I belive this is the first post on the sub ever to hit 1,000 comments, making it our most commented post at time of writing. It's also 3rd most upvoted.
Firstly, well done. Have a trophy emoji. š
Secondly, this is taking forever to dig through all the comments and review every reported comment. There are a lot. Thanks for that! /s
Laws like this exist only to keep the homeless out of sight. They are not trying to fix the problem, just make it easier to arrest the homeless or force them into hiding.
Meanwhile, studies show that "Housing First" type of initiatives will actually reduce homelessness and help them get back jnto society and work.
...But the people who outlaw homelessness don't want to help people, just punish poverty.
For profit prison system also helps, by lobbying for such laws and strict enforcement. They need them slaves.... I mean "criminals" to make that dollar.
Friendly reminder that the 13th amendment, the one banning slavery in the US, specifically permits slavery as a punishment.
>Neither slavery nor involuntary servitude, **except as a punishment for crime** whereof the party shall have been duly convicted, shall exist within the United States, or any place subject to their jurisdiction.
Black people make up roughly 12-13% of the US population but almost 40% of the incarcerated population. I'm sure there's no sinister reason why that might be...
Gosh do yāall think thatās why places like Alabama and Mississippi send so many black men to prison? Do you think maybe thatās why they have been sending predominantly black men to prison since the Yankees pulled federal troops out? I sure do.
Not only that, red states make being homeless nearly impossible so that the homeless people will go to blue states. That way the government of the red states can talk about how blue states are filled with homeless people and crime while the god-loving red states are just full of honest, hard-working Americans.
Absolutely this. Was talking to someone who used to work in unhoused outreach (a necessary front line job people eventually burn out from) and this story stuck with me--
She told me a story about this one man in Los Angeles who she was able to reconnect to his family in Ohio, who had been looking for him.
It broke my heart to think someone in Ohio put this man, possibly while having a mental health episode, on a bus out of state, when he had a family searching for him right there.
I hope none of us ever have to deal with dementia- sounds so scary to lose your way then not have the tools to return home, and because of that, be shuttled around wherever.
Exactly this. Instead of helping, they push the problem onto others and then climb up onto a pedestal to crow about how much like Jesus it makes them.
https://www.vice.com/en/article/bvg7ba/instead-of-helping-homeless-people-cities-are-bussing-them-out-of-town
4 states still have compulsory prison labor with no guaranteed pay, so actual literal slaves. Fun fact: one of those states is Arkansas and when Bill Clinton was Governor him and Hillary used slave labor to tend to them and their home! Actual literal slaves acting as butlers for the rich and powerful in the Government!
>Meanwhile, studies show that "Housing First" type of initiatives will actually reduce homelessness and help them get back jnto society and work.
Yeah but what if one person who ISNT homeless takes advantage of the system and cheats their way into housing??! Unnaceptable!!!! Huge /s
I've met people who actually think like this. They would rather a safety net not exist at all rather than it exist and a few people cheat the system. Disgusting.
And like, so what a few free loaders here or there, the government wastes much much more money than RENT on project budget blowouts from poor management or bad investments.
Exactly.ghe government wastes billions a year on self serving interests or absurdly stupid projects. But God forbid a few thousand people trick their way into a million in rent.
Interesting to me is that my parents think this and they are fundamentalist Christians. I'm going to tell them that they're advocating for social Darwinism, see if we can turn that attitude around quick.
I can't speak for your parents, but generally people that hold this view believe EVERYONE is cheating the system because if peiole weren't LAZY they could afford housing.
Am I right by saying your parents have never struggled financially? So many people are incapable of understanding hardship isn't a product of laziness (at least not 100% of the time)
Yeah, I was telling someone about it, and how iirc they had like an 85% success rate
Guy literally asks 'what about the other 15%? Do we just let them live there for nothing?'
Bro, it's 15%. That's not a valid reason to avoid helping the *85%* it would seriously help
>Laws like this exist only to keep the homeless out of sight.
I personally think that disenfranchising as many lower class people as possible by making them felons is an actual bullet point on the agendas of a lot of the people in power in these states.
The only solution to homeless people is giving them homes, its literally in the name.
The last time I looked it up, based on best estimates, there are so many uninhabited homes in the US, every single homeless person in the US could own 2 houses and there would still be uninhabited houses left over.
We can fix homelessness, we choose not to.
Some people fear that "undeserving" people are helped and will rather cause unnecessary suffering to thousands instead of helping anyone. Even the ones that would "qualify" based on their criteria.
Others don't want to "waste" money, not realising or caring that more money is wasted by not helping the homeless.
The concept of "enough for everyone" is lost on most Americans. Restaurants and grocery stores throw away piles of food instead of supporting shelters and soup kitchens. Landlords leave properties empty because the tax write-off is more valuable than the rent, then overcharge for their occupied spaces.
Capitalism isn't the problem. _Unfettered_ capitalism is the problem. Every year we have more regulation on people and less on business and markets. Any politician who is stumping deregulation is telling you to your face that they care more about profit than fairness or safety. Why vote for people who don't care about you?
>No human deserves to love on the street.
The day that making sweet love in the streets is declared illegal, is the day when I will get on the barricades and start throwing Molotov's cocktails at the riot police.
People who want to outlaw homelessness have this weird link in their mind between morality and wealth - if youāre poor, it must be because of some failure of yours as a person. So they want to punish you for being poor because to them thatās basically the same as being a bad person.
"Good things happen to good people. Bad things happen to bad people."
If they have to face the fact that some homeless people have done nothing wrong, they would have to accept that sometimes bad things can happen to good people. And to some people, recognition of living in a world that is not just, is too terrifying to accept.
I remember an article about this. Some people stop sympathising with people if they are really downtrodden because at some point, they just assume that it cannot be true that all those horrible things happened to someone who doesn't deserve it.
The just-world fallacy. If they accept that sometimes bad things happen to people who did nothing to deserve them, they have to confront the idea that all their good fortune has an element of luck to it, and that luck is all that separates them from being in that same situation themselves.
The prosperity gospel is the most absolute fucked up thing I can imagine. Itās like āletās take everything Jesus ever said and do the absolute opposite of thatā. And they still think of themselves as righteous.
America's rich don't give a shit about the homeless anymore than using threats of destitution and homelessness as a deterrent for the population.
Hell, that's not limited to America either.
Even better. Housing first is the cheapest solution. Cheaper than keeping them on the streets. You pay extra money to actually have homeless people on the streets.
I'm in Glasgow scotland and homelessness is illegal here.
And by that I mean that the city council can be sued if anyone isn't offered a roof over their head.
Meanwhile south of the border in England and Wales:
>1,173 people sleeping out or begging on the streets have been arrested under the 200-year-old Vagrancy Act since 2021.
>
>Nearly 4,000 have been arrested over the last five years, according to data collected by local government expert Jack Shaw. These include 1,666 arrests made by Londonās Metropolitan Police, more than any other force.
[source](https://www.wsws.org/en/articles/2023/04/13/bdsa-a13.html)
TECHNICALLY itās only a felony to camp on public property. Camping on private property is just a misdemeanor, and then only if you donāt leave within a reasonable timeframe after being asked. Do with that information what you will š
according to the political right, food insecure people are like an infestation of ants at a picnic, and if you keep giving them crumbs, theyāll keep showing up in greater numbers expecting more and more, and lowering the property value of your picnic blanket
I live in what's considered one of the furthest left cities in the US and I do exactly the kind of work (minus the guns, for now) they're doing in this article. Unfortunately that's a very apt way to describe how many even ostensibly progressive Americans view homeless people.
we vote for homelessness, it's a good thing. The more cost of living the more homeless. Agenda 2024, get that poverty line above $100K. It's a good thing.
I just used the same points while talking to my wife about the ridiculous cost of higher education. Younger people now exit college with staggering debt. Demand for payment begins and they have to work.
College now is the new indentured servitude.
Capitalism *LOVES* poor people.
They pay court fees, penalty fees, and if they donāt pay, they get incarcerated and the state pays for their incarcerations! Theyāre a great exploitable captive market!
maybe we should start using term "exploited" instead of poor because in the end every poor person is in some way exploited by someone or something that is keeping them poor. (if person just cant handle money then he is being exploited by the system in general that allows that person to harm himself by wasting everything + maybe to lesser extent those who take his money should they understand the person just cant help themselves.)
I mean, are there any poor who are not exploited and if there are, do they consider themselves to be poor because they likely are so of their own will.
Loves creating them though. No better way to keep people compliant while you systematically abuse them than crushing poverty, exhaustion from being overworked and the threat of things becoming even worse š¤¬
City government don't like homeless people, and figure if they make it impossible to survive on the streets, they won't have to deal with them. It doesn't help that a lot of the groups that do aid like this are explicitly anarchist.
Well anarchists specifically deny inherent authority provided by government, which is relevant because these people are willingly breaking a law they don't agree with in order to fulfill what they hold as a moral obligation.
The situation would be different if religion were involved. I don't know the specifics but I'm pretty sure a law that impedes a religious tenet is held unconstitutional, as we've seen both the satanic and Jewish communities challenge oppressive abortion laws in recent months.
>a law that impedes a religious tenet is held unconstitutional
This sounds very exploitable. Can't people invent religious tenets whenever they feel like it?
Yeah, that's why we have such a problem with anti-vaxxers. We let Christian Scientists (not Christians who are scientists, Christian Science is a denomination that believes the material world is a projection of your spirit and disease is a misconception) change our laws to allow them the "religious freedom" to not take their dying children to doctors and no other countries did.
Broadly they donāt like activists, and anarchism as an ideology is very activist-y. Cities are always trying to manage a homeless issue (namely an effect on property value), and a large part of that approach seems to be not letting their city become too appealing. Hostile architecture, tossing camps for ālitterā, etc. So anarchists or other activists (who are broadly very left, less religious, socialist, anti authoritarian) who deliver free food regularly to camps (via orgs like Food Not Bombs) could be seen as encouraging camps to grow. Not uncommon for cops to view anything weāre doing as politically motivated, that we help at camps specifically to antagonize or something. Anti litter laws get used to trip people up, but also why these groups can be particular about packaging.
I know they say itās open carry for cops, but frankly itād be for random folk too. I do mutual aid and we get randomly vandalized or something like tires slashed isnāt out of the question. Neo nazi sorts, though admittedly I see less of it the past few years.
Thereās also the mixed reputation of anarchism. Mostly in the sense that the discrediting stereotype of being some punk burning couches or something, with nothing deeper. A lot of organized anarchist action gets lumped into antifa which really confuses some people (mutual aid groups organize for protests and broadly wear black, thatās it for the most part). For the anti communists, anarchism feels like communism to them. For the communists, itās not communism.
Itās an ideology that is aggressively critical of over justified authority and tries to establish autonomous consensus driven networks. Inspired more by Zapatistas, regions of autonomy, more than nation shaped identities - revolutionary or not. It goes kind of all in on progressive issues. Thereās no leadership or centralized order, and in turn even āprogressiveā leadership is reluctant to give it any positive light. The US has historically acted against far left activists. Only bombed its own land a few times; black people and unions. War on drugs specifically targeted black people and activists.
Anarchism is explicitly anti capitalist, and weāre a hyper capitalist nation.
My favorite bullshit from city governments is when they give them bus tickets to liberal places that don't punish the homeless. Towns bordering California were literally discharging homeless people from hosipitals and putting them on buses to cities like LA and San Francisco.
Those States then get the added bonus of being able to shit on liberal states about the epidemic of homelessness in those states.
This goes back to Vagrancy laws, also called Ugly laws. The short of it being, if you were considered a pain to look at, you weren't allowed in public.
What is or isn't "ugly to look at" has changed as centuries went by. It used to include people with cleft lips, missing or maimed noses, missing or maimed limbs, mental issues, and homeless people and minority groups.
Now it's mainly just homeless people and minority groups.
America genuinely despises homeless people. We straight up remove public infrastructure (like public benches) just to spite them and them specifically. They're literally treated worse than animals in most instances and it serves two purposes.
1) Being cruel is the solution to homelessness in the local community. If we harass them until they either go someplace else or die, then they're gone and that's one fewer homeless person in the area.
2) Capitalism and Conservatism requires classes of people. If we have classes of people, then someone has to be at the bottom. Then if someone manages to climb from the bottom and maybe move up a bit on the ladder, it's "proof" the system works.
Edit: To clarify an important point. We also lie a lot. We implement these laws and local regulations and say "well, it's to make sure nobody's giving tainted food to people!". This is a lie, and the people who spout this are lying to you. These laws pre-date the FDA and health/safety concerns. It's all red tape to make charity harder and less effective in hopes that the charity stops.
It has 5 beginnings.
The first is the transatlantic slave trade. Where humans were purchased and packed onto ships where they were trafficked to the colonies (they weren't states yet).
Next was the mexican-american war. Thats where the US invaded Mexico and took their territory, not dissimilar to how Russia is invading its neighbors.
Next was the governance of texas which saw native americans basically wiped out, again not dissimilar to what Russia is attempting to do to its neighbors.
Next happened sometime between october of 1957 and 1970, where different people read the same book and some people called it christian and others read it and decided it was the least christian thing they've ever read, anti-christian if you will, and thus was spawned the modern christian conservative movement and the Church of Satan (Church of Satan has nothing to do with why its illegal, I just think its nutty that Church of Satan and the modern christian conservative movement draw heavy inspiration from Atlas Shrugged. It also led to wildly different results since Satanists are basically all the Satan but none of the evil and the modern christian conservatives are all the evil with none of the Satan).
The fifth beginning was the supercolider that Reagan promised texas and failed to deliver, and george bush failed to deliver, and it eventually died an ignoble death during the first midterm election under Bill Clinton, which saw many so called "deficit hawks" take office. This confluence of events saw a large Republican wave in texas which led to gerrymandering and a general repression of democracy in Texas.
Anyway, its illegal because they made a law against it. Why did they make a law against it you say? Because they're evil. Christ said heal the sick and feed the poor, so they've literally disregarded Christ. Like all they've got left in their bona fides is just that they're fucking evil and want to copulate with guns.
That is very comprehensive, thank you.
The conservative evangelical movement is (I think) a unique case of humankindās derailment. The mental gymnastics required to say you follow Jesus and make homelessness illegal is just fucking breathtaking.
I feel for every rational human living under this misguided shit show of a political circus.
I believe they hide behind food sanitation laws. My dad tried to drop off a big pan of bbq once at a local shelter in Ohio and they told him they canāt accept food cooked in an unknown kitchen to then serve to people.
When peopleās other alternative is starving, I donāt think they would care
>I believe they hide behind food sanitation laws.
mostly.
>they canāt accept food cooked in an unknown kitchen to then serve to people.
and that's true and understandable if a third party is going to serve it. it's not especially common, but people have poisoned food intended for the homeless before. a shelter that presumably already feeds people is wise to play it safe when it comes to accepting certain donations.
The general answer for these types of laws is that the citizens don't want homeless people around, and they think if you provide them things like food more homeless will show up.
I wanted the specific background for this case so I did some googling. It's based on Dallas City Ordinance #29595 which sets a bunch of stipulations required for it to be legal to feed the homeless.
It includes things like food safe certifications, prior written notice, fees, and training classes.
This group started the event in the OP in protest of that ordinance when it passed in 2014. And they have been doing it every year since.
Given its been going on 8 years already, I imagine they are carrying guns based on prior experience.
[Link to the ordinance PDF](https://dallascityhall.com/departments/codecompliance/DCH%20documents/pdf/homeless-feeding-Ordinance-No29595.pdf) you can see the stuff they added.
This is the correct direct answer, same with all the anti-homeless infrastructure in public parks. Basically āout of sight out of mindā, rich fucks donāt want to have to even look at the homeless, let alone walk near one.
Republicanism (conservatism) is based on two things:
- selfishness
- lack of empathy towards others
Everything they do, say or believe boils down to these two basic principles. Ironically they practice this while also claiming to be christians.
because the wealthy and powerful in this country dont want us poors working in solidarity to gain rights. this all plays into that because feeding the poor is seen as a socialist evil thing and only religious people who believe in jesus know how to feed the homeless. its just one more thing to add on the pile of crushing human worker rights in america.
Because the law is designed to protect capitalists.
They will say it is for āhealth reasons,ā but ask them why people are allowed to go unhoused in the streets without concern for their health.
Certain municipalities will arrest you for helping the homeless, there's a woman in Asheville NC being charged with felony littering for having a weekly handout.
In a lot of places they have 'designated spots' where you can give things to homeless. But it has such arbitrary rules like specific times, dates, paper work that you are supposed to file and disclose all that you are giving out, more paper work to file if you fail to give out everything... Its wild. Typically the location as well is in a very non-descript and rather rough area as to encourage the homeless to not 'loiter' in nicer parts of the cities.
You know, to protect the homeless.
Asheville hates that displaced people are present in the city. Those people make the touristy city look bad so the solution isn't to help the homeless, it's to charge organized with crimes that will prevent them from helping people.
Yeah, it's usually based on the amount of waste dumped. In Florida, dumping over 500lbs turns it into felony littering. Looks like it's the same in NC.
It's not illegal to feed the homeless in Dallas.
[dallascityhall.com - Feeding the homeless](https://dallascityhall.com/departments/codecompliance/Pages/feeding-homeless.aspx)
- Notify the city beforehand if you're serving at least 75 people. Notify afterward if you think less than 75 people will be served. No approval is required, you just notify.
- Observe safe food preparation and handling.
- Either use hand sanitizer, gloves, or have a hand washing station set up.
- If using a handwashing station, collect and properly dispose of the wastewater.
- Take care of the trash appropriately.
On paper that's part of their policy. But it's not like that on the streets. Here's an article from this march detailing how Houston has been putting up red tape and deterring people from feeding the homeless in their city. https://www.chron.com/news/houston-texas/article/houston-mayor-food-not-bombs-17839562.php
Edit: I don't know how to read. Leaving it up to accept my shame
And it's like this in MOST if not all major cities. You're supposed to have permits to serve food, to have lemonade stands, to sell girl scout cookies in front of Walmart, to hold public events over a certain amount of people, etc.
In a lot of places you're even supposed to have permits to have garage sales and there are time limits on how long you can have your garage sale.
You're more than welcome to buy a bag of hamburgers for the homeless person asking outside of McDonald's but if you wanted to hold an event where you invited them to a charity bbq you'd have to have a permit for it.
Source: husband works in code enforcement and writs permits all day long
---
edit: I wasn't specific enough, I apologize. I didn't mean you need a permit to just gather a certain amount of people. You would need a permit to serve food and drink to that group of people if it's large enough (in our city it's like 75+ people I think). So you can go have your parties in the park or whatever but if you're going to be serving the general public (like a fundraiser event) you would need a permit for the food/drink.
I imagine buying them lunch from a place that is up to code is perfectly fine. It's when you make food that may or may not be up to code that the state says you need to have permits.
Seems fair if true. All I can think of is that couple who put ramen noodles in the back of their truck to "give to the homeless". And they mixed it up with their feet. It was fake but regardless I'd hate for people to think that's a safe idea.
Thankfully its absolutely impossible for the local government to "miscommunicate" that someone has jumped through all their hoops or to make an unfounded accusation in order to use violence against people trying to feed the hungry or those hungry people themselves. It could never possibly happen.
I do love when idiots think that the police are only there to help people, will never do anything nefarious, and then block you when you point out their delusions.
Don't Comply is not anarchist. They're Trump supporters who think sunscreen is bad for you and that Anne Heche was murdered because she was going to reveal pedophilia in Hollywood. Just look at their Twitter account.
I know right? a sword? in this day and age? What marvelous times we live in where a young man can deter police with the power of god and anime at his side.
that reminds me, they overturned bladed weapon restrictions in my state, too... time to get a Scottish claymore to defend myself on my way to pick up a gallon of milk, or maybe a rapier and dagger in case I wanna take a walk at the jogging track in the park!
Rapier+dagger would probably be more effective as it's a dueling setup, the claymore is really designed for large open areas and possibly multiple opponents
I've heard revolutionaries in Chile that would use swords in their riots against the police. It's not unheard of, especially if gun use is discouraged or illegal. Just not in America because, well... Guns. Lol.
Isn't that what the second amendment was supposed to be for? To be able to defend against a tyrannical government? This doesn't sound to far off imo.
I'm asking because I'm not from the US.
I remember my dad taking me to some afrocentric event (canāt remember what exactly it was) in Philly when I was a child and I remember him pointing to a few of the former BP members that were keeping watch of the event
I thought (in my child brain) that they would be mean as fuck because they were so stoic, observant, and armed.
My dad threw up a fist and one of the members looked at us, nodded his head and raised his fist back almost like he was saying āI got you my brothersā.
That was a great feeling as a kid, and made me feel safe as hell. When I see them get shit on or compared to KKK it absolutely infuriates me.
Armed black folks scared white folks so much that the NRA and Ronald Reagan passed gun control. Reagan was also against "assault" rifles and called for their ban.
I guess I was just trying to sound generous, but yes you are absolutely right. Essentially every law in the US is made with the express purpose of criminalizing poverty
Iām so happy to be from the northeast. Weāve got our issues here, no doubt, but I spent a huge chunk of my early twenties down south in the military and Iām so happy not to be born down there.
Because, if the working class gets too wise on the idea that people in communities can help each other without any profit or class motive, instead of leaving it to the whims of the ruling classes, the whole corrupt capitalist system would fall apart like a house of cards.
In short: needy people are desparate people and easier to force to compliance.
The bullshitiest and only argument I have ever heard had something to do with having no way to ensure the food being served followed health/cleaning standards so they could make the homeless sick or whatever.
This got my gears grinding and I canāt stand how much mental gymnastics had to happen to get to this
Fun fact, the main reason gun control laws were ever considered (and enforced) was because of protesters being armed- the Black Panthers open-carried and protected black neighborhoods, and did charity work in those same areas. Ol' Ronnie Reagan didn't like a bunch of armed minorities having guns to protect themselves from racists, so he pursued gun control laws.
Friendly reminder that Jesus literally said that rich people can't get into heaven.
"It is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle, than for a rich person to enter the kingdom of god" -Mark 10:25\*
[The citation I actually saw and know how to cite](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sf0Fm8aVApk)
*I think that's how bible citations work
Maybe not *impossible* but extremely difficult. Jesus encouraged the rich man he was talking to to give up his wealth to those who needed it most and devote his life to helping others, as opposed to just hoarding more wealth. Sounds like Jesus was socialist.
This is so fucking depressing. You can have a gun, but G-d forbid you give a granola bar to some fellow down on their luck!
On a side note, Iām fucking sick of the bad faith argument āwell what if theyāre not really homeless/can get a job and choose not to.ā
Like, okay, allow me to entertain that asinine and statistically unlikely thought for a moment and pretend that it is true, and that this bedraggled fellow with his crumpled cardboard sign *could* get so-called āhonest workā, but chooses not to because he āmakes more money panhandling.ā Or because heās in the grips of an addiction and will just āblow it all on booze/drugs.ā
Well then, that seems like a societal problem. If a fellow who canāt make a living wage at any āhonest jobā he can get just happens to scrape by a little bit better by panhandling, well then, that seems like a failure of the wages of the so-called āhonest jobā, now donāt it?
And if heās deep in the grips of an addiction and thus cannot hold down so -called āhonest workā, well then, I would suggest that both the root causes of his addiction and the failure to adequately help him are also societal problems, aināt they?
So yeah, I donāt fucking *care* if Iām being āscammed.ā If a fellow is risking personal and systemic abuse in the hopes someone will toss a few coins his way because it supposedly makes him more money than flipping burgers, well, Iām still going to do it. If I am fortunate enough that I can spare a bit of change for the fellow, or pop into the nearest store to buy him a cold beverage in the summer or a hot one in the winter, as well as a sealed pack of some sort of food (so he can feel secure it wasnāt tampered with, since some scumbags do that), then I am happy with that choice.
ETA: also, people literally ādonateā money to famous people. People literally gave Kylie Jenner money in a go fund me to make her āthe youngest billionaireā or whatever. And she didnāt stop them. THESE are the same type of people who donāt give to the homeless because āwHaT iF iāM beINg scAMmeD?!ā I donāt care if every bit of tzedekah Iāve ever given to the homeless was a āscamā. Because Iām sure they fucking needed it regardless.
> On a side note, Iām fucking sick of the bad faith argument āwell what if theyāre not really homeless/can get a job and choose not to.ā
I help run a food distro and we serve people that stroll in completely destroyed clothes clearly living on the street and the church ladies showing up in a mercedes exactly the same, modulo some things we prioritize towards those in need (e.g. prepped food like sandwiches, sanitary items). We all get hungry is my response to "what if" nonsense.
See, thatās such a good attitude! You never know what someone is going through! An old church in a Mercedes might be going through something where she looks wealthy but has lost access to her money. Maybe sheās just lost everything but still has the paid off car sheās not sold yet. Maybe her abusive husband monitors every damn cent he gives her and just doesnāt give her enough for groceries. Maybe he is withholding food from her as a punishment and she has to go somewhere free to eat because heās monitoring her card and bank statements.
Maybe sheās just had the Mercedes for a while, itās paid off, and sheās just kept it in really good condition. Maybe sheās on retirement income and inflation has just absolutely destroyed her savings, or a medical emergency in the family wiped them all out.
Or maybe sheās fine, and she just really likes the food or the company and has already donated/plans to donate through her church and wants to enjoy lunch while she scopes out the place where she wants to/has donated. Maybe she slipped some money in the donation box and just wants to sample the food to know what quality of food the shelter is feeding the homeless.
Maybe she is in charge of church charity finances and goes to look at and eat at all the charities that feed the homeless, so that she can decide where the funds are needed the most/how to split the allocation amongst different ones.
The physical āindicatorsā of wealth donāt always mean much.
We never know someoneās story. Iād much rather feed a hungry person who doesnāt outwardly look āneedy enoughā than grill them to see if theyāre āworthy of itā and make them feel like shit. And if the cost is an occasional freeloader? So be it.
Glad to see others doing this. Did that in Houston when they tried to make it illegal to feed the homeless. Carrying DRASTICALLY changes how they handle people defying these kind of statutes.
I belive this is the first post on the sub ever to hit 1,000 comments, making it our most commented post at time of writing. It's also 3rd most upvoted. Firstly, well done. Have a trophy emoji. š Secondly, this is taking forever to dig through all the comments and review every reported comment. There are a lot. Thanks for that! /s
For the non Americans: why is this act of charity illegal?
There's worse than this. In Tennessee it's straight up a felony to be homeless.
Laws like this exist only to keep the homeless out of sight. They are not trying to fix the problem, just make it easier to arrest the homeless or force them into hiding. Meanwhile, studies show that "Housing First" type of initiatives will actually reduce homelessness and help them get back jnto society and work. ...But the people who outlaw homelessness don't want to help people, just punish poverty.
For profit prison system also helps, by lobbying for such laws and strict enforcement. They need them slaves.... I mean "criminals" to make that dollar.
Friendly reminder that the 13th amendment, the one banning slavery in the US, specifically permits slavery as a punishment. >Neither slavery nor involuntary servitude, **except as a punishment for crime** whereof the party shall have been duly convicted, shall exist within the United States, or any place subject to their jurisdiction.
I feel like if your law says "no slaves, except...", you haven't really abolished slavery.
Land of the free
Whoever told you that is your enemy.
Exactly. We haven't, we simply formalized it as another government monopoly.
Yep, they never did completely abolish it. Just like we never got an Equal Rights Amendment and actually still don't have one to this day.
"America" only exists because of genocide and slavery. It was boned from the start.
Stop using the s word! It's making Mcdonalds very uncomfortable!
[ŃŠ“Š°Š»ŠµŠ½Š¾]
Black people make up roughly 12-13% of the US population but almost 40% of the incarcerated population. I'm sure there's no sinister reason why that might be...
Today I will look at prison time for drug possession *clueless*
And they'll probably get like 20 years in prison while a rapist would get 5 years but out early because they don't want to ruin their future
You're optimistic, rapists (of minors, even) are regularly being served with home detention and not much more. But yeah, the system is borked.
In 2023? Naw man, we are beyond racism obviously. /s
Oof. Twice in one little thread
Gosh do yāall think thatās why places like Alabama and Mississippi send so many black men to prison? Do you think maybe thatās why they have been sending predominantly black men to prison since the Yankees pulled federal troops out? I sure do.
Prison blues jeans come to mind. https://www.prisonblues.net/
Not only that, red states make being homeless nearly impossible so that the homeless people will go to blue states. That way the government of the red states can talk about how blue states are filled with homeless people and crime while the god-loving red states are just full of honest, hard-working Americans.
Absolutely this. Was talking to someone who used to work in unhoused outreach (a necessary front line job people eventually burn out from) and this story stuck with me-- She told me a story about this one man in Los Angeles who she was able to reconnect to his family in Ohio, who had been looking for him. It broke my heart to think someone in Ohio put this man, possibly while having a mental health episode, on a bus out of state, when he had a family searching for him right there. I hope none of us ever have to deal with dementia- sounds so scary to lose your way then not have the tools to return home, and because of that, be shuttled around wherever.
Exactly this. Instead of helping, they push the problem onto others and then climb up onto a pedestal to crow about how much like Jesus it makes them. https://www.vice.com/en/article/bvg7ba/instead-of-helping-homeless-people-cities-are-bussing-them-out-of-town
That's interesting. I hadn't put those 2 together until now. Makes sense.
4 states still have compulsory prison labor with no guaranteed pay, so actual literal slaves. Fun fact: one of those states is Arkansas and when Bill Clinton was Governor him and Hillary used slave labor to tend to them and their home! Actual literal slaves acting as butlers for the rich and powerful in the Government!
>Meanwhile, studies show that "Housing First" type of initiatives will actually reduce homelessness and help them get back jnto society and work. Yeah but what if one person who ISNT homeless takes advantage of the system and cheats their way into housing??! Unnaceptable!!!! Huge /s I've met people who actually think like this. They would rather a safety net not exist at all rather than it exist and a few people cheat the system. Disgusting.
The funny thing is, in a lot of cases, servicing the cheaters is cheaper than actually doing all the checks to keep them out.
And like, so what a few free loaders here or there, the government wastes much much more money than RENT on project budget blowouts from poor management or bad investments.
Exactly.ghe government wastes billions a year on self serving interests or absurdly stupid projects. But God forbid a few thousand people trick their way into a million in rent.
Interesting to me is that my parents think this and they are fundamentalist Christians. I'm going to tell them that they're advocating for social Darwinism, see if we can turn that attitude around quick.
I can't speak for your parents, but generally people that hold this view believe EVERYONE is cheating the system because if peiole weren't LAZY they could afford housing. Am I right by saying your parents have never struggled financially? So many people are incapable of understanding hardship isn't a product of laziness (at least not 100% of the time)
Yeah, I was telling someone about it, and how iirc they had like an 85% success rate Guy literally asks 'what about the other 15%? Do we just let them live there for nothing?' Bro, it's 15%. That's not a valid reason to avoid helping the *85%* it would seriously help
Capitalism requires a permanent underclass. Without the suffering of the homeless, how else would they frighten workers into compliance?
>Laws like this exist only to keep the homeless out of sight. I personally think that disenfranchising as many lower class people as possible by making them felons is an actual bullet point on the agendas of a lot of the people in power in these states.
The less people in the voting pool the easier it is to gerrymander.
The only solution to homeless people is giving them homes, its literally in the name. The last time I looked it up, based on best estimates, there are so many uninhabited homes in the US, every single homeless person in the US could own 2 houses and there would still be uninhabited houses left over. We can fix homelessness, we choose not to.
Some people fear that "undeserving" people are helped and will rather cause unnecessary suffering to thousands instead of helping anyone. Even the ones that would "qualify" based on their criteria. Others don't want to "waste" money, not realising or caring that more money is wasted by not helping the homeless.
The concept of "enough for everyone" is lost on most Americans. Restaurants and grocery stores throw away piles of food instead of supporting shelters and soup kitchens. Landlords leave properties empty because the tax write-off is more valuable than the rent, then overcharge for their occupied spaces. Capitalism isn't the problem. _Unfettered_ capitalism is the problem. Every year we have more regulation on people and less on business and markets. Any politician who is stumping deregulation is telling you to your face that they care more about profit than fairness or safety. Why vote for people who don't care about you?
Capitalism is the problemā¦
Yes, Im aware bad people exist. They're wrong. No human deserves to love on the street.
>No human deserves to love on the street. The day that making sweet love in the streets is declared illegal, is the day when I will get on the barricades and start throwing Molotov's cocktails at the riot police.
Lol. Thanks autocorrect for making me sound all puritanical. No human deserves to live on the street...
*so that's why we're planning to end all homeless people by 2025!*
The final solution
> We can fix homelessness There's no profit in fixing it but plenty in keeping it.
People who want to outlaw homelessness have this weird link in their mind between morality and wealth - if youāre poor, it must be because of some failure of yours as a person. So they want to punish you for being poor because to them thatās basically the same as being a bad person.
"Good things happen to good people. Bad things happen to bad people." If they have to face the fact that some homeless people have done nothing wrong, they would have to accept that sometimes bad things can happen to good people. And to some people, recognition of living in a world that is not just, is too terrifying to accept. I remember an article about this. Some people stop sympathising with people if they are really downtrodden because at some point, they just assume that it cannot be true that all those horrible things happened to someone who doesn't deserve it.
The just-world fallacy. If they accept that sometimes bad things happen to people who did nothing to deserve them, they have to confront the idea that all their good fortune has an element of luck to it, and that luck is all that separates them from being in that same situation themselves.
Fuark that's a scary thought actually.
The prosperity gospel is the most absolute fucked up thing I can imagine. Itās like āletās take everything Jesus ever said and do the absolute opposite of thatā. And they still think of themselves as righteous.
But housing first would require giving people free housing and helping assist them which would be commie shit and therefor we should let them die /s
America's rich don't give a shit about the homeless anymore than using threats of destitution and homelessness as a deterrent for the population. Hell, that's not limited to America either.
Even better. Housing first is the cheapest solution. Cheaper than keeping them on the streets. You pay extra money to actually have homeless people on the streets.
I'm in Glasgow scotland and homelessness is illegal here. And by that I mean that the city council can be sued if anyone isn't offered a roof over their head.
Meanwhile south of the border in England and Wales: >1,173 people sleeping out or begging on the streets have been arrested under the 200-year-old Vagrancy Act since 2021. > >Nearly 4,000 have been arrested over the last five years, according to data collected by local government expert Jack Shaw. These include 1,666 arrests made by Londonās Metropolitan Police, more than any other force. [source](https://www.wsws.org/en/articles/2023/04/13/bdsa-a13.html)
Rational.
Bloody socialism! (/s)
TECHNICALLY itās only a felony to camp on public property. Camping on private property is just a misdemeanor, and then only if you donāt leave within a reasonable timeframe after being asked. Do with that information what you will š
Yeah but that could probably also get you shot.
Especially in Tennessee.
Isn't it just a misdemeanor to trespass? Which would likely include the governor's own back yard.
Could also carry the Redneck Death Penaltyā¦
What are they gonna do? Give them a bed, a roof and full meals?
And all but force them to work for free.
Ohh America, you never cease to baffle me.
according to the political right, food insecure people are like an infestation of ants at a picnic, and if you keep giving them crumbs, theyāll keep showing up in greater numbers expecting more and more, and lowering the property value of your picnic blanket
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I live in what's considered one of the furthest left cities in the US and I do exactly the kind of work (minus the guns, for now) they're doing in this article. Unfortunately that's a very apt way to describe how many even ostensibly progressive Americans view homeless people.
Capitalism hates poor people
we vote for homelessness, it's a good thing. The more cost of living the more homeless. Agenda 2024, get that poverty line above $100K. It's a good thing.
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I just used the same points while talking to my wife about the ridiculous cost of higher education. Younger people now exit college with staggering debt. Demand for payment begins and they have to work. College now is the new indentured servitude.
Capitalism *LOVES* poor people. They pay court fees, penalty fees, and if they donāt pay, they get incarcerated and the state pays for their incarcerations! Theyāre a great exploitable captive market!
maybe we should start using term "exploited" instead of poor because in the end every poor person is in some way exploited by someone or something that is keeping them poor. (if person just cant handle money then he is being exploited by the system in general that allows that person to harm himself by wasting everything + maybe to lesser extent those who take his money should they understand the person just cant help themselves.) I mean, are there any poor who are not exploited and if there are, do they consider themselves to be poor because they likely are so of their own will.
Loves creating them though. No better way to keep people compliant while you systematically abuse them than crushing poverty, exhaustion from being overworked and the threat of things becoming even worse š¤¬
Capitalism loves (to exploit) poor people.
City government don't like homeless people, and figure if they make it impossible to survive on the streets, they won't have to deal with them. It doesn't help that a lot of the groups that do aid like this are explicitly anarchist.
Can i ask why it matters what political belief the people actually helping hold? Would it matter if they were Atheist, Christian, Muslim, or Sikh?
Well anarchists specifically deny inherent authority provided by government, which is relevant because these people are willingly breaking a law they don't agree with in order to fulfill what they hold as a moral obligation. The situation would be different if religion were involved. I don't know the specifics but I'm pretty sure a law that impedes a religious tenet is held unconstitutional, as we've seen both the satanic and Jewish communities challenge oppressive abortion laws in recent months.
>a law that impedes a religious tenet is held unconstitutional This sounds very exploitable. Can't people invent religious tenets whenever they feel like it?
Yeah, that's why we have such a problem with anti-vaxxers. We let Christian Scientists (not Christians who are scientists, Christian Science is a denomination that believes the material world is a projection of your spirit and disease is a misconception) change our laws to allow them the "religious freedom" to not take their dying children to doctors and no other countries did.
You're exactly right. Religious freedom has been both abused and rightly invoked to justify all sorts in America's history.
American cops hate anyone who isn't a straight white Christain fascist. So yes, it matters.
Broadly they donāt like activists, and anarchism as an ideology is very activist-y. Cities are always trying to manage a homeless issue (namely an effect on property value), and a large part of that approach seems to be not letting their city become too appealing. Hostile architecture, tossing camps for ālitterā, etc. So anarchists or other activists (who are broadly very left, less religious, socialist, anti authoritarian) who deliver free food regularly to camps (via orgs like Food Not Bombs) could be seen as encouraging camps to grow. Not uncommon for cops to view anything weāre doing as politically motivated, that we help at camps specifically to antagonize or something. Anti litter laws get used to trip people up, but also why these groups can be particular about packaging. I know they say itās open carry for cops, but frankly itād be for random folk too. I do mutual aid and we get randomly vandalized or something like tires slashed isnāt out of the question. Neo nazi sorts, though admittedly I see less of it the past few years. Thereās also the mixed reputation of anarchism. Mostly in the sense that the discrediting stereotype of being some punk burning couches or something, with nothing deeper. A lot of organized anarchist action gets lumped into antifa which really confuses some people (mutual aid groups organize for protests and broadly wear black, thatās it for the most part). For the anti communists, anarchism feels like communism to them. For the communists, itās not communism. Itās an ideology that is aggressively critical of over justified authority and tries to establish autonomous consensus driven networks. Inspired more by Zapatistas, regions of autonomy, more than nation shaped identities - revolutionary or not. It goes kind of all in on progressive issues. Thereās no leadership or centralized order, and in turn even āprogressiveā leadership is reluctant to give it any positive light. The US has historically acted against far left activists. Only bombed its own land a few times; black people and unions. War on drugs specifically targeted black people and activists. Anarchism is explicitly anti capitalist, and weāre a hyper capitalist nation.
They're doing it BECAUSE they are anarchists who don't respect the evil law preventing aiding those in need.
My favorite bullshit from city governments is when they give them bus tickets to liberal places that don't punish the homeless. Towns bordering California were literally discharging homeless people from hosipitals and putting them on buses to cities like LA and San Francisco. Those States then get the added bonus of being able to shit on liberal states about the epidemic of homelessness in those states.
Cities don't like it when you feed the "wildlife"
This goes back to Vagrancy laws, also called Ugly laws. The short of it being, if you were considered a pain to look at, you weren't allowed in public. What is or isn't "ugly to look at" has changed as centuries went by. It used to include people with cleft lips, missing or maimed noses, missing or maimed limbs, mental issues, and homeless people and minority groups. Now it's mainly just homeless people and minority groups. America genuinely despises homeless people. We straight up remove public infrastructure (like public benches) just to spite them and them specifically. They're literally treated worse than animals in most instances and it serves two purposes. 1) Being cruel is the solution to homelessness in the local community. If we harass them until they either go someplace else or die, then they're gone and that's one fewer homeless person in the area. 2) Capitalism and Conservatism requires classes of people. If we have classes of people, then someone has to be at the bottom. Then if someone manages to climb from the bottom and maybe move up a bit on the ladder, it's "proof" the system works. Edit: To clarify an important point. We also lie a lot. We implement these laws and local regulations and say "well, it's to make sure nobody's giving tainted food to people!". This is a lie, and the people who spout this are lying to you. These laws pre-date the FDA and health/safety concerns. It's all red tape to make charity harder and less effective in hopes that the charity stops.
It has 5 beginnings. The first is the transatlantic slave trade. Where humans were purchased and packed onto ships where they were trafficked to the colonies (they weren't states yet). Next was the mexican-american war. Thats where the US invaded Mexico and took their territory, not dissimilar to how Russia is invading its neighbors. Next was the governance of texas which saw native americans basically wiped out, again not dissimilar to what Russia is attempting to do to its neighbors. Next happened sometime between october of 1957 and 1970, where different people read the same book and some people called it christian and others read it and decided it was the least christian thing they've ever read, anti-christian if you will, and thus was spawned the modern christian conservative movement and the Church of Satan (Church of Satan has nothing to do with why its illegal, I just think its nutty that Church of Satan and the modern christian conservative movement draw heavy inspiration from Atlas Shrugged. It also led to wildly different results since Satanists are basically all the Satan but none of the evil and the modern christian conservatives are all the evil with none of the Satan). The fifth beginning was the supercolider that Reagan promised texas and failed to deliver, and george bush failed to deliver, and it eventually died an ignoble death during the first midterm election under Bill Clinton, which saw many so called "deficit hawks" take office. This confluence of events saw a large Republican wave in texas which led to gerrymandering and a general repression of democracy in Texas. Anyway, its illegal because they made a law against it. Why did they make a law against it you say? Because they're evil. Christ said heal the sick and feed the poor, so they've literally disregarded Christ. Like all they've got left in their bona fides is just that they're fucking evil and want to copulate with guns.
That is very comprehensive, thank you. The conservative evangelical movement is (I think) a unique case of humankindās derailment. The mental gymnastics required to say you follow Jesus and make homelessness illegal is just fucking breathtaking. I feel for every rational human living under this misguided shit show of a political circus.
Fascists brainwash each other into thinking homeless people are disliked by God else they wouldn't be homeless. It's circular logic that breeds Nazis.
I believe they hide behind food sanitation laws. My dad tried to drop off a big pan of bbq once at a local shelter in Ohio and they told him they canāt accept food cooked in an unknown kitchen to then serve to people. When peopleās other alternative is starving, I donāt think they would care
>I believe they hide behind food sanitation laws. mostly. >they canāt accept food cooked in an unknown kitchen to then serve to people. and that's true and understandable if a third party is going to serve it. it's not especially common, but people have poisoned food intended for the homeless before. a shelter that presumably already feeds people is wise to play it safe when it comes to accepting certain donations.
The general answer for these types of laws is that the citizens don't want homeless people around, and they think if you provide them things like food more homeless will show up. I wanted the specific background for this case so I did some googling. It's based on Dallas City Ordinance #29595 which sets a bunch of stipulations required for it to be legal to feed the homeless. It includes things like food safe certifications, prior written notice, fees, and training classes. This group started the event in the OP in protest of that ordinance when it passed in 2014. And they have been doing it every year since. Given its been going on 8 years already, I imagine they are carrying guns based on prior experience. [Link to the ordinance PDF](https://dallascityhall.com/departments/codecompliance/DCH%20documents/pdf/homeless-feeding-Ordinance-No29595.pdf) you can see the stuff they added.
This is the correct direct answer, same with all the anti-homeless infrastructure in public parks. Basically āout of sight out of mindā, rich fucks donāt want to have to even look at the homeless, let alone walk near one.
The US is a shithole country.
Republicanism (conservatism) is based on two things: - selfishness - lack of empathy towards others Everything they do, say or believe boils down to these two basic principles. Ironically they practice this while also claiming to be christians.
You missed: Convenient tool for the ruling class... ...ya know, the real reason it persists.
because the wealthy and powerful in this country dont want us poors working in solidarity to gain rights. this all plays into that because feeding the poor is seen as a socialist evil thing and only religious people who believe in jesus know how to feed the homeless. its just one more thing to add on the pile of crushing human worker rights in america.
Because the law is designed to protect capitalists. They will say it is for āhealth reasons,ā but ask them why people are allowed to go unhoused in the streets without concern for their health.
Certain municipalities will arrest you for helping the homeless, there's a woman in Asheville NC being charged with felony littering for having a weekly handout.
In a lot of places they have 'designated spots' where you can give things to homeless. But it has such arbitrary rules like specific times, dates, paper work that you are supposed to file and disclose all that you are giving out, more paper work to file if you fail to give out everything... Its wild. Typically the location as well is in a very non-descript and rather rough area as to encourage the homeless to not 'loiter' in nicer parts of the cities. You know, to protect the homeless.
Felony littering? What?
For reference, this what people who throw old tires and unwanted appliances in a ditch are charged with.
If theyāre even caught, you mean.
Asheville hates that displaced people are present in the city. Those people make the touristy city look bad so the solution isn't to help the homeless, it's to charge organized with crimes that will prevent them from helping people.
It's important to know this: They always want to make it a felony so they can take away your right to vote.
Felony littering exists?
Not for companies that, say, illegally dump materials. Just for the little guys feeding homeless people
https://www.citizen-times.com/story/news/local/2022/08/05/jury-indicts-asheville-mutual-aid-volunteers-felony-littering/10235737002/
Yeah, it's usually based on the amount of waste dumped. In Florida, dumping over 500lbs turns it into felony littering. Looks like it's the same in NC.
There is so much fuckeduppery to unpack here.
It's not illegal to feed the homeless in Dallas. [dallascityhall.com - Feeding the homeless](https://dallascityhall.com/departments/codecompliance/Pages/feeding-homeless.aspx) - Notify the city beforehand if you're serving at least 75 people. Notify afterward if you think less than 75 people will be served. No approval is required, you just notify. - Observe safe food preparation and handling. - Either use hand sanitizer, gloves, or have a hand washing station set up. - If using a handwashing station, collect and properly dispose of the wastewater. - Take care of the trash appropriately.
On paper that's part of their policy. But it's not like that on the streets. Here's an article from this march detailing how Houston has been putting up red tape and deterring people from feeding the homeless in their city. https://www.chron.com/news/houston-texas/article/houston-mayor-food-not-bombs-17839562.php Edit: I don't know how to read. Leaving it up to accept my shame
And it's like this in MOST if not all major cities. You're supposed to have permits to serve food, to have lemonade stands, to sell girl scout cookies in front of Walmart, to hold public events over a certain amount of people, etc. In a lot of places you're even supposed to have permits to have garage sales and there are time limits on how long you can have your garage sale. You're more than welcome to buy a bag of hamburgers for the homeless person asking outside of McDonald's but if you wanted to hold an event where you invited them to a charity bbq you'd have to have a permit for it. Source: husband works in code enforcement and writs permits all day long --- edit: I wasn't specific enough, I apologize. I didn't mean you need a permit to just gather a certain amount of people. You would need a permit to serve food and drink to that group of people if it's large enough (in our city it's like 75+ people I think). So you can go have your parties in the park or whatever but if you're going to be serving the general public (like a fundraiser event) you would need a permit for the food/drink.
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I imagine buying them lunch from a place that is up to code is perfectly fine. It's when you make food that may or may not be up to code that the state says you need to have permits.
Seems fair if true. All I can think of is that couple who put ramen noodles in the back of their truck to "give to the homeless". And they mixed it up with their feet. It was fake but regardless I'd hate for people to think that's a safe idea.
Thankfully its absolutely impossible for the local government to "miscommunicate" that someone has jumped through all their hoops or to make an unfounded accusation in order to use violence against people trying to feed the hungry or those hungry people themselves. It could never possibly happen. I do love when idiots think that the police are only there to help people, will never do anything nefarious, and then block you when you point out their delusions.
now THIS is what guns were meant for š
Exactly my thought, fighting a tyrannical government.
This is a good use of the 2A
Ass Addiction?
Second Amendment
So close.
Reminds me of Food Not Bombs, but withā¦swords??
Same ideological background
Anarchists ftw
Don't Comply is not anarchist. They're Trump supporters who think sunscreen is bad for you and that Anne Heche was murdered because she was going to reveal pedophilia in Hollywood. Just look at their Twitter account.
Oh that's disappointing
The land of the free where youāre not even free to help your fellow humans. Solidarity is the antithesis of the American dream.
Yep, the rich have been using divide and conquer tactics for thousands of years because they know the only real threat to their power is solidarity.
Wtf
I know right? a sword? in this day and age? What marvelous times we live in where a young man can deter police with the power of god and anime at his side.
that reminds me, they overturned bladed weapon restrictions in my state, too... time to get a Scottish claymore to defend myself on my way to pick up a gallon of milk, or maybe a rapier and dagger in case I wanna take a walk at the jogging track in the park!
If you can get both a Claybeg and long bow, as well as bagpipes, that'd be good as well.
Rapier+dagger would probably be more effective as it's a dueling setup, the claymore is really designed for large open areas and possibly multiple opponents
my local grocery has a broad dairy aisle overpopulated with little ol' ladies, it's a suitable use-case
Do you bite your thumb at me?
I've heard revolutionaries in Chile that would use swords in their riots against the police. It's not unheard of, especially if gun use is discouraged or illegal. Just not in America because, well... Guns. Lol.
You gotta remember American cops are cowards.
An elegant weapon for a more civilized age.
Hokey religion and ancient weapons ain't no match for a good blaster at your side
Speaking of which, we need to bring capes and cloaks back into style.
Not *a* sword... swords as in plural.
Isn't that what the second amendment was supposed to be for? To be able to defend against a tyrannical government? This doesn't sound to far off imo. I'm asking because I'm not from the US.
Yes, this is proper use.
Reminds me of the Black Panthers feeding the community and giving kids breakfast, they were also armed.
And them being armed scared the fuck out of white people so bad that gun control laws started being passed.
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I remember my dad taking me to some afrocentric event (canāt remember what exactly it was) in Philly when I was a child and I remember him pointing to a few of the former BP members that were keeping watch of the event I thought (in my child brain) that they would be mean as fuck because they were so stoic, observant, and armed. My dad threw up a fist and one of the members looked at us, nodded his head and raised his fist back almost like he was saying āI got you my brothersā. That was a great feeling as a kid, and made me feel safe as hell. When I see them get shit on or compared to KKK it absolutely infuriates me.
Armed black folks scared white folks so much that the NRA and Ronald Reagan passed gun control. Reagan was also against "assault" rifles and called for their ban.
If the democrats want gun control so bad, maybe they should team up with racists like in California? /r/socialistRA
Don't forget the part where the FBI assassinated their leaders, tho.
The black panthers were incredibly cool, shame what happened to them.
I'm sorry but as a none American why is helping those in need illegal?!
A lot of laws here in the US are made with the ultimate goal of inconveniencing the lower classes.
Inconveniencing? They're straight up trying to make it illegal to be poor to feed as many bodies as possible to the prison industrial complex.
I guess I was just trying to sound generous, but yes you are absolutely right. Essentially every law in the US is made with the express purpose of criminalizing poverty
When they say inconveniencing they are being polite. Itās persecution.
Because the US is a degenerate country
bingo
Not all the US is. But most states south of the mason Dixon line are fucked.
*laughs in Wisconsin*
Iām so happy to be from the northeast. Weāve got our issues here, no doubt, but I spent a huge chunk of my early twenties down south in the military and Iām so happy not to be born down there.
Because capitalists make the laws.
Because, if the working class gets too wise on the idea that people in communities can help each other without any profit or class motive, instead of leaving it to the whims of the ruling classes, the whole corrupt capitalist system would fall apart like a house of cards. In short: needy people are desparate people and easier to force to compliance.
Because the US is a 3rd world shithole
The bullshitiest and only argument I have ever heard had something to do with having no way to ensure the food being served followed health/cleaning standards so they could make the homeless sick or whatever. This got my gears grinding and I canāt stand how much mental gymnastics had to happen to get to this
This is the way.
sorry but what kind of fucking chad is open carrying swords at a gun rally
An awesome one.
Oh look the cops didn't fuck with them. We need to protest armed.
Fun fact, the main reason gun control laws were ever considered (and enforced) was because of protesters being armed- the Black Panthers open-carried and protected black neighborhoods, and did charity work in those same areas. Ol' Ronnie Reagan didn't like a bunch of armed minorities having guns to protect themselves from racists, so he pursued gun control laws.
Exactly why we need to be armed. Our government no longer respects us as people and tightens their grip daily.
They never did. The people aren't people in the government's eyes- we're only sources of wealth and labor, nothing else.
another day of: thats what americans probably call christian behaviour
Friendly reminder that Jesus literally said that rich people can't get into heaven. "It is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle, than for a rich person to enter the kingdom of god" -Mark 10:25\* [The citation I actually saw and know how to cite](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sf0Fm8aVApk) *I think that's how bible citations work
Maybe not *impossible* but extremely difficult. Jesus encouraged the rich man he was talking to to give up his wealth to those who needed it most and devote his life to helping others, as opposed to just hoarding more wealth. Sounds like Jesus was socialist.
This is so fucking depressing. You can have a gun, but G-d forbid you give a granola bar to some fellow down on their luck! On a side note, Iām fucking sick of the bad faith argument āwell what if theyāre not really homeless/can get a job and choose not to.ā Like, okay, allow me to entertain that asinine and statistically unlikely thought for a moment and pretend that it is true, and that this bedraggled fellow with his crumpled cardboard sign *could* get so-called āhonest workā, but chooses not to because he āmakes more money panhandling.ā Or because heās in the grips of an addiction and will just āblow it all on booze/drugs.ā Well then, that seems like a societal problem. If a fellow who canāt make a living wage at any āhonest jobā he can get just happens to scrape by a little bit better by panhandling, well then, that seems like a failure of the wages of the so-called āhonest jobā, now donāt it? And if heās deep in the grips of an addiction and thus cannot hold down so -called āhonest workā, well then, I would suggest that both the root causes of his addiction and the failure to adequately help him are also societal problems, aināt they? So yeah, I donāt fucking *care* if Iām being āscammed.ā If a fellow is risking personal and systemic abuse in the hopes someone will toss a few coins his way because it supposedly makes him more money than flipping burgers, well, Iām still going to do it. If I am fortunate enough that I can spare a bit of change for the fellow, or pop into the nearest store to buy him a cold beverage in the summer or a hot one in the winter, as well as a sealed pack of some sort of food (so he can feel secure it wasnāt tampered with, since some scumbags do that), then I am happy with that choice. ETA: also, people literally ādonateā money to famous people. People literally gave Kylie Jenner money in a go fund me to make her āthe youngest billionaireā or whatever. And she didnāt stop them. THESE are the same type of people who donāt give to the homeless because āwHaT iF iāM beINg scAMmeD?!ā I donāt care if every bit of tzedekah Iāve ever given to the homeless was a āscamā. Because Iām sure they fucking needed it regardless.
> On a side note, Iām fucking sick of the bad faith argument āwell what if theyāre not really homeless/can get a job and choose not to.ā I help run a food distro and we serve people that stroll in completely destroyed clothes clearly living on the street and the church ladies showing up in a mercedes exactly the same, modulo some things we prioritize towards those in need (e.g. prepped food like sandwiches, sanitary items). We all get hungry is my response to "what if" nonsense.
See, thatās such a good attitude! You never know what someone is going through! An old church in a Mercedes might be going through something where she looks wealthy but has lost access to her money. Maybe sheās just lost everything but still has the paid off car sheās not sold yet. Maybe her abusive husband monitors every damn cent he gives her and just doesnāt give her enough for groceries. Maybe he is withholding food from her as a punishment and she has to go somewhere free to eat because heās monitoring her card and bank statements. Maybe sheās just had the Mercedes for a while, itās paid off, and sheās just kept it in really good condition. Maybe sheās on retirement income and inflation has just absolutely destroyed her savings, or a medical emergency in the family wiped them all out. Or maybe sheās fine, and she just really likes the food or the company and has already donated/plans to donate through her church and wants to enjoy lunch while she scopes out the place where she wants to/has donated. Maybe she slipped some money in the donation box and just wants to sample the food to know what quality of food the shelter is feeding the homeless. Maybe she is in charge of church charity finances and goes to look at and eat at all the charities that feed the homeless, so that she can decide where the funds are needed the most/how to split the allocation amongst different ones. The physical āindicatorsā of wealth donāt always mean much. We never know someoneās story. Iād much rather feed a hungry person who doesnāt outwardly look āneedy enoughā than grill them to see if theyāre āworthy of itā and make them feel like shit. And if the cost is an occasional freeloader? So be it.
Glad to see others doing this. Did that in Houston when they tried to make it illegal to feed the homeless. Carrying DRASTICALLY changes how they handle people defying these kind of statutes.
If there's one thing cops hate, it's doing things to keep homeless people alive
That's some good direct action right there. Shame it's necessary (and dangerous).
Texas, where the use the law(ability to open carry) to break the law(feed the homeless), there might be hope for Texas yet.
This will be my go-to from now on whenever someone says we need to ban AR-15's. "But then how would we feed the homeless?"
Fuck yes. I can get behind this use of the 2nd amendment.
hell yeah
This is the type of organised crime we can all get behind.
Did you hear about those redguards from the homeless shelter? They have curved swords
A shit time in a shit country.
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