Posted on 07/13/2003 2:13:48 PM PDT by newgeezer
Edited on 05/07/2004 6:40:34 PM PDT by Jim Robinson. [history]
RODNEY WHITE/Protector: Matt Witt, a 19-year-old with a penchant for violence, rolls a cigarette with butts from bus kiosk ashtrays. He is always ready to come to the defense of his homeless friends. "We're a family," he says.
This girl, this woman of 20 years, had wanted better things. With a shining smile and hazel eyes filled with determination, she was not supposed to end up like this. Her child was not supposed to be born on the streets. Her life was not supposed to disintegrate in warehouses, abandoned buildings and shelter after shelter.
(Excerpt) Read more at desmoinesregister.com ...
There are perfectly good gold mines in the Yukon that these people could be assigned to.
Earlier today I was toying with the idea of calling those selfless Good Samaritan Salvation Army workers from a payphone and trying to put in an order for some weed. "Oh, I thought you were a crackhouse!"
All in all, it's a clear lesson in how charity corrupts everyone involved.
Unfortunately, a lot of homeless kids /teens are runaways. Some come from horrible families...others come from good, stable homes.
About two years ago, I was walking down the streets of Chicago at about 3:00 am. I had just finished a project (internet consulting) and was too excited to go to bed. I was walking alone and kind of wanted to talk to someone and I don't know why, but I started talking to this homeless guy. Immediately, I couldn't believe how educated he was - he read the newspapers every day. We talked for about an hour, then sat down at McDonalds where I bought him a few burgers and fries.
I asked him how this happened to him and he really broke down and told me about the whole thing from beginning to ending. He had been laid off and screwed up not looking hard enough for a job. His home was foreclosed and his wife left him and took his two kids. He showed me the pictures that he carried around in his bible.
Anyway, we ending up talking for a few hours and I offered him some help. I gave him enough money to rent a cheap hotel room, buy some decent clothes, and shave. He promised he was going to look for a job starting the next day, since he would be very presentable. I gave him my phone number.
The next day, he called and was extremely excited - he wanted to show me how cleaned up he looked and how well rested he was sleeping inside on a bed (it was winter and raining/snowing outside.) By Monday (two days later), he landed a job at a nightclub sweeping up after it closed. He gave them my phone number as his contact number and called me every day to check any messages.
Two weeks later he got a second job at a McDonalds (actually the one that I bought him his food.) He called every couple of weeks and talked - he was extremely grateful for my help.
About six months later, we met for lunch and he took out $100 and wanted to pay me back for the money I had given him to help him get started. I thanked him and told him that I would prefer that he give the money to someone like himself who would use it to start a new life.
This was a really touching experience for me. I believe without a doubt that our present circumstance and future situations are a result of our actions. Actions have consequences; but I hate to think that a stupid mistake (like this guy made) would keep a person in misery for the rest of his life.
In the future, when times are going well for me financially again (I have been laid off and am in school now) I would like to try to help others as I have this man. I really believe that this is what conservatism is about. I don't believe in gov't programs in any way, shape, or form, but I do think that we need to personally give people a helping hand, if they are willing to accept it.
Character counts. Some got it. Some don't.
You got it.
Workhouses and orphanages were NOT government sponsered; though, by the time Charlie wrote about them a few of the officials were. They were CHURCH sponsered and church run.And each parish ( Anglican/CofE )had one and charged the reisdents, of the parish, a tithe/tax. THis is an interesting topic, which few understand; even if they can quote from " A CHRISTMAS CAROL ".
You "misunderestimate" the man. After Yale, Harvard and the ANG, GWB went back to Midland and formed his company as an independent oilman. He did what most independents do -- worked his own leases, ran his own rigs and got down in the mud, running pipe during acidizing operations.
GWB probably has more experience dealing with everyday people than any President since Truman.
I have no doubt that he has probably more experience in interacting with normal people. However, it is simply not the same. The rich are different, take my word for it. In particular if they come from a family that is secure in their ordinate wealth. yes they can go and experiment in the "real" world. But they are secure in the knowledge that if things go wrong they can always go back into the cocoon that is their family.
I have been around wealthy people most of my life. They have a different culture and sociology than the rest of us. An incident comes to mind when I was accompanying a friend of mine whom I had gone to school with (married into the Dupont family) on a visit to Harlem. He was commenting to me how he was familiar with what black people and working class people go through in general because he visited often. My comment to him was (we'll call him Henry) "Henry, you're just a tourist, you haven't got a clue."
Henry you see, will never have to worry how he'll pay his bills. Where his next paycheck is coming from, or whether he will still have a job that won't be downsized or outsourced. That is a set of worries that GW has never had to contend with either.
Many wealthy people know what it's to lose jobs and some make certain that they raise their kids to know what it's like to be " joe everage " too. How ? They make them get jobs and pay some of their own way.
Money helps, but it doesn't totally remove one from life. In the same vein, poverty doesn't have to keep anyone " down ".
It drove him nuts to see so many people squander opportunity after opportunity. Very very few people took what was offered and ran but that very few that did were sure the high spot of the job. One guy burst into my dads office almost tearful as he showed dad is first paycheck.
Most people had to be called to get them out of bed and get them to go to work which they did poorly. Some opted to go back to jail rather than take the jobs that Dad got for them.
Ronald Reagan spent years criss-crossing the country, meeting and talking with GE employees. Like them, he was a son of the heartland. That's why he understood the average Joe as well as any president ever has.
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