18th January, 2017
By Matt Agorist
When feeding willing hungry people becomes illegal, that is a telling sign of a bureaucratic police state. And, in the ostensible Land of the Free, the enforcers of such arbitrary and cruel laws have no problem kidnapping and locking people in a cage for helping those in need. In fact, it happens on a regular basis.
The most recent case of police cracking down on caring people who dared to give organic rice and beans to the hungry happened last weekend in Tampa, Florida. Members of the charitable group Food Not Bombs gathered Saturday afternoon, January 7, to hand out hot coffee and bagels to Tampa’s homeless community. However, their good deed was thwarted by police who quickly arrested seven of the people serving the food and one homeless man who dared grab a bagel from the table after cops ordered everyone to stop eating.
The entire horrendous deprivation of liberty was streamed live to Facebook by Erin Sauer (see below.) It’s nothing short of infuriating…
Why would a dozen cops descend on a group of volunteers donating their own food to willing people who need it? Well, Food Not Bombs failed to pay the extortion fee to the city in the form of a permit.
Food Not Bombs is not some fly by night charity looking to rustle feathers by ‘illegally’ distributing food the homeless. The group sets up to feed the homeless at least twice a week — so obtaining a permit and purchasing the city-required insurance policy is too pricey to be sustainable. But, when kind-hearted people don’t have a limitless supply of money to grease the statist skids and pay their extortion fees to remove all the red tape — they become outlaws.
The good news is that the group is made up of brave people who are unafraid to disobey unjust laws. In an email to CL Tampa, a spokesperson for the group noted that Food Not Bombs “has no plans to stop sharing food with the homeless and hungry and will continue to defy unjust laws that criminalize compassion and mutual aid… We intend to expose the city’s cruelty in the face of thousands in our community who are struggling with issues of food insecurity, mental and medical health issues, poverty, and homelessness… If the city will not address these problems, the least they can do is not get in the way and stop others from addressing these needs. Compassion should never be criminalized.”
Unfortunately, in the land of the free, feeding the homeless has become a revolutionary act. Cities across the country are cracking down on good people like those at Food Not Bombs, who simply want to feed the needy.
Last December, the Dallas, Texas city council enacted Ordinance No. 29595, which makes it illegal to serve food to the homeless without jumping through a myriad of bureaucratic hoops, including a fee, training classes, and written notices. In response, the folks over at the aptly-named organization Don’t Comply acted in a similarly brave manner as Food Not Bombs, and took to the streets just outside the Austin Street Shelter in Dallas, successfully feeding and clothing thousands of homeless people. The event went off without a hitch, even after code enforcers showed up.
“We’ve already had to speak to the police, they’ve already come and delivered code to us,” said Matthew Short, PR director of Don’t Comply, “but, after shaking hands with them, they realized we’re all armed – and we’re gonna do what we’re gonna do because it’s not an immoral thing that we are doing.” Lead organizer of the event, Murdoch Pizgatti was confronted by law enforcers who told him to file the proper paperwork upon the event’s conclusion to which, Pizgatti politely replied, “No.”
There were no altercations, no illicit substances, and no bad behavior — unless, like the City of Tampa, you count coffee and bagels as “illegal”.
Related reading:
- University Student Develops Phone App To Feed Nearly 600,000 Homeless People a Year — With Food That Otherwise Would be Wasted
- The Amazingly Simple and Cost-Effective Way to End Homelessness — for Good
- Soul Soup – Feeding the Homeless One Bowl at a Time
About the author:
Matt Agorist is an honorably discharged veteran of the USMC and former intelligence operator directly tasked by the NSA. This prior experience gives him unique insight into the world of government corruption and the American police state. Agorist has been an independent journalist for over a decade and has been featured on mainstream networks around the world. Follow @MattAgorist on Twitter and now on Steemit.
Please note: This article first appeared on thefreethoughtproject.com.
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