I'm not sure it matters that much.
The number of people doing this is so vanishingly small that I'd characterize your opinion on the matter as peevish.
Insisting that people be consistent and that everything always be fair a regressive trait.
On the contrary, peddling injustice, no matter how small, is the first step in unraveling society.
If you'd characterize a semi-homeless person getting a free sandwich 'unjust,' then thanks for making my point for me then :-)
edit: grammar
This is not about unchosen homelessness and poverty; this is about people shirking responsibility because they don't like it. Stop changing the topic.
There are people playing by the rules doing immensely more damage to the world and to the economy.
I'm not particularly enamoured of 'the rules'. It's the lowest stage of moral development to insist on rigid adherence to each and every rule.
I take that to heart. Big picture a bum costs society basically nothing as long as he's not actively making trouble. Meanwhile you have successful people consuming huge amounts of resources while destroying immense amounts of societal value. See Sears and Eddie Lampert.
That's because you think of society in purely monetary terms. Socially, a bum that needs not be a bum, but chooses to be one, reduces social cohesion, makes people distrustful of necessary welfare programs, and unnecessarily inflates the homeless numbers.
No. It's simply not paying attention to people whose philosophy is inherently duplicitous.
> There are people playing by the rules doing immensely more damage to the world and to the economy.
Where did I say this man was damaging the economy? All I pointed out was that his philosophy (living away from the rat race is a good thing) is inconsistent. Please don't change the goalposts. I was having a discussion on living with integrity (having your actions align with your purported values), not economic damage / benefit.
I don't know you from anybody but I'm one hundred percent sure that you live with contradictions to your own values, no matter how carefully cultivated and adhered to.
I'm saying this to disparage you, because the same applies to me. In fact one of the hallmarks of humans is that they are inconsistent in their beliefs, morals values and so on.
If we were not inconsistent, then everything would be frozen in place and no change would be possible, so I see it as a good thing.
Sure, but for most of us they're not so glaring.
In New York City, there are thousands of "street homeless", despite there being tens of thousands of bed available in shelters.
In a lot of cases it's more about harm reduction (to themselves, and to the local community) then getting them fixed in a home. Cuz you're not going to rehab some of these people.
The tiny handful of people who are homeless because "they don't like the rules, man" are statistically irrelevant.
"Apparently the guy just wanted to live this way because he was sick and tired of the life he had earlier."
Thats not a rhetorical question, i mean it. There is balance to be struck between enabling everyone to live their life like they want to and having a standardized flow of goods and services that makes a "good life" possible for everyone.
In this case, i would say it is a thing that modern society should be able to handle and we shouldn't look after every penny. Those people are in the very minority and if they need help we should be able to provide them with the necessary things. But that is only an opinion of mine and there is a discussion to be had regarding the handling of those cases.
Putting that aside, a lot of folks seems far more attuned to 'cheating' at the very bottom of society than the (much more damaging) cheating elsewhere. Is someone eating almost-expired grocery store waste a bigger imposition on others than fraud? Tax evasion?
No, because they're supposed to be living off of daddy and mummy's labor, not mine. You see, trust fund kids have a trust fund, but the people who provided that money (mom and dad) typically have a lot of say in how its used. It's the same principle here. If a trust fundie went to a public soup kitchen, then yes I want a say, because that's my money.
Otherwise, no I don't really care that someone gave someone else money. Not my business. If the 'wild' guy in the comment found an independent patron to provide him everything he needed, I'd say go for it -- that's a great business to be in honestl.
> Putting that aside, a lot of folks seems far more attuned to 'cheating' at the very bottom of society than the (much more damaging) cheating elsewhere.
That's not true at all. You just haven't made a proper comparison. Trust fund kids aren't stealing anything from me. That money is not mine. It was their ancestor's and now it's theirs. If they were taking my money then that would be unfair.
> Is someone eating almost-expired grocery store waste a bigger imposition on others than fraud?
I have no idea how this relates
> Tax evasion?
Tax evasion -- not paying taxes that are owed -- is against the law, and ought to be prosecuted, including with jail time. I don't think that my country (America) typically goes easy on those who flout tax law, but in general, I support law enforcement universally, and I would support cracking down on those breaking tax law and building more jails to house them.
Soup kitchens are funded with private donations more often than not these days.
Again the poor are scrutinized more in this area than the rich. The rich move their money offshore and use expensive lawyers and social connections to make this happen.
Insisting on locking up poor people for tax evasion is a terrible idea, most of them don't owe much tax anyway. It would cost you more of your money to lock them up than it saves.
Once society really starts to go after the rich for tax evasion, then arguments like yours might become more credible, but even then I'd never be in favour of locking up poor people for unpaid taxes. It's disproportionate and counterproductive.
Sometimes people are going to cheat, and it won't seem fair. It's not worth disturbing your peace of mind over it.
Source? For a long time the irs didn't investigate taxes for discrepancies under a few hundred thousand which seems to favor the poor.
The 'tax evasion' you cite is (moving money) is legal. It is not tax evasion. No one, rich or poor, should be punished for doing something legal at the time they did it. Congress should change their laws
...whereas no one ever asked us if we should fund the lifestyle of those who are voluntarily homeless.
There is a world of difference between giving your nest egg to your kids when you die, and living off of the state.
I submit that the kid and the voluntarily impecunious are morally identical - neither is personally adding any value, they're exploiting arrangements neither of them made to continue their lifestyle while producing nothing.
Also, food banks != the state. The one I volunteer at is a church distributing food that's nearly expired, donated by stores who would have tossed it otherwise. It appears win-win-win to me and is taking nothing from you. Do you have a problem with that?
The donations are typically given with the understanding they are helping those in need, not those who want to be in need.
> The one I volunteer at is a church distributing food that's nearly expired, donated by stores who would have tossed it otherwise. It appears win-win-win to me and is taking nothing from you. Do you have a problem with that?
Then why doesn't they guy simply to go to the store and offer to take their almost expired food? My guess is that they wouldn't give it to him because they'd want him to pay. The food is given to food banks for those in need. Someone not really in need taking it lowers the amount available for those truly in need, artificially signals to donators that more food is needed, and violates the consent of those giving the food for the truly destitute.
The main defender of this point would've been better off taking the money earned during the time writing his comment, donating it to a shelter (because a lot of charity is not government funded), and never thinking about the issue again. Yet you can just see how it gets under his skin.
Well it's a fair trade off. Much of land has been commandeered by the state for the people in the rat race. So the homeless getting a meal from a homeless shelter doesn't seem so hypocritical.