When are people going to stop cooperating?

[vehemencet-t.livejournal.com]

So I read today that in Orlando, Philadelphia, Las Vegas, Dallas, Houston, and New York City measures have been introduced to ban people from feeding the homeless, and some church groups and local Food Not Bombs cells have even been arrested for defying said bans. Authorities seem to claim the purpose is to protect the homeless from "unsafe" food and their "dignity". I am sure the homeless heartily agree and thank their benevolent overlords.

Real motivations seem to be that the wealthier classes are tired of seeing the homeless and hungry assemble in visible public spaces where such charitous groups and individuals feed them. But why should we need the permission of the government to feed the hungry?

Despite how horrible this alone is, for me it just seems like part of a long ongoing and unnerving trend--the criminalization of just about all free, independent meaningful conduct, or turning what were once inalienable freedoms into licensed/permitted privileges which can be granted selectively. Take a look at these ignominious stories and cringe. It seems like the ruling class continues to tighten its grip on free independent action by individuals and micromanage, regulate and control further minutiae of our daily lives.

How long are U.S. citizens going to just accept these restrictions, these arrogant "laws"? I think the respect for the law ethical citizens have has become nothing short of detrimental to society. Laws are not sacred--they are made by the ruling class to serve their selfish interests and as such often serve to oppress and tightly control the quite frankly rising numbers of the lower ones. Remember the racist Jim Crow codes? The Nazis had laws too, that didn't make them anymore respectable or useful. All I am saying is if people do not collectively disobey and refuse to comply with these laws, those who do follow their conscience will be easily arrested and imprisoned for doing so, while the rest silently suffer under them and add another link to their children's chains. Is that a logically fallacious slippery slope? That remains to be seen.

But if we publicly assert our right to determine the kinds of rules we wish to adhere to for the actual good of society, we may just find out that is enough to have a voluntarily organized and free society all at once and we don't really need all their stupid controls.

Comments

[strivingtoohard.livejournal.com]

The problem is not with private institutions feeding the homeless. That costs the government nothing. The problem is it becomes a magnet to bring more homeless into the city involved from outlying and surrounding areas. The homeless become a burden on public housing which is usually full in major cities. It's a problem for hospitals which are having a hard time with budgets and don't get reimbursed nearly enough for the services they provide. (Obamacare will only make this worse.) There are a lot of other costs a cities incurs besides feeding costs if they have a large homeless population. I think it makes good sense for cities to try to get people to stay in the places they come from so the burden is equally shared.

[vehemencet-t.livejournal.com]

The fact that this "throws the baby out with the bathwater" and nowhere have I seen them actually give this reason, makes me skeptical.

[the-rukh.livejournal.com]

Are there no prisons? Are there no workhouses?

[dwer.livejournal.com]

...

[jrscofield.livejournal.com]

I have mixed feelings. On one hand I feel that people should be able to communicate freely, ask for things they need or want without the government's intervention. On the other hand I also dislike being asked and harassed by people wanting money. It would be nice if they all had a place to go to ask for food and money without bothering the average person on the street who might be afraid of them.

[kylinrouge.livejournal.com]

On the street more like in the subway. Nothing like a captive audience, eh?

[vehemencet-t.livejournal.com]

Except these people were not there to beg, they were there to *receive* free food from groups and individuals who were *there* specifically to give it to them. That's accepting a gift, hardly begging.

So for local governments to stop those groups from doing so comes off as a massive WTF.

[pastorlenny.livejournal.com]

We clearly need more good churches.

[the-rukh.livejournal.com]

Or at least some good churches. oh snap!

But seriously. Good churches are not a bad thing.

[dreadfulpenny81.livejournal.com]

Please tell me you're not serious.

I mean, the train thing I can understand. But whining because someone else chooses to smoke and God forbid they do it within a 15 ft. radius of your child? I sure hope you don't drive a vehicle with the windows down, because then you're exposing your child to harmful car exhaust and well, that's just child endangerment on your part. And the milk issue? The only way one can get sick from raw milk is a) if the animal it's coming from is sick, b) if airborne contaminants get into the product, or c) if it's been left out too long and it's turned. People blindly buy products in a grocery store marked "organic" but unless they've actually been part of the process from minute one, how do they know? If you're going to consider buying raw milk (especially from a small farm), ask to look at their animals and the conditions in which those animals live. If the farmer doesn't allow that, then don't buy the product. THAT is common sense.

[gunslnger.livejournal.com]

1. The guy is free to be an asshole in his yard, you are not free to be an asshole to him in return.
2. Since they weren't selling it, they shouldn't need a sales tax permit. It's just stupid.
3. Generally, but not always, and sometimes, it's just an excuse for random control.
4. That's not a good enough reason.
5. That's not a good enough reason.

[kylinrouge.livejournal.com]

Local districts propose retarded bullshit all the time.

It is not news.

HOAs have all kinds of retarded rules... it would be news if it were something that was actually enforced by law.

[vehemencet-t.livejournal.com]

Then I would advise you to ask the church and Food Not Bombs members who were arrested for disobeying, about it. Also ask the homeless who will inevitably be driven away for the ridiculous crime that "they might do something" (i.e. "vagrancy"; everyone can be counted on to at some point, *do something*).

But in the future I will try to ensure my posts meet the heightened requirements for news ; D

[allhatnocattle.livejournal.com]

No allowed to hand out food? Then LET THEM EAT CAKE!!!
shrug
The revolution is closer then you think.

[mrbogey.livejournal.com]

Yes, overthrow the leaders of all those cities. Let Republicans run the shows there for once.

[vehemencet-t.livejournal.com]

I really hope so...

[gunslnger.livejournal.com]

Yeah, my wife was looking at that article (and related ones) a few minutes ago, so we had the discussion about how the massive amounts of random and meaningless laws just makes the system less about the rule of law and more about making everyone into a criminal that can be locked up for something whenever someone wants to, which just increases fear. And about how it's still surprising that people aren't protesting TSA.

[underlankers.livejournal.com]

OK, looking at these two examples:

Jim Crow was actually not created by law. If the Laws alone had sufficed, it would have been the 1866 Black Codes that would have ultimately fallen. Jim Crow arose after a sustained, brutal domestic terrorist campaign marked by use of massacre as a political tool.

The Nazis also did not do their worst atrocities via law and order, but instead by sending death squads using war as a cover-up. The Nazis in terms of restrictions on ethnic Germans only dropped the hammer on them in 1944-5. Before that ethnic Germans were the ones doing atrocities but freed of atrocities affecting them.

In both cases those societies benefited from an absence of information where today's society has information overload. It is extremely difficult to make a totalitarian system in the information age. Note I never said impossible, just difficult.

[vehemencet-t.livejournal.com]

Well I'm glad you clarified, otherwise China would have been at the forefront of my mind.

[muscadinegirl.livejournal.com]

The conspiracy theory would be that they're deliberately trying to rile the public so there will be rioting in the streets, which will give the Powers that Be^tm the right to declare martial law and shovel the underclass and those who sympathize with them into pre-built FEMA camps where we will be forced to work and have absolutely no rights.

Meanwhile, people starve, disease abounds, the environment suffers and the rich don't have to look at any of it.

[enders-shadow.livejournal.com]

Nah, conspiracy theory is that these laws are aimed at OWS-kitchens

Though after looking through the link perhaps not.
But perhaps they will use it as a work-around anyway. It wouldn't surprise me if the NYPD started arresting occupiers for sharing their pizza in the park.

[sandwichwarrior.livejournal.com]

I had actuall considered posting about this but I seem to have been beaten to the punch. *Tips hat*

In NCO school we were taught several rules on the making of rules.

1: Don't make a rule that you will not enforce. Failure to enforce a prior edict will make you look weak and inconsistant thus undermining your authority.

2: Don't tell somebody to do something you wouldn't do yourself. Double standards are corosive to good order and "passing the buck" is an asshole move anyway.

2: (and this is the one that matters) Don't tell somebody to do something that they wouldn't do anyway. Otherwise you risk making a subordinate into an enemy

"The Proles" will always outnumber "The Party" and as soon as the proles decide that the party is not on thier side, the party's days are numbered.

[underlankers.livejournal.com]

In theory. In practice it is actually possible for a regime to survive based on the deliberate suppression of the majority of the population when that population is hostile to it. See: Apartheid South Africa.