For the life of me I have never understood that European insouciance about property rights. If a bunch of gypsies tried to build a 'camp' (i,e, squat) on my property, I wouldn't wait for the police and certainly not for the Courts, I would merely engage in self-help with the 30/06.

The indulgence given to Gypsies and other derelicts, beggars and human detritus in Europe is one of the things that most irritated me when I lived in the Republique. They allow these people to settle pretty much anywhere they want to without the slightest adherence to order or even basic sanitation. The streets of decent European cities like Toulouse or Koln are filled with Gypsy beggars or worse with Gypsy children trained in the arts of pickpocketing. The situation is exponentially worse than the squeegeemen of NYC ever were. It is not unusual to carry an umbrella to beat them off should the need arise. Once I was in an open cafe'/pizzeria in Nice and a beggar approached our table. The French people I was with wanted to give him a few francs, but I picked up an empty wine bottle from the table, grasped it around the neck, yelled at him to get the F*** out of here or I was going to whack him upside the head with a wine bottle and then call a cop. My friends, impecunious French Gentile college students, thought I over-reacted a bit. Apparently, in Europe, there is a tradition of Gypsy beggars and pickpockets that has existed forever, because they were outcasts from society. There is an undercurrent of guilt about it from many quarters, usually those who don't walk on sidewalks or use public transport. It would be nice if the Euros dispensed with at least some of the more annoying aspects of feudalism.

There is a community of Gypsies, not more than a few miles from where I live. Each Spring several gangs (ahh.. work crews) spray out across the country supposedly doing house painting. Word is that they occasionally have trouble with the law.

In our area they are just like everyone else, except for minor peculiarities. Meth labs. Girls get married at a young age like 13-15 and their homes are junkyards with old cars stacked everywhere.

Come to think of it, your basic run of the mill redneck, so they blend in just fine.

"Once I was in an open cafe'/pizzeria in Nice and a beggar approached our table. The French people I was with wanted to give him a few francs, but I picked up an empty wine bottle from the table, grasped it around the neck, yelled at him to get the F*** out of here or I was going to whack him upside the head with a wine bottle and then call a cop. My friends, impecunious French Gentile college students, thought I over-reacted a bit. Apparently, in Europe, there is a tradition of Gypsy beggars and pickpockets that has existed forever, because they were outcasts from society."

Bart, you must be the only man walking this earth who could turn the Brothersjudd regulars into francophiles.

If you give money to beggars, you only encourage more begging. If we had CCW in NYC, there would be no squeegeepeople.

What's mine is mine. I worked, saved, sacrificed and sweated for it. And I'll be damned if I'm going to give it to some walking piece of excrement too lazy to get an effing job, especially when he has the temerity to bother me when I'm eating or drinking with friends. If that sounds cold, well it's a very, very cold world we live in. And misguided philanthropy only makes it worse.

So, do you hurl your vitriolic contempt and disdain at most North American aboriginal communities as well?

How is his job any different than yours?

Peter B,

The condition of indigenous tribes is a different matter entirely. We forcibly evicted them from their lands, kicked them onto places which could not sustain life in the manner they were used to and committed all manner of horribles against them. They do not receive welfare, merely treaty based compensation far worse than what they would receive had their rights as citizens been recognized in Federal Courts of the period. In the US, most aboriginals are employed across the economic spectrum. The comparison with beggars and thieves is inapposite.

OJ,

I provide a service the free market deems necessary and for which I am reasonably well-compensated, enough to keep me and the woofer well-stocked with pate', oysters and Chilean or Hungarian wines. Beggars and thieves and squatters provide no service. And squeegeemen merely try to intimidate the milquetoasts among us.

Isn't this supposed to be a 'conservative' website?

He performs a valuable service too and it's harder work than you do.

And, in some ways, more socially beneficial.

Bart in 2008.

For dog catcher.

The combined willingness and ability of a number of persons in the community to give dimes to beggars constitutes a demand for beggary, just as much as if an advertisement, 'Beggars wanted, liberal alms guaranteed,' was conspicuously inserted in the columns of a newspaper.

In the mean time a stray personage of a meek demeanour, who had wandered to the hearthrug and got among the heads of tribes assembled there in conference with Mr Podsnap, eliminated Mr Podsnap's flush and flourish by a highly unpolite remark; no less than a reference to the circumstance that some half-dozen people had lately died in the streets, of starvation. It was clearly ill-timed after dinner. It was not adapted to the cheek of the young person. It was not in good taste.

'I don't believe it,' said Mr Podsnap, putting it behind him.

The meek man was afraid we must take it as proved, because there were the Inquests and the Registrar's returns.

'Then it was their own fault,' said Mr Podsnap.

The gypsies literally terrorize whole rural communities in England, and Labour in its PC multiculturalism has let them get away with it for years. If you think I'm overstating then tell that to the murdered corpse (young woman, not a Gypsy) found in the bushes across the road from their squatted field a few months after they moved on (leaving an incredible mess) from my in-laws' village.

They are not vile, their behavior is vile, and it is so because it has been allowed to be so.

There is no 'demand' for beggars. Beggars and the like get money only because people are too afraid or intimidated not to. It is similar to a Mafia protection racket.

In a world with concealed-carry and a liberal interpretation of self-defense, there would be no beggars and squeegemen, merely a lot of well-fed pigs. I pay enough in taxes, supporting enough of the unfit, that I feel there is no need for me to fork over any more of my hard-earned dough.

How they provide any service at all, let alone one that compares even remotely to the economic importance of providing a rational basis for insurance premiums, loss reserving and the like, is utterly beyond me.

Eugene,

Comparing 21st century America with 19th century Britain? Not even Gus Hall would have had the temerity to do that.

Bart:

Thanks to beggars even someone whose life is as empty as yours gets to feel superior to someone. That's a more valuable service to ou than any you provide anyone.

I don't get the impression that Bart is wanting for people to whom he feels superior.

I may have a major league ego, but I do not have one quite so large as that of someone who would arrogate to himself the right to use government to micromanage the lives of others.

Yes, liberty helps us avoid micromanagement by macromanaging.

Liberty frees us from having others run our lives. You want to give your money to beggars, fine. I don't want to give them a penny of mine. You don't want to eat fatty foods and drink copious amounts of wine, I do. Liberty means we all get a wide berth to pursue our own interests so long as we don't infringe on the rights of others to do the same. It is not the imposition of one set of values on everyone else.

No, it frees us from having our lives run differently than others. You're speaking of license, not liberty. The latter is the basis of a great society, the former of a cesspool.

License occurs only when my actions impact on others not when I am acting in private. I have the liberty to get myself snookered, but it would be license if I got behind the wheel of a car after having done so. It is liberty to have sex without benefit of wedlock, it is license to do so in a public place(not to mention an eyesore as well).

Not by any definition known to man.