Costa Mesa Mayor Proposes To Shut Down Soup Kitchens To Deal With Homeless Problem

COSTA MESA (CBSLA.com) — The mayor of Costa Mesa proposed to get rid of soup kitchens to deal with the area’s homeless problem at a city council meeting on Tuesday.

“My belief is that if we manage to put the soup kitchen out of business that will go a long way to addressing the attractiveness in our city that’s creating a huge negative impact,” Eric Bever said.

According to Bever, the “negative impact” is homeless people who like Costa Mesa because of services that offer food to less fortunate individuals.

Clients at Someone Cares Soup Kitchen and the non-profit Share Our Selves were stunned by the controversial comments.

This is the eventual result of the Church and citizens ceding their authority and responsibility to provide charity themselves directly and allowing the civil government to usurp such authority and responsibility.

Absolutely correct.

Once people allow themselves to depend on a secular government for sustenance, it becomes their master and they it's slave. And what a cruel master is such a government that would have it's citizens begging it for sustenance; it provides and withholds according to the whims of politics.

Not quite. They become beholden to the agenda of the people who control the politicians.

When the Constitution was written, it was unthinkable that any government should be empowered to redistribute wealth. James Madison himself once said,

“I cannot undertake to lay my finger on that article of the Constitution which granted a right to Congress of expending, on objects of benevolence, the money of their constituents.”

Charity and benevolence were to be the exclusive province of the people and the SOLE means of dispensing public welfare. Churches and civic organizations were the principal means.

The biggest distinction between government welfare and private charity is clear: most of the “middle-men” in private charity are volunteers. The second important aspect of voluntary benevolence isn’t so obvious: Those on the receiving end have to ask for help, and possibly modify their behavior to get it.

That’s motivation in action. It builds a wealthier society. Lest anyone think that charity alone is inadequate, considering the alternative of a police empowered welfare state that causes the problems it is supposed to solve, should be enough to convince them otherwise.

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