From: Jim Choate <ravage@EINSTEIN.ssz.com>
Date: Sat, 3 Aug 1996 14:07:47 +0800
To: cypherpunks@toad.com
Subject: Re: SOUP KITCHENS (fwd)
Message-ID: <199608030210.VAA11373@einstein>
MIME-Version: 1.0
Content-Type: text



Forwarded message:

> Date: Fri, 2 Aug 1996 14:10:55 -0700
> From: tcmay@got.net (Timothy C. May)
> Subject: Re: SOUP KITCHENS
> 
> (Fortunately, people survive all kinds of dirt and germs. If dogs and cats
> can eat stuff off the floor, and our ancestors did before hot water, soap,
> and autoclaves, then so can we. Not to mention children. But I digress.)

True enough, but not the whole story. If a dog or cat is kept well and fed
good quality food they live 10+ years. The average life of an animal on the
street is between 2-5 years. As to people, we now live around 75-80 years,
prior to all these rules and regulations on food and such the average was
20-25. If we go back to what you propose you would be dead a long time ago.

> The use of zoning and health code ordnances to harass certain classes of
> people is nothing new. Like I said, the Boy Scout Cookout and similar
> "good" events are not bothered by City Inspectors descending on them to
> shut them down.

In my experience they don't get hassled because they get the requisite
permits and act in good faith. Many of these small businesses and street
vendors are 'hassled' because they are unwilling or unable to meet basic
commen sense standards of conduct and go out of there way to circumvent
regulations and in some cases commen sense. I have a friend who worked at a
local strip club on N. Lamar (Yellow something...) up until a few weeks ago.
Seems one of the workers there turned a freezer off and as a result some
meat was tainted. Did they throw it out? Hell no, they went ahead and served
it because to do othewise would effect their profit margin. My (and by
extension your) life is not worth a few measly bucks. My friend complained
bitterly and when they went ahead and did it he quit and filed a complaint
with the local health dept. (I am completely unaware of the result but the
club is still open). I once got food poisoning from a Vietnamese food vendor
on the West Mall at UT Austin and complained and called the Health Dept.
Last time I was down on The Drag (the popular name of the street) the same
vendor was still in business and this was over 10 years later. And for the
record I have bought food there, I have just become more careful about its
taste and quality.

> Further, in time past the operation of a "street food" service (hot dogs,
> ice cream, various knoshing items, etc.) was a way for otherwise poor
> persons to start a business. My own city, Santa Cruz, has no pushcart
> vendors, and only one officially-approved sidewalk hotdog vendor. A loss
> for us, a loss for would-be vendors, and with no gain in "food safety" that
> I can plausible see.

Why do they prohibit permits for these types of businesses?

> I actually think this shows another side of the harassment of food
> giveaways and low-cost vendors: it cuts down on competition with the
> established food entities. While I tend to dismiss "corporate conspiracy"
> theories about how Giant Corporations are repressing and suppressing the
> Little Guys, there is little doubt that licensing, zoning, and other
> governmental restrictions are often used by established entities to keep
> out competition. Licenses get used for what economists call "rent-seeking"
> behavior.

You should be more careful about who you pick to represent you then when you
vote. Here in Austin back in the 80's the big thing was to move the airport
out of town. So many of the public officials rushed out and bought land near
the little town outside Austin in the hopes that the airport would be moved
there. It was so bad we had many elections where the citizenry voted not to
move the airport and the city council went ahead with the actions anyway.
Finaly a few years ago the feds closed Bergston the local airbase and the
entire rationale for moving the airport fell through and now all those
people have retired from local political actions because they are all broke.

> (Examples abound in other areas, too, such as where large chip companies
> like Intel actually relish the vast amounts of paperwork they are required
> to fill out, becuase this overhead and legal burden can be handled by their
> buildings full of paper pushers, but helps to keep small companies from
> entering the market. Intel has actually insisted that small companies file
> the same environmental impact reports, labor reports, etc., that they have
> to fill out. Understandable at one level, but also an example of using "the
> system" to put pressure on upstarts. Or, the rent-seeking of professional
> guilds, well-known to all of us.)

I personaly find it reassuring that some bunch of knuckle-heads are unable
to start a chip making facility like you support. The thought of finding
flourine compounds in the local river (where I get my tap water) or simply
dumped in the air is a little unsettling. Just because some group of bozo's
want to start a business is not sufficient justification for that to be
allowed.

It seems to me that many of the folks who recognize downsized workers pleas
for their 'right to a job' as so much bunk are at the same time supporting a
businesses right to start up. A pretty humorous double standard.

Persons don't have a right to work and businesses do not have a right to
start up unless they can meet reasonable levels of responsibility for their
actions. People and by extension businesses do not have the right to harm
others without their prior consent. As an extension of this, people have a
right to limit the ways and means that a business may use in order to operate.

> As to Alan Horowitz's bizarre notion that "public streets" are not to be
> used for giving away food,

I have never heard of anyone being arrested for giving away food, only
selling it without a license. I bet the Salvation Army soup kitchen would be
worried if this claim were true (they aren't and it ain't).

> does he believe the same to be true of giving
> away speech, giving away ideas, passing books to other people, etc.? "There
> are bookstores for selling or buying books, and anyone who engages in this
> sort of action on a public street will have his attitude adjusted with my
> billy club."

I am unaware of any municipality which prohibits giving away books, they
regulate bookstores because they are a business and engaged in commerce.
If you are aware of a municipality (or any list reader for that matter) I
would appreciate being informed (ie mail me privately).

> "Public" areas cause problems for analysis of rights, I will grant. The
> "commons problem" is well known. But I think that the specific cases we've
> been discussing, of whacking bums with nightsticks for the crime of not
> maintaining "proper decorum," and of Food Not Bombs being shut down while
> the Boy Scouts are not, are clear cases where the law is being misapplied.

And your argument that a business should have the same rights and
considerations as a human being is bogus. If that were true then by extensio
governments would have rights, which they don't. Unless you breath and shit
you don't have rights, only duties and responsibilities assigned by the
persons who built the system. A structure is not equivalent by any stretch
of the imagination as the person(s) who built it.


                                                  Jim Choate