FAIRNESS AND EQUAL PROTECTION UNDER THE LAW

A short tour of Teichert Ponds

Here is a short 4-minute video documenting the current conditions at Teichert Ponds in Chico, California on November 28, 2022. 

One of the strongest triggers for the emotional reaction of disgust, a powerful human response and motivator for action, is the perception of unfairness.

Cheaters are universally despised because they seek personal benefit at the expense of others.  That feeling of despising something or someone is the emotion of disgust.  It can arise from personal experience, where you are the victim of unfair treatment, or you can observe it in the conduct of others.  When we believe that another’s conduct is unfair, we respond immediately with the emotion of disgust to some degree.

What we do with that emotion is another issue entirely.  Civilized people learn to control their disgust, which can lead to anger, by channeling their emotions into acceptable norms, like avoidance, and verbal expression, or by relying on the institutions of civil society for law enforcement.

When we are mistreated, we seek justice.  We desire a world where everyone is treated with fairness, and where we treat others fairly in return.  This is the design principle of civil society.  We don’t take things into our own hands but use the institutions of civil society to enforce fairness. There is nothing fairer that the doctrine of “Equal Protection Under the Law.”

That doctrine is so important to our civil society, it is specifically mentioned in the U.S. Constitution in the Fourteenth Amendment.  The Supreme Court has ruled many times in cases that distinguish laws based on conduct, which are deemed constitutional, and those based on condition or status, which are deemed unconstitutional. We know that discrimination on the basis of race, sex, national origin, or religion is unfair and unconstitutional. But it also covers conditions like addiction, mental illness, appearance, or even poverty.  The only fair law is one that prohibits certain conduct as defined by some objective standard.  Laws deal with the prohibited conduct and nothing else, and those prohibitions apply to everyone equally. That is fair.

Whether owing to a misunderstanding, or purposeful misinformation, we need to be clear about what that means.  We have heard that enforcement of laws prohibiting camping, littering, etc. are unconstitutional because they are enforced only against the “homeless”, and that is unfair.  If that were true, it would be unfair.  Misinformation is a claim something is true when it is not.  Claiming enforcement is aimed at a person rather than their conduct is useful because it takes advantage of our disgust with unfairness.  Any law which aims at one’s condition or status is unconstitutionally prohibited as unfair discrimination.  The only fair law is one that aims at an individual’s conduct, not their condition or status.

Camping on public land is an intentional act and can therefore be prohibited by law. An intentional act is conduct not affected by one’s condition or status.  It is not just poor people who are prohibited from camping at Teichert Ponds, but anyone, rich or poor, homeless or sheltered, addicted, or clean.  It is a fundamental Constitutional guarantee that everyone is treated equally under the law. No one is exempt and no one can be singled out for enforcement on any other basis but conduct. 

No law may prohibit conduct for one type of condition, but not another.  We do not enforce laws only against the rich or poor.  When someone violates a law, it is their conduct that is prohibited, and that conduct must be prohibited equally for everyone. We don’t make exceptions because of their condition (i.e. homeless or addicted) or status (rich or poor).

To put it another way, just because someone is poor does not grant them immunity from laws that prohibit certain conduct.  A shoplifter steals goods from a shopkeeper, and anyone who does that must face the legal consequences of that offense. We look at what they did, not who they are. That is fair.

If I dump trash in a public place, I am guilty of littering.  If I set up housekeeping and settle on public or private land without permission or title to the land, I am trespassing.  If I build a structure on public land that does not meet laws governing habitable structures, I am guilty of constructing and occupying an illegal structure. Anyone regardless of condition or status must be treated equally under the law. That is the doctrine of equal protection, and the only way to treat everyone fairly.

What is happening at Teichert Ponds is a violation of several laws, but more fundamentally, it is unfair. Yes, it is unfair to those who want to have a clean environment to enjoy, but it is also unfair to those who are permitted to harm the environment without consequences. We are telling them they are living in a different society, one where rules don’t apply to them.  We are affording them privileges to destroy the environment that no one else enjoys. We are subjecting them to health and safety hazards that “normal” people don’t tolerate, and therefore we are saying they are beneath our concern.  We are subjecting them to anger and resentment in the name of tolerance and compassion.  It is unfair to them, too.

We are allowing some people, on the basis of their condition and status, to behave in ways that violate fundamental principles of our society, to which everyone but them is accountable. By allowing some individuals to degrade the health and beauty of our natural world, and by permitting them to subject themselves to unhealthy and unsafe living conditions, we not only violate laws designed to protect the health of the environment and people, but we also violate the doctrine of fairness and equal protection.

By allowing this harm in the name of compassion and tolerance, not only are we failing to preserve our public lands for the safe and healthful enjoyment of everyone equally we undermine our system of laws and our fundamental sense of fairness. By allowing conduct that is legally wrong, we undermine our system of laws, and the protection of those laws for everyone, equally and fairly.  It is morally wrong, and therefore legally wrong to act this way against public welfare.

When someone breaks the law, they are harming others, either directly or indirectly.  Assault or robbery is direct harm against an individual victim.  Environmental harm is a crime against everyone, both directly and indirectly.  It is a harm to the general health and welfare of society.

At the very least, this harmful conduct is documented in this 4-minute video.  It shows an assault against the environment and unsafe and unhealthy conditions for both the residents and the community.  The stewardship and protection of the environment was once a cause universally defended by citizens, most strenuously by environmental groups organized for that purpose. The Sierra Club gained national recognition by opposing perceived harms to the Spotted Owl from excessive logging, opposing the dumping of waste into our oceans, or the discharge of harmful chemicals into our waterways.  Exposure to this conduct created national outrage and influenced lawmakers to make and enforce laws to protect the environment.  While this may have suffered from overreach in some instances, there was almost no debate over whether or not the environment deserved to be protected.

Locally, we have Butte Environmental Council, a non-profit organization ostensibly dedicated to the proposition that our local environment deserves and requires protection.  There can be no debate that what is pictured in this video is causing direct harm to the environment across many dimensions. I don’t need to list the many obvious sources of harm.

Where is Butte Environmental Council? Why are they not speaking out publicly about this direct assault on the environment?  How can they be for the environment on the one hand and remain silent about this large-scale pollution and destruction on the other?  One can only conclude that if they remain silent about this destruction, they cannot have any sincere conviction for protecting the environment in any other context either. How can you put “Environmental” in your name, and remain silent when the environment is being so seriously abused on your watch?

Encampments are a consequence of many vectors of a complex problem, but when we witness a direct assault, our first instinct must be to stop it.  Only after the assault is ended can we consider what to do next.  No honest environmentalist can wrap themselves in the cloak of environmentalism yet remain silent to the environmental tragedy playing out before our eyes at this very moment.  We have heard many voices on the subject of the “homeless” problems, but one voice we have not heard is the voice of the environmentalists.  One can only wonder why.