Freegans, we.

[soubriquet 0]

Food poisoning?

[thursday 1]

whatever it is, get those imodium drips now.

[SirJibAlot 0]

Yup, they're dead.

[spook 0]

did you get any cheese? i bet cheeseman would be interested in how they aged...

[2pints-mate 0]

He was pulling your leg - no need to worry we are both fine... just a little busy (well I am and I believe he is too this week). Report fairly soon.

[soubriquet 0]

Dealing with the bears?

[thursday 1]

who's using 2pints' handle when we know they're both in intensive care?

[spook 0]

i think they're just walking around the london burbs with their laptop, trying to leech a wifi signal from someones house

[Oyuki kigan 0]

 Originally Posted By: Tubby Beaver

These Freegans all come from 1st world, western countries right? Where the very system that they despise allows them to choose the life they lead. Very ironic

No, its not ironic at all. The very fact that our society created so much unnessary waste is the point being atacked.
If that didn't exist, there would be no uch thing as freegans. Its like PETA, they will dissapear as soon as cruelty to animals does.

As for the criticism of rent-free housing, i don't see the problem.

If food is being wasted and someone wants to eat it, and help lessen the problem, fine with me.

If housing is being wasted, and soemone is willing to live in that kind of poverty, then fine with me.

we are killing ourplanet with overconsumption, i'm glad that there are people who have found ways to live a little easier on it, that is not hurting anyone else.

[spook 0]

fair points oyuki, and i agree with ragrds to using wasted resources.

but i take umbrage to their demand that "housing is a RIGHT, not a privilege". sure, homes sitting empty while people sleep on the streets doesn't seem right, but how can someone who has contributed nothing to the construction of the home demand that they can take it.

i would very much like to not go to work, but i wouldn't have the cheek to demand that someone else houses me

 

taking advantage of waste is one thing. demanding that others contribute while you do nothing is another.

[thursday 1]

until we get a decent report fom the dumpster diving boys, we may as well amuse ourselves arguing the freegan view on life.

 

Nobody owes anybody a living. "Housing is a right" just puts these freegan people into a bottomless naiveity bin. Next they'd be saying they have a right to the spare cash you have in your savings account cos it aint being used.

[me jane 0]

 Originally Posted By: thursday

Next they'd be saying they have a right to the spare cash you have in your savings account cos it aint being used.

They have a right to my debt if they want it.

[Rag-Doll 0]

Hypocrites, parasites and anarchists, every bloody one of them! They contribute nothing to society and can exist only because of the excess that they claim to despise.

[NoFakie 45]

 Originally Posted By: Tubby Beaver

These Freegans all come from 1st world, western countries right? Where the very system that they despise allows them to choose the life they lead. Very ironic

That's false. Most freegans are in the Third World. Here are probably the most famous ones. Maybe its because they were in one of John Pilger's programmes. I'm sure they are not exceptional.

http://www.jkfoto.nl/manilla/manilla.html

There are loads of others in Africa and China who pick over all kinds of toxic crap the First World sends them by the shipload. A lot of it is stuff that could not be legally dumped in the First World.

The United Nations seems to think housing is a right.

http://www.unhchr.ch/html/menu6/2/fs21.htm#entitlements

[thursday 1]

The UNHCR seems to think borrowing money to lock up refugees in a port of first asylum pending relocation to the first world and then not paying back because of lack of funds is a noble and legal thing to do.

 

The UNHCR owes me money and I want it back with interest.

 

People picking garbage to make ends meet is not freeganism. It’s survival, plain and simple.

[Oyuki kigan 0]

 Originally Posted By: thursday

until we get a decent report fom the dumpster diving boys, we may as well amuse ourselves arguing the freegan view on life.

Nobody owes anybody a living. "Housing is a right" just puts these freegan people into a bottomless naiveity bin. Next they'd be saying they have a right to the spare cash you have in your savings account cos it aint being used.

although i support people who choose that lifestyle, i agree that absolutist statements like that are kinda silly. It is a first-world mentality (although how many of us would agree that universal access to education and healthcare are not 'rights'?)

[Oyuki kigan 0]

 Originally Posted By: Rag-Doll

Hypocrites, parasites and anarchists, every bloody one of them! They contribute nothing to society and can exist only because of the excess that they claim to despise.

Please back-up that statement, because i see no eveidence.

1) Anyone who holds any kind of moral value is a hypocrite. Myself included. In fact, the further i try to follow my values to their logical conclusion, the more clearly the hypocricy appears. There are very few people who actually come close to live according to their values. Some freegans are among those.

2) These people may choose not to contribute to what they see as a flawed and dangerous system, but that does not mean that scavenging is not work unto itself.

3) Is reducing the amount of waste a particular community creates not a"contribution"? Or does your conception of contibution soley have to do with making money?

you use "anarchists" in a rather derogatory sense. Why is that?

[big-will 7]

So, BofC and 2pints - how you feeling?

[Rag-Doll 0]

 Originally Posted By: Oyuki kigan

 Originally Posted By: Rag-Doll

Hypocrites, parasites and anarchists, every bloody one of them! They contribute nothing to society and can exist only because of the excess that they claim to despise.

Please back-up that statement, because i see no eveidence.

1) Anyone who holds any kind of moral value is a hypocrite. Myself included. In fact, the further i try to follow my values to their logical conclusion, the more clearly the hypocricy appears. There are very few people who actually come close to live according to their values. Some freegans are among those.

2) These people may choose not to contribute to what they see as a flawed and dangerous system, but that does not mean that scavenging is not work unto itself.

3) Is reducing the amount of waste a particular community creates not a"contribution"? Or does your conception of contibution soley have to do with making money?

you use "anarchists" in a rather derogatory sense. Why is that?

People who espouse the benefits of a course of action, encourage others to follow that course of action but then fail to live up to their ideas themselves are hypocrites. Living off the excess of our society, making use of its many advantages and privileges whilst condemning it is hypocritical. They’re no better than anarchists because they reject the accumulation of wealth and capital when it is this together with private property, the pursuit of profit and gain that drives innovation, development and scientific enquiry which in turn produces the many benefits of our modern society. It is only in situations of excess that individuals are freed to pursue long term goals and intellectual endeavors that result in improvements for the entire society. These parasites live off the excess but give nothing back. They don’t work so they don't pay taxes, they don’t provide employment, they don’t develop new ideas, they don’t conduct research etc, but if they get ill they expect to receive medical treatment which is paid for by others. They are able to receive medical treatment because there is excess in the system - that excess provides the system with flexibility. If there was no excess, the first drought, flood or other event that reduced production would result in people doing with less or going without entirely. Waste in good years is insurance against bad years. Ever wondered why people don't generally starve to death in democracies? Why can Australia suffer one of the worst droughts in a century but still manage to feed itself? Without excess production what would have happened? Look at any benefit available in a modern functioning society be it education, transport, food, public safety, public infrastructure, economic stability etc. – the same arrangement applies. These people reject the very type of system that allows them to exist. They live the way they do by choice and dress it up as some sort of noble environmental exercise when in reality they’re just dole bludgers with a webpage. They live the way they do by choice and then attack the society that allows them to do so. Suggesting that these losers are in any way similar to the unfortunate hundreds of millions around the world who suffer because they don’t live in a stable democratic society is an insult. And before some poor sole pipes up with the usual clap trap that the West is the cause of the suffering of the impoverished, please give some thought to the numerous dictatorships, autocracies and theocracies which are the real cause of misery.

[soubriquet 0]

rag-doll:

[thursday 1]

I was wondering how long before Ragdoll had a spare minute.

 

another good one.

[Rag-Doll 0]

you're welcome.

[Tubby Beaver 209]

"...they're only dole bludgers with a webpage...." LOL!!!!!

 

Although, 1 teeny weeny minor point, as I agree with you, some of the dictatorships and autocracies are in place because of propping up from the west, whether they are still under west control is another matter.

 

But good post!

[Rag-Doll 0]

TB that's a fair point. As OY points out, just about everybody is hypocritical to some degree and probably the more you aspire to a particular standard the more likely reality and pragmatism make a hypocrite out of you. Leaders of all nations act in their own interests and the interests of their own countries. Standards are relative; reality is relative. Sometimes nations choose the lesser of several evils, ala Saddam v Iran, Pakistan v Taliban, subsistence farming v expensive coffee. I agree the world isn't perfect, I just don't reckon the West (USA) is solely to blame.

[soubriquet 0]

There is such a thing a free-will. People make choices. If Iraqis and Afghanis choose to bomb themselves back to the the middle ages then they have to take responsibility.