something that I've done, I often want to explain how it can be done. Even if nobody act on the possibilities, I perceive a big difference between, "I can't do that, it's impossible," and "I don't want to do that, the tradeoffs would not be worth it to me." It's important to know when there are tradeoffs, and that you're making a choice.
Adrian,
Well I'll admit I did read half that thought in phrases like "Some lifestyle choices are worth moving for" and "Come to Boston!" followed by disparaging remarks about L.A. Though it likely is a bit of a beestung reaction after having dealt with the Critical Mass bicyclers in San Francisco, who block traffic and gouge lawns, managing to at once annoy both drivers and pedestrians.
Come to Boston! While I don't have the fashion sense to recognize the outfit you describe, I can tell that a huge variety of economic and social classes use public transit.
Heck, even gorillas use the public transit in Boston.
Kevin:
Does the garden you grow contribute to the sprawl that makes mass transit less practical? If so, then perhaps your gardening isn't as green--or at least, as Green--as you might wish.
In places where mass transit is not a very efficient way to travel, I honor those who find a way to make it work for them -- but I can't fault those who do not. I'd love to use mass transit. When we lived in NYC, the ability to get from point A to point B without having to worry about negotiating traffic or parking, having time and space to read, and the added bennie of a bit of exercise thrown in was great. But we live in Albuquerque now, where mass transit totally sucks.
Most cities out west are simply so spread out and so far from each other that the car is much harder to do without.
Instead, I've been pining for a Mini Cooper, or a Prius, or some such...
-l.
Kevin, I'm sorry about the misunderstanding.
Mary Kay, my intent was to invite you to visit Our Fair City, not order you to move. I realize that my situation is unusual (both in the way I value public transit, and the way I saw Boston for the first time at Arisia '97, and moved here in the summer of 1998.)
Adamsj, I doubt Kevin's decision to garden makes that much difference wrt sprawl. Zoning boards in some areas are requiring half an acre of land per single-family home, for new construction. Or even more. If you want to live in that area, you need a home that comes with a lot of land, and your only choices are lawn, garden, or parking lot. A lot of people choose where they live based on distances to work and various friends and relatives they want to see often. And school districts, and neighborhood features, and home prices. Abstract considerations like sprawl vs environmentalism come way down on the list, life being as short as it is.
Adam,
My house is more subrural than it is suburban. I can walk to a working dairy. I need to bicycle to the mall, and it's bus or car to get downtown, where I rarely need to go anyway.
As for being more or less Green, I feel perfectly fine in comparison to preachy bicycling urbanites who have their produce trucked hundreds of miles from the central valley.
Telecommuting makes suburbia a much better option.
I feel perfectly fine in comparison to preachy bicycling urbanites who have their produce trucked hundreds of miles from the central valley.
Lots of urbanites, preachy and otherwise, are fed by one truckload, and the produce comes from farms that take advantage of economies of scale, both financial and environmental, that backyard gardens cannot match. In the case of organic produce, the farms also meet much stricter standards of environmental impact than many, if not most, backyard gardens.
Of course, we preachy urbanites are not usually talking about people living in semi-rural areas, growing their own food and driving only seldom when we say that suburbanites should fight their fossil fuel addiction. :-)
For another view of "economies of scale" wrt farming, see The Meatrix
I can't imagine a circumstance in which maintaining a small truck garden in one's own yard can be considered a bad idea, provided the zucchinis don't take over.
Pericat, your link requires flash and my computer is old and crotchety. Is it about the meat industry? I meant plant farming, the kind that could be compared with Kevin's garden. But in any case, I didn't mean to imply that a backyard garden is a bad thing. I'm all in favour of (organic) backyard gardens, for those who have back yards.
There's a segment in it that illustrates the supplanting of independent farms with agribusiness operations, one result of which is really cheap truckloads of food in far-away cities, as well as the single crop focus (only corn, only pigs, only wheat) that make them so profitable as well as so destructive over the long term.
It's true that larger farms can feed more people than if the same land were parcelled out to individuals as each one's sole source of food, but I don't think, in practise, that the larger model works out to being "greener" overall than individual gardens, if for no other reason than that individual gardeners simply won't stay put on their own plots. They keep running off to see what their neighbours are up to, trading beans for tomatoes and hiding zucchinis under porches. Give people half a chance, and even the most rigidly conceived individual model will morph into a community effort.
Zoning boards in some areas are requiring half an acre of land per single-family home, for new construction. Or even more. If you want to live in that area, you need a home that comes with a lot of land, and your only choices are lawn, garden, or parking lot.
Forest is another option, at least in some places.
Patrick, there are various ways to achieve reasonable equity here. I once again apologize for having irritated you, and for apparently giving the impression that criticizing Teresa was the only way to do it.
It just seems to me that if comments like hers don't bother you, perhaps you could lighten up a little on the sweeping condemnations of the "universe of discourse" of comments like calling a piece of fatuous libertariansm "hardly worth replying to."
Putting the most malignant possible interpretation on comments is also not always the best idea.
That's all. Sheesh.
From Kevin Andrew Murphy,
posted on November 14, 2003 03:44 PM:
"Adam,
My house is more subrural than it is suburban. I can walk to a working dairy. I need to bicycle to the mall, and it's bus or car to get downtown, where I rarely need to go anyway."
A rare set-up; I envy you.
"As for being more or less Green, I feel perfectly fine in comparison to preachy bicycling urbanites who have their produce trucked hundreds of miles from the central valley."
As has already been pointed out, it's not necessarily the urbanites who consume the largest transportation resources. Suburbanites certainly consume more, and many 'ruralites' probably consume more.
"Telecommuting makes suburbia a much better option."
Telecommuting makes many things better options. Even in an urban area, it gives the ability to locate living quarters independently of transportation to work sites.
Hard-Hitting Moderator: Teresa Nielsen Hayden.
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