Interesting Article:...please do not feed the homeless

Magnificent_Bastard

I got this link from fark.com Don't know how many of you check the site, but I like to read up every now and then.

http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2007/02/03/national/main2429393.shtml?source=RSSattr=U.S._2429393

It's about a law passed in Orlando prohibiting the feeding of large groups of homeless individuals without first obtaining a "large group feeding permit".

There are also cities in the states that completely prohibit giving food to homeless people.

Is this their solution to the growing homeless problem? Stop feeding them or giving them money, until they just all die? I find it reprehensible in almost every way. Sure, people may think of the homeless as a burden, and that they're all lunatics. Fine, you don't have to do anything. Just step right over them, or ignore them. But laws like this won't even allow somebody who wants to help to do so? Isn't there a problem here?

toast

.....retarted government....

BryanL

I think it is good.

Magnificent_Bastard

BryanL said:

I think it is good.

How so?

BryanL

Because I believe in capitalism and I think that feeding the poor is not helping anyone but the poor. Some get welfare while others just do drugs and such. Yes there are a few who were born in that situation and it sucks for them, but that is life. Some people get it good and some get it bad.

There have been incidents when people give the homeless food, the other homeless know this person is a giver so they hound them and even rob them. As bad as this sounds, let the homeless die off.

Malakaiii

Wow, Bryan, that's harsh! You seem to think that our welfare system is adequate to supply the needs of people below the poverty line... sadly, it is not!

I can see someone supporting not giving money to the homeless, as it could be used for something other than necessities like food, clothing or shelter. But feeding them is simply fulfilling one of those basic human needs... It's like saying "Oh, you don't have a place to live, well no food then, either!" It's ridiculous!

A lot of homeless people have mental problems that may or may not be caused by drugs and these cause difficulties for them in obtaining jobs. Additionally, the problem of homelessness perpetuates itself as who wants to hire someone who is in torn clothing and has nowhere to bathe? Yet then the person has no money to do those things...

Both of my parents worked when I was little, but we still didn't have enough money for food and used the Food Bank regularly. Even in a household with both parents working, and only 2 kids, there is a need to use the assistance of the government. And there are a heck of a lot more people in worse situations than that...

If you've ever been in the situation where you were cold and hungry, you may have more sympathy for the homeless...

Messiah

Because I believe in capitalism and I think that feeding the poor is not helping anyone but the poor. Some get welfare while others just do drugs and such. Yes there are a few who were born in that situation and it sucks for them, but that is life. Some people get it good and some get it bad.

Actually, the vast majority of people were born into it, and the vast majority of people stay in the social strata they are born in. Social mobility is, mostly, a myth. What this means is that we have a prepetual underclass of people sentenced to permanent poverty, even within the first world. I don't think I need to mention the vast majority of the world which has never even made a phone call, lives on under 2 dollars a day, nevermind gotten out of poverty.

Best of all of course, in places like British Columbia, our poverty rate is rising. We all ready have the highest child poverty rate in Canada and it's only getting bigger. This trend is the same all across the developing world almost, and esepcially in the US.

In the words of Howard Zinn, capitalism has always been a failure for the lower classes, now it's starting to fail the middle class too.

There have been incidents when people give the homeless food, the other homeless know this person is a giver so they hound them and even rob them. As bad as this sounds, let the homeless die off.

There's also been incidients of capitalists busting unions, stealing from their companies (Tycho, Enron, Worldcom, Hyundai etc etc), abusing workers, polluting the envrionment and financing war lords who in turn exterminate entire populations. And as great as this sounds, let's kill the capitalists.

You give me one homeless person whose robbed someone, I'll give you ten rich people who have done far worse.

BryanL

Kill the capitalist? I guess in a perfect world we should listen to Marx and live in a communist state. That would solve the problems of poverty.

Yes there will be poor people in the world and most of those people were born into it. But guess what, my grandfather and grandmother were dirt poor living in HK and they worked their way up to be able to feed their children and provide them an education. In a system where it's even harder to make money at the lower end. But guess what, they did it.

Messiah

Kill the capitalist? I guess in a perfect world we should listen to Marx and live in a communist state. That would solve the problems of poverty.

Worker control of the means of production would go a long way to solving the world's problem's I agree.

Yes there will be poor people in the world and most of those people were born into it. But guess what, my grandfather and grandmother were dirt poor living in HK and they worked their way up to be able to feed their children and provide them an education. In a system where it's even harder to make money at the lower end. But guess what, they did it.

Fantastic, so did mine, except not in Hong Kong. But guess what -- basing an entire socio-political system on gross EXCEPTIONS to the rule is not exactly smart. In fact, it's very, very dumb. Very. Dumb. Incredibly.

Malakaiii

I agree that people who manage to escape from poverty are the exceptions. And the really sad thing is that writing those who are poor off completely as "born into it, so too bad, better luck next time" is essentially condemning them to a lifetime of poverty.

NukeChem

Welcome to the 18th century, BryanL. Because that's what you support, and what we're regressing towards.

What's next? Child labor?

Messiah

What's next? Child labor?

We're all ready there: http://www.nupge.ca/news_2006/n13au06a.htm

Hiring children as young as 12 remains
legal in one of Canada's richest provinces

Victoria (13 Aug. 2006) - British Columbia's child labour laws are so bad they now lag behind those of India, which has just banned the hiring of children under 14 as domestic servants or as employees at hotels, tea shops, restaurants and resorts.

Official government figures put the number of child labourers in India at 11 million. The actual figure is probably closer to 60 million, according to India's Save the Childhood Movement.

Yet the new standard, adopted by one of the world's poorest and most populous countries, is better than the child labour laws now on the books in B.C., Canada's wealthy West Coast province.

The B.C. government, headed by Liberal Premier Gordon Campbell, brought international shame to Canada by passing one of the most regressive pieces of "labour" legislation in modern memory.

Bill 37 was approved on Oct. 8, 2003. It permits the hiring of children under the age of 12 to 15 with the written consent of a child's parent or guardian. In fact, it even allows the hiring of children under the age of 12 with the consent of the province's "director of employment standards" - a government official whose duties are set out in the B.C. Employment Standards Act.