Of late, New Wife and I have been watching the “24 Hours in A&E” TV show on Amazon in the evening. Of course, it being a Brit show, it comes off as a PR blowjob for the NHS, because the doctors are all wonderful, the facilities are excellent, the care immediate and so on.
Of course, the episodes are carefully located in the two best hospitals in the U.K. (London’s King’s College in the early seasons, and St. George’s in the subsequent ones), where all the above is true. Were the show to be filmed in any of the other regional NHS hospitals, the show would include things like hours-long waits for a simple CT scan, 12-hour (or longer) waits for treatment of “non-life-threatening” ailments, inadequate ambulance service, incompetent / uncaring staff and all the other horrible stuff that are so much a part of the NHS, and which is reported upon almost daily in their newspapers.
But all that’s just background.
A couple of nights ago, one patient featured was a Spanish guy who had come off his bike and fractured his ankle. Part of the background was an interview with his “partner”, an Italian woman with whom he had shared his life for many years.
They were, in simple terms, anarchists who had taken part in violent street demonstrations all over Europe and the UK, and when not doing so, were professional squatters, who took over unoccupied houses and lived in them, all excused with the simple excuse: “There were homeless people, and there were unused houses; so we just redressed the balance.”
Being anarchists, of course, the concept of “private property” had no meaning to them, and so these fucking freeloaders could live rent-free and indulge themselves in their pointless “world-changing” little games of street theater.
New Wife had to shush me because I became increasingly angry as the tale unfolded, and started yelling invective at the TV, as any sane person would.
The final straw came when we learned that this Eurotrash pair had since become parents of two children, and the family was now living in a rented house as ordinary citizens.
Of course, what I wanted to happen was for them to go out for an afternoon visit to the park with their kids, and return to find that their house had been taken over by squatters. But I was denied that karma, unfortunately.
All this came to mind when I read this little piece, sent to me by a Reader:
Squatting, whereby strangers move into the properties of American homeowners and refuse to leave, has quickly become part of the zeitgeist as a series of news-making stories have shocked the nation.
Squatters can gain certain legal rights under specific conditions, such as continuous occupation for a defined period, typically ranging from 5 to 20 years, depending on the state. In some states where laws make it difficult for police to intervene, including New York, homeowners and landlords are left with few options to reclaim their property. Many victims are forced to submit to costly and lengthy civil processes.
Of course, the main reason behind the latter silliness is that squatting is being treated by government as a civil process rather than as a criminal one. Considering that the primary (some would say it should be the only) function of government is to guarantee and enforce property rights, this abandonment of the criminal for the civil is disgusting per se, but we can talk about that some other time.
In the meantime:
Real estate mogul Shawn Meaike is concerned how hard-working, well-intentioned Americans will handle squatting issues as they grow more and more desperate.
“People are going to start taking matters into their own hands. That’s what we do when there is lawlessness,” Meaike told Fox News Digital.
“Something really bad is going to happen,” he said. “Am I saying this right thing to do? No, I’m not.”
Well, I am saying that it is the right thing to do.
Because when government fails to do its duty, then citizens have every right to take the law back into its own hands, in this case, to protect their private property from the theft thereof by others.
Let me be even more specific.
If I were to come back to my own house to find it being unlawfully occupied by some scrotes and they refused to vacate the property immediately, there would be gunfire, and a lot of it.
And the cops? They could come and collect the bodies and my statement of having been in fear for my life, having been threatened by the late criminals.
This anarchy bullshit? It needs to come to an end, and if the State is unable or unwilling to fulfill its primary duty, then they have to understand that people will “start taking matters into their own hands”.
“They bought a property. They believe in the American dream. They wanted to get ahead. And the American dream became the American nightmare because somebody took what was theirs and the law was on the criminal’s side. It’s a scary place to be,” Meaike said.
He suspects that victims are already starting to get desperate as police offers in liberal-run states aren’t able to help..
All the handwringing and sympathy for these criminals, and misplaced respect for the law as it’s being perverted by government doesn’t mean shit. We are, or used to be, a nation of laws; and foremost among these were laws that define and protect both the concept and the substance of private property. If the State (or state, such as California or New York) has abrogated its duty, they need to accept the consequences thereof.
And by the way: the “rights” of the squatters? They don’t have any. They’re fucking thieves and criminals, no matter what the law thinks. It’s the property owners who have rights, by law — and those rights include government protecting their property from misappropriation.
End of story.
In the UK, as in most of Europe, it’s actually far worse when it comes to squatters’ “rights”.
If you go on a 3-4 week vacation and come back to find squatters in your home, you’re out of luck. You’re now responsible for paying for their heating, water, and electricity bills, as well as insurance, maintenance, repairs, everything, basically in perpetuity.
Chances of getting them kicked out through the courts are virtually nil, and they can sue you for failing to provide them with just about anything they want and succeed.
It’s harder to get a squatter evicted than a tenant who stops paying their rent, and THAT can take years.
Classic anarcho-tyranny.
Do you want Committees for Public Vigilance? Because this is how you get Committees for Public Vigilance.
I mostly agree with you.
Except with the anarchy part.
Anarchy – Absence of governing authority.
Which is exactly what you have when law enforcement refuses to do it’s job.
Personally, I live my life everyday as if there was no gov’t as I have no use for any of it.
Living remotely in a rural area there is very little in the way of anything gov’t or law enforcement around here. If things go sideways here on my property it is up to me to get a handle on it.
If I came home and persons were on my property and refused to leave I would brandish a firearm and a collapsible baton and force them off of my property, running for their lives down the road.
In these popularized squatter events I believe the “victims” are stupid, or lazy, or cowardly, which emboldens the squatters.
As far as gov’t employees not doing their jobs? T’was ever thus but as we dash headlong into the future they too will become emboldened and do even less.
I agree with your methods, but since I’m old, crippled and cranky, I’d kneecap the most capable of the bunch and admonish them to “Crawl your ass out while you still can.”
Rant alert. Me & my slanted eyes have been triggered.
“Something really bad is going to happen,” he said. “Am I saying this right thing to do? No, I’m not.”
While I wouldn’t have pegged squatting as the tipping point, I am not unsympathetic to the argument. I personally think it’s more likely to be set off by the gender jive.
I think the woke gender horseshit first appeared on my radar 20-ish years ago, when Serena Williams had set some major record in the sport. NPR had John McEnroe on as the expert commentator to weigh in on it. During the interview McEnroe called Williams the greatest women’s player of all time. NPR’s woke host said “Why do you call her the greatest women’s player? Why not just the greatest player?” McEnroe replied “Because she’s not. She couldn’t beat the 800th ranked player on the men’s side.”
It instantly became a ridiculous, fabricated made-up controversy, and McEnroe took a ton of heat for it. Williams got sucked into the drama & gave an interview where she made it clear she didn’t completely agree with McEnroe. She said she probably could beat the 800th ranked men’s player. But certainly not the 100th ranked. She said she had a hard time playing against her male coach, and he’s not even a pro. He’s a… coach. She went on to say that given the physical disparities, she wasn’t so sure it could be said that men & women were even playing the same game.
From NPR twats offended by reality, we have naturally transitioned into the mainstreaming of mental illness – namely the trans movement. Bruce Jenner is a chick. If you disagree you’re not just wrong, you’re an evil bigot.
One of the closing scenes in Orwell’s 1984 depicts the protagonist, Winston Smith. He’s finally betrayed and is now being tortured by the Ministry Of Truth. Their objective is to get him to proclaim as truth something he knows is not. The reader is forced to ask why – why all the time, effort & angst over an obvious lie? Then it hits you: the lie is the point. The truest measure of absolute power isn’t life or death. It’s controlling what people think.
,
Will Thomas and his testicles are the U of Penn’s NCAA Female Athlete Of The Year because he and the left say so: the lie is the point. The Bud Light boy who had a sit down with POTUS isn’t a grown man. He’s a little girl, because he and Brandon say so: the lie is the point. The 14 yr-old boy who raped two girls in Loudoun County isn’t a boy. He’s a girl who belongs in the girls’ room with his victim, because he and left say so: the lie is the point. When the victim’s dad dared to speak up in front of the school board, he was arrested and jailed. Because that’s how we deal with heretics who commit the sin of wrong think: the lie is the point.
The left is doubling down on all of it. Even in jurisdictions like Loudoun County where they’ve lost ground, it’s now become a fashion statement for woke board members to swear themselves into their current terms by placing their hand on the same gay kiddie porn they’re hell-bent on peddling to your kids.
Here’s a concerned citizen reading from a canon of woke scripture, and therefore a must-read for kids: https://twitter.com/libsoftiktok/status/1770444353116545481 If you’re able to listen & not be repulsed – never mind the reality it’s being peddled to kids – do the world a favor and dive head first into a wood chipper. The board was sufficiently discomfited they killed his mic and had five cops haul his black ass out the door. Not because they were repulsed, but because they were exposed.
The OG Marxists fractured their societies along class lines. Their current-day progeny are trying to do the same using race and gender. The Holy Church Of Woke desperately wants to normalize its delusion & depravity, and grooming kids is central to its crusade.
We are spiraling toward a John Brown moment. Whether it’s set off by property owners or kid fuckers or all of the above, it’ll be well deserved and long overdue.
What would happen if you, the homeowner, were to invite half a dozen friends to a houseparty – say, about 5:00AM on a rainy morning – and as gently as feasible, and with zero conversation, removed the intruders from your beds and escorted them to the street? Would that not leave you in possession of your (documented) property?
I guess the bottom line is, if you can afford multiple homes, you can afford to hire housesitters.
.
It doesn’t have to be multiple homes. My wife and I routinely take week-long vacations. After I retire, we hope to take 2 or even 3 week vacations as we RV camp around the country. Our home doesn’t sit empty, but if it did it could be a prime target. (Well, actually, we’re in Texas, so we’d just shoot the bastards. But you get the point, it doesn’t require a second home. Upper middle class who likes to travel is also at risk).
But your last line was also what I’m thinking. If your retirement doesn’t quite cover the bills, become a professional house-sitter to combat that scourge. Good references, tidy habits, and you could easily earn a few sheckels just hanging in someone else’s house.
Squatters should be ejected in whatever manner the property owner decides is most effective. Drag them by the ankles or the hair, whichever handle is most convenient.
Have you seen the movie “Pacific Heights” with Michael Keaton? It’s well worth watching especially if you an interest in becoming a landlord.
Many bureaucrats in the blue states have shown that they seek to abdicate their responsibilities to punish and “reform” criminals. They need the same treatment as I prescribed above for squatters. In addition, the feckless bureaucrats and politicians should be decorated in a coating of fresh tar and feathers so others get the message that their inaction is unacceptable.
Squatters?? No, they are burglars who broke and entered my property, and I returned home to catch them in the act. They will be treated as such, and local Police will treat them as such. The Police in our small town know me because I installed their IT system. Plus I listed my home as temporally unoccupied with them before I left.
Same applies to our rental properties. We have onsite management that regularly checks to verify that the current occupants are the listed Tennants. … and that’s its unoccupied when they are supposed to be.
” my statement of having been in fear for my life, having been threatened by the late criminals.”
I trust you have your illegal, unregistered, piece of junk drop gun ready?
In Texas, there’s no such thing as an “illegal unregistered” gun when owned by a law-abiding citizen.
If the .gov doesn’t respect private property (and I assure you it doesn’t). Why do we expect louts like the above to? Or the .gov to really do anything about it.
And from what I’ve see at a distance of BritGov, the only crime they will enforce harshly is if you say nigger or paki. Maybe get a recording of the squatters saying that. Then there will be hell to pay.
Once about 1% of them have been shot, the other 99% will magically (most probably) disappear – if they know what’s good for them.
You don’t have to hang all horse thieves, but the ones you do should be left where everyone can see them (insert appropriate French phrase here).
Well said.
When the government fails to do its duty to enforce the law, it loses the right to whine and complain when citizens take matters into their own hands.
The concept of private property rights is fading as Marxism rises and Marxism has never come to power without violence.
As Glen Reynolds puts it, the police aren’t there to protect you from the criminals. The police exist to protect the criminals from the public.
the social contract between citizens and their government lets us, as citizens, give up our right to justice and redress, and instead have a legal/justice system to do that for us, in a more fair and just manner. That is the best way, and it works well, as long as government holds up its end of the bargain: they must do justice – not perfectly, necessarily, as perfection is reserved for heaven, but as can be reasonably done, given the realities of human nature.
When governments abdicate this responsibility, justice doesn’t just go away – ultimately, the citizens of the society will take it into their own hands. This will be decried as “vigilantism,” which is of course rot. Vigilantism is taking up justice on your own instead of a functioning justice system; doing justice when there IS no functioning justice system is the normal course of business for most of human history.
In my jurisdiction, if I was gone for 2-3 weeks, and came home to find my property occupied, I would call the local sheriff’s department and inform them that I was removing the offending persons at gunpoint. If they resisted, I’d likely shoot them. I would expect them to be charged with aggravated burglary. If their lucky, the sheriff arrives before I have to shoot them. Any claim that they had some sort of “squatter’s right” to occupy the property would be laughed at as they are marched off to jail.
“If THEY’RE lucky.” I don’t need a visit from our proprietor’s grammar (or spelling) Nazi side. Of course, that’s probably just the error I noticed, not the entirety.
“When governments abdicate this responsibility,…” A good movie on this topic–
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Qp2HBda6P3g
Most of these politicians have multiple residences, and they can’t be everywhere at once.
Maybe with a concerted effort, they could be educated on property rights.
you can bet that the Party Leaders have property and property rights but all of us mere mortals have neither according to them
Thoughts on ‘political correctness’ or ‘wokeness’ from others:
Dr. Theodore Dalrymple: Political correctness is communist propaganda writ small. In my study of communist societies, I came to the conclusion that the purpose of communist propaganda was not to persuade or convince, nor to inform, but to humiliate; and therefore, the less it corresponded to reality the better. When people are forced to remain silent when they are being told the most obvious lies, or even worse when they are forced to repeat the lies themselves, they lose once and for all their sense of probity. *To assent to obvious lies is to co-operate with evil, and in some small way to become evil oneself. One’s standing to resist anything is thus eroded, and even destroyed. A society of emasculated liars is easy to control. I think if you examine political correctness, it has the same effect and is intended to.*
Substitute ‘wokeness’ for ‘communist propaganda’ or ‘political correctness’ as necessary.
Another view of ‘Political Correctness’
Political Correctness is a doctrine, fostered by a delusional, illogical, liberal minority and rabidly promoted by an unscrupulous mainstream media, which holds forth the proposition that it is entirely possible to pick up a turd by the clean end.
which book is Dalrymple’s quote from?