🚀 go-pugleaf

On 17 Oct 1998 11:45:37 GMT, Stefaan.Eeckels@ecc.lu (Stefaan A
Eeckels) wrote:

>In article <xzqu313pwwc.fsf@uni-paderborn.de>,
>	Axel Boldt <axel@uni-paderborn.de> writes:
>> darrow@oneillaw.com (O'Neill) writes:
> 
>>> On 16 Oct 1998 04:32:58 +0200, Axel Boldt <axel@uni-paderborn.de>
>>> wrote:
> 
>>> >If you are poor in the US, you live in a little self-built card board
>>> >home in the streets of Los Angeles. The police will come by regularly
>>> >and destroy the card board home. You are not allowed to beg for money
>>> >(recent city ordinance). As a single unemployed male you don't receive
>>> >any welfare payments. You don't starve because there are private soup
>>> >kitchens.
> 
>>> Hmm, I wonder where you get this information.
> 
>> New York Times, Public radio, some of it I've seen myself.
>You can see hobos in most train and subway station in European
>countries too. Some areas of Belgium, where the staunchly reactionary
>politics of each and every Belgian government have preserved 
>unviable companies at the expense of viable ones, have in excess of
>30% unemployment. People live in squalid houses. They all look
>to the state to do something about their situation; when interviewed,
>the stock phrase is: 'This (whatever they're asked about) is
>unacceptable, *someone* should do something about it'. The idea
>that *they* can do something about their own situation has 
>all but disappeared.
> 

yes, this learned helplessness is a huge problem.  So many people see
their lives as totally dictated by circumstances.  Anything that is
"hard" is unthinkable.  How many people say they want to better their
lives, but engage in self destructive behavior?

How many people say they want a stable operating system, and install
windows on their computers?  <a sneakly little effort to steer things
back on topic just a wee bit.>

>>> It strikes me as something you might see on TV.  
> 
>> I don't know, I don't watch TV.
>Many newspapers aren't much better :-) I don't know the situation
>in Germany, but most Belgian newspapers would disappear if they
>lost their subsidies. 
> 

You might say that newspapers have all but disappeared in this
country.  It's a minority of the people who actually read them, and if
you eliminate TV type newspapers such as USA Today, it's even fewer.


>>> 95 percent of the homeless are not homeless because they're poor, but
>>> because they're insane.  Under our constitution, we cannot
>>> institutionalize them against their will, because that's a deprivation
>>> of their liberty.
>
>> And so, honoring their liberties, you proceed to treat them in the
>> most degrading way possible. Does it also violate their constitutional
>> rights to offer them a place in a sheltered group home or sanatorium
>> for the mentally ill and to give them the medical drugs they need?
>My sister spend time in a sanatorium, where the doctors gave her
>debilitating drugs *against her will*, because they had decided she
>needed them. It's fairly easy to have a someone commited, and once
>you're in, you've got a hard time getting out (refusing drugs is
>proof that you're mentally ill). Don't forget doctors make a fat 
>living out of psychiatric hospitals. 
>

this is a good point you make.  I recently had a consultation where a
young man was institutionalized by his parents, who apparently felt he
was insane because he was about 22 years old, had dropped out of
school and had no clear direction to his life.  He told me that the
drugs they kept him on was the worst part.  His parents insurance
covered 90 days.  On the 91st day the doctors said he was ok to leave.

>> The fact is that society does not offer the poor mentally ill any
>> place attractive enough so that they would stay there out of their
>> free will. That is a problem of the society, not of the mentally ill.
>
>> And poverty is the root of the problem: if you developped severe
>> schizophrenia tomorrow, you would be treated properly and housed in
>> some institution till the end of your life, because your health
>> insurance or your family would pay for it. A poor guy with exactly the
>> same condition would end up in the streets, looking forward to daily
>> abuse by the police.
>> 
>> And as we are talking about constitutional liberties, what about the
>> right to free speech? Why are they not even allowed to beg for money?
>> Face it, the public generally hates the homeless. It sees them as
>> people too lazy to work.
>Some beggars are professionals. You're giving too much credit to
>'poor' people. Being rich doesn't make one a 'good' person in the
>moral sense, and being poor doesn't do that either. Many people
>are poor through their own stupidity, or greed. I worked with a guy
>who wanted to change jobs so he could cash his pension fund
>contributions and buy a new car. He wasn't mentally incompetent
>(he could write COBOL), and if he ends his life in misery, he
>(IMHO) doesn't deserve any special consideration. 
>

Moral judgments, apart from the judgment that one's duty to self and
family are paramount, are useless in these situations.  I don't count
other people's money, whether beggers or barons (except Bill Gates, I
count his money because he fucked up my computers and has wasted my
time).

>I am willing to help my less fortunate fellow man, but do not
>want to be told he's got a *right* to be helped (by having the
>state confiscate some of my earnings) and that he's somehow
>morally superior to me because of his 'poverty'. 
>

I believe that the government has not only the right but the duty to
provide the essentials of life to those who cannot supply it
themselves.  I would rather be taxed for humanitarian aid than for a
bloated military or for a 40 million dollar plus investigation into
the president's masturbation techniques.

I agree that the notion of entitlements is dangerous, whether it be
middle class entitlements or for the poor.

>>> For the most part, your scenario is not true.  To the extent anybody
>>> lives in cardboard boxes, it is for reasons other than the absence of
>>> governmental assistance.  Shelter is always available to families, and
>>> in most cities even to a single unemployed male.
>> 
>> Shelter of a quality which makes people prefer cardboard boxes. Go figure.
>The quality's OK, but most shelters insist you don't drink yourself
>unconscious, don't fight, and shower. Many street people resent this
>interference in their private life, and prefer to stay on the street.

this is the prevailing reason many homeless won't go to shelters.  

>I know a guy who flipped out, left his wife, kids, job, nice suburban
>house, and went to live on the streets. I've known people who've
>committed suicide - for no apparent reason. Not all hobos are 
>'victims of society'. 
> 

At least any more than anybody else.  There are plenty of middle class
victims of society too.  This issue has very little to do with money.
I think money is a sympton, not a cause.

>>> Singe unemployed males can and do receive welfare payments as well.
>> 
>> This is false. They can get Social Security if they are disabled, but
>> welfare is for families only.
>> 
>>> The rules on this vary from state to state, and most states now have
>>> some limitations.  But food and shelter are always available, no
>>> questions asked.
>> 
>> Provided by private charities, not by the state.
>Forced charity is better than voluntary charity? 

wouldn't it be nice if there were enough private charity to eliminate
governmental charity?

>Getting a handout from
>a civil servant is less demeaning than getting a handout from a well-off
>individual? 

it serves some people's purposes that way.

>Unemployed people are very aware of the fact that they
>get charity. It's not enough to make something a right (in law) to 
>convince people that it's not a handout.
>

it reminds me of the time that recipients of welfare here in New York
went on "strike"  for higher benefits.  !!!!