Poll

MSN news invites readers to take a vote, "Should the U.S. government charge citizens for their evacuation from Beirut, Lebanon?"

The vote choices are:

1. Yes, nobody should get a free ride.
2. No, these people have suffered enough.

53% of the 11,205 voters choose option number 2. Sounds heartless, doesn't it, to make suffering people pay for help from their government, in time of emergency. The choice is between "freeloaders" and "suffering people", um...

The news article about the evacuation, tells us the people are American citizens. As citizens of the US of A, do they pay Income taxes? If they pay Income taxes, they are not getting a "free ride". If they don't pay Income Taxes, why not? Did they choose to go on Vacation in a war torn area, despite the strife? Or were they there prior to the fighting started? Students? Dual Citizenship? Um...

Don't know the cost of traveling to Lebanon on vacation, nor how much a student will need to pursue Education in that country. Seems to me, those people must have a bit more money than US citizens that don't have the luxury of traveling or studying abroad. If there wasn't an emergency, they would be paying their own cost of leaving. If they have chosen to have Dual Citizenship, it seems they might also be wealthy enough to pay for their own airfare or cruise out of the country.

Compare that to the taxpayers in the US. Down on their luck, they are now considered "criminals", simply because they lost their housing and are homeless. Many of those who voted for option #2 "they've suffered enough", would most likely choose option #1, if the question was about services for the homeless population. If "suffering" is the criteria to judge if people should pay for services, were taken into consideration when authorities are dealing with thee homeless problem, there might be a change of attitude. Ability to pay, methinks, should be what guides the decision about charging for Evacuation Services.

People often say the homeless chose to be homeless. The person's in Lebanon planned a course of action that led them to be where they are. Many of the homeless are victims of circumstances beyond their control. They didn't plan or chose to be raped, for instance. Nor downsized, restructured, outsourced out of jobs. They truly didn't know what seeing babies slaughtered would do to their mental health. And so on. So my question is:

Should we help the homeless?

1. Yes, they've suffered enough.
2. No, no one should get a free ride.

LOL. This one came from a gypsywoman Poll page. The poll on that page came from my "Il Mis Dia" Blogger blog. Not many people took my poll; either here or at gypsywoman. I liked this post, so here it is, right back where it started from. moved 11/27/2007