Since Feeding the Homeless Is Illegal, Activists Carry AR-15s to Give Out Food, Supplies

a reply to: machineintelligence

i is dismayed that no one has noted the take away " logic " from this idiocy .

its quite simple :

yet the mental gymnastics is astounding .

lets parse it down

they know thier actions are illegal - so they carry firearms to discourage intervention

thats tjhe bottom line - welcome to the pits of merkin " logic "

a reply to: ignorant_ape

Perhaps it's because no one else shares your "opinion" concerning "merkin logic."

In Portland few years back many Restaurants hotels etc would provide extra food to a group of people who would take it to the homeless. Think of a convention with a ton of extra food, much on the high quality level, being delivered to the homeless.

Well the city came out and put an end to it all by saying it doesn't meet health standards and so eating out of garbage can is better it seems. I think some restaurants have a "special" garbage can(s), but the sheer level of food wasted that could feed people is a shame.

a reply to: shawmanfromny

its not my opinion - the premise of this farce is simple :

merkin1 : we is going to do something illegal

merkin 2 : lets carry firearms - so " they " cannot stop us

thats it - thats what this entire thread is about

originally posted by: Mandroid7
I get the frustration, but do you consider food safety at all?
Someone with bad intentions could rat poison hundreds of people.
Tainted foods, etc...
Should the homeless get the same protections the general public gets?
Should the sanitary conditions be watched like refrigeration of meats, doneness of meats, etc..
We've all seen the dining horror stories and those are coming from establishments that are monitored.

Exactly, this is the issue here. In theory there should be nothing wrong with providing food to the homeless, but if we just threw out food safety checks altogether, it is inevitable that some major disease outbreak would occur in a homeless population somewhere and then threaten everyone else. You don't want people eating old spoiled meat that nobody else wants. Plus, you'd be making it exceptionally easy for people to kill the homeless and get away with it by giving them tainted food. The solution isn't necessarily to just allow everyone and anyone to give whatever food they want to the homeless. You have to have proper systems in place to provide food in a safe manner.

a reply to: trollz

 You have to have proper systems in place to provide food in a safe manner.

Great idea, we could start with rubbish bin inspectors, these people could check the rubbish homeless people source from bins be hygenic enough for consumption. It could be a whole new sector of government employees, everywhere from bin inspection, food handlers to administration roles.

originally posted by: trollz


Exactly, this is the issue here. In theory there should be nothing wrong with providing food to the homeless, but if we just threw out food safety checks altogether, it is inevitable that some major disease outbreak would occur in a homeless population somewhere and then threaten everyone else. You don't want people eating old spoiled meat that nobody else wants. Plus, you'd be making it exceptionally easy for people to kill the homeless and get away with it by giving them tainted food. The solution isn't necessarily to just allow everyone and anyone to give whatever food they want to the homeless. You have to have proper systems in place to provide food in a safe manner.

Why would you ever get spoiled/tainted/sick meat/food? You set up restrictions and safety checks. You have restaurants/hotels/conventions etc signup to support, you drop off special delivery boxes, they package the boxes, the boxes are taken to a center where it is checked and then distributed to the homeless.

a reply to: Xtrozero

You set up restrictions and safety checks.

Sounds a lot like “you have proper systems in place to provide food in a safe manner.”

That's pretty low. If things are bigger in TX, I guess it doesn't include their empathy, eh?

Florida's been on the crest of that anti-homeless meal wave for a very long time, it's one hell of a hostile place to be homeless. "Bum-shuffling" across country lines is a thing, where they're encouraged to meander over from the wealthier country into the poorer one and stay there, or literally dropped off at the county border (seen this one firsthand several times around the Bay area) It's not a matter of crime, honestly, it's image. The rich folks don't want to look at poverty because it doesn't jive with their opulence, and do whatever they can to sweep the undesirables into the "lesser" counties. Don't try feeding anyone, the fines aren't what's going to get you shaking, it's the intimidation from the cops that will. They aren't nice about it, they can & have manhandled, and unless you've got nerves of steel, they're damn good at scaring off the volunteering folks.

originally posted by: ignorant_ape
a reply to: machineintelligence

i is dismayed that no one has noted the take away " logic " from this idiocy .

its quite simple :

yet the mental gymnastics is astounding .

lets parse it down

they know thier actions are illegal - so they carry firearms to discourage intervention

thats tjhe bottom line - welcome to the pits of merkin " logic "

Oh, I noticed all right. It's like they're looking for a confrontation and reason to aim back at the po-po with their legal weapons over the (albeit stupidly) illegal activity.

I don't see how it could work in their favor, in any manner.

It makes me angry reading stuff like this where simple logic is thrown out the window

I actually worked at a church soup kitchen years ago in the uk , A retailer gives food that would other wise go to waste to a organization who then hands bags of shopping and a hot meal to the needy and some people who turned up were working class people with cars and jobs , If they tried to bring laws in like that in the UK you would see riots

originally posted by: stonerwilliam
It makes me angry reading stuff like this where simple logic is thrown out the window

I actually worked at a church soup kitchen years ago in the uk , A retailer gives food that would other wise go to waste to a organization who then hands bags of shopping and a hot meal to the needy and some people who turned up were working class people with cars and jobs , If they tried to bring laws in like that in the UK you would see riots

A poster up at the top of the page mentioned food waste, and even with soup kitchens and organizations like Feeding America distributing goods so that they don't end up in a landfill, we waste a staggering amount of freaking food over here. Our lard butts send about 40-50% of our food to the dumps. It's offensive, it really, really is. We could be doing SO much better than that and really whittle down the amount of hungry people here by a huge percentage. Just imagine what we could be doing for the elderly in care homes who are already cash strapped themselves, in equally cash strapped care homes, if we mandated that the day's leftovers in a restaurant go to a nursing home's kitchen to be parsed out for the next day, or to a soup kitchen or VA organization, etc. If the food was majority donated goods that would otherwise go to the local dump, it could take a lot of budgetary pressure off of these places just in that one area. One damn change is all we need to make, but we're so self-centered about who earned what that it's never going to happen. We're just going to continue to grow crap to make crap that never gets eaten. What a waste of every step between the soil preparation & the transportation fuel to the dump.

a reply to: Nyiah

Even a small country like the UK throws away 1.3 million tons of food per year , which is staggering if you imagine that as 30 ton truck trailer units aligned end to end , From what i have seen thrown away from my own local supermarket some nights is shocking and sickening , But i do have the best fed garden birds in the area on some of the bread and rolls that i get for cents at nights reduced

originally posted by: stonerwilliam
a reply to: Nyiah

Even a small country like the UK throws away 1.3 million tons of food per year , which is staggering if you imagine that as 30 ton truck trailer units aligned end to end , From what i have seen thrown away from my own local supermarket some nights is shocking and sickening , But i do have the best fed garden birds in the area on some of the bread and rolls that i get for cents at nights reduced

If it were a race, we'd be in the lead by a wide margin -- as of a year or two ago, our food waste is 50 times yours

originally posted by: Nyiah
Our lard butts send about 40-50% of our food to the dumps.

Here's a crazy stat, a head of romaine can take up to 25 years to breakdown in a landfill.

If not for all the dollars government rakes in, it makes no sense to feed ourselves.
We breathe life into something that keeps us asphyxiated.

The harshest of our reality is the simplest fix...

but everybody is afraid of being independently cooperative.

a reply to: trollz

In theory there should be nothing wrong with providing food to the homeless, but if we just threw out food safety checks altogether, it is inevitable that some major disease outbreak would occur in a homeless population somewhere and then threaten everyone else. You don't want people eating old spoiled meat that nobody else wants.

It's not a question of quality of food as much as it is availability of food. If you take away one option for people to eat, they will go to another option. Not eating is simply not an option that will accepted. So when you restrict people from giving excess food to the homeless, you are literally forcing the homeless to eat rotting food. That will make them sick and spread disease much faster than just a little undercooking.

Plus, you'd be making it exceptionally easy for people to kill the homeless and get away with it by giving them tainted food.

It's already easy. Just set the tainted food out near an underpass. One need not hand it to a homeless person to ensure it gets to a homeless person, and the police are not always everywhere.

The solution isn't necessarily to just allow everyone and anyone to give whatever food they want to the homeless. You have to have proper systems in place to provide food in a safe manner.

No, the problem is that "systems and regulations" take time, and someone who is truly hungry is not going to wait for some "system of regulation" to work through a process so they can eat.

People simply don't know what "hungry" really means. It's not like someone is a few hours late for dinner; it's like someone has not eaten anything in a few days. That's just ignorance of the problem. When someone goes a little long without eating, they get these hunger signals that we've all had, signalling us that we might want to eat. Go a few more hours and they turn into hunger pangs... "time to eat!" Go a day or two and the pangs go away! In their place is a fatigue... the muscles slow down as the body begins to conserve energy. The mind goes into a survival mode as well; cognizance slows, since the brain is the most power-hungry organ in the human body. The body will begin to burn fat to survive, but it won't burn it any faster than is absolutely necessary. You are now in starvation mode.

As time goes on, the starvation mode intensifies. There are hunger pangs again, but not the little "I'm hungry dammit!" signals... no, these are a deeper, more urgent type of feeling. One's entire thought process begins to focus on food. The belly just feels empty and angry. Skin temperature drops in cold weather because creating body heat is energy-expensive. As the first layers of fat start to shed, the body begins to conserve those fat reserves as well, instead burning muscle tissue. At this point, your body is literally eating itself.

Go even longer, we're into weeks now, and there is little energy left. The muscles are as small as they can be and still operate enough to allow survival; there is no "second wind." The skin begins to droop as more fat is lost, and the body becomes more susceptible to cold because the layer of fat that once provided some insulation for internal organs is growing thin. Thinking becomes foggy at best. Eyesight is affected and things begin to blur. Walking is a chore; people will sit whenever they can. The sense of smell is affected as well, in the opposite direction. Anything that seems to be organic smells delicious and powerful, and that built-in revulsion of contamination stops. A rotting, maggot-infested piece of scrap meat smells like a well-cooked T-bone.

At the end, the digestion system has shut down... the belly begins to look pronounced on a thin, feeble frame. Being prepared to digest food simply requires energy that isn't available. The musculature has been reduced to a bare minimum, so the only thing left is an idle digestive system bloated with air atop a frame without musculature. This is the condition one sees in third-world countries and is the last step before actual death. Those who get to this point will actually have problems eating, since the digestion of the food requires more energy than the body has to spare. Without medical attention, death is imminent. With medical attention, death is probable,

This is what we're talking about. You will never be able to stop a truly hungry person from eating something that is available. Law does not matter to the starving, only to the fed. The fed need the laws; the starving do not. Innocent but dead is not preferable to guilty and alive. Until people can recognize that one simple fact, we will have a starving homeless population.

TheRedneck

a reply to: trollz
You're right..much safer eating out of a f@cking garbage can

I'm curious if the people against feeding the homeless because someone "might" do something bad, are vocal for gun rights?

originally posted by: Nyiah

originally posted by: stonerwilliam
a reply to: Nyiah

Even a small country like the UK throws away 1.3 million tons of food per year , which is staggering if you imagine that as 30 ton truck trailer units aligned end to end , From what i have seen thrown away from my own local supermarket some nights is shocking and sickening , But i do have the best fed garden birds in the area on some of the bread and rolls that i get for cents at nights reduced

If it were a race, we'd be in the lead by a wide margin -- as of a year or two ago, our food waste is 50 times yours

Wow those are shocking figures , i think they talked about the uks food waste alone being able to solve the worlds starving if my memory serves me right

originally posted by: Mandroid7
I get the frustration, but do you consider food safety at all?
Someone with bad intentions could rat poison hundreds of people.
Tainted foods, etc...
Should the homeless get the same protections the general public gets?
Should the sanitary conditions be watched like refrigeration of meats, doneness of meats, etc..
We've all seen the dining horror stories and those are coming from establishments that are monitored.
The gun slit is stupid and good for nobody.
Is their motivation reducing dependency, or increasing safety? Idk
The other equitable option would be to remove the hoops required by restaurants when serving public.
Are these requirements more or less harsh than those imposed on restaurants?
It seems like the homeless are getting to be a big enough number that they could organize an actual food production setup for them.
Be gifted some gov land and grow crops, raise some cattle and process all in one place. Give jobs to some of the homeless to run it.idk

Yeah, probably better just to let the homeless go back to EATING OUT OF GARBAGE DUMPSTERS rather than take a chance on getting sick.

And those 'guns' - do you really think the hungry care? WTF.

As for the government 'gifting' some land so those homeless can 'farm'? It's been tried before in American history - and failed.