Wow - that is terrific! You mean all those disdainful posters attacking the idea of helping the poor are actually doing quite a bit to help the homeless? And I thought perhaps they walked by because of pure selfishness ("It'll be a cold day in Hades before one of these bums gets a dime of my hard-earned money..._)
If you think giving money to people with serious substance abuse problems helps them think again. Talk to them, watch over them to ensure their safety, give them clothes or shelter on a rainy night, buy them food, help them get into treatment, or just walk right by
I was totally with you until the last bit: "or just walk by..." Please explain how "just walking by" fulfills your responsibility towards the unfortunate?
I believe the response indicates a belief that if you can’t or won’t do any of these things, then don’t just hand them money to get rid of them or out of a sense of guilt. The majority actually do have substance abuse problems and are cadging money to buy the next round. You’d be harming them, rather than helping them.
I happen to agree with that sentiment, having had an office for over a decade on the bleeding edge of gentrification, near a downtown area. Stick around, you’ll see the same people again and again and again, no worse for wear, manning the same spots, telling the same sad tale, until it gets known, then another fantastical yarn is created. Ohhhh, help me help me my baby done got towed off in my car, I gotta have two hunnert dollars to get my baby back out of impound, she need her formula. Bizarre nonsense such as that, and they’re so blitzed they don’t remember you, so you get to hear it over and over.
The new faces, you get so you can tell. A genuinely down on his or her luck person is sort of, well, reluctant. Sad. Not in your face, not all that eager to recount all the travail that put them there.
Those people, I tried to help. Buy them something to eat, put gas in their car if they had one, give them a lift to someplace dry and warm if they needed it, but money never changed hands.
Simple - giving cash to alcoholics and drug addicts doesn't help them. You might feel good giving them the cash, but would you feel good giving them a $10 bag of heroin? I hope not. So if you aren't going to do something to actually help the less fortunate person don't do anything - just walk by. That, in its own way, is more helpful than giving them the cash that buys them the heroin or alcohol that kills them.
If that bothers you, try just spending time talking to them, or helping them get food, shelter, or help.
It does less harm than your approach. And it has the advantage of not feeding one's sense of self righteousness, which leads to fewer obnoxious lectures like yours...a definite plus.
That's the problem with liberals -- they make everything worse, then add insult to injury by lecturing everyone about how righteous they are. Perfect example is the effect of Great Society social welfare on blacks. It's hard to imagine a more effective act of sabotage against blacks, specifically the black family, yet liberals, who were the chief promoters of this sabotage, dare to lecture and scold the rest of us and act as though they are the virtuous angels of our society.
That's what you remind me of.