I meant to post something a few weeks ago when the story first broke--but I suppose I naively thought that the good people of Las Vegas would come to their senses. You see, the city of Las Vegas passed an ordinance that makes it illegal to feed homeless people in public spaces--an ordinance that anti-poverty and civil rights activists have correctly challenged (see here for details). After all, it is bad enough to penalize people who already occupy the lowest and least-respected rung of American society, but penalizing people who are willing to lend a helping hand simply adds insult to injury.
If I lived in Las Vegas, I would put into action the following plan: First, I would make myself look as disheveled as possible, and I would encourage all of my friends to do the same. Then, we would spend as much time in the public parks as possible in the hopes that it will become impossible for charitable organizations and law enforcement officials to distinguish those who really are homeless from those of us who only appear to be homeless. After a few weeks, the number of bogus tickets and arrests will make it clear just how unenforceable the ordinance really is--after all, enforcing it involves leaving it up to police officers to decide who is homeless based on their judgment concerning who looks homeless. By making sure that far more people in the park who receive meals from charities look homeless than actually are homeless, enforcement thereby becomes impossible.
Of course, one might object to my plan on the grounds that those of us who are merely pretending to be homeless in order to protest the city's ordinance would be consuming food that is supposed to benefit the homeless. Fair enough. The solution is simply to make sure that each of us who receives a free meal donates five dollars to whichever organization supplied the meal--thereby making sure that we do not free ride while undermining the city's ability to enforce such a mean-spirited ordinance.
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