Felsenmeer wrote:
And what would you like done with the homeless? Have them scooped
up and dispatched to some burnt out industrial district so they
can't make the yuppies nervous when they go for strolls in the
park?


Two words:

HOMELESS SHELTER

OK so we lock them away in 'shelters' from which they are not free to
leave. That's f***ing brilliant.


I have yet to see a homeless shelter in which the homeless are
"locked away" and are "not free to leave." Do these exist in your
country? They don't in mine.

You'll have to forgive me if I misunderstood your two words, I was filling
in some blanks for myself. I assumed that you meant for the homeless in
question to be removed to a homeless shelter, either forcibly or through
strong encouragement. If it's the case that the homeless are not kept
prisoner in their shelters (and it is, both in your country and mine),
then how do the two words 'HOMELESS SHELTER' solve the problem of homeless
that choose to inhabit a public piece of land?

The public in general *does* feel uncomfortable with homeless people,
warranted or not.

The general driving public *does* feel uncomfortable sharing the road with
cyclists.

A park may be a much nicer place than a shelter to
a homeless person, but a park is *not* a nicer place for the public
when it becomes a collecting point for the homeless.

The road may be the nicest place for a cyclist on the go, but it is *not*
the nicest place for SUVs when it becomes a collecting point for slow
moving poorly protected vehicles.

You obviously
have some sort of thing for the homeless, and that's good. But I
think if you're going to intellectually honest, you're going to have
to realize that the public at large in general does not approve of
having their parks turned into impromptu homeless shelters.

If the public is so concerned about some homeless people in a park, whom
to the best of my knowledge have never been known to do anything illegal
or threatening, then maybe there's a problem with the public? Maybe, and
bear with me here, we should treat the homeless like others, innocent
until proven guilty?

So... you've missed the point. People typically feel somewhat
threatened by the homeless, yet they have free rein of the place.
People do *not* typically feel threatened by sea kayakers, yet
they're prohibited. This makes no sense. It's not an issue of
"play."

You've missed *my* point. The OP was expressing his dissatisfaction with
being marginalized by society. He feels that he is being oppressed by the
LAW OF THE JUNGLE, by which the mightier creatures, those driving cars and
motorboats, backed by money and the law, are keeping him from pursuing his
innocent interests. He also has a holier-than-thou attitude towards those
making use of polluting forms of transportation/recreation. In the same
sentences he tries to marginalize the homeless in the exact same way, on
the same flimsy pretexts, using the same laws of the land, and completely
ignores the environmental impact of his owning a home (not insignificant).

I was not arguing that the homeless are more fun to have around than
kayakers, or safer, or anything like that. I was pointing out a glaring
double standard in the OP. This kind of hypocrisy upsets me, like the
person who will gladly steal from a big corporation (it's not like they
need the money, piracy is a victimless crime) but refuses to give to the
needy (why should they get handouts from MY pocket?). In the end, his
arguments boil down to a very selfish demand for respect, and respect is
not something he's willing to give in return.