Since when is it American to bestow compassion according to the income of the recipient? That's precisely what all socialists since Marx have always taught: people are divided into classes and, whereas some deserve help and compassion, others deserve hatred. That is what Muslims believe as well: it is OK to deceive a Christian or a Jew but not OK to deceive another Muslim.
In Judeo-Christian morality, we don't think that judgment of another in matters unrelated to economics depend on his income. How is being hit by a car hurt any less if you have millions in the bank?
As Bennett said in mid-1990s, "While the majority of people in this country identify themselves as Christians, they no longer guide themselves by Christian principles in their daily lives." You prove him right. And prove also how class deeply class envy, which Marx and Lenin expended so much energy to ignite, permeated the society: what even you, a conservative, thinks of others depends on how much money they make.
When conservatives don't even notice how far away they have moved from traditional American principles, is there any wonder that we have a commie in the White House?
I suppose the reason why a lot of people might not be sympathetic with a rich person going off the rails like this is that there are those of us who are lesser mortals who have to worry about money and paying bills and other stuff that people living in the Hollywood bubble don’t have to worry about.
Personally, I can kind of understand junkies in ghettos who shoot up heroin because they grew up in a life of poverty crime, sexual abuse etc and use drugs as a means of escape from their crappy lives, but what is the excuse of a man who has grown up with privileges and riches from sinking so far into the gutter?