Outlawing Compassion

The viciousness of the official animus toward the indigent can be breathtaking. A few years ago, a group called Food Not Bombs started handing out free vegan food to hungry people in public parks around the nation. A number of cities, led by Las Vegas, passed ordinances forbidding the sharing of food with the indigent in public places, leading to the arrests of several middle-aged white vegans.

One anti-sharing law was just overturned in Orlando, but the war on illicit generosity continues. Orlando is appealing the decision, and Middletown, Connecticut, is in the midst of a crackdown. More recently, Gainesville, Florida, began enforcing a rule limiting the number of meals that soup kitchens may serve to 130 people in one day, and Phoenix, Arizona, has been using zoning laws to stop a local church from serving breakfast to homeless people.
~ from How America Turned Poverty into a Crime by Barbara Ehrenreich ~

Have you ever noticed how politicians tend to frame every discussion in terms of the middle class? Their policies, by and large, actually favor the upper class, but it is more politically savvy to invoke the image of the middle group. Rarely do any of them talk about the working and non-working poor. It is as if we don't exist!

Of course, we do exist. We are part of almost every community in every state. And we even know that politicians and civic leaders are aware of our existence simply because they go to such great lengths to try to hide us!

Many of our fellow citizens are aware of our various plights and, moved by compassion, they reach out to try to alleviate some of the suffering. Most such efforts go unnoticed. They merely are examples of one person trying to help another in a small way.

It is when a group decides to put their compassion toward a mass action that, as Ehrenreich notes, more and more local officials are trying to put the kibosh on such efforts. In a manner of speaking, it feels as if they are trying to outlaw compassion.

A society in which compassion is made illegal or, at least, seriously frowned upon is a doomed society. Even if it somehow flourished, it is certainly NOT the kind of society I want any part of!