The Red Pill

[wall_rus]

I'm afraid I have to disagree. Let me begin by saying that anything can be misused and/or abused. That being a given, the question for me is do the inhabitants of this country see themselves as individuals or members of a society? I believe the reality, no matter what view one has, is the latter. No one can exist in a vacuum.

In any society, there are the prudent, the practical, the aggressive and the lucky, but there are also the impractical, the imprudent, the passive and the unlucky. Do they deserve their fate?.....maybe....maybe not. Do the former have any obligation to the latter? One would perhaps like to say no, but unless you are willing to turn a blind eye to anyone who can't compete or has been unlucky......to anyone who is hungry or sick or old and alone......to let people die in the street, one has to realize that the strong, the winners, must have some compassion for the losers and the weak. After all, with a twist of fate, we could be that homeless person. That is the characteristic of a civilized society instead of a jungle.

On the practical side......because we are NOT willing to watch people die in the street, we wind up paying for their problems anyway....but we deny them dignity. I guess that's our way of punishing them for their misfortune. JMHO

This has been stated in several ways for over 100 years by various indiviuals, including (but not limited to) Churchill, Pope John Paul II, Dostoyevsky, Truman, etc.
Very recently by Cardinal Roger Mahony (1998):
"Any society, any nation, is judged on the basis of how it treats its weakest members ; the last, the least, the littlest."