There are two points I want to make about the article link quoted below.

The first is an observation about the panhandling ban in Tampa, and anywhere else such a ban may exist. It really pisses me off. (Sorry, I tried to think or another way to say it, but this really does describe it best.)

It is in a sense a symptom of the same injustice being protested by proponents of Occupy Wall Street.  This law puts the sensibilities of the 99% (those with a roof over their heads) over the survival of the 1% (those asking for change to buy food and necessities).  And don’t give me the line about how they’re panhandling to buy booze or drugs, because even those few that do also have to use some of the money to stay alive.

It makes people uncomfortable to see the homeless, let alone have them ask for something.  You know that’s what this is all about.  No one’s telling the girl scout in front of the grocery store to pack up her cookies and go, are they?

The second point is actually related to one of the comments, rather than the article itself. Someone named Haley’s Comet starts out with this sentence: “The left is always in search of ways to game the system and skirt the law.”

How can selling newspapers be considered skirting the law? Is it illegal to sell papers on the streets? Or just illegal for homeless people? As one person responds to Haley’s ignorant, blinded point of view, “These homeless are now manufacturing and selling a product using the free enterprise system.”

Isn’t that supposed to be “the great American way?”

Tampa’s panhandling ban takes effect today, but the publisher of a community newspaper has a plan to give the homeless a legal way to continue making money on the city’s street corners.

via Plans for homeless newspaper could circumvent panhandling ban | TBO.com.