Thread: 3 Arrested in Orlando for Illegally Feeding the Homeless

3 Arrested in Orlando for Illegally Feeding the Homeless

Posted on June 3, 2011 at 11:56am
by Jonathon M. Seidl
248 Comments

Did you know that in some Orlando, FL parks it’s illegal to feed large groups? It is. And that means that some people who want to feed large groups of homeless people find themselves at odds with the law. So much so, that some of those people were arrested on Wednesday for intentionally breaking it.

Jessica Cross, 24, Benjamin Markeson, 49, and Jonathan “Keith” McHenry, 54, were all arrested on Wednesday night and charged with violating the ordinance restricting group feedings in public parks, the Orlando Sentinel reports.

The trio is part of a controversial group called Food Not Bombs, which unashamedly trumpets a social justice agenda.

“Food Not Bombs shares free vegan and vegetarian meals with the hungry in over 1,000 cities around the world to protest war, poverty and the destruction of the environment,” the group’s site says. “With over a billion people going hungry each day how can we spend another dollar on war?”

Outside the courthouse, McHenry wasn‘t afraid to state the group’s mission:

The Orlando Sentinel sites arrest papers that say the trio was arrested for feeding 40 people in Lake Eola Park.

“They intentionally violated the statute,” Lt. Barbara Jones, an Orlando police spokeswoman, told the Sentinel.

But Douglas Coleman, speaking for Orlando Food Not Bombs, said the arrests were ridiculous.

“They basically carted them off to jail for feeding hungry people,” Coleman, who was not present, told the Sentinel. “For them to regulate a time and place for free speech and to share food, that is unacceptable.”

Despite the arrests, the Sentinel reports police waited until all the homeless were fed before making the arrests.

And the story does have an added curious dimension considering what is in the arrest reports:

Arrest documents state that Orlando Food Not Bombs received permits and fed more than 25 homeless people at Lake Eola Park on May 18 and 23. Coleman said the group rejected the permits.

On May 25, Orlando Food Not Bombs illegally fed a large group of homeless people, the police report states. The group on its website called for members to show up that day and defy the city ordinance, according to the report.

Officers said they found a press release on Markeson when they arrested him stating that group members planned to defy the ordinance Wednesday.

The trio could face penalties of up to 60 days in jail, a $500 fine, or both.

http://www.liveleak.com/view?i=1ec_1...811&comments=1

Food Police and Making Feeding the Homeless Illegal


Jun 9th, 2012 by Admin.


Mayor Bloomberg of NYC is leading the tyrannical charge against obesity individual body ownership and freedom of choice with recent talk of a ban on drinks greater than 16 ounces in size and banning feeding the homeless.


He is only one of many government officials around the country attempting to illegally and unconstitutionally arrest citizens who feed the homeless.
Of course, Bloomberg’s path of tyranny is through security, as it often is. He is using obesity, which is truthfully a problem, to take away the right of people to choose what to eat, what to drink, and what to do with their own individual bodies.


He is preventing the natural right to conduct commerce, trade, and gift with others. Mayor Bloomberg’s reasoning,

“because the city can’t assess their salt, fat and fiber content.” [Source]

And this isn’t just New York, making feeding the homeless against the law is occurring in Orlando, Las Vegas, and other cities. And let’s be transparent, this new wave of laws are not laws, they are dictates, to be enforced, not to serve. These laws are not based on the Rule Of Law, they are spontaneously created with no regards for research, legality, or morality.

Yes, Obesity is truly a problem that is occurring within the country of America, but it is not a problem that “America faces”. Obesity is an individual problem, faced by individuals. It is not a war to be fought at the national or governmental level, it is a war to be fought within the mind of the individual. It is a decision to be made by the individual. It is action to be taken by the individual.

Besides the obvious logical flaws with attempting and pretending to fight obesity in a collective and legislative manner, there is the flaw of legality. I am not a lawyer nor have I ever claimed to be, but in the United States, all legality is supposed to find Constitutional authority. As the nature of the Constitution is that of defining limits of government, and not limits of free individuals, you can assume there is no Constitutional authority to dictate what someone may eat or by what standards two individuals may give or take food.

As Reason points out, making feeding the homeless illegal is violating the First Amendment Right to Freedom of Assembly and Freedom of Speech and Freedom of Religion. That is of no importance to the makers of what they call “law” though.

Law must be based on Rule of Law, a set of Principles, of service and respect to those who are to “obey” the law. Without respect for the Law, there is no order or benefit that can come from the Law. In-fact,there is one specific law and assumption that is made prior to creation of law. It is that without law, without order, there is disorder, there is madness.

The agreement that occurs prior to a law being put into order is based upon the assumption that without law, those in agreement would be less better off. By creating tyrannical “laws”, which are dictates, disrespect is created for the laws that are deemed necessary. With that disrespect eventually comes defiance, and when it comes to defying the “good and necessary” laws, only disorder and madness will arise.

When you are required to obtain a license to feed the homeless, permission, and given only certain locations where feeding the homeless is ok, as in Houston, something is morally wrong.

As long as individuals do not infringe upon the natural rights of another individual, choice should flourish. Freedom of choice is a natural right, meaning that it does not receive its legality from government, but instead in a Divine or Natural way. You should be free to trade and make a deal with another person.

You should be able to choose what you want to eat and what you want to drink. You should be able to choose to suffer through being overweight or live happily overweight or to lose weight. You should be able to feed a starving man, even if he made poor decisions in life and even if the food is too high in calories and sugar.

It is the foundation of morality to respect another man’s decisions to manage his own life because it is that which the agreement of morality is based on. Without your respect for another person’s rights, respect for your natural rights fades. When another chooses to attack you; you choose to defend yourself physically, whereas between two individuals who respect each others rights, physical violence is not used, and instead methods of trade and discussion are.

The aggressor chooses to violate your rights, and you rightfully resort to physical defense outside of your natural code of non-aggression.

By criminalizing the natural way of life between people, and threatening those who feed the homeless or choose to eat sugary foods with the point of a gun and an empty bank account, the law becomes the aggressor, and there is no morality in that form of law.

And this assumption of power always goes beyond the initial “goals” and intentions. It is beyond nutritional information of the food or feeding the homeless. That is why it begins with cigarettes, in government schools, and moves to feeding others, and government police using violence against peaceful citizens for doing so.

The law is a beautiful tool, but as you must base a tool off a pre-determined design, design a tool for a specific need, and receive a benefit from a tool, the law must not be based off the king’s word or the word of the day, but principles; it must have a defined goal, and the law must benefit those who agree to it.

These laws, while still being enforced and signed in as law, meet none of the qualifications set forth when the Rule of Law for the United States was defined.

Ahmed Serag

I personally support Food Storage.

Food Police and Making Feeding the Homeless Illegal |

http://www.alipac.us/f19/feeding-hom...9/#post1444179