Health Department out of line for bullying free-food group

Editor,

We would like to express our disapproval of the recent hostilities exhibited by the Health Department toward the charitable group Food Not Bombs.

The organization serves free food to any hungry person outside of the UNM Bookstore on Wednesdays and Fridays. The Health Department has demanded that this group pay for a food-serving permit. Food Not Bombs attempts to feed the public for free and therefore does not generate any revenue necessary for purchasing a permit. Every person eats food every day because we are hungry. We can only assume that food is healthy and nutritious until it has been demonstrated to be otherwise. It's the same logic used by the innocent-until-proven-guilty rule. We don't do testing on everything we eat to ensure that it is disease free. This would be ridiculous.

Thomas Jefferson once wrote, "The legitimate powers of government extend to such acts only as are injurious to others." Unfortunately, the Health Department has taken upon itself powers well beyond this standard. It feigns the impossible goal of protecting the public against disease before disease has manifested itself, supposedly to prevent its occurrence. The simple fact is that the government does not prevent the appearance of disease - no matter how many myths it has instilled into the public mind. A food-serving permit indicates very little about the quality or safety of food. This organization isn't trying to make money; it is a volunteer effort concerned with the well-being of our citizenry. Its soup is jam-packed with veggies. It serves whole-grain bread.

Fast-food joints serve some of the least healthy food in the world, but the government seems to think they're OK because it gets to suck billions out of them in taxes. The government uses this money to proliferate the myth of the food-serving permit, and it pays its goons to trample on the rights of organizations who voice opposition to its activities, such as Food Not Bombs. When we say rights, we're talking about the self-evident rights that all of us possess by simply being alive, the right to follow our own reason and feed our neighbors. Until the food has been demonstrated to be unhealthy, any interference in serving it will be an illegitimate act and will serve to further demonstrate our government's degeneration into fascism.

By attempting to exercise its self-evident rights and oppose illegitimate government power, Food Not Bombs has consistently demonstrated itself to be a patriotic and philanthropic organization. On the other hand, the Health Department and - if the allegations of some members of Food Not Bombs are true - the UNM Police Department are trying to put a stop to the good things the organization does. We humbly request these agencies to exercise their faculties of reason to voluntarily comply with the standards of legitimacy. In the meantime, the ideals of liberty, to which we are unwaveringly loyal, will persevere with patience and unceasing opposition to tyranny.

Ruben Pacheco, Corey Davis & Patricia Neddeau

UNM students