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Politics : Al Gore vs George Bush: the moderate's perspective -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: cosmicforce who wrote (1566)	10/8/2000 12:05:32 PM
From: epicure	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 10042

When I went to Berkeley there were men living in the bushes at the university. They stank, they talked to themselves, and they were very clearly mentally ill. These men weren't making the same kind of "choice" to be homeless that you or I would make. You can say the same thing about the drug and alcohol addicted homeless. There are few treatment centers available, the waiting lists are long, and that assumes the homeless person is well enough to recognize they need treatment. There is a very real tension here, between societies need to treat people compassionately who cannot care for themselves, and the autonomy we are granted by the constitution. I don't know where the balance is- but certainly taking the approach that they need to get out of their boxes and get a job is just silly.

To: cosmicforce who wrote (1566)	10/8/2000 12:50:02 PM
From: Hawkmoon	Read Replies (2) \| Respond to of 10042

Did you know that many of these people used to be in mental institutions and were too nuts to participate in society? Of course I do Cosmic.... I see them all the time. And I saw them in Arizona shuffling up and down the streets down to their shanty towns in the Salt river basin carrying everything they "possessed" with them in trash bags. But those folks aren't who I'm talking about. I'm talking about ABLE-BODIED guys WHO KNOW THEY ARE HUSTLING PEOPLE for spare change because they are just blatantly too lazy to do physical labor. In a city, a panhandler can make upwards of $200/day and that's enough to live on, buy booze, an occasional crack rock when they don't have to pay a mortgage or make car payments. And it's just not blacks or hispanics who are panhandling... One of the most clever scams I've seen is a guy (usually white) in a decent outfit, who approaches you and tells you how his vehicle just got "booted" 4 blocks down the road and he only has $20. If he doesn't get another $20 within two hours his vehicle will be towed away. Now given in Washington, DC just about EVERYONE has either been "booted" (tire locked) or threatened with towing at least once, there is a great deal of sympathy (at least I felt a strong twinge of it) and folks usually drop them a $5-10 bill in order to help them out (after all, they appear respectable and look like they have a decent job, thus are trying to make it)... Anyway, yes you are quite correct. I recall walking my butt home one night in Tucson after an evening of self-lubrication and happening upon a homeless guy sleeping on a bus stop bench (it was enclosed). Since I was taking some funky sociology course at the time, taught by a marxist-leninist femi-nazi (which is not a oxymoron, btw.. :0), I had this sudden desire to find out what this guys story was.. So there we sat for a couple of hours BS'ing (I was upwind, of course.. :0) drinking a few of the beers I had brought with me. Turned out the guy (claimed he) had been in the military, in Vietnam, was a licensed plumber who had 4 kids. He had gotten divorced and was essentially bankrupted by his ex-wife and just said the hell with all, he didn't want to own anything ever again, or be tied down by responsibilities. So he was homeless by choice, having opted out of the current system. An example of the modern day "hobo", who could have participated and probably done quite well, but for whom the pressures of work, and responsibility had become too much of a burden. So the question that we came down to was... was he crazy for wanting to be free from the "rat-race", or was I crazy for wanting to participate in it.... And which one of was the one who was truly mentally ill.... . . . . Something to think about....