There is
something I have never understood: why is it that many people get angry when they talk about the poor? All
sorts of negative words come out of their mouths, such as lazy, freeloading,
tax burden, excuses. They usually relate an anecdote or two about someone they
knew—or heard of—who was cheating the
system. I get the impression that, somehow, they see poverty as an affront of some sort; something that
offends them at a visceral level.
Well, as
Jesus of Nazareth is quoted as saying, “The poor are always with you.”
So, I am
asking: why get angry about the victims of a state that appears to be endemic
to civilization? Why not, instead, get angry about the processes that put the
poor in the position they are in in the first place and the forces that keep them poverty-stricken?
That, it seems to me, is the only way
that any significant changes can be made to reduce the number of those who can’t
cope with the demands that civilization imposes on them.
Take this
story: I got it from the newspaper today. RB is a 50-year-old woman who suffers
from diabetes and failing kidneys, has had six heart attacks, is blind in one
eye, has Hepatitis-C, has a badly damaged arm, and needs a walker and a
wheelchair to get around. She has a grade three education. She lives on
$1,000/month in disability insurance. Three times a week she goes to the
hospital for dialysis treatment; each treatment requires her to be immobile for
four hours at a time. Add the time it takes to get to and from the hospital and
we are talking of about 6 or 7 hours—three times a week.
Did I mention
that she sometimes supplements her income by panhandling?
I know, I
know. I can hear it now: she should get a job. But, how many jobs are available
for a 50 year old partially blind woman with a host of medical problems, no
education to speak of, and is unavailable for work three days a week?
Often, when
I tell folks about people like this woman, they start spouting a lot of “should’aves.”
She “should’ave” done this, or that. Yet, everyone’s life is filled with “should’aves”
and “could’aves.” We sure are smart when it comes to looking in the rear-view
mirror. And, isn’t hep-C associated with drug use? So, how did she get it? As
if to suggest that there are moral reasons for disease (which, by the way, you
can pick up during your Caribbean vacation at
a luxury hotel).
I really
don’t get it. Why should I be angry at this woman if she approaches me on the
street asking for “spare change”? It doesn’t matter how she got into the
situation she is in: she’s there now. We don’t yet have time travel, she we can’t
send her back to grade three and tell her to stay in school. We cannot undo
what’s done. All we can do is deal with the present situation and make efforts
to reduce the likelihood of others in the future winding up in similar
situations.
Of course,
that’s called “molly-coddling” and “bleeding-heart” syndrome intermixed with
accusations of proposing “tax and spend” as well as probably being a “socialist.”
It often escalates to accusations that I am against business and want to tie
them up in red-tape, or, perhaps I am a “tree-hugger” who believes in lies like
“climate change” and other so-called “scientific stuff” like evolution. After
all, what makes me so smart?
I guess I
really am stupid, because I still can’t see how punishing the poor, cutting
what social services they do have, banning them from street-corners, and
condemning them from some self-righteous platform is helping anyone. Maybe
someday a political conservative can explain it to me in terms that I can
understand, but, I sincerely doubt it; any more than they could convince me
that the earth is flat.
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