Are we losing our humanity?

[sameech]

The typical liberal establishment solution to any problem is to throw federal dollars at and hope the drones and dunces in the federal bureaucracy can fix it when the only thing on their agenda is to fix their own situation. When the problem doesn't get fixed they can blame republicans for trying to save taxpayer dollars. Didn't the tens of billions invested and lost in LBJ's "war on poverty" teach the libs anything?

Billions? Try Trillions.

sure trillions, why not? fourllions too...is there such a word?

it's ok, no biggie...meh

well it is trillions. I provided the link.

I assume it would be Quadrillion

 

[editec]

 

[Darkwind]

Conservatives really don't have humanity. And they are proud of it. They regard themselves as without emotion. Sort of like reptiles or insects.

A perfect example is the old Scorpion on the Frog story. The scorpion of course..being the Conservative.

Where is the humanity in enabling destructive behavior?

Liberal Compassion. Lets keep them down so we can help them a little. The world really does not need progressive compassion. The poor and needy can ill afford it.

 

[Statistikhengst]

I don't believe it's a Liberal or Conservative issue. I know Conservatives who are very compassionate, and I know Liberals who are very compassionate. I know Conservatives who are miserly and I know Liberals who are miserly.

It would seem to me that it is much more of a personal issue than a political one.

 

[dilloduck]

Every homeless and destitute person has an individual story to tell. Many have chosen to give up what some would call a normal life with a house and a home and a job. It would be inhumane to deny them that choice. Some people just fail. It will always be a reality. Society doesn't have to feel guilty. We are paying our fellow society members to help them.

 

[Asclepias]

I went to Burger King last night to get hubby a burger that he was craving. While I waited in the drive thru, there was a gal about 30 years old across the street..panhandling. She had a sign attached to her bike..that had a kiddie cart attached to that. So..she has a 500 buck kiddie cart attached to her really nice bike...panhandling. She was in front of McD's...which is always located across the street from a BK it seems. I wanted to roll down my window and ask why she did not bother to apply within cuz there was a sign on the window of McD's...NOW HIRING. But I didn't.

You touched on a point I have noticed and actually have first hand knowledge about. I knew a guy that was retired and he would travel to another city to panhandle during the holiday season. He told me he averaged close to $300 a day. Where I live there are panhandlers posted up by the entrance and exits of the local Walmart that do the same thing. Whats funny is that you can look at their shoes and tell if they are homeless or not. One guy even had one of those 40K trucks parked 2 rows away from where he was panhandling with a purebred German shepard sitting in the car. These people contribute to the lack of concern for the homeless.

 

[whitehall]

I worked in a medium security state prison for a couple of years and I knew most of the convicts by sight. (the state prefers that they be referred to as inmates and even clients). I drive by Walmart and there is a former inmate panhandling with a sign that said "homeless veteran".

 

[Katzndogz]

There is a spot near the 90 freeway that always has a homeless person with dog and a sign saying "I can steal or beg." I've seen more than one person at that spot, same sign same dog. One day I was waiting to get on the freeway when a man walked up to the man holding the sign, took the sign and the dog's leash. After a few words, the guy who had been holding the sign left for the bus stop. I realized I had just seen a shift change!

 

[Shrimpbox]

Yes there are people who will not accept a roof over their heads or a clean apartment. I know of at least one who left all that charity to go back out on the street.

I consider myself a charitable person but I am not blindly charitable.

Take the case of all these children that have just crossed our southern border. Would luddly consider it inhumane to send all these kids back, will she consider how inhumane it is to encourage these children to come here in the first place, especially when this is an artificial creation. Does being humane mean world welfare led by the us until there is no more money to hand out. What would it mean to be humane then? So what is the cutoff point?

Yes to beaucoup characters that panhandle for a living. While I have seen many filthy homeless people I have not seen any starving.

I think another aspect that people miss is that being homeless is its own community, just as USMB, gaming, or the bridge site is. Everyone is searching for a place to belong and many of the homeless are proud of knowing how to work certain areas, who is most likely to give you the most food, where the best sleeping spots are, or where the cheapest booze is being sold.

In short, the best way to help your fellow man or woman is to keep it local. Tend to the people you know personally or your friends know . Charity begins at home.

 

[Mr. H.]

An anonymous resident of the residential complex told the Telegraph, that “there was a homeless man asleep there about six weeks ago. ‘Then about two weeks ago all of a sudden studs were put up outside. I presume it is to deter homeless people from sleeping there.”

However, London resident Nathan FitzPatrick tweeted after talking to locals outside the building that only one person could confirm homeless were sleeping there – and that was a woman and a child.

“It is a scandal that anyone should sleep on the streets in 21st century Britain. Yet over the last three years rough sleeping has risen steeply across the country and by a massive 75% in London. Behind these numbers are real people struggling with a lack of housing, cuts to benefits and cuts to homelessness services to help them rebuild their lives,” said Katharine Sacks-Jones, head of policy and campaigns at Crisis.

Local Londoners went to investigate and confirm the installation of spikes on Southwark Bridge Road. What is ironic is that part of the building where metal needles were installed is the office of the British School of Osteopathy – an alternative medicine school focused on healing through moving, stretching and massaging a person’s muscles and joints.

More at the link.

This is such a horrifying thing - that we humans could do this to each other. Instead of helping our fellow man, we want to make sure we don't have to look at him.

There are empty buildings every where but we can't use them because all we care about is money.

Gawd damn but that is just sad. Beyond sad.

My parents instilled studs under my ass decades ago.

Mom - when the road gets rough, you get rougher.

Dad- treat the rough roaders as your equals.

And thus I was born.

 

[Asclepias]

The best way to help people is to donate time and not necessarily money. There are many worthwhile causes in your own backyard if people just take the time to find them. Get out and meet the real homeless, poor, disenfranchised people. Encourage others to do the same. There is whole other world out there you cant conceive of if you have never gone a day without eating.

 

[S.J.]

Help them with an opportunity to earn money. If they turn it down, walk away. 9 times out of 10 they will turn it down.

 

[FA_Q2]

An anonymous resident of the residential complex told the Telegraph, that “there was a homeless man asleep there about six weeks ago. ‘Then about two weeks ago all of a sudden studs were put up outside. I presume it is to deter homeless people from sleeping there.”

However, London resident Nathan FitzPatrick tweeted after talking to locals outside the building that only one person could confirm homeless were sleeping there – and that was a woman and a child.

“It is a scandal that anyone should sleep on the streets in 21st century Britain. Yet over the last three years rough sleeping has risen steeply across the country and by a massive 75% in London. Behind these numbers are real people struggling with a lack of housing, cuts to benefits and cuts to homelessness services to help them rebuild their lives,” said Katharine Sacks-Jones, head of policy and campaigns at Crisis.

Local Londoners went to investigate and confirm the installation of spikes on Southwark Bridge Road. What is ironic is that part of the building where metal needles were installed is the office of the British School of Osteopathy – an alternative medicine school focused on healing through moving, stretching and massaging a person’s muscles and joints.

More at the link.

This is such a horrifying thing - that we humans could do this to each other. Instead of helping our fellow man, we want to make sure we don't have to look at him.

There are empty buildings every where but we can't use them because all we care about is money.

Gawd damn but that is just sad. Beyond sad.

Granted, the thread has taken on a different tone but I have to comment on this claim that we are ‘losing’ out humanity. That is completely backwards. If you take a look at history you find that there are atrocities that happened all the time far worse than anything even remotely comparable to modern society. Preventing the homeless from sleeping in an area certainly does not compare with the fact that we, as a nation, thought it was just fine for a man to own another man. That was not that long ago.

Go back to the Greeks and the Romans who practices human sacrifice in mass. Who reveled in watching people killed and eaten by wild animals. Have you ever seen the Coliseum in Rome? It is MASSIVE and dedicated to merciless slaughter. Look at the outrage the US faced and fallout from its ‘torture’ program. If you go back a thousand years or so, that was child’s play. Some of the things that were done during the dark ages are downright unimaginable. The machines developed for nothing other than pure pain show exactly how dark people can be. The Iron Maden? The ‘Bear Claw.”


To be quite frank, I think that people’s ‘humanity’ as you call it is completely dependent on the available resources. In the past, those resources were not nearly as abundant and comfort was simply not something that you had by today’s standards. In that world, you might just not have the same compassion that we have today. If anything, our ‘humanity’ is increasing constantly. As we become more advanced, resources and comfort are more abundant we notice more and more the destitute and wish to help them.

 

[FA_Q2]

The best way to help people is to donate time and not necessarily money. There are many worthwhile causes in your own backyard if people just take the time to find them. Get out and meet the real homeless, poor, disenfranchised people. Encourage others to do the same. There is whole other world out there you cant conceive of if you have never gone a day without eating.

Very true. I will NOT give a pan handler money – they have proven that they are not using t effectively by panhandling in the first place. Food, on the other hand, I give out whenever I have some extra.

I used to donate my time at a homeless shelter in Los Angeles. It opened my eyes to the homeless and the realities of it. To be fair, SOME there were truly in need. They cared and wanted to improve or get out of their situation. Very few simply were incapable. Many, though, were perfectly capable of working but thought it was not something that they needed to do. Rather, the world OWED them something. Those same people would hide their booze in the bushes before going in and then complain that the food was not good enough for them. A few would yell and scream at the man that ran the shelter because they had to sit through a sermon (it was a church ran shelter) and then we served them food they did not like. One, right after complaining about the food and yelling obscenities at the staff, told me I just didn’t understand how hard it was. Bullshit, if it was that hard you wouldn’t be turning down good food for free.

I have been there myself. I was homeless for the better part of a year. It is tough but you can get out of it if you are willing to work. The problem is many are simply not. A sad situation to be sure but what can you do with someone that is not going to take care of themselves anyway.

 

[Missourian]

Anti-homeless spikes installed in posh London neighborhood spark outrage ? RT News
London Mayor Johnson calls for 'ugly, stupid anti-homeless' spikes to be removed ? RT News

One can't help but wonder if Luddly invites homeless people to sleep on his sofa.

I don't have homeless sleeping on my sofa but we do currently have a single mother and her son living rent-free in a rental house we own. That's not much, I know, along with what we give to the homeless shelter, but its what we can afford.

I just don't believe the answer is in making their lives even harder.

Kudos to you, but...

There is a ninety percent chance you will be burned by this arrangement.

 

[S.J.]

Few things piss me off more than seeing a guy who is younger than me, not physical handicapped, and could easily get a job, asking me for money (especially when I'm at a gas station, paying $4 a gallon to drive my car to work). FUCK YOU, BUDDY!

 

[Peach]

There is a spot near the 90 freeway that always has a homeless person with dog and a sign saying "I can steal or beg." I've seen more than one person at that spot, same sign same dog. One day I was waiting to get on the freeway when a man walked up to the man holding the sign, took the sign and the dog's leash. After a few words, the guy who had been holding the sign left for the bus stop. I realized I had just seen a shift change!

Real heart warming example there. I see "will work for food". A couple times gave the person flyers for a high school play, and flyers for my local food bank, that I was supposed to hand out; another time, had a guy get my groceries into the car, and the guy picked out some fresh fruit, and some snack food. I tipped him also. All three men worked. No, I didn't watch the guy s with the flyers, I was going into a mall, when I came out, both times the guys were still there, trying to hand out the flyers.

 

[billyerock1991]

We lost it a while back. Well, a lot of you did.

you of all posters talking about compassion when you say we don't need food stamps ... we don't need to pay for school lunches ... then you try to come across as a person who knows what life is all about??? really!!! give me a break ...

 

[S.J.]

We lost it a while back. Well, a lot of you did.

you of all posters talking about compassion when you say we don't need food stamps ... we don't need to pay for school lunches ... then you try to come across as a person who knows what life is all about??? really!!! give me a break ...

Careful, billyerock, this is the Clean Debate Zone. You don't want to get banned, do you?

 

[billyerock1991]

Help them with an opportunity to earn money. If they turn it down, walk away. 9 times out of 10 they will turn it down.

they turn you down because they are home less ... if they get killed nobody will fend for them ... just another body in the morgue ... they don't know if you're some kind of serial killer who gets their jollies by killing people ... how do they know if you are for real offering them a job ... how do they know that you're not trying to get your rocks off by killing them ... you just assume they are lazy ... that ninth one out of ten that went with you, didn't know any better ...