Victor Davis Hanson only came onto my (obviously fallible and short-range) radar on the 21st of December 2023 when he was interviewed by Freddy Gray at The Spectator. I was very impressed. In addition to his expertise as an historian of ancient societies Hanson has a sociological understanding of the formula I often describe on Social Science Files as the Border-Bond-Bind requisite condition for the sustainability of societies. It seems obvious that the failure to maintain this BBB formula is the principal cause of the extinction trend in all of the West’s modern societies. Readers of Social Science Files know I am gradually working my way through the historical conditions that led to the emergence of modern society (type 8). I feel no urgency to explain the demise of modern society because at least some of the basic elements of self-destruction were described in my book Capitalism, Institutions, and Economic Development and only need to be updated in terms of contemporary ‘discretions’ in the chronic political overloading of welfare, administration, and personal identity.
This ‘Plop’ section was created as a place to ‘file’ examples that have crossed my inadequate radar screen. Pride of place today as we commence a Year of Living Dangerously is Victor Davis Hanson. One reason I am drawn to Victor’s analyses is that they are peppered with examples from his home state California where I lived—in the San Fransisco Bay area, mostly Berkeley—for 3 years at the end of the 1960s, in the good old days. On my last visit to San Fransisco I was disturbed by a stark urban-social decline, which seems to have got much worse since. See the WSJ article below. I now inhabit the lovely land of Oz and tomorrow is Australia Day, so it is most fitting that on its eve Australians had the opportunity to heed Victor’s warnings.
… and now to San Francisco where pavements are covered in human poop …
Is There a Constitutional Right to Vagrancy?
The Supreme Court will consider if cities can enforce public order.
By The Editorial Board, Jan. 12, 2024
The belongings and tents of homeless people in San Francisco on Dec. 1, 2023
Good news for West Coast denizens. The Supreme Court on Friday agreed to hear an appeal challenging a judicial ruling that established a de facto constitutional right to vagrancy. Wouldn’t it be rich if conservative Justices rescue progressive cities from themselves? (City of Grants Pass v. Johnson.)
A panel of the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals in 2022 blocked the Oregon town of Grants Pass from enforcing “anti-camping” laws on public property. The judges said the Eighth Amendment’s ban on cruel and unusual punishment prohibits cities from arresting or imposing penalties on homeless people for squatting on public property if there aren’t enough shelter beds for every vagrant.
Progressives have used the ruling to sue to stop cities across the West from enforcing similar laws. Under the appellate court’s precedent, a police officer in, say, San Francisco can’t cite a homeless person who has set up a tent inside a public playground even if he has been offered temporary housing.
Many homeless reject temporary shelter because they’d rather live on the streets where they can freely use drugs. The Ninth Circuit decision has made it harder for local officials to use the threat of penalties to force vagrants to accept treatment for mental illness and drug addiction, which has contributed to the increasing disorder in West Coast cities.
San Francisco Mayor London Breed last summer held a rally in front of the Ninth Circuit courthouse to protest a lower-court injunction blocking the city from clearing homeless camps. The judges weren’t moved. On Thursday a 2-1 majority of a three-judge panel upheld the lower-court ruling.
In a fiery dissent, Judge Patrick Bumatay explained that nothing in “the text, history and tradition” of the Eighth Amendment “comes close to prohibiting enforcement of commonplace anti-vagrancy laws.” The court’s “sweeping injunction has no basis in the Constitution or our precedent,” he added. “San Francisco should not be treated as an experiment for judicial tinkering.”
“Our decision is cruel because it leaves the citizens of San Francisco powerless to enforce their own health and safety laws without the permission of a federal judge,” Judge Bumatay wrote. “And it’s unusual because no other court in the country has interpreted the Constitution in this way.” This may be one reason the High Court agreed to hear the Grants Pass appeal. …
My thanks to the Wall Street Journal and The Spectator … and conservative Condorito
Dr Michael G. Heller