I have been thinking of writing this piece about the homeless for many years now. On several occasions I have approached newspapers about reporting on the subject. After a while it became apparent, that the corporate owned and controlled media is not interested in anything that conflicts with their skewed and mythical world view. The last thing they want are facts, especially those from the horse’s mouth, as I have spent a good portion of my adult life being homeless. Recently the straw that broke the camels back was the cold shoulder I got from a Springfield MO paper about doing a piece that was factual rather than the usual fantasy, make the readers feel-good, hit piece that they do on the homeless.
It is a myth that homelessness is primarily caused by mental illness, drug abuse, and or laziness. I hope that by the end of this article that you will be more inclined to attribute homelessness in large part due to the actions of “do-gooders” that have run to government to get their world view inflicted upon everyone else. These same do-gooders have also been the cause of government programs that shift the burden of helping people from the family unit, individuals, and the charity of the churches to government and tax payer funded non-profits. Effectively destroying the family and shifting the job to organizations that have no vested interest in actually solving problems but rather to perpetuate the problem by applying band aides rather than solutions. Homelessness is also in large part caused by a particular special interest group that has directly lobbied for laws in it's favor and also manipulated the aforementioned do-gooders to do it's lobbying for them. It may surprise you that this special interest group is the banking industry. Money changers the bible calls them. They are the only class of people that the bible documents as really pissing off our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ.
The assertion that drug abuse is “the” cause of homelessness is easily dismissed by anyone willing to put even a minimal effort into thinking about it. The fact is that most alcoholics and drug abusers are gainfully employed. Employment is how these addicted individuals pay for their habits and the vast majority of these individuals, if you care to look around you, are gainfully employed. I would also like to state that extreme drug abuse, as opposed to mere use, is more often a symptom of being homeless, rather than its root cause. The do gooders by supporting extremely high taxes on, or the outright outlawing of substances that people become addicted to, undermine their financial stability by driving the price through the roof. For example in Yuma AZ a liter of grain alcohol sells for over $20 while 10 miles away in Los Algodones Mexico the same liter sells for $1.50. An ounce of pot in Yuma AZ runs $125 while in nearby Mexico it sells for $25. I am not advocating that society encourage addictive behavior only that the current state of affairs takes unfair economic advantage of those the least able to afford it. If you are truly concerned about the welfare of others the only thing that is both moral and effective is the power of persuasion, not stealing from them or locking them in cages when they disagree. As a first step toward fighting homelessness I suggest that we legalize possession and production of all manner of addictive substances and that they be taxed at the same low rate as other goods in society. The high “pleasure” taxes have a minimal economic effect on the affluent and middle class, but the economic effects are hard felt by the poor.
Having lived as and among the homeless for many years I have observed a small percentage of those with what I would consider serious psychological problems. There is a larger group of less serious ill people whose condition I would attribute mostly to being forced by society to live on the streets for years. They live in constant fear of harassment by the police. They also live in fear of physical assault and robbery due not in small part to laws that in direct contrast to the Constitution and God given rights disarm people especially the homeless. As Isaac Asimov wisely stated: “An armed society is a polite society.” We are supposed to all be equal under the law. There is no reason why a US Senator can have an armed body guard while a homeless person is denied that right through a variety of mechanisms. Every human being on this planet has an inalienable God given right to self defense. That was an idea that this country was founded upon. Have the socialist schools and the lobotomy box so dumbed down the public that they no longer honor and respect what God has given to their fellow man?
The bottom line is that in this country the homeless are treated like animals that are constantly hunted and abused by local police departments and at the same time they are disarmed. To make matters worse the very people that are supposed to investigate crimes against them are their abusers. You can not get the police to investigate a crime if you wear $500 dollar suits, so what are the chances of a homeless person getting the police to investigate a crime against them?
Given these circumstances is it any wonder the homeless abuse drugs, are not emotionally stable, and find it hard to focus on getting off the street?
There are many cities in the United States where it is illegal to sleep within the city limits, unless of course you own or rent a residence. In these cities if I own a lot or a business the law says in effect that I really don’t own it. The state says it owns my property and says that it can prosecute anyone sleeping on my property even with my permission. Likewise in these same towns it is also illegal for anyone to sleep on what the state euphemistically calls “our land” or the public land. All of these laws in effect make every homeless person a criminal. (It also makes the drunk sleeping in his car to avoid driving under the influence a criminal also.) If they are fortunate enough to have a vehicle to sleep in when they are arrested the state usually steals that and any belongings that they may have by charging impound fees on the car while they are in jail. The mandatory auto insurance laws are also another way that the state steals what little many homeless people may have. In the state of California there is no due process at all for some one caught driving without auto insurance. You are automatically assumed guilty and your vehicle is taken on the spot in direct violation of the 5th amendment to the Constitution. I am sure that this is also the case in other states but I am not familiar with the law in every state.
The mandatory auto insurance laws by were written by the auto insurance industry to enrich itself just like the current national health care laws that mandate health insurance were written by the health insurance companies. These laws besides being unconstitutional insure high prices for the consumer by creating a state mandated monopoly. Something that government is supposed to protect us from – not creating and forcing down our throats. Mandatory auto insurance is also something most do-gooders support fully.
Serfs in mid-evil Europe paid taxes that were under 20% and slaves had an effective 50% tax rate. It may surprise you that in the United States the poorest of us pay well hidden socialist tax rates of 50% or more with none of the socialist benefits one would expect from paying this high of a tax rate. The first well hidden tax is inflation which currently is well over the 10% figure that I will use here. If you do no understand that inflation is a hidden tax it is probably because you ended your economic education with what the government high school or university that you attended did not teach you. If you want to learn more about our monetary system, Google the 4 hour video “The Money masters” or read G. Edward Griffins “Creature from Jekyll Island.”
Another hidden tax is the cost built into the cost of all goods and services that are charged to recover the corporate income tax, state taxes, and a plethora of regulations imposed upon businesses. All business taxes quite obviously must ultimately be paid by the consumer a fact they usually do not address in the Karl Marx version of economics taught in most government schools these days. I conservatively use 10% for this tax that is built into the cost of all goods and services that you purchase.
Think of social security as a tax because the return on investment is only 2% rather than the expected 10% you would expect if you were not forced in to what is a criminal pyramid scheme. I use the figure of 15% for the social security tax.
State sales tax is not hidden and I will use the figure of 8% and have not yet added state or federal income tax or federal unemployment, the workman's comp that your employer is forced to pay, tax on gasoline, property taxes, and literally dozens of other taxes.
We are up to 43% very conservatively at a tax rate that even the most poor must pay in this country. The media outright lies and tells us that many don’t pay taxes because they are not required to pay income tax. Well I have just shone you that nothing could be farther from the truth. The people that “don’t pay taxes” are taxed close to 50% of their meager incomes!
We are conservatively up to 43% I have yet a few other “hidden” taxes to add to the list…
Because of legalities in labor law the very poor are often can only find what is called euphemistically called “day labor” in this scenario day labor companies get a huge portion, often up to 50%, right off the top of what is being paid by businesses for day labor. They do this to avoid our very counter productive labor laws. This should be called “slave labor” rather than “day labor” in my opinion. A system where a middle man gets 50% of your wages just because we have onerous laws that should be not exist and should be repealed.
Then there is what I call the “building code tax”. In the United States, banks, as a special interest have a huge stake at making sure that no one can pay cash for a home and build as they go. Unlike the majority of the planet where the rule is to pay cash as you build and not take out a loan. Various laws instituted and supported by bankers make it almost a certainty that one must borrow money to build housing. At 6% over 30 years that means that 2/3 or 66% of everyone’s rent is unnecessarily going to a bank as interest.
So for this hidden tax I conservatively add 50% of every persons housing cost to the already onerous tax burden of over 43%. Even this is low when you consider other code cost increasing factors such as minimum square footages, and huge environmental impact fees such as those imposed in Lee County FL, fire insurance, and hurricane insurance which the bank forces one to carry since you were forced to finance the property. Also the cost of being forced to connect to water and sewer with the high finance cost that cities charge when the homeowner can not pay these costs in cash.
I won't even delve into child support laws, that institute’s Dark Ages “debtors’ prison” on American citizens with no due process; it can also institute a negative tax rate where you can be taxed in effect at over 100% of what you make. Our “family courts” also negate the right of a man and woman to contract, as the states contract almost always over rides any contract that the two parties enter into concerning separation and their offspring. Homeless people without jobs are still responsible for draconian “support payments” that keep adding up, land them in jail and often reduce them to being homeless again.
Is it any wonder that with tax rates like this that we have far too many homeless in this country?
In most countries of the world people are free to construct and live in homes that they can afford. Not so in the Land of the Free. In most countries of the world if all I could afford was a $50 a month storage locker then that option would be open to me. But no here, the do-gooders in “the Land of the Free” must protect me from slum lords after all.
If I could acquire a piece of property in most parts of the world I could live on it in a manner that I could afford, not so in many areas of rural Missouri where I have found rural land. There are so called building codes and arbitrary sanitary codes which make a mockery of the idea of life, liberty and property. If I were to try to live on one of these properties the police could eventually come to remove me. Killing me in the process, if necessary, to make sure that I did not live on my own land without their permission.
I was made homeless 12 years ago by ridiculous and unfunded mandates by an unconstitutional EPA that made it cost prohibitive to gain access to my land locked property. I personally want to thank all the do-gooders that support this heinous organization. Years later I had to pass up property in Florida that I wanted to live on and market garden but was prevented from doing so again by do-gooders that do not understand the concept of God given property rights. At every turn and corner the do-gooders create homelessness. They support all sorts of business licensing that infringe upon yet another God given right and act as impassible hurtles to the poor wanting to help them selves. They support minimum wage laws that do the same and violate peoples God given right to contract.
We here in Missouri are surrounded literally hundreds of thousands of acres of so called public lands that we refer to as National Forest. The homeless can not camp on these lands both due to imposed fees and length of stay restrictions. This has not happened by accident. I have been told by forest rangers in many National Forests that their greatest fear is that homeless people would come to live in the forest! Imagine that people living on what they have been told their whole lives is “their land.” Like most of the lies emanating from collectivists the Marxist idea of “the commons” is a fantasy made up to placate us about the fact that governments illegally own about 50% of the land mass of the United States and rather than holding it in common as promised have begun to give it to bankers in exchange for the fake debts that we owe them for illegally counterfeiting the money supply of the United States. Very much like the gold that FDR stole from the American people that is supposed to be in Fort Knox but most likely is in the hands of globalist bankers. Again I refer the reader to the movie “The Money Masters” if you are lacking in your understanding of economics.
As you may have well guessed I do not have any nice adjectives to describe do-gooders. In fact I have much to say about them and their brethren collectivists; socialist, liberals, and what not, that I can not say here in mixed company. At the very least I must agree with Dave Champion. I consider liberalism to be a mental disorder. It is in part an inability to reason. To see that 1 + 1 = 2 or to see the logical and apparent consequences of their actions.
Treason is defined as actions that are destructive to ones form of government. If you have forgotten the penalties for treason I point you to the United States Constitution. The conclusion that I have come to is that the actions of these do-gooder collectivists pertaining specifically but not limited to homeless issues is treasonous. What other conclusion can one come to when people with a particular philosophical bent, or as I prefer “mental disorder”, constantly and across the board support laws that violate every manner of God given rights of their fellow man? It is my fondest hope that some day that it would be so socially aberrant to support policies ensuring enslavement of your fellow man, that it would be a very rare occurrence, and if it did occur that it would be swiftly and surely dealt with as the treasonous behavior that it unambiguously is.
Last evening I had a heated discussion with a preacher friend of mine by the name of Martin. He and his wife are both preachers and minister to 3 congregations in South Dakota. He related that the study of the 10 commandments had been a focus in his bible study. I told him that the study of the bible was useless when in a vacuum. That it really only had merit when applied to every day life. I have been trying for months to convince him that he was negligent in educating his flock that many of the policies that they supported were the same as stealing. He countered that I had my ministry from God and that he had his. I was incredulous that a so called Christian and man of God would in effect shirk what I see as his responsibility to morally educate his flock and to fight evil where it occurs. The conversation ended when I asked him if he would get upset if someone raped his wife? Then I asked him why he did not get upset when people in his congregation by their actions or inactions raped me?
You see in my book you either fight evil or you walk with evil, and churches in this country almost universally, walk with evil.
In conclusion I have some up close and personal experience with services for the homeless in Springfield MO. I found the services to be what one could expect from people and organizations that do not have a clue as to what causes homelessness much less to be interested in doing anything about it other than applying band aids. In other words the entire thing reeks of government and its inability to do anything correctly no matter how simple the task. In short society needs to get the hell out of the way and let homeless people help themselves rather than hindering them and then providing useless band aides out of guilt, for the problems that society created in the first place. For those that truly are unable to help them selves let’s get back to real charity by churches and individuals, not the fake government charity stolen from citizens at gun point.
If you are homeless or think that you are someone that can bring something to the table in my effort to address homeless issues, I urge you to contact me and share ideas as to what can and should be done.
I can be contacted at homeless@tittiger.com
Thanks!
Thom Jefferson
