you may have noticed in my blog posts that I participate in a "food handout" at the Petaluma (California) senior center on Tuesday mornings, and wonder what an anarchist is doing standing in line for free food. "what is he, a fucking ancom?" well, no.
I have a test I use for charity if I know it's funded with stolen funds (taxes) or if I don't know whether it's public or private (which latter is the case at the senior center). I call it the "Bill Gates test", meaning if Bill Gates were to show up for a handout, and would most likely get it, I'll take it too. does it require a "means test"? pass. a signature? pass. any kind of ID check? except to show proof of age, pass.
if government (stolen) funds are being used, but no accounting is done for it, then presumably the people being stolen from could come get their share too, or if not (due to age test or because they're working during the handouts) then at least I can rationalize it by the "water over the dam" argument: the money is already gone from the hands of the rightful owners. they're not getting it back anyway, and they have no say in how it's being handed out. so I'm going to make it go to at least one worthy recipient, myself.
even if you don't think you get handouts, if you eat any of the "staple" foods heavily subsidized by the US government, you are. even if you're accepting private charity, but some of the people providing it are themselves on the dole from Uncle Sam, it's tainted. there are numerous ways a "pure" ancap can be unknowingly defiled by stolen funds.
the Bill Gates test is a fairly objective, and simple, way to know if you're directly participating in an evil undertaking, or if you're just benefiting from the aftermath.
to make a link with text, as I did above, make sure to have no space between the square-bracketed link text and the parenthesized URL: [heavily subsidized by the US government](http://www.pcrm.org/health/reports/agriculture-and-health-policies-unhealthful-foods)
