LETS JUST GO AHEAD AND LEGALIZE BEGGING
Here's a modest proposal for the United States, Britain, France, Spain and whatever other countries imagine themselves to be
exemplars of social and economic maturity:
Let's legalize begging.
Raven Storm, 30, who counts "the streets
of Northampton"
as home, begs on
Main Street
April 27, 2013.
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Since, among others, American policy
makers to date have made beggars of so many, the least the body politic could
do in return would be to make begging a statutory right. As in, life, liberty,
the pursuit of happiness ... and begging.
Currently, begging may not be universally illegal, but I
would argue that it deserves the status of a fully-enunciated right.
As an example of a wider attitude towards begging, the
Michigan ACLU conducted a yearlong investigation and is suing the Detroit
Police Department for scooping up beggars in an entertainment district, busing
them miles away and letting them return as best they may. Detroit has one of the highest murder rates in the country, so it
is a marvel the police may have found the time and manpower to deal so
effectively with begging.
Written into my imaginary statute might be clauses designating some acceptable locations in which to exercise the right to beg: Outside banks, entertainment districts, stock brokerages, conglomerate headquarters, presidential homes, congressional watering holes and venues in which dress-down Fridays were still de rigueur.
Closer to home here in Northampton, the gates of Smith College or the Bank of America or the front door of Yes Computers
might be possibilities.
Children attending classes in which teachers were forced to
pony up basic supplies like paper, crayons, pencils, and glue might be given
time off -- kind of a field trip in reality -- to stand with their signs and
begging bowls outside suitably well-heeled organizations. Sorrowful faces would
be optional.
Clearly such a proposal is likely to run into opposition.
Those with the power to create laws on behalf of the common good are frequently
the same people who don't like their streets littered ... either with grit,
grime and plastic water bottles or with the human examples of what their world
is most emphatically not.
"Mind you, I care about the poor, but, well ...
couldn't they do it some place else ... some place not quite so obvious ...
some place that is not my street?"
Yes, it would be an uphill battle even to get the
legislation introduced. But you never know -- maybe a hot-blooded Tea Party
politician with insistent religious credentials might take on the task of
bringing the statutory right to beg to the attention of his or her important
colleagues ... you know, the ones who helped dismantle and demolish regulations
aimed at heading off future economic catastrophes (read derivatives) of the
kind that struck in 2008.
And even if the legislation were introduced, it is highly
unlikely to pass. No one would want to admit s/he had implicitly condoned the
poverty s/he prefers to be seen as caring about and ameliorating.
All in all, legislation to legalize begging is a
non-starter.
"Oh well," as Saturday Night Live's fictional and
wacky Emily Litella used to say when her misunderstandings were brought to
light "... never mind!"
The only problem, of course, is that what is a legislative
non-starter has already started.
Adam Fisher lives in Northampton and is the author of "Answer Your Love Letters: Footnotes to a Zen Practice."
Adam Fisher lives in Northampton and is the author of "Answer Your Love Letters: Footnotes to a Zen Practice."
Don't beg, lobby the tax-payers directly. Government is overwhelmed by big business lobbyists and takes too long.
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