Personal Liberal values at odds....

[vi5]

I'm a liberal. I believe in charity, helping others, bettering the community and everything that goes along with that.

I'm a liberal. I also believe that government has a big role to play in our lives, particularly with regard to regulations and helping others, and insuring that minimum standards are met for the conditions of our living, our safety, and our health.

In line with the first point, I work as a volunteer at a soup kitchen. It's incredibly rewarding, and it's an honor for me to be able to work with everyone there, and to see that the people in our community who might be going through a rough patch have some support, a good meal, some companionship even for just an hour, and all the other outreach (a nurse, mental health, job searching) that this facility offers. This place has been doing good for 25 years and I'm proud to be a part of it.

But recently, either through regulations that were passed recently or just recently started getting enforced (I'm not clear which), the whole place has to change how they do their work. On a simple level it's no more home prepared food. Only donated pre-made and packaged food, or cooked in the facilities kitchen by trained people. On a more expansive level it's requiring new equipment, requiring more equipment, and in the end will increase our operating budget by about $250,000 a year.

So.....yeah. Talk about liberal value dillema. $250K is a big hit to have to make up with donations especially in this economic (not to mention political) climate. But by the same respect I can't just dismiss the essence of what the point of the regulations is, which is to insure food safety and good health, even for those who are getting the meals and food and help at no cost. There's no reason just because someone might me more in need of or (for lack of a better word) desparate for a meal that we shouldn't do everything to insure that what they get is healthy and safe.

No point to this, just ranting and typing. I've had personal liberal value conflicts in terms of things testing what I believe in. But rarely have I encountered 2 of my own beliefs bumping up against each other in an adverserial way.

[Donald Ian Rankin]

1. There's no general answer to this kind of thing, it has to be case by case.

Some regulations are sensible, some are not sensible.

[slackmaster]

2. Ordinary people like you are incapable of preparing safe, nutritious food from scratch

Submit to the will of Big Brother. He knows how to cook better than you could ever learn to.

[dkf]

3. I bet homemade food was better for people than the prepackaged stuff.

This is really a shame. Sometimes we need the ability to be flexible.

[BiggJawn]

4. These new regulations are not for "food safety and good health"

They're in place to put your soup kitchen out of business. The Authoritarians in charge are embarrassed by the number of soup kitchens and the number of people who have to rely on them, so instead of fixing the economic situation that makes kitchens and pantries necessary, They try to put them out of existence.

After all, if you offer people free food, they have no reason to get off their lazy asses and get a JOB.

I have read about cities that have enacted laws that limit the number of people a kitchen or pantry can serve in one day. Disgusting. They put their heads in the sand and claim "Oh, no, we don't have a lot of homeless people in our town, why, the local soup kitchen only serves 150 lazy bastards a day...".

[slackmaster]

5. That's a bold assertion, considering that we don't know in what city or state vi5 lives or works

i.e. we don't know what government entity created the regulations that vi5 referred to, or anything about their legislative history.

I live in California, where a lot of very bad laws get passed with the noblest of intentions by people who think they are progressives.

[vi5]

6. I wish I could say you were wrong....

I really do. I don't know if that is the case or not, but I'm an incredibly cynical person so you may be right.

For the record I live in NJ, and I think everyone knows who our governer is and what his attitude is towards the poor. So it's far from outside of the realm of possibility.

[independentpiney]

7. What regulations are these specifically?

I don't mean to sound snarky, but without more detail this reads like it could be a chain e-mail.

[vi5]

8. I mentioned some...

No home prepared food. Everything has to be pre-bought and in sealed packages.

Used to be everyone could help out preparing the food. Now, unless someone has gone through the proper training they are not allowed to participate in any food preparation.

They've expanded the number of roles/people who need to wear gloves/aprons (increasing that budget) beyond just those prepping the food.

Installation of new equipment in the kitchen.

Things of that nature. I don't know why it would seem like an e-mail. I'm not saying "All of these regulations are wrong." In fact I clearly state that I don't think they all are. Just that it's conflicting to me.

[MedicalAdmin]

10. This is a great idea.

It need to be expanded radically so that it is mandatory for every commercial and non commercial food prep area in the country. No home should be allowed to cook from scratch anymore. And neither should restaurants. All food should be processed and prepackaged and wrapped in plastic. In fact all food should be plastic.

Better yet, Phizer just needs to get together with Cargill and develop a pill for all of our daily nutrition needs and everyone should stop eating until they do, just to be on the safe side. DARPA could give them a grant and then a no bid contract....


Unfreaking believable. I donate food from an organic farm every week to a homeless shelter. They love getting the fresh veggies, but maybe that will change this year because the repubs are in control of the state house, so things are bound to get fucked up.

[Odin2005]

9. IMO many regulations exist to screw over small companies and help big ones.

This is why we need to get the money out of politics and keep corporate lobbyists from writing up regulations.

[vi5]

11. To be fair.....

The kitchen does receive substantial donations from many large companies. This being Northern NJ there are quite a few big corporations in the area.

Hopefully they'll be the ones to step up their donations given this new expense we'll be incurring.