“There’s nothing compassionate about that,” S.F. Mayor Daniel Lurie says about his city’s 4,300 homeless people sleeping in the streets. We’ve heard this meme of “compassion” ever since homelessness exploded as an issue. Those of us who want to clear out encampments and prohibit tents in public spaces are accused of being mean, uncompassionate haters.
I don’t think I’m uncompassionate. Every time I see someone lame or leaning on a cane, I send them healing thoughts. When I hear on the news that someone died in a fire, or in a motorcycle accident, I follow their souls in my mind and pray for them. I feel sorry for all suffering souls in the world. But there are limits to my compassion, and to what I’m willing to do about it.
I reach my limits when it comes to homeless people. I want every encampment cleared, every tent and shack on the streets removed, every person sleeping on a bench or bus stop rousted. I don’t really care where they go. That’s not my problem. I mean, I want them to have a place to go, but they don’t, and there’s no way to pay for enough living spaces, so I can’t worry about it.
I do feel sorry for my fellow humans who truly suffer through no fault of their own. But I feel no sympathy for drug addicts who created their own problems, for people who rejected the rules of civilization and are now paying the price. If they’re mentally ill (whatever that means), as is always alleged by pro-homeless activists, then let’s build congregate centers and relocate them there, by force if necessary. America made a big mistake in the 1970s when it decided to shut down mental hospitals and “mainstream” crazy people. That mainstreaming led directly to our current crisis. These people should be confined as they used to be, not allowed to roam around and kill off our cities.
Homeless advocates ask “But don’t you feel empathy?” No, I don’t. I’m not a big fan of Elon Musk—in fact, I’d lock him up if I had the power. But he’s on to something when he says, “The fundamental weakness of Western civilization is empathy, the empathy exploit. They’re exploiting a bug in Western civilization, which is the empathy response.” I might not have put it quite that way, but I know what he means. The social contract is the agreement civilized humans have always abided by, in order to have stable societies. We all agree to abide by certain rules. Laws and ordinances are only the most visible of these rules: others are unframed but equally binding. We agree to accord each other a degree of autonomy and respect. We agree to refrain from violence. (The Golden Rule is the most exquisite example of the social contract.) We agree to take care of ourselves and not be a burden on others. There have always been humans who have violated the social contract, and society has always come up with means of sanctioning them. Seldom, however, in human history has “compassion” or “empathy” been cited to let these violators off the hook. Civilized people had no concept of “understanding” those who made war upon their values. They had a simple concept: these people are undesirables. We won’t tolerate them in our midst. They trample on the moral values we hold most dear. We don’t want to hurt them, but we don’t want them living in our midst, either, undoing our achievements, harming our towns and institutions. As the novelist Ayn Rand put it, “I regard compassion as proper only toward those who are innocent victims, but not toward those who are morally guilty.” We feel compassion for the inmates of the Nazi concentration camps, not for their guards and torturers.
There’s nothing wrong with such attitudes. In fact, they’re healthy. We have a right and an obligation to protect our civilization, which we have achieved at such high cost over millennia. When pro-homeless activists call us “uncompassionate” or “unempathic,” they’re really attacking the civilization that birthed them, nourished them, and gives them the right to free speech.
So, Mayor Lurie, you’re wrong when you argue it’s uncompassionate to allow 4,300 people to live in the streets. But, in a weird way, you’re right. It is uncompassionate—not to the homeless people, but to the rest of us. It’s uncompassionate to compel us to put up with the filth, crime and destruction that homeless people create. That’s the true crime. So let’s finally do what humans have done since time immemorial: protect our settlements from barbarism. Let’s build those congregate shelters on the edge of town, and if homeless people refuse to clean up their acts, we’re going to move them into those shelters, whether they like it or not.
Steve Heimoff