Squatters

A squatter’s mentality is that possession alone gives them rights.  The longer they have possession of something – rightly or wrongly – the more legitimate and unassailable they believe their claim is.  

I find this attitude becoming more pervasive in America every day.  You see it everywhere.  It’s as if there’s some unspecified statute of limitations that applies to everything – after a certain time, you’re entitled to keep whatever forever, whether that’s a benefit, a job, or even citizenship.    

Someone comes here illegally, either by sneaking over the border, or overstaying a visa.  Apparently, the longer they remain here without being caught, the less illegal they are.  In fact, if they smuggled their children in at the same time, those children are increasingly entitled to the benefits of full citizenship, and in some cases offered preferential tuition rates when they’re ready for college. 

Explain to me how that works.  You’re here illegally.  Your kids are here illegally.  And yet there’s no penalty – and actually greater sympathy – the longer you’ve been breaking our laws? 

Am I the only one who is stunned when illegal immigrants brazenly march in the streets – openly proclaiming with signs and banners that they are here illegally – and nothing happens?   These folks are hardly “living in the shadows.”  They’re proudly – and quite publicly – defying our laws.

And for some unknown reason they’re getting away with it.  It’s probably because public sentiment in this country is moving generally toward accepting a squatter mentality as valid.

In many of the Latin American countries, if you’re caught crossing their border illegally you’re not deported much less praised.  You go to prison.  Here, you get a free bus ride back across the border and what amounts to a “better-luck-next-time” admonition.   

But if you manage to avoid getting caught for a few years, you’ll probably get a pass. 

The squatter movement – and attitude – goes well beyond illegal immigrants.  Everybody feels entitled to keep what they have, no matter how they got it or if the reason for keeping it has changed.

For years, railroads had “firemen” ostensibly paid to shovel coal into locomotives that no longer used coal, and other silly positions that were maintained long past their need.  But unions fought hard to keep those positions alive, simply because eliminating those useless jobs would be “unfair” to long-time beneficiaries of this featherbedding. 

In Philadelphia, the city is trying to close and consolidate school buildings for the simple reason that most of those are underutilized, overstaffed for the student population they serve, and the city can’t afford to maintain them.  Parents and teachers are demanding that these schools – and the jobs that go with them – be “saved.”  Other unions are also in a tizzy that some custodial and school nurse jobs might be lost.  The principal argument is not that those jobs or schools are necessary but that the schools have always been there, those jobs have always been there, and no one has the right to change that.  It would be “unfair.” 

In Pennsylvania, we have perhaps the worst state liquor store system in the country.  Nobody likes it, except perhaps Mormons, Seventh-Day Adventists, and devout Muslims.  Imagine if the old Soviet Union ran the liquor stores in your state with clerks who couldn’t be fired.  That will give you an idea of the ambiance of our typical state store.  It’s a monopoly and acts like one.  Don’t like the selection?  Too bad.  Can’t find what you want?  Too bad.  There are big fines for buying liquor or wine in a surrounding state – at retail or online – and bringing it into Pennsylvania.  So you’re stuck. 

Beer comes through an entirely different system – privately held “beer distributors” typically family-owned and operated for generations.  And fiercely protected by state politicians.   

While some of you may live in states where you can buy beer to go pretty much 24/7 by the six-pack at a 7-11, in a grocery store, or even by the bottle or can at some places, that’s not how it works here.  In Pennsylvania you can buy up to two six packs to go at a tavern, or beer by the case or a keg at a beer distributor, but you can’t buy three six packs of beer at one time anywhere.  It’s all done to protect entrenched interests – tavern owners and beer distributors. 

Until 2005, beer distributors weren’t open on Sundays and only then were they “permitted” to open between noon and 5PM.   In 2011, they were allowed to be open from 9AM to 9PM. 

Why did it take so long to get Sunday hours? Well it sure wasn’t because consumers were opposed.   It was fierce lobbying by beer distributors to maintain the status quo.   

For years, the public has been clamoring to get the state store system dismantled and move toward a more rational system for selling beer and wine.  Finally, some brave politicians are trying to do that.  The opposition is intense:  the retail clerks union says 20,000 state store workers would lose their jobs; beer distributors claim their family businesses would go under if grocery stores and big-box outlets like Costco were able to sell beer.

They are both correct.  There would be job losses in the state store system and more competition that might force beer distributors to adapt or die.     

So here’s the big question:  Who cares?

Jobs come and go in other industries and businesses all the time.  You may have noticed it's hard to find a blacksmith anymore, and you don't see block ice trucks delivering to homes, either.  Change happens.  

Plus, competition usually benefits the consumer in the form of lower prices and better service.  Why are these folks special and somehow immune?  It’s not like they’ve been doing a great job. 

Since when do we owe either the state store workers or the beer distributors anything?  How is the general buying public somehow responsible for keeping them in business?  

Apparently, it’s part of the same squatter attitude – the clerks have had these union jobs with guaranteed government pensions and benefits for years and the distributors have had a stranglehold on beer for years.  They “own” these things simply by virtue of longevity.  Nobody – not even the public paying their salaries and buying their goods – has the right to upset the comfy, protected little world they’ve always enjoyed. 

Forget that any decent state store clerk who knew anything about what they were selling would probably find another job in a private liquor store. Or that they’ve offered beer distributors the right to sell liquor and wine as well.  That’s not what this is about – it’s about losing the guarantee they have now of not having to compete.  Making them do so is “unfair.” 

And that’s the key argument by squatters everywhere.  I have it.  I keep it.  Forever.  To make me give it up or change it – regardless of the reason why – means you are heartless, cruel and uncaring.  How can any decent human being take away what I have and make me suffer?  Do you not have any shame about how this will affect me and my family? 

It’s always about them.  That’s how squatters think. 

Then there are “entitlements” – the mother’s milk of squatterdom.  But that’s a topic for another day.