It's Illegal to Feed the Homeless in Florida... WTF?

[My Name Was Taken]

It baffles me how a 'republican' state like Florida allows the passage of a law making private charity to the homeless illegal, but republicans are constantly up in arms about the government giving handouts to poor people and how the poor are just leeches on the productive members of society. If private charities want to help people, don't make it illegal.

This law is bullshit.

It baffles me how you immediately turn this into something political. The article says the people violated a city ordinance which "bans the public sharing of food." Is this a passive-aggressive way of stopping people from feeding the homeless? Maybe. But it has nothing to do with Republicans, especially considering the mayor of Ft. Lauderdale is a Democrat (not to mention one who opposes same-sex marriage... Uh Oh! http://www.browardbeat.com/fort-lauderdale-mayor-harmed-by-anti-lgbt-vote/).

Can't share food in public, what do you think this sis, a free country? if you think this ordinance is about sharing food and not criminalizing homelessness, you're a bit naive not to see the politics of it. 

The law is not about sharing food in public, it is about distributing it in a way that people assume it is safe to consume. There are regulations regarding the distribution of food in order to help keep consumers safe from food borne illnesses that can be very harmful and that consumers have little other way to protect themselves against

Come on, you believe that's true? I guess any little league teams in that city should stop distributing snacks after the game because they aren't in compliance with the law, right? I mean, the law is there to keep people safe from people who distribute food that can't be trusted because it doesn't have the city's stamp of approval on it that it's safe.

That's not at all the case. If a cop saw one of the parents distributing the team snack and some guy giving a homeless man the same snack, only one of them is getting arrested for violating the law, because only one of them is the intended target of the law.

[My Name Was Taken]

wow another reason to not live in florida.... Thats the most insane law I have heard of

Some of the bylaws cities and states create in the US are just plain weird.
The homeless people ban is one of them, but I like the beach party comparison ^^.

I don't know about laws, but stuff similar to this doesn't happen only in Florida. Wasn't it in the UK that some people started installing anti-homeless spikes on the ground outside the buildings? And something like it was going on in Chicago as well.

YES! I remember reading about that. Apparently, it's a problem in Canada too:  https://ca.news.yahoo.com/blogs/dailybrew/london-criticized-anti-homeless-spikes-canada-better-174042472.html

There are similar "spikes" under bridges and benches are designed so it is not possible to sleep on them in many cities across the US. These kinds of things are going to give people incentives to get "off the street"

How does this give them an incentive to get off the street? If they responded to a simple incentive, you'd think being homeless would be it. This kind of comment ignores the fact that homelessness isn't just a case of being lazy or choosing not to work. It's often a slew of circumstances beyond their control, with a high incidence of mental health disorders, that makes 'being homeless' anything but a choice. These spikes are just inhumane and the advocates are the type of people who will victim-blame someone for being homeless.

[iCEBREAKER]

Can't share food in public, what do you think this sis, a free country? if you think this ordinance is about sharing food and not criminalizing homelessness, you're a bit naive not to see the politics of it. 

This is a free country, which entails something called freedom of association.

That means we are free to choose whether or not to live in communities which have rules about sharing food.  We may even vote to change those rules!     Isn't democracy amazing?   

There are plenty of cities where you may feed the homeless, but that's not good enough for your bleeding heart, which desires to enforce a universal uniformity and hypocritically call such homogeneous altruism-at-gunpoint "freedom."

You hate people having the freedom to choose rules for their own local community, because you want everyone to be forced to subsidize the homeless and be forced to accept the (literally shitty) externalities that giving away free food to people without their own bathrooms/toilets/sewage systems/water bills creates.

That's taking the 'Free Shit Army' to a whole new level!   

[jaysabi]

Can't share food in public, what do you think this sis, a free country? if you think this ordinance is about sharing food and not criminalizing homelessness, you're a bit naive not to see the politics of it. 

This is a free country, which entails something called freedom of association.

That means we are free to choose whether or not to live in communities which have rules about sharing food.  We may even vote to change those rules!     Isn't democracy amazing?   

There are plenty of cities where you may feed the homeless, but that's not good enough for your bleeding heart, which desires to enforce a universal uniformity and hypocritically call such homogeneous altruism-at-gunpoint "freedom."

You hate people having the freedom to choose rules for their own local community, because you want everyone to be forced to subsidize the homeless and be forced to accept the (literally shitty) externalities that giving away free food to people without their own bathrooms/toilets/sewage systems/water bills creates.

That's taking the 'Free Shit Army' to a whole new level!   

Freedom of association is the freedom to associate with certain groups of your own will, not the freedom to pass laws governing the behavior of other people. You've got a really poor understanding of what freedom is.

[stevegreer]

Freedom of association is the freedom to associate with certain groups of your own will, not the freedom to pass laws governing the behavior of other people. You've got a really poor understanding of what freedom is.

Maybe he's a Constitutional Lawyer? 













That's a joke, by the way. 

[iCEBREAKER]

Freedom of association is the freedom to associate with certain groups of your own will, not the freedom to pass laws governing the behavior of other people. You've got a really poor understanding of what freedom is.

You are creating a false dichotomy where none actually exists.  By seeking to impose a universal prohibition of food sharing bans, you advocate destroying the freedom you claim to value.

Freedom of association necessarily includes freedom of disassociation, and the freedom go create/join communities based on like minded individuals.

These intentional communities, which are build on the foundation of a libertarian national government, provide for simultaneously maximizing freedom and utility for all participants.

There is a famous award-winning book length proof of this philosophy's claims, written by a Harvard professor, called 'Anarchy, State, and Utopia.'

I'll take Robert Nozick's "understanding of what freedom is" instead of your asinine interpretation (which seems to chiefly value the freedom to eat/sleep/shit anywhere you want) any day of the week!   

There are plenty of places where your Freely Shit Army is welcome; why do you need to insist that every town must follow in lockstep?  What works for San Francisco and Portland doesn't always work for Retiredville, Florida.

[dontCAREhair]

Can't share food in public, what do you think this sis, a free country? if you think this ordinance is about sharing food and not criminalizing homelessness, you're a bit naive not to see the politics of it. 

This is a free country, which entails something called freedom of association.

That means we are free to choose whether or not to live in communities which have rules about sharing food.  We may even vote to change those rules!     Isn't democracy amazing?   

There are plenty of cities where you may feed the homeless, but that's not good enough for your bleeding heart, which desires to enforce a universal uniformity and hypocritically call such homogeneous altruism-at-gunpoint "freedom."

You hate people having the freedom to choose rules for their own local community, because you want everyone to be forced to subsidize the homeless and be forced to accept the (literally shitty) externalities that giving away free food to people without their own bathrooms/toilets/sewage systems/water bills creates.

That's taking the 'Free Shit Army' to a whole new level!   

The law/rules is not about the ability to share food, it is a question about food safety. The old man was sharing/giving away food in a way that would require him to meet certain food safety guidelines which he was not following.

[jaysabi]

Can't share food in public, what do you think this sis, a free country? if you think this ordinance is about sharing food and not criminalizing homelessness, you're a bit naive not to see the politics of it. 

This is a free country, which entails something called freedom of association.

That means we are free to choose whether or not to live in communities which have rules about sharing food.  We may even vote to change those rules!     Isn't democracy amazing?   

There are plenty of cities where you may feed the homeless, but that's not good enough for your bleeding heart, which desires to enforce a universal uniformity and hypocritically call such homogeneous altruism-at-gunpoint "freedom."

You hate people having the freedom to choose rules for their own local community, because you want everyone to be forced to subsidize the homeless and be forced to accept the (literally shitty) externalities that giving away free food to people without their own bathrooms/toilets/sewage systems/water bills creates.

That's taking the 'Free Shit Army' to a whole new level!   

The law/rules is not about the ability to share food, it is a question about food safety. The old man was sharing/giving away food in a way that would require him to meet certain food safety guidelines which he was not following.

Someone already answered this pretty effectively.

Come on, you believe that's true? I guess any little league teams in that city should stop distributing snacks after the game because they aren't in compliance with the law, right? I mean, the law is there to keep people safe from people who distribute food that can't be trusted because it doesn't have the city's stamp of approval on it that it's safe.

That's not at all the case. If a cop saw one of the parents distributing the team snack and some guy giving a homeless man the same snack, only one of them is getting arrested for violating the law, because only one of them is the intended target of the law.

I agree with the assessment that the law has nothing to do with food safety. It's about targeting the homeless.

[JLynn171]

I would reccomend all the homeless to commit crimes and be fed and housed by the state of florida

[jaysabi]

Freedom of association is the freedom to associate with certain groups of your own will, not the freedom to pass laws governing the behavior of other people. You've got a really poor understanding of what freedom is.

By seeking to impose a universal prohibition of food sharing bans, you advocate destroying the freedom you claim to value.

Double negative logic? How embarrassing for you! By restricting laws that restrict the freedom of people, you're infringing my right to belong to a group of people that passes laws that dictate what other people can do.  

Haha, yeah, you're a real champion of freedom.  

[BADecker]

It may be illegal, but it is not unlawful.

If you are a 14th Amendment citizen, you might have to follow all kinds of codes and ordinances. But if you are a "people" like one of those who set government in place, most or all of the codes and ordinances don't affect you if you don't want them to.

http://1215.org/

Of course, if you need some extra cash...

http://www.unkommonlaw.co.uk/

[picolo]

Can't share food in public, what do you think this sis, a free country? if you think this ordinance is about sharing food and not criminalizing homelessness, you're a bit naive not to see the politics of it. 

This is a free country, which entails something called freedom of association.

That means we are free to choose whether or not to live in communities which have rules about sharing food.  We may even vote to change those rules!     Isn't democracy amazing?   

There are plenty of cities where you may feed the homeless, but that's not good enough for your bleeding heart, which desires to enforce a universal uniformity and hypocritically call such homogeneous altruism-at-gunpoint "freedom."

You hate people having the freedom to choose rules for their own local community, because you want everyone to be forced to subsidize the homeless and be forced to accept the (literally shitty) externalities that giving away free food to people without their own bathrooms/toilets/sewage systems/water bills creates.

That's taking the 'Free Shit Army' to a whole new level!   

The law/rules is not about the ability to share food, it is a question about food safety. The old man was sharing/giving away food in a way that would require him to meet certain food safety guidelines which he was not following.

So a disclaimer should suffice and people can make their own decision about taking his food or not.

[BADecker]

Can't share food in public, what do you think this sis, a free country? if you think this ordinance is about sharing food and not criminalizing homelessness, you're a bit naive not to see the politics of it. 

This is a free country, which entails something called freedom of association.

That means we are free to choose whether or not to live in communities which have rules about sharing food.  We may even vote to change those rules!     Isn't democracy amazing?   

There are plenty of cities where you may feed the homeless, but that's not good enough for your bleeding heart, which desires to enforce a universal uniformity and hypocritically call such homogeneous altruism-at-gunpoint "freedom."

You hate people having the freedom to choose rules for their own local community, because you want everyone to be forced to subsidize the homeless and be forced to accept the (literally shitty) externalities that giving away free food to people without their own bathrooms/toilets/sewage systems/water bills creates.

That's taking the 'Free Shit Army' to a whole new level!   

The law/rules is not about the ability to share food, it is a question about food safety. The old man was sharing/giving away food in a way that would require him to meet certain food safety guidelines which he was not following.

So a disclaimer should suffice and people can make their own decision about taking his food or not.

This sounds good to me. If there is an ordinance against food-sharing in a park, and the old guy doesn't want to be confrontational, he could agree to meet the hungry people somewhere else to share the food.

[iCEBREAKER]

Freedom of association is the freedom to associate with certain groups of your own will, not the freedom to pass laws governing the behavior of other people. You've got a really poor understanding of what freedom is.

By seeking to impose a universal prohibition of food sharing bans, you advocate destroying the freedom you claim to value.

Double negative logic? How embarrassing for you! By restricting laws that restrict the freedom of people, you're infringing my right to belong to a group of people that passes laws that dictate what other people can do.  

Haha, yeah, you're a real champion of freedom.  

I'm not embarrassed to agree with libertarianism; it's the most rational position available. 

And yes, I am a real champion of freedom, unlike you sophomoric black flag waving jokers who run around yelling "Help! Help! - I'm being repressed!"

I suspect your malfunction is that you believe in anarchy, not intentional communities supported by the foundation of a minimal federal government.

How dare you insist that like-minded individuals have no right to establish communal structures which they believe maximize their utility?

If you don't want to live in a community that disallows bums begging/stealing/crapping/pissing all over the place, you are free to move to one that does.

If you hate the state so much, pack up and go to Somalia.  I'm sure the warlords will find your first-world whining about how oppressed you were by high standards of public sanitation and food safety very amusing!   

[jaysabi]

Freedom of association is the freedom to associate with certain groups of your own will, not the freedom to pass laws governing the behavior of other people. You've got a really poor understanding of what freedom is.

By seeking to impose a universal prohibition of food sharing bans, you advocate destroying the freedom you claim to value.

Double negative logic? How embarrassing for you! By restricting laws that restrict the freedom of people, you're infringing my right to belong to a group of people that passes laws that dictate what other people can do.  

Haha, yeah, you're a real champion of freedom.  

I'm not embarrassed to agree with libertarianism; it's the most rational position available. 

And yes, I am a real champion of freedom, unlike you sophomoric black flag waving jokers who run around yelling "Help! Help! - I'm being repressed!"

I suspect your malfunction is that you believe in anarchy, not intentional communities supported by the foundation of a minimal federal government.

How dare you insist that like-minded individuals have no right to establish communal structures which they believe maximize their utility?

If you don't want to live in a community that disallows bums begging/stealing/crapping/pissing all over the place, you are free to move to one that does.

If you hate the state so much, pack up and go to Somalia.  I'm sure the warlords will find your first-world whining about how oppressed you were by high standards of public sanitation and food safety very amusing!   

I'm a minarchist, which is why I reject you attempting to use laws to dictate the actions of other people. If you want to have a community where no one is allowed to share food, that's fine. But you can't use the police to force other people not to do it. That's not libertarian, that's use of force, the opposite of libertarian. I suspect your malfunction is you don't know that you're a closeted republican. How dare you sully the flag of freedom with your police-state ideas about what people are allowed to do. If you hate freedom so much, why don't you move to Russia? They love to use the police to tell you what you can't do! 

[picolo]

Freedom of association is the freedom to associate with certain groups of your own will, not the freedom to pass laws governing the behavior of other people. You've got a really poor understanding of what freedom is.

By seeking to impose a universal prohibition of food sharing bans, you advocate destroying the freedom you claim to value.

Double negative logic? How embarrassing for you! By restricting laws that restrict the freedom of people, you're infringing my right to belong to a group of people that passes laws that dictate what other people can do.  

Haha, yeah, you're a real champion of freedom.  

I'm not embarrassed to agree with libertarianism; it's the most rational position available. 

And yes, I am a real champion of freedom, unlike you sophomoric black flag waving jokers who run around yelling "Help! Help! - I'm being repressed!"

I suspect your malfunction is that you believe in anarchy, not intentional communities supported by the foundation of a minimal federal government.

How dare you insist that like-minded individuals have no right to establish communal structures which they believe maximize their utility?

If you don't want to live in a community that disallows bums begging/stealing/crapping/pissing all over the place, you are free to move to one that does.

If you hate the state so much, pack up and go to Somalia.  I'm sure the warlords will find your first-world whining about how oppressed you were by high standards of public sanitation and food safety very amusing!   

I'm a minarchist, which is why I reject you attempting to use laws to dictate the actions of other people. If you want to have a community where no one is allowed to share food, that's fine. But you can't use the police to force other people not to do it. That's not libertarian, that's use of force, the opposite of libertarian. I suspect your malfunction is you don't know that you're a closeted republican. How dare you sully the flag of freedom with your police-state ideas about what people are allowed to do. If you hate freedom so much, why don't you move to Russia? They love to use the police to tell you what you can't do! 

Non aggression principle and mutually beneficial interactions should be the foundation of a libertarian society; you can have laws but an extremely small number of them such as "don't kill"; you would not have the law unforced in the case we are discussing

[jaysabi]

Non aggression principle and mutually beneficial interactions should be the foundation of a libertarian society; you can have laws but an extremely small number of them such as "don't kill"; you would not have the law unforced in the case we are discussing

Could you please clarify/expand on the underlined? I don't follow what you mean by "unforced."

Edit: Unless you mean "enforced?"

[picolo]

Non aggression principle and mutually beneficial interactions should be the foundation of a libertarian society; you can have laws but an extremely small number of them such as "don't kill"; you would not have the law enforced in the case we are discussing

Could you please clarify/expand on the underlined? I don't follow what you mean by "unforced."

Edit: Unless you mean "enforced?"

I did meant enforced sorry. In a libertarian society, laws to control and protect activity will be non-existent or extremely rare. You won't be able to pollute at will and if you pollute and other suffer a loss you would have to compensate them.

[kuroman]

This is not the only ridiculous US law, there are so many of them a simple google search will get you hundreds of them... an example a dozen http://justsomething.co/the-22-most-ridiculous-us-laws-still-in-effect-today-2/

It is sad to see that feeding other humans in need can get you to jail ...

[Swordsoffreedom]

This is not the only ridiculous US law, there are so many of them a simple google search will get you hundreds of them... an example a dozen http://justsomething.co/the-22-most-ridiculous-us-laws-still-in-effect-today-2/

It is sad to see that feeding other humans in need can get you to jail ...

Yep looking at the other thread he got arrested again
Kind of makes you facepalm when you think the reason the US jail system is overcongested may be because of stupid crimes like these
Not really a crime per say but just an action that has been written as a crime in the book.