More Cities Are Making It Illegal to Hand Out Food to the Homeless

Re:More Cities Are Making It Illegal to Hand Out Food to the... by jMyles on Thursday October 23, 2014 @02:27PM (#8499832)

For what it's worth (and I know this isn't the consensus view here), some of us hold that both prohibiting smoking at a private space and prohibiting direct donations of food to a person are outside the government's legitimate purview.

However, for my part, I also surmise that in both cases the outcome is undesirable, so I suppose I'm still vulnerable to the point you make in your edit.

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Re:More Cities Are Making It Illegal to Hand Out Food to the... by jdmichal on Thursday October 23, 2014 @04:29PM (#8500576)

Which government? City? County? State? Federal? Is this a legal understanding of the government's purview or a philosophical one? Can public concerns ever override private ones? When? What is people are making morally-correct decisions with clear negative outcomes?

I don't actually expect answers. I just want to reveal some of the depth of issues such as these mentioned.

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Re:More Cities Are Making It Illegal to Hand Out Food to the... by jMyles on Thursday October 23, 2014 @05:21PM (#8500830)

Absolutely - I realize that there are lots of what-have-yous. I'm not prepared to go into the deep waters at the moment. :-)

I meant a philosophical, rather than a legal assessment.

And of course, silly decisions at a city or county level are less damaging than at a state or especially national level.

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