Ivan, this is good news.
No, really! It obviously means that the crime rate is so low in Florida that the police have time to go after do-gooders now.
Don’t feed the homeless! Once a homeless person has lost their instinctive fear of civilized people, their behavior will become more aggressive, and it is only a matter of time before the rangers are forced to tranquilize and destroy them. On the upside, the resulting meat will be donated to area foodshelves.
So Florida actually does want the poor to be starving in the streets?
I’m totally baffled that a city can be so callous and unloving that it requires the poor to starve. Not helping them is selfish enough, but banning others from helping gets into “evil for evil’s sake” territory.
I saw this headline elsewhere yesterday but didn’t read the story until today. In the intervening time, I definitely wondered, “How did he get arrested for feeding people? What law could he have broken?” I even considered the possibility that the headlines were distorted - that he had broken a law unrelated to feeding the homeless for the same of feeding homeless people and that this was more of a “come on, he was feeding homeless people, why are we arresting him?” rather than a story that he was actually arrested for feeding homeless people.
Um… now I’ve read it… wow?
Yeah, I was sure this was going to be some kind of health code mixup…but that would have been off-the-panhandle logic…
What Would Jesus Do?
He’d stay the hell out of Florida. Abandon hope all ye who enter there.
Some days I think nothing will shock me, that I’m inured to anything I see on the internet. Well, this video made me cry. What the fuck is wrong with these officers, and the people who wrote the law? 60 days in jail for feeding the poor! They are people for crissakes! How on earth can a government dictate who you can and can’t give food to?
As an adult, I should be able to give a gift to another consenting adult.
I do hope some of those arrested challenge this law in court. I don’t see how a government can decide it is OK for me to give food to one person but not another. We are guaranteed equal protection under the law and this law clearly defines a group of people who are to be treated differently under the law. That’s supposed to be something the government cannot do.
Flip the tables and give the police officers a good whipping.
Maybe if the people who want to give food to the poor formed a corporation and the corporation gave out the food instead of the people then their rights would be recognized.
What weasly wording is used in the text of this law? I’m betting they’re not outright saying “don’t feed poor people, or we’ll fuck your shit”. These things are always formulated vaguely, even though everybody knows what it really means.
I don’t have anything smart to say, other than “This is really fucking shameful and upsetting.”
Maybe it’s reverse psychology, and they’re hoping people help the homeless out of spite?
Florida doesn’t have food trucks and hot dog stands?
Yeah, just sell it for a penny each, and let the cops wrap their head around that…
Especially when a block away there’s a guy just giving away pennies.
Wanna share your bag of chips with a buddy? Make sure he’s still got some money left from his paycheck.
At least that’s protected as free speech.
@miasm, @User100, @SteampunkBanana - I heartily approve of the circumvention.
But I do want to say, on a serious note, thank you Mr. Abbott (and others) for not scheming and for getting yourselves arrested. It takes some courage to go out there and face a law like this, and I think this is getting national attention now. Arresting a 90-year-old and a couple of priests is probably the fastest way to get this law off the books.
Crazy.
Odd, but in Canada the batshit craziest of our Conservative Govt want the down/out of our society to be able to depend entirely on charity of the sort those people were engaging in, so that the govt programs aimed at helping people can be ended.
But in cra-cra Florida, the police state types want to end charity to protect social services?
Bullshit stank in both camps.
