It kinda gets blown away when we see state action to deny homeless people food freely given by non-profit organisations. Like this, for example.
That footage is from Orlando, Florida, just a few days ago.
They have a rule there, you see, which prohibits the giving of food to more than 25 people within a two mile radius of City Hall. This would include just setting up a food stall and handing it out for free to anyone who can't afford it, like the homeless kids in the video. And the city is spending a lot of money defending their stance in court.
The reason given is the lack of a state-sanctioned licence (I've written about the all-encompassing restrictions on liberty such measures entail before). You'd think they would be pleased to see others shouldering a burden which the state usually quotes as an expense they would rather do without, wouldn't you? Not in this case, though, and I'm pretty sure the licence excuse is just that. A convenient excuse.
It's worth pointing out - before you begin thinking Orlando is too far away to care about - that the same is planned for Westminster, and even in the think-of-the-poor progressive paradise of Brighton there have been rumblings.
There are voices in the local council who really don't like what we do, suggesting it attracts the homeless and makes Brighton more "homeless friendly", others have said "food for free" encourages a degree of fecklessness, others just object to the possibility of "litter".In the US, San Francisco - YES, even caring, right on, bleeding-heart San Francisco - is amongst a host of cities who would gladly see the homeless rot rather than benefit from voluntary handouts.
Now, it's ironic that the group who filmed the above are a vegan anti-war organisation which presumably leans to the left - a fact borne out by the chant against 'corporate greed' - since it's clear that lefty authorities are equally happy to criminalise those who wish to voluntarily feed the poor as right of centre ones.
Perhaps for good reason, too. I mean, the argument that only the state - or those who are sanctioned by the state - are able to tend to the needy is a keystone of every government's thirst for taxation income. Too many 'mutuals' or other alternatives to state monopoly lends credence to the idea that there may be a perfectly workable solution to essential welfare needs which doesn't involve the removal of private income - to the benefit of public sector administrators - under the threat of imprisonment.
We must be directed to understand - by arresting heretics if need be - that looking after the poor can only be done properly by government, and anything that remotely threatens such a notion should be stamped on. Very hard.
Approved charities which align themselves with state policy will be fêted and amply funded, those which don't will suffer the full force of a state in defence of its aura of all-encompassing benevolence.
If that means letting the poor go hungry, so be it.
H/T Lawson
