Did you almost give? I didn’t.
I saw a commercial the other day that caught my eye–probably because I don’t usually watch TV. It was filmed in black and white and the message was “Don’t Almost Give” as illustrated by a homeless family sleeping in their car.
The commercial was so good at inducing guilt that I went and checked out the website.
That commercial came to mind again quite recently as I watched a begging older man on the 16th Street highway off ramp onto W Street weave through rush hour traffic to take a can of diet cherry Pepsi from someone who felt the need to give. Or was it almost giving?
Do you think that begging guy wanted the diet cherry Pepsi? Maybe he prefers diet Coke. I wonder what his story is–obviously he can walk, he has all his limbs. He appears to be in his right mind, other than the fact that he has a piece of cardboard that says “Please Help.” How kind of him to ease the donor’s guilt by accepting a soda he may not even like.
At a recent CHP safety presentation, an officer there said that begging along the freeway is quite profitable. Did you know that? The daily haul can be as much as $500. No taxes, no boss. With that kind of “profit”–who can afford to work? The begging guy is most definitely in his right mind. It’s those of us who struggle to make ends meet working 9 and 10 hour days for a difficult boss who are NOT in our right minds.
Spare any change?
Related posts:
It is nice to hear, Ursula, you don’t or try not to feel guilty about the situation because I don’t think you should.
Charity would not be needed in a society without poverty, would it? (I realize it is an oversimplification) But, if that were the case, what would the churches do and be proud of without being able to solve the problem many of the voters attending them created even though inadvertently? What am I talking about? A vicious circle of sorts that looks something like this:
>>> The meme needs to survive and spread (churches) >>> Formation of Religious, conservative outlook via indocrination (i.e. Christian fundamentalism) >>> Voting conservatively (Republican in the U.S.) >>> Reducing government involvement, cutting social programs >>> Increasing income disparity (resulting from conservative internal policies) >>> More poor people >>> Churches helping the poor via charitable activities (addressing only the symptom not the cause) >>> Increasing the churches’ influence and popularity + many more adherents to join >>> churches survive and spread >>>…
…And so it goes on…
And then, of course we have someone write a “masterpiece” (cough, cough) like this -
- Who Really Cares: The Surprising Truth about Compassionate Conservatism (by Arthur C. Brooks)-
…that is loudly applauded by many who don’t seem to realize they are only confirming the fact that the vicious circle like the one I outlined above is all of their own doing. Somehow they manage to view themselves as heroes and saviors. Silly, really!
Kindness is certainly one of the virtues; charity doesn’t appear to be among them. Charity is more like a symptom a wealthy country like the United States should not exhibit because it implies a recipient in terrible need of help.
Those who continuously perpetuate the problem and then unsuccessfully attempt to solve it with various random acts of “kindness” over and over again need to worry about it, not the “others”.
There are real solutions for social ills like poverty and trying to resolve them only through charity in the U.S. scenario, for instance, is akin treating a plague patient with Aspirin to reduce the fever and headache, instead of administering Streptomycin to kill Yersinia Pestis, the bacterium causing the disease.
But then again some have a “guidebook” that states:
“He causes all both small and great, rich and poor, free and slave…” - in short one can’t go against Him, right? Should keep the world the way He designed it.
The slave owners and traders already tried it.
Maybe we could resolve the matter of “rich and poor” differently this time around? No?