On May 12, California Governor Gavin Newsom, a Democrat, demanded that cities throughout the state adopt anti-camping ordinances that would effectively ban public homelessness by requiring unhoused individuals to relocate every 72 hours.
While presented as a humanitarian effort to reduce homelessness, the new policy victimizes California’s growing unhoused population—approximately 187,000 people—by tying funding in Proposition 1 to local laws banning sleeping or camping on public land.
In his announcement, Newsom pushed local governments to adopt the draconian ordinances “without delay.”
With this quote you’re implying that it is immoral to be homeless, which would not be unusual. Plenty of people would agree with that line of thinking.
Anyway, most of what Heinlein is talking about here is up to human nature. The only way you get to the root of the problem with human nature is to eliminate the human with that particular nature. That or incarcerate them. Plenty of people seem to agree with that line of thinking, as well.
Personally, I like the idea of laws to curtail certain behaviors. For example, I’m very troubled by the fact that gambling has been embraced by baseball, and I get to see it advertised constantly in the ballparks and during games. It makes me distrust the outcomes of the games that are being played. I liked it a lot better when there were more laws separating gambling and the game. You can’t stop people from gambling, but you might be able to limit gambling’s influence on the game.
The issue, I think, is with inhumane enforcement of laws, and the current administration seems to be enabling that sort of approach, and the people that want to take it.
I don’t know if I entirely disagree with your sentiment here, but the quote seems to be a bit out of context. Also, I think Heinlein was a nut.