By Tom Fuller Santa Monica
The opening line of Andrew Fixmer’s article, (Activist fights city’s camping law with lawsuit — October 7, 2002), which said, “Only in Santa Monica does eating a muffin on a sidewalk constitute a criminal act” infuriated me. So much so that I spent a good part of the day trying to figure out what it was about that statement that got to me. Like many emotions, it’s hard to describe it in words, but I think the famous line from the movie “Network” comes close to summing it up: “We’re sick and tired of it and we’re not gonna take any more.” We (and I believe there are a many of us in Santa Monica) are sick of the B.S. rhetoric we hear from the homeless and their advocates, and we’re tired of the anti-social behavior exhibited by many homeless persons.
Yes, I know that civil liberties must be carefully guarded (particularly with W. and Ashcroft at the helm), but I sincerely doubt that the muffin arrest is the first, critical step down the much-feared slippery slope toward totalitarianism. Furthermore, I refuse to believe that the police arrested Mr. Busch for simply eating a muffin on the sidewalk as his attorney suggests. My guess is that Mr. Busch, a “longtime Santa Monica homeless resident,” has a long history of lawless and anti-social behavior and that he is well known by SMPD.
Interestingly, below the picture of Mr. Busch that appeared on the front page, there is an ad for an immigration attorney. This juxtaposition captures why I’m tired of the homeless “resident’s” anti-social behavior.
Certainly, our social and economic system has many deficiencies and as the income gap continues to widen, I, too, am concerned about our collective future. Yet, this country continues to be (and I apologize for the cliché) the land of opportunity. Persons from all over the world immigrate here because they want to work and experience freedoms — social, political and economic — that are simply unavailable to the majority of the people in the world. But with this freedom there comes responsibility; personal responsibility and a responsibility to society. Our society works because there is a social contract. I, and my neighbors, work hard. We pay our taxes. We pay our rent or our mortgage. We take care of our neighborhood and our community. We don’t bitch too much about our taxes, as we believe that taxes, as they say, are the price of living in a civilized society.
Many of us — the taxpayers, the ones footing the bill — support social spending. We support social services for the homeless. Yet we question why someone like Mr. Busch is still a “longtime homeless resident” after the millions we have spent for his and his brother’s benefit. We are tired of working 40 to 50 hours a week and then being hassled by the beggars on Main Street and the Promenade as we try to enjoy our limited free time. We are tired of picking up trash and human waste off our streets and then watching our anti-social homeless residents litter, urinate on, defecate on and destroy our public and private property. Their public urinating habits are more than mere bodily functions. Simply put, they are pissing on us and our neighborhood.
So, yes, we are sick and tired of it. We have fulfilled our part of the bargain. We have met our obligations under the social contract. And now, we don’t want to take it anymore. We want, and expect, our homeless “residents” to live up their part of the bargain. Mr. Busch, take the help we are offering you. If you are drug or alcohol addicted, get help. If you are mentally ill, get help. If you don’t want the help, then move on.
Originally published in the Santa Monica Daily Press print edition on October 10, 2002. Read the original PDF.