You are losing any credibility you had [...]
Great, here come the Al Sharpton ADL tactics again...
Nothing more than name-calling... Remember that
argumentation validity pyramid a few pages back?
Supporting political corruption in Lakewood is a choice. It has nothing to do with being against
Semitic people. Remember
Hershel Herskowitz?
That Wikipedia entry seems to be hijacked and greatly unbalanced. Hope that changes in the near future (which is why I've linked to it - I've mainly pasted that article quote on a number of libertarian / Ron Paul supporter forums)... The Wikipedia entry highlights a small fraction of AFP writers that are the most controversial, and uses accusation of "conspiracy theory" as a
thought-terminating cliché. I've been familiar with the AFP since about the time I became a Ron Paul supporter in 2006, and I find that their actual content doesn't come anywhere close to the libel some groups put out about them.
"OMG, they don't want so much taxpayer money going to Israel, that makes them Hitler!!!" Do you have any logical, factual criticism of the article - especially the part I quoted, and especially the parts in bold? Didn't think so.
You are right about that, so why do you keep bringing it up. No accusations of corruption give you any rights to the land which you still have not established. You keep changing the topic each time I mention this. You stole land and it its corruption to remove you from the land you stole?
You are committing what is probably the most common logical fallacy in existence - misattributing burden of proof - "I am king, I make the law, prove yourself in my court". No. You must first prove the validity of your power. If you repeat the rotting conjecture of your power being necessary and good, my arguments are ready to debunk it. Read the justifications for the American Revolution.
Without the first argument it means that you stole land and are saying that the cheapest way for them to take care of the issue you made is for them to let you steal it.
You are trying to twist things. Hypothetically, without the first (moral) argument that this is our land by Right to Homestead, we would have the claim that this is "public land", and all the problems and ambiguities and "tragedy of the commons". The second [pragmatic] argument is that the government should let homeless people camp in a well-organized remote plot of "public land", because it's better for everybody, including the taxpayers.
Those who support Tent City based upon the pragmatic argument are basing on the premise that it is the government's resposibility to do something for you and will then look for the most cost effective way to do it. Based upon what you have written you should reject that premise.Since when do you believe that government should do anything to take care of the poor?
As I've stated, I am a gradualist libertarian. I don't believe the evils of government can disappear overnight, and the transition needs to be properly managed. I'm not claiming that the government has a responsibility to take care of the poor, but that the government justified its existence in part for altruistic ends, but in reality also ended up hurting the poor (artificial scarcity in housing and medicine raising the cost of living, bad business climate chasing away jobs, resentment sabotaging voluntary charity, etc, etc, etc, etc).
The government assets should all gradually be privatized, starting with the most uncomplicated remote plots of land, and eventually someday even
roads,
courts,
police, etc. But who says that "privatized" must only mean selling to the highest bidder? Functions of the government need to be replaced by the free market, which must include non-profits and charities as well. We deserve this land because we accomplish what the government promised and failed, and also as restitution for the harms that government has caused.
With Tent City shutting down I saw that a church is opening its basement to the homeless. Don't you feel that this PRIVATE ENTERPRISE solution is the best one?
Yes, of course. They have their idea, and we have ours; and we will compete for supporter patronage. I have multiple reasons to prefer our solution over theirs (and not just because I don't have a basement).
Ocean County would need a hundred such basements to house all the homeless - assuming they would all want to go there, which I very much doubt. I've heard many things about how this program will be implemented - these approaches didn't work before, and there's no reason they will work again. Yet another prohibitionist part-time prison that gets locked at night - a recipe for failure. Difficult people need their space. It may work for some small fraction of the homeless, but it doesn't take away the need for Tent Cities as part of the solution.
It may seem like a step in the right direction, but it also has side-effects that may be negative. Providing temporary shelter for 9 or 15 people will get a lot of positive publicity, and a lot of media and politicians will put a "mission accomplished" sign over it. And it is unknown how long this shelter will last...
Small shelters that cherry-pick the people who are easiest to help are only hurting the more viable solution. You are depriving Tent Cities of positive and hard-working people who would help make them work, which means fewer good people to counter-balance the "bad apples" and keep them from dominating...
Your pragmatic argument is in direct contradiction of your libertarian ones.
Not even close.
The opposition to it is more grassroots than based upon those with political influence.
This statement is very easy to disprove. Tent City support is as grass-roots as it gets: lots and lots of small donations, hundreds of people stopping by once in a while to drop off some food or clothing. All of this is very well documented. State-wide opinion polls support us as well. Opposition to Tent City is highly organized, and virtually all of it is coming from one centralized organization. Not all Orthodox (we've had Orthodox people supporting us at rallies, etc), but those loyal to the political cause. People who live closest to Tent City (ex. the low-end apartments at 419 Cedar Bridge Ave) aren't bothered by the smoke, but people under the influence of the Vaad could probably smell it all the way from Jerusalem...
Apparently enough people consider it to be close enough to their backyard to bother them.
This does not in any way invalidate my argument. You don't get to dictate by local popular opinion who gets bulldozed. That's what happened in Nazi Germany you know. We are outside your property. The closest you come to a rational argument of us harming anyone is the smoke, which is a very weak issue, and it probably wouldn't have been an issue at all if the government hadn't made us switch from propane heaters several years back...
My impression is that a large portion of supporters are from out of Lakewood (may be wrong about that).
True. Our Facebook Page likes come from all over, focusing on the nearby area - Toms River 499 likes, Brick 214, Lakewood 208, Jackson 203, Howell 163, Bayville 102, NYC 101, Point Pleasant 82, Forked River 63, Philadelphia 59, Manchester 50, Neptune 50, etc, etc, etc.
In TC likes per 1000 people: Toms River has 5.41, Jackson 3.65, Howell 3.19, Brick 2.82, and Lakewood only 2.24. (Of course if you take out the Vaad-influenced population and non-English-speaking population, the level of support in Lakewood would probably be similar to Toms River.)
So what?
There's only one semi-organized Tent City in the area - at one point it was the largest in North Eastern USA, all due to the hard work and other merits of Rev Steve Brigham. There should be a Tent City in every major municipality where there is a need, and then things would even out, but some would still attract more patronage than others. Some towns may need multiple Tent Cities, and some none at all. The free market should decide...
When a person in Lakewood wants to go to Walmart, or to the beach, or to a movie theater, or a decent gym (etc, etc, etc), he has to leave town. When a person in Toms River wants to help out at a well-organized homeless camp, he has to leave town too. Lakewood doesn't exist in a vacuum.