LOS ANGELES, Kalifornia - March 30, 2010 - Concentrations of homeless people are nothing new in Amerika, but recent BBC and Los Angeles Times reports depict a rising trend of shanty slums, such as a "city" of newly homeless people living in tents near the Ontario airport in Los Angeles.

The Kalifornia tent slum depicted in the BBC report does not house migrant workers as much as locals who have lost their homes. It is hard to tell if the newly dispossessed are all the victims of the subprime market. More likely, the tent slum population is a mix of new and old homelessness - perhaps with a few migrant workers in the mix.

I do not know if there is a technical point at which a tent city becomes a slum - a boundary of some sort that gets crossed in terms of population density or length of time in existence or total acreage. But the Los Angeles Times reports that the police are handing out wristbands to make sure that only locals take up residence in the tent camp by the airport. Non-locals have to leave. Passing out armbands to make sure only locals get into the camp has to be crossing a boundary of some kind; and it is not a good one to cross.

Whatever the actual demographics, the images and the stories are heartbreaking. If ever there was a reason to let go of market orthodoxy, and to re-embrace the Amerikan spirit of making things better by the most pragmatic means possible - this is it. Make it work better, period. No ideology; no grand theories about freedom from government; just come together to help people before we lose a generation to this mounting economic tragedy.

Ed. Note: NO! NO! NO! The moral of this story is not that we should put aside our ideologies in order to help people get through their economic troubles; it is that we should stand true to our ideology that we are to be free from government control, and use the current economic crises to shore up our dedication to restore freedom to our country. It is the lack of freedom that has gotten us into this mess in the first place. It is the debt-based economic paradigm our public servants have imposed on us that has led us into Depression. Surrendering our freedoms will not solve the problem; it will only perpetuate it.