Squatting: News Miner 44

Also: Safe-use drug sites, transgender kids in schools, child welfare, guns, Shibboleths, and more.

I hope you’re also subscribed to my Self in Society Substack! My recent article discusses conservative ant-transgender rhetoric, how to learn from enemies, and more. I won’t post to both sites on the same day barring extraordinary circumstances. Onward. . .

Squatting in Public Spaces

Complete Colorado published my new article, “Government right to restrict squatting in public spaces,” in which I discuss homeless encampments in the context in the Denver mayoral race. Here are some selections:

Government sets all kinds of rules for public spaces. In the library, you can’t smoke meth (or anything else) in the restroom. You can’t reserve a study room for an orgy. You have to wear clothes. You can’t walk through the library shouting.

We all accept the necessity for such rules. I can’t put up a storage shed in the public street. I can’t build a log cabin in the city open space in my neighborhood, even though the views would be amazing. We all know what would happen if I tried to build that cabin. Government agents would tell me to stop. If I didn’t stop, eventually armed agents would physically remove me and the cabin. If I forcibly resisted, they would arrest me and charge me with a crime. This is not news to anyone.

Yet some people would have us believe that a homeless person has an absolute right to set up camp in any public space, regardless of how that affects public use and public safety. . . .

Given someone has a place to go that is about as good or better then their current spot—such as another, more suitable, authorized public space—is it reasonable to ask them to move out of a public space in order to preserve public use of that space, and to force them to move if necessary? The uncomfortable but correct answer is yes. . . .

I again point out that the problem of homelessness is, in part, a problem of government artificially limiting the supply of housing through myriad restrictions.

Read the entire piece.

In related news, CSI has out a report about homelessness in Denver. The number of homeless people has grown, yet most homeless people (around three-quarters) are “sheltered.”

Image: Denver

Kafer on Safe-Use Drug Sites

I have written about supervised-use drug sites in a first and second post. Krista Kafer has out a critique of such sites. Here is a key section:

Although safe injection sites have existed in 10 other countries, Denver would join New York City as the first in America to experiment with legalized opioid use. Although some sites have been around for decades, research on the efficacy of SIS and neighborhood effects is inconclusive, according to Stanford University addiction researcher Keith Humphreys.

While some studies suggest that legal consumption sites reduce overdose deaths and do not increase criminal behavior in the neighborhood in which they are located, he told NPR, “Nobody should be looking at this literature making confident conclusions in either direction.”

Several drug policy experts and former federal drug officials note the methodological weaknesses in the research.

Kafer is relying on an outlier view. Here is a relevant section from the NPR story:

Peter Davidson, a researcher specializing in harm reduction at the University of California San Diego . . . says the research—both ‘the grey’ and the robust—point to the benefits, especially in preventing deaths among society’s most vulnerable. No death has been reported in an injection site. A 2014 review of 75 studies concluded such places promote safer injection conditions, reduce overdoses and increase access to health services. Supervised injection sites were associated with less outdoor drug use, and they did not appear to have any negative impacts on crime or drug use.

The NPR story contains the phrase “methodological weaknesses,” but it pertains to a study that claimed to show “that the evidence for supervised injection is not as strong as previously thought” (NPR’s words), and that study was retracted.

As for Kafer’s preferred source:

Humphreys says he’d welcome better tools to address the drug crisis. He doesn't think the available evidence points to supervised injection as being harmful, but the research has not strongly demonstrated an overall reduction in overdose deaths over time.

So the worst that can be said about safe-use sites is they may not work as well, long-term, as their proponents hope. But the preponderance of the evidence strongly indicates that they do work.

Kafer also argues:

Denver families and business owners impacted by the ongoing presence of squalid vagrant camps have every reason to be skeptical of having an injection site in their neighborhood.

These are two separate issues. Denver already has “squalid vagrant camps” without safe-use sites, and government can get rid of the camps whether or not safe-use sites exist.

Kafer:

Finally, what message does legalizing drug use send to teens and people tempted to use?  The idea of a “safe injection site” normalizes and destigmatizes drug use.

If the problem is rhetoric let’s call them “marginally less dangerous use sites” or “authorized use sites” instead. The “message” the status quo sends is that it’s better for a drug addict to die from impure or tainted drugs than to take drugs of known ingredients and potency.

Schools and Transgender Kids

Erin Lee says it’s “shocking,” “disturbing,” and “every parents worst nightmare.” What, exactly? Administrators at a Fort Collins school decided to use the pronouns a student preferred, rather than the pronouns the parents preferred for the student. Mandy Connell also is quite upset about this (see also the interview with Lee and a related conservative article).

I’m not sure what to think about this. On one hand, I suspect that many elementary-age children who claim they’re transgender have little idea what they’re talking about. They may be experimenting, or in effect joining a social group, or something like that. Parents know their children better than anyone else does. So shouldn’t schools defer to parents when children are so young?

On the other hand, some children know they are transgender at quite a young age, and their gender orientation “sticks.” Moreover, some parents are strongly ideologically opposed to the transgender movement and so are unsupportive of, or even abusive toward, their LGBTQ children. The professional bigot Matt Walsh said having a transgender child “is a fate worse than death.” He added, “I would rather be dead than have that happen to my kid.” (See one response.) So is the school doing something wrong or trying to respect the child in the face of mean parents? I don’t know the context so I cannot judge.

Let’s say for sake of argument the parents are right and their kid isn’t “really” transgender. What’s the harm in people using the child’s preferred pronouns? I guess my basic advice is take a breath here.

This does reinforce my view that, ultimately, we should just get rid of gendered pronouns. Ah, but then we wouldn’t be able to fight over them, and the fight is precisely what many people want.

This also reinforces my view that parents generally should have easy exit from government schools.

I did reply: “I'm sorry, but I live in Jessica Ridgeway’s old neighborhood, so my ‘worst nightmare’ is not that someone calls my son ‘she’ (which, incidentally, happens a lot because he has long hair).”

Quick Takes—Colorado

Child Welfare: How could mandatory reporting of mandatory child abuse possibly be a bad thing? The Colorado Sun reports: “Jerry Milner . . . said listening to families, including children, who have been negatively impacted by intrusive and damaging investigations by child protective services changed his mind about a policy he once endorsed.”

Guns: Here is how Rep. Matt Soper responded to a slew of Democratic anti-gun bills, including one targeting (arbitrarily defined) “assault” guns: “Come and take it! They’ll have to invade the West Slope and murder us if they intend on us being defenceless! We will NOT bow to tyrants and those who seek to disarms us need to be prepared for civil war!” Somehow I’m thinking the Democrats in the legislature will not find this “argument” persuasive. Soper apologized (see video).

Guns II: Mark Hillman argues against liability for gun manufacturers and sellers for the criminal misuse of their products.

Guns III: The legislature has advanced waiting periods for getting an abortion a gun.

Police: After Johnny Hurley stopped a mass shooter in Arvada, police killed Hurley, thinking he was the bad guy. 5280 reviews the story.

Fires: Fire mitigation efforts in Jefferson County have (uh) sparked controversy. Initially I was skeptical of the concerns discussed in the Denver Post article, but I was quickly convinced that the concerns are plausible. Of course the debate takes place in the context of government-controlled forests.

Covid: A University of Denver study suggests long-Covid is similar to concussions in some ways and can be treated similarly. See also Axios.

Alcohol: Kevin Priola wants to tack more taxes onto alcoholic beverages. Boo.

Taxes: A new group wants to raise taxes “to pump more public money into child care and other types of caregiving, including K-12 education, nursing, support for people with disabilities, and hospice,” Chalkbeat reports.

Polis: John Fund discusses Jared Polis with Jon Caldara. “The shine has come off of Denver,” Fund says, which is a problem for Polis.

Health: “Psychologists working in Colorado will soon be eligible to apply to prescribe mental health medications to their patients, thanks to House Bill 1071,” reports Colorado Politics.

Child Care: Colorado is subsidizing it.

Water: Aurora is rationing it. If only there were some better way to coordinate plans.

Health: “Plans for Grand Junction High School health clinic creates rift among students, board members and voters,” reports CPR.

Elections: Loony Republicans proposed an “election integrity” bill.

Republicans: “Former Mesa County GOP chair Kevin McCarney is joining the race for [Colorado GOP] chair. McCarney has said the 2020 election was stolen, refers to President Biden as the Communist-in-Chief, and said Biden was sending teams door-to-door to forcibly vaccinate Americans,” reports Kyle Clark. Damn it, Republicans!

Quick Takes—General

Shibboleths: Mike Huemer has out a nice essay on the meaning of Shibboleths and why we should avoid using them.

Wood: Some people want to build more buildings out of wood.

Homeless: This account of a homeless “zone” in Phoenix sounds very bad.

College: Various GMU professors have signed a “Statement of Commitment to Academic Freedom and to Intellectual Merit.”