No Good Deed Goes Unpunished

Union Goons Go After Aspiring Eagle Scout
Posted by Van Helsing

No good deed goes unpunished, in a country dominated by Comrade Obama's union cronies:
In pursuit of an Eagle Scout badge, Kevin Anderson, 17, has toiled for more than 200 hours over several weeks to clear a walking path in an east Allentown park.

Little did the do-gooder know that his altruistic act would put him in the cross hairs of the city's largest municipal union.
Nick Balzano, president of the local Service Employees International Union, told Allentown City Council Tuesday that the union is considering filing a grievance against the city for allowing Anderson to clear a 1,000-foot walking and biking path at Kimmets Lock Park.
"We'll be looking into the Cub Scout or Boy Scout who did the trails," Balzano told the council.
Balzano said Saturday he isn't targeting Boy Scouts. But given the city's decision in July to lay off 39 SEIU members, Balzano said "there's to be no volunteers." No one except union members may pick up a hoe or shovel, plant a flower or clear a walking path.
Fortunately, it looks like the union may be sensitive enough to public opinion to drop the issue. We wouldn't want Kevin to end up like Ken Gladney, who ran afoul of the SEIU by protesting Obamao's plans to seize control of the healthcare industry.

Do anything constructive and you'll have them to answer to.

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This has also been reported by Michelle Malkin on her blog (SEIU thugs vs. the Boy Scouts — and other related Big Labor antics). It was originally reported in the Allentown Morning Call.

In the comment section of a post on it at Dad29 (Volunteer? Then SEIU Will "Look Into" You.) Amy said the following "Further proof that liberals don't believe in genuine charity. "Charity" to them, is done by government mandate and not out of the goodness of someone's heart or sense of obligation born of free will."

She is right, what the government is doing isn't charity, it is coercion. I would recommend they read Papa Benedetto's encyclicals "Deus caritas est" & "Caritas in veritate " to learn what true charity is. Or if they don't have time for that here is a little something from the Catholic Catechism starting with paragraph 1822:

"Charity
1822 Charity is the theological virtue by which we love God above all things for his own sake, and our neighbor as ourselves for the love of God.
1823 Jesus makes charity the new commandment.96 By loving his own "to the end,"97 he makes manifest the Father's love which he receives. By loving one another, the disciples imitate the love of Jesus which they themselves receive. Whence Jesus says: "As the Father has loved me, so have I loved you; abide in my love." And again: "This is my commandment, that you love one another as I have loved you."98
1824 Fruit of the Spirit and fullness of the Law, charity keeps the commandments of God and his Christ: "Abide in my love. If you keep my commandments, you will abide in my love."99

1825 Christ died out of love for us, while we were still "enemies."100 The Lord asks us to love as he does, even our enemies, to make ourselves the neighbor of those farthest away, and to love children and the poor as Christ himself.101
The Apostle Paul has given an incomparable depiction of charity: "charity is patient and kind, charity is not jealous or boastful; it is not arrogant or rude. Charity does not insist on its own way; it is not irritable or resentful; it does not rejoice at wrong, but rejoices in the right. Charity bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things."102
1826 "If I . . . have not charity," says the Apostle, "I am nothing." Whatever my privilege, service, or even virtue, "if I . . . have not charity, I gain nothing."103 Charity is superior to all the virtues. It is the first of the theological virtues: "So faith, hope, charity abide, these three. But the greatest of these is charity."104
1827 The practice of all the virtues is animated and inspired by charity, which "binds everything together in perfect harmony";105 it is the form of the virtues; it articulates and orders them among themselves; it is the source and the goal of their Christian practice. Charity upholds and purifies our human ability to love, and raises it to the supernatural perfection of divine love.
1828 The practice of the moral life animated by charity gives to the Christian the spiritual freedom of the children of God. He no longer stands before God as a slave, in servile fear, or as a mercenary looking for wages, but as a son responding to the love of him who "first loved us":106
If we turn away from evil out of fear of punishment, we are in the position of slaves. If we pursue the enticement of wages, . . . we resemble mercenaries. Finally if we obey for the sake of the good itself and out of love for him who commands . . . we are in the position of children.107
1829 The fruits of charity are joy, peace, and mercy; charity demands beneficence and fraternal correction; it is benevolence; it fosters reciprocity and remains disinterested and generous; it is friendship and communion: Love is itself the fulfillment of all our works. There is the goal; that is why we run: we run toward it, and once we reach it, in it we shall find rest.108 "

Doesn't exactly sound like the charity is supposed to be a government mandate to force you into doing something, does it? In fact, just the opposite.