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I think well meaning liberals want to believe that all of society’s problems can be solved without any form of coercion, and that is simply not the case. If som

• vidarh 3y ago
  Consider that if the housing option you're providing is so shitty that people opt for homelessness over staying there it's cruel to force them to stay there. You're arguing for a cruel and authoritarian option no matter how much you want blame those you want to victimise.
• fragmede 3y ago
  Taking the dog away and putting it up for adoption, while better than shooting it in front of the owner, is still not something the person wants to do. They have an emotional sentimental attachment to the animal and sometimes it is literally the only thing keeping them from killing themselves. And you want them to give it up? In exchange for a warm bed? 3 months from now when they've been kicked out for whatever reason, they won't have a warm bed anymore, and worse, they won't have their pet. Better just to keep the pet and be homeless. Yes, if we took the pet away from them it would be more convenient for the rest of us. It would also be more convenient if they did not exist at all. Unfortunately that's not the reality we live in. We really like giving people agency in their own lives, and taking it away isn't something most of us are huge fans of. We can debate whether or not that's a good thing, but for now, people have agency, even temporarily unhoused people, and they don't want to give up their pets, their lifetime companion, in exchange for a few days of warmth.
• chrismcb 3y ago
  If my Hobson choice was giving up my dog, out sleeping in a bed. I'm sleeping outside with my dog (unless it was freezing) asking (it rather forcing) someone to give up their dog is cruel. Cruel to both the person and the dog.
• vidanay 3y ago
  And what, exactly, is your plan for the animal after you forcible make the person give them up?
  • evancox100 3y ago
    You may have to euthanize that animal if no one wants to adopt it. Sorry, but there are worse things in the world than putting down animals. And don’t even try to come at me if you eat meat! Every one of us who eats factory farmed meat (y.t. included) is participating in far worse atrocities than a shelter humanely euthanizing a relative handful of dogs.
    • vidarh 3y ago
      There are worse thing, but when you are arguing for authoritarian use of force against people because you think you know what is better for them, and at the same time want to steal their animals and murder them, trying to present it as unfortunately making the best possible choice rather than admitting you're arguing for doing harm is rather distasteful.
    • archagon 3y ago
      That is fucked up.
      • ProfessorLayton 3y ago
        It is fucked up. Pigs are just as intelligent as dogs, yet they still end up as a McRib.
  • soco 3y ago
    I'm surprised how a certain part of this site's audience have no problem in proposing the use of force in guiding people's lives, and then at the same time claim it is in the name of "liberty". In this particular case I'm sure they would see no problem in killing that dog (and call it euthanasia or some other fancy name) and please don't let me go on the obvious slippery slope from there. (EDIT: 5 minutes after and the killing was advocated. I rest my case.)
• kevingadd 3y ago
  While objectively correct, the policy you describe is incredibly cruel. People often end up homeless through no fault of their own, and more importantly, temporarily homeless. Should someone lose all their pets just because they end up homeless for a couple days or a week? Do we want to fill the animal shelters up even further and send more animals off to be euthanized? Imagine being a young child, already traumatized by ending up homeless, and now the pet you've been growing up with gets dragged off by the authorities to be executed. It's absolutely the case that difficult problems can require the state to exert force to solve them, but I'm also just not convinced that forcing people into shelters is going to fix everything. Especially in this case where we know the area does not have enough beds for everyone, and the constraints enforced to get a bed are onerous (throw out your belongings, get rid of your pets, etc) Some of the people who reject housing also cannot realistically be in a shelter because they will just cause trouble for everyone else if you force them to go. My brother used to work in law enforcement and this was an issue with the most troublesome homeless people in the area - as a law enforcement officer he really didn't have any workable tools. If you take them to a shelter they'll get kicked out because they're troubled, and if you take them to jail their condition will not improve (only deteriorate) and then they end up back on the street again once they're discharged.
  • evancox100 3y ago
    I think what’s incredibly cruel is blocking people from building additional housing on their own private land that could help affordably house people at ZERO cost to the state. > Imagine being a young child, already traumatized by ending up homeless, and now the pet you've been growing up with gets dragged off by the authorities to be executed. Im sorry but pets die, it’s a part of life. It can be traumatic no matter what the circumstances. But so is living unhoused on the street, I’d imagine. And this is exactly the attitude I mean. You, a well intentioned liberal, like to think that we can regulate society and enforce laws without causing any trauma to anyone involved. Sometimes you have to take away a pet from a family in the name of the greater good for society as a whole, for instance if that pet is a danger to others. And I did not say that forcing people into shelters will fix everything. There are a lot of other problems including drug addiction and mental illness. It’s incredibly sad how far we’ve allowed the situation to degrade, and the climb out of here will be difficult.
• wingspar 3y ago
  I wonder how homeless shelter housing intersects with FHA 'emotional support animal' requirements. Presumably, someone homeless with a dog, would use the dog as an emotional support animal, but not have any of the required documentation. https://www.humanesociety.org/resources/fair-housing-act-and-assistance-animals https://www.humanesociety.org/resources/fair-housing-act-and...
• archagon 3y ago
  How utterly cruel. Imagine a homeless life where not only do you not have any friends or relatives to lean on, but everyone who passes you by on the street either ignores you or outright loathes you. A dog that loves you unconditionally would quite literally be a life-saver.
  • evancox100 3y ago
    Imagine not letting someone build cheap housing that could keep someone sheltered with a roof over their head because of your own idiosyncratic opinions on housing style. I think letting people build the housing that people need would be 1000x the life saver compared to letting them have a dog once they're already out on the street. This is like the "let them eat cake" of homelessness policy.
    • tedivm 3y ago
      Yeah but should we punish the homeless people, who are a completely different population than the people who caused the housing shortage?
    • deleted 3y ago
      [deleted]
• tomjen3 3y ago
  If you institute that rule, every tabloid in the US will immediately feed pictures of people being separated from their dogs. You will have a lynch mob on your hands in five minutes flat and anyone who supports you will have the same. It's a complete non-starter politically.
  • anotherhue 3y ago
    Maybe flip it around then, offer shelter for homeless dogs with a human sized bed attached. Everyone gets to feel morally righteous and hopefully the job still gets done.
  • evancox100 3y ago
    That may be the case, again it is my original point that many liberals (which I consider myself one for the record) want to believe that all of our problems can be solved without any coercion or cruelty. But beloved pets are taken away from their owners all the time in the US, every single day, for a variety of reasons. The idea that it is "beyond the pale" to remove an animal from a family who cannot properly care for it is exactly the problem I'm pointing out. We are in the current mess wrt housing because many of the solutions are political non-starters, but I am not trying to advocate the most politically acceptable solutions on HN, but instead encourage people to examine whether or not their genuine, well meaning intentions may be counterproductive in some cases. And also, I am not trying to assert that but for euthanizing homeless people's dogs, all of CA's homeless issues would be solved. Clearly that's not the case.
• tech_ken 3y ago
  Let's say this morning you force someone into a shelter bed, euthanizing their dog and throwing away their tent and other bulky property in the process. What are you going to do tomorrow morning? Is that bed now reserved for them going forward? Or can they lose access to it? If it's the latter then you've taken someone who has almost no stability in their life and removed whatever scraps of it they had left, then tossed them back into the street. You've accomplished absolutely nothing in this scenario, except make it even less likely that person will ever find their way back into a stable living situation.
  • evancox100 3y ago
    These sound more like complaints with shelters than anything I said. If getting someone into a shelter bed is not overall a net positive for them and society, why are we even doing it in the first place? You're pointing out a lot of other issues that have nothing to do with what I talked about. I'm sure there are lots of ways shelters could be run better and improved. It's an imperfect, partial solution to a huge problem.
    • tech_ken 3y ago
      I absolutely agree it's a problem with shelter beds, but this is exactly what you're talking about. Coercive force is useless at best unless there's something effective that you're pushing people into. Pretending like the problem is that we're not "cracking down" hard enough, or that progressives are simply averse to sufficiently coercive measures bc they're soft-hearted or whatever, only obscures the solution space until we've resolved the other issues first. Coercion without effective direction is nothing more than torture.
      • evancox100 3y ago
        I am not an expert on homeless shelters and the exact pros and cons. You seem to have thoughts that getting someone into a shelter would be overall net negative, which is fine for you to have that opinion. But in the context of the discussion, if we take for granted that doing X for homeless people is good, whatever X may be (e.g. moving them into a shelter, attending an AA meeting, seeing a doctor, whatever), my point is that you may need to apply moderate, reasonable and proportionate levels of force and/or coercion in order to achieve X.