But the truth is, that always both the bad have persecuted the good, and the good have persecuted the bad: the former doing harm by their unrighteousness, the latter seeking to do good by the administration of discipline; the former with cruelty, the latter with moderation; the former impelled by lust, the latter under the constraint of love. For he whose aim is to kill is not careful how he wounds, but he whose aim is to cure is cautious with his lancet; for the one seeks to destroy what is sound, the other that which is decaying. The wicked put prophets to death; prophets also put the wicked to death. The Jews scourged Christ; Christ also scourged the Jews. The apostles were given up by men to the civil powers; the apostles themselves gave men up to the power of Satan. In all these cases, what is important to attend to but this: who were on the side of truth, and who on the side of iniquity; who acted from a desire to injure, and who from a desire to correct what was amiss?

Augustine’s “Letter to Vincentius,” Letter 93, (A.D. 408) in which Augustine suggests there is such a thing as “righteous persecution.”

Let us be very, very, very careful.

I’ve heard a lot about the recent KOMO report called, “Seattle is Dying.” I will say there is some truth in the report, and something convincing about the need for the City to reconsider it’s approach to the problem of people camping on rights of way. I think there is something to the idea that lack of enforcement of lesser crimes has given a foothold to a mix of people genuinely rejecting shelters because of the barriers they present (no dogs, no couples, no drinking etc.) and those who are indulging in a spiral into oblivion in public. There seems little doubt and growing consensus from everywhere that the current approach to the problem is not working and that the City Council and Mayor have failed. The bottom line is that homelessness is hard to define and has many causes and there isn’t a single or simple solution.

I have written about why I think both encampments and people who live in cars are reacting, in their own way, to price signals in the market. The message these people are sending is clear: the current shelter system doesn’t work for them. Living in improvised camps or vehicles is preferable to moving all their possessions around day after day, being exposed to long waits for shelter, and having restrictions imposed on their lifestyles. I’ve suggested working with people to move from the toehold of stability they’ve established into more conventional and legal forms of shelter. This takes work, not rhetoric; innovative thinking not sweeps or shrugging toleration.

However, I suggest that we all proceed with caution as the notion of involuntary commitment to secure facilities for assessment of addiction and mental health gains a place is the discourse and dialogue about what Seattle should do. There are three key issues here.

First, who decides who is sane and not sane? Who makes the determination that a person is addicted? Furthermore, who makes the decision, and by what criteria, that an individual is a harm to herself and others? There are answers to these questions, and our legal and health system have established criteria to make these decisions and to consign an individual to what amounts to incarceration and the loss of freedom in their own best interests and the interests of the wider community. But these actions are generally taken one at a time, slowly, and with great deliberation. One might even say, “It is difficult.” Shouldn’t it be? Taking away someone’s freedom should be hard to do and “cleaning up our streets” with rapid determinations of sanity and addiction in the context of criminal legal proceedings seems very dangerous. Widespread and quick action will result in mistakes that we will all regret later. Is it worth it?

Second, do we want the same people who can’t process a building permit efficiently or run a public meeting making these determinations of who is going to lose their freedom and why? Has the City Council demonstrated any capacity for subtlety in making decisions about land use, housing, and taxation? Has the City, as an institution, demonstrated the good judgment and restraint that we’d expect from our local government? I’d suggest they have not. On the contrary, I have, in more than 20 years of working with and for government never seen one as broken, dysfunctional, and thoroughly disconnected from any awareness of basic economics and without any interest in learning about how complex systems work. The City is being misgoverned; I don’t want the City determining anyone’s sanity.

Finally, to the developers and land lords that I tirelessly defend at great personal risk to my own sanity and with consequent derision and dismissal; stop and think. Most of the people in Seattle who are provoked by this KOMO report – either angry neighbors or socialists or mindless advocates for more and more money for a broken system – would love to see you carted off to McNeil Island too, along with brogrammers, Jeff Bezos, and anyone they see as making too much money or somehow benefitting from growth. The outrage at what’s in the report will not lead to a relaxation of regulations and taxation that are making the housing situation worse; rather, I’d suggest, this foment will lead to even more restrictions, rules, regulations, and limits because most of these groups believe new growth and housing is at the root of Seattle’s problems. They also think you should pay to fix it. We must remember history.

Augustine began his career as a great advocate of toleration, particularly after two centuries of Roman persecution of Christians; but his frustration with heretics and theological disputes and the damage they did to that faith led him to construct an elaborate argument to impose persecution for people for the salvation of their eternal souls. What is the answer to Augustine’s question to Vincentius: who were on the side of truth, and who on the side of iniquity; who acted from a desire to injure, and who from a desire to correct what was amiss?

I don’t know. And I sure as hell don’t want these people making that decision.

You can read more about Augustine’s shift in this interesting article: https://www.libertarianism.org/columns/freethought-freedom-augustines-case-righteous-persecution