It speaks to a deeper fault in liberalism, made obvious by the existence of homelessness.

A person is free only to the extent in which they have access to a physical space in which they can exercise that freedom. It would be absurd to say that I have freedom of speech, if they were banned from speaking freely at home, in public, or anywhere but inside my head. Without a place in which a person can go to and enjoy the protections of a right, they do not actually have that right.

A core tenet of classical Liberalism is that the only place in which our government recognizes the sanctity of a person’s ability to exercise their rights, is upon their own land. On public spaces, or the property of others, the exercise of rights may be readily curtailed, and always have been. This fits in nicely with the traditional Liberal notion that only people with property are citizens, whose rights deserve to be safeguarded.

However, for the homeless their ‘freedoms’ are illusory because they have no personal space to physically go to and enjoy it. Instead, the liberty of a homeless person to do anything (ie: sleep and eat) is strictly curtailed to the very limited range of activities permitted on public lands. And their right to protection from certain things (ie: invasions of privacy and involuntary search/seizure) similarly has virtually no guarantees.

This is also something I always emphasize when discussions of banning certain activities from any public spaces comes up. To ban encampments on all public property is to deprive our society’s most vulnerable of any right to shelter themselves from the elements, or sleep undisturbed, as they will no longer have legal access to places in which they can shelter or sleep.

I agree, I live in a single party consent place and it pisses me off. I could around with a recording device in pocket and never tell anyone and it would be totally ok so long as I stay in a public (or other place without an “expectation of privacy”). Involuntary recording should be treated similarly to assault.

This is quintessentially why most people hate “cancel culture”/“political correctness”/etc

Even though they’re getting away with it, you are telling them that they are a bad person because they get their kicks by treating people like shit when they know they can’t fight back. Hence the hysteria on whenever a nazi gets punched people go “Wow, you really think words should warrant assault? Free speech bro!”. Sure, they don’t mind being perceived as bad people, but they still hate it that someone would dare to nag them and tell them they’re in the wrong for going so low as to pick fights just because they know they can win.

It’s no different than the school bully bullying someone, and then ratting their victim out to the teacher when they fight back, knowing that teachers care about popularity too.

Hell yeah

Self critical hit