From: hjkhjkhd@hhhh.com
"Martha Bridegam" wrote in message
news:Sfo7i.6465$C96.632@newssvr23.news.prodigy.net...
> ROBBIE wrote:
>> "Martha Bridegam" wrote in message
>> news:CLD6i.11655$rO7.9975@newssvr25.news.prodigy.net...
>>> ROBBIE wrote:
>>>> "Martha Bridegam" wrote in message
>>>> news:hMu4i.1625$u56.1088@newssvr22.news.prodigy.net...
>>>>> ROBBIE wrote:
>>>>>> "ROBBIE" wrote in message
>>>>>> news:q6Sdnd6w1-P3n83bnZ2dnUVZ8v2vnZ2d@bt.com...
>>>>>>> "Martha Bridegam" wrote in message
>>>>>>> news:_HK3i.21299$YL5.17267@newssvr29.news.prodigy.net...
>>>>>>>> ROBBIE wrote:
>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>>> ...I am not an addict. Addicts cannot Go Without. I am an abuser,
>>>>>>>>> different matter entirely.
>>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>>> But I find it fascinating that you simply don;t want to look at
>>>>>>>>> the nuances of personal behaviour. Yet surely this is a way of
>>>>>>>>> getting beyond vagaries. You like to look at the shelter system
>>>>>>>>> with a macro lens but you smear vaseline all over it when it comes
>>>>>>>>> to the people who use it. Why?
>>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>> It's not necessary to approve of people morally to treat them as
>>>>>>>> human beings.
>>>>>>> So your crowning intellectual achievement is one-eyed amorality.
>>>>>>> Bully for you!
>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>
>>>>>>> The impulse to judge between the deserving and undeserving is
>>>>>>>> strongest in people who are overanxious to prove they belong on the
>>>>>>>> wielder's end of the stick.
>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>> By your own logic, the impulse not to judge between the deserving
>>>>>>> and the undeserving is strongest in people who are overanxious to
>>>>>>> rid themselves of a misplaced guilt. Of course, if you hadn't been
>>>>>>> middle-class/harvard, you wouldn't be helping any of them in the
>>>>>>> first place.
>>>>>>>
>>>>>>> I've nothing against the homeless - i've helped enough of them and
>>>>>>> talked to them as well - except when they want to abuse me and shout
>>>>>>> in my ear when I'm trying to get to work and they're lying in the
>>>>>>> street drunk. I don't mind some money being spent on giving them
>>>>>>> shelter (though you should understand that I'm working my arse off
>>>>>>> in London and can barely afford a bedsit, and nobody's piping up on
>>>>>>> behalf of the deserving worker that finds himself outside the big
>>>>>>> unionized 'key worker' housing schemes) but I wouldn't want to live
>>>>>>> next door to it and I would argue that people should be moved on
>>>>>>> from it if they're just going to carry on as they were being a
>>>>>>> public nuisance. Most liberal/left legislators would be all for it,
>>>>>>> but would contrive to live far from such a building. You, mad with a
>>>>>>> thirst for righteousness, wouldn't be happy unless you lived on top
>>>>>>> of it (sorry, in a bunker underneath), but you cannot be surprised
>>>>>>> if the orderly and law abiding want to avoid the company of
>>>>>>> sociopaths.
>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>> Which brings up one of my earlier questions: since the denial of
>>>>>>>> shelter is so widely considered a therapeutic incentive to
>>>>>>>> treatment for addiction, why not evict all housed people who have
>>>>>>>> untreated addictions until they comply with treatment?
>>>>>>> Because their behaviour hasn't landed them in the streets, where,
>>>>>>> you surely agree, it becomes a public problem. You won't accept this
>>>>>>> because, as we;ve said, you go to some lengths to avoid thinking
>>>>>>> about how people end on the street in the first place. Your
>>>>>>> insatiable thirst for righteousness freezes an intellect which
>>>>>>> otherwise seems to be very active.
>>>>>>>
>>>>>>> If sleeping in doorways is such a
>>>>>>>> benefit to the poor, why should it be denied to everyone else?
>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>> /M
>>>>>>> 'Inside the head of every revolutionary there is a policeman.'
>>>>>>>
>>>>>>> You remind me of Hitchens Minor, who accused me in an email row
>>>>>>> about censoring the word nigger - he wanted it censored from old
>>>>>>> films on TV - of wanting to *insert* swear words in the works of
>>>>>>> authors who didn't use them. It's funny how mad lefties and mad
>>>>>>> lefties who've swung completely to the opposite, have the same wonky
>>>>>>> hysterical logic.
>>>>>>>
>>>>>>> ROBBIE
>>>>>>>
>>>>>> Ah; the usual. Silence. It's supposed to mean contempt, isn't it? But
>>>>>> why don't you just answer the questions?
>>>>>>
>>>>>> ROBBIE
>>>>> You first: what's your position on the ice cube suggestion?
>>>>>
>>>>> /M
>>>> Could you ask it again in plain English and I'd be pleased to answer? I
>>>> saw something about ice cubes but your joke/allusion has gone over my
>>>> head.
>>>>
>>>> ROBBIE
>>> If the hardships of sleeping outdoors are such a powerfully therapeutic
>>> inducement to seek treatment for addiction or mental illness, and if the
>>> threat of such hardships is such a marvelous way to make residents of
>>> shelters follow instructions for Their Own Good, then is it quite fair
>>> that sleeping outdoors is more pleasant in summer than in winter?
>>> Shouldn't sleeping outdoors always be made chilly and unpleasant -- even
>>> artificially if necessary?
>>
>> *I* wasn't being facetious but well well well...
>>
>>
>>
>>> Of course the real point is, the U.S. and UK both refuse to admit that
>>> competent people are ever left destitute.
>>
>> I didn't say that. I said that you put on smeary specs to examine the end
>> of the problem that you're sympathetic to.
>>
>> Some way is always found to
>>> disparage very poor people's level of competence. It's so everyone else
>>> can think "There but for my own greater sanity and self-discipline..."
>>
>> Well, maybe not everyone, but many, very many. It's obvious.
>>
>>> as opposed to "There but for the grace of God..."
>>>
>>
>> Wooh, where's that hard, unblinking, eye for truth you like to think you
>> have? Much more of this and you'll kneeling towards Rome...
>>
>> ROBBIE
>
> There but for fortune, then. Suit yourself.
>
> /M
I don't deny the vicissitudes of fortune, how could I? But there are lots of
nuances in those vicissitudes aren't there, and most of them won't be about
crops failing and other Steinbeckiania. I agree that the greed of landlords
is staggering and Wrong. In London, the greed of buy-to-let second property
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* Origin: you cannot sedate... all the things you hate (1:229/2)
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