Do you have any legal recourse if they violate that sign? Like can you feign interest to get enough information to then call the cops and charge them with trespassing?
Yeah, when I was much younger and more naive, I took a job soliciting door-to-door for an environmental charity. They’d load us up in a van and take us to a rich neighborhood, where we then lectured the rich capitalist homeowners on the need to save the earth.
Yeah.
So, on top of being insanely frustrating and largely fruitless, there were a couple of shady things about the enterprise.
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We had a regular ol’ job interview. “Yay, congratulations! You’re hired. Now, be here at 5AM on Monday, and we’ll drive you to a city 100 miles away, where you will beat the pavement for 12 hours, and arrive back home no earlier than, oh, 8PM. Then you get to do it again the next day! All summer long! In the Alabama heat! Nature rocks!”
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“Oh, and did we mention that you are now on Super Secret Probation? Yeah, uh, you have to drum up a certain amount of money this week, or you’re fired.” They never mentioned this in the interview, and only let us in on the little secret after the first work day, when we were on the way back home.
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We got 52% of all the money we raised. That may sound OK, but isn’t this an environmental charity? The 52% was straight salary? What about the other overhead? Gas? Electricity in the very nice office? The executive director’s salary? His staff? Christ, I doubt if 5% of the money we raised ever made it to actual environmental causes. It all seemed like an enormous scam to me.
So, after 3 days of 14 hour workdays, walking in the heat, and after one too many douchebag lawyers teasing us for 2 hours, asking sincere-seeming questions before kicking us out with a “Nah, fuck you. I don’t care about the environment, bitches!”, I told the way-too-granola executive director where he could shove it and walked out.
Moral of the story: fund-raisers for these charities have no ethics to speak of, so punch away, my friend. You’re in the clear as far as I’m concerned. Plus, anybody who’s either dumb enough or blind enough to keep doing it despite the raw deal they’re doubtlessly getting richly deserves an extra facepunch.
Fuckers.
Depends on what they’re saving those children for.
I don’t think it’s ethical to punch one of them in the face because there’s significant potential there of doing pretty serious injury to them, or at least giving them a black eye or something. While I’m in favor of people’s right to defend themselves, that “defense” is entirely out of proportion to the action you’re defending yourself against.
I do think it might be ethically justifiable to push them out of your way, however, provided that you do it with as much gentleness as possible. I imagine using a straight arm to sweep them aside or something. Yes, there’s potential for injury there, but it’s much much lower.
It’s not ethical to use more violence than necessary, even in self-defense. Normally, any physical contact with a pushy stranger on the sidewalk would count as “more violence than necessary” because most of the time, the accoster can be dispatched with only words and body language.
But by blocking your path, they are detaining you. The question of whether it’s okay to approach strangers to ask them for something is ethically murky, but it’s definitely not okay to attempt to detain them, except in certain special cases like genuine emergencies.
Your first defense should be verbal, of course, but if they refuse to get out of your way when you ask, they are clearly trying to detain you and a more forceful response may be justified.
All right, it’s probably not even ethical to shove 'em out of your way, but it’s sort of fun to imagine someone swatting them aside like gnats.
i.e. a swift kick in the gnads?
I assume I would be arrested for assault and battery.
Um…yes. That would be the point.
It’s entirely likely. And they seem to seek out particular targets. Maybe because I’m young-ish looking and wear a suit, they think I’ll be rich and generous and succeptable to their female charms. Problem is they aren’t charming.
You’re not entirely kidding, either, but I laughed.
I’d consider it ethically murky because they’re young and are probably either desperate or don’t really know better.
The shyster who’s got them out there is the one who needs punching.
Oh! I thought of another strategey to get rid of them:
Save the Children: Hello, sir! Would you like to make a contribution to–
Cellphone: Have you given yourself to Jesus, the one true path to salvation? He eats babies, you know. The damned will be cursed to roam the Earth for eternity, but the saved will ascend to eat babies in Heaven…
Embellish as required.
They shouldn’t bug you for the rest of the day.
As some of the posters have mentioned, these people are probably under the employ of a canvassing organization (probably associated with a PIRG).
I despise them intensely, as I have some (thankfully) limited experience with them. Their business model basically boils down to this: Canvassing organizations contract with a charity to allow the canvassers to use their own employees and resources to raise money, and in exchange keep a large percentage of the raised money (it might be as high as 80% [no cite]). They then pass the contact information of donors onto the charity, so that at a later time the charity itself can solicit donations from these people, who are likely to be repeat givers. It’s a win-win for the canvassers and the charity, but it’s the donors who lose out as they often have no idea that they’re actually lining the pockets of the harassing canvassers instead of helping save children/Haiti/etc.
Ethical implications? I wouldn’t give the ‘volunteer’ a punch, because they’re often rubes themselves, kept ignorant of the canvassing organization’s true workings save for the paycheck they receive.
It seems to me that you’re wondering about who thinks that breaking the law can be justified in this case.
FWIW, I agree with this comment:
I’ve found snarling, “Get the fuck out of my way, you useless piece of shit,” works pretty effectively both for these guys and the perpetual petition pushers at Trader Joe’s.
And this is the relevant video.
It would have been full-of-win awesome if the clerk had added the free soft drink for you to her tab.
When they get in your face spouting their slogans, share one of your own slogans:
“He that impedes, is he that bleeds.”
or better yet: “Save the assholes!” And if they ask what that is supposed to mean, tell them that by simply staying out of your way, they can prevent an asshole from being punched in the face!
You’ve got two options. Number one: Roar at them. Just roar at the top of your lungs, like a wild animal.
Number two: start jabbering nonsense. The conversation would go something like:
Solicitor: Would you care to donate to save the children?
You: Ahhh, the fish heads are coming in cold this season.
Solicitor: Uh, wha… for just a few dollars a month you can save a child!
You: Then why don’t you tailor it to your own entails, Mr. Hot dog?
Solicitor: I… uh… why don’t you just sign this-
You: COCKROACHES! They crave jellybeans, you see? None shall escape the dreamer’s wrath!
Just keep using one of those options until they know enough to ignore you.
Hmmm, interesting idea. “Could you hold on for just a minute? I just want to call the cops to have you arrested for trespassing, since you just told me you had read the sign but you didn’t think it applied to you.”
Around here they generally don’t jump out in front of you or try to block your path.
With that said, one of them did to me about four or five years ago. I walk quickly, have a bad back and if it’s playing up I can’t stop suddenly without a great deal of pain.
Fortunately I managed to get a forearm up and her face bounced off my elbow as I was walking through her. She may have felt that the fact that I stopped over her to abuse her before I walked on was overkill. I feel that the fact I didn’t kick her a couple of times in the ribs as well showed remarkable restraint.
Right, on campus, there was a group solicting money for child slavery and trafficking. She walked up to ask me, “would you like to support our cause against the trafficking of children?”
“No, I’m not into that, are YOU?”
Don’t you have any ordinances regulating panhandling in NYC?
Here in Minneapolis, they would be cited for aggressive panhandling, not having a solicitors license, and possibly disturbing the peace. And the city would send a letter, threatening hefty administrative fines, to the charity involved.
So don’t bother punching them yourself – that is why we taxpayers pay policemen, and provide them with heavy nightsticks.
Well, bless your heart!