The most powerful thing people can do to combat tyranny is to not participate in it, or accept “help” from it.

For this reason, individuals and groups of people who operate independent from the state or institutional control are persecuted by the law. People can be fined for feeding the homeless, or told they cannot provide help to others without some kind of permit or authorization from the state. Institutions, large charities and organizations get the stamp of approval from the state for complying with their policies: but independent groups of volunteers, people who really care exercising their influence is not welcomed by the state.

In the most recent example of a crackdown on volunteers not permitted to help others, people providing aid to Hurricane Harvey victims in Vidor, Texas were recently stopped by police, and the encounter was caught on video.

It was posted on Facebook by James Hartwell, writing:

So this just happened. Jared Kirkendoll and Scott Green was just told that they have to leave vidor because they are not needed here.. but yet they are doing more than any off the law enforcement is doing here. This is the biggest crock of bull# I’ve ever heard. F*ckin power trip. Helping people and get treated like that. Oh and as you can see he was a total ass hole.

In the video, a cop walks up to men who were riding on the bed of a buggy being pulled by a truck, that they brought to Texas to help victims of the hurricane.

The officer proceeds to shout “Is this your vehicle?”

Kirkendoll replied that it was his vehicle, to which the cop responded “You guys need to come down here right now … Because I said so.”

You don’t gotta be so grouchy?” Kirkendoll said. “What do you need?

I want you to climb on down,” the cop said. “I wanted to take a look at your identification.

After the volunteer explained his ID was in the truck, the cop continued “Come on down, come on down right now, or you’re not going to be leaving.”

The volunteer came down from his truck, talked for a minute with the cop and returned.

“We’re just trying to help people,” Kirkendoll said. “We’re out a shitload of money and we came all the way down here just trying to help.”

The cop pledged his allegiance to the state over supporting independent volunteers, saying “My house is flooded too, but I’ve got to be out here helping people. We appreciate that you’re here, but we’ve got enough.”

In a statement to the Free Thought Project, the volunteers drove for 16 hours from Illinois to help flood victims. He said:

We were helping people out and taking water and supplies to people. In fact, we were dropping water to people and we had four people on the buggy, taking them to land.

Although police officers are just messengers of the law, morally culpable footsoldiers unaware of the agenda behind laws they enforce sometimes, the reason they are ordered to crack down on non-state sanctioned aid is because they want a monopoly on “helping” people. They want people dependent on the state and subject to whatever requirements the state puts on its services to people.

(Image credit: James Hartwell)