Bad People Don't Deserve Your Help.

Wednesday, September 27, 2006

At first I didn't understand why some people actually have such a hardon for hating the unfortunate. I see this aimed at homeless people, poor people on welfare, drug addicts, troubled youth, illegal immigrants etc...

Homeless people for example, seem to be the object of great spite by many otherwise nice middle-class people. As soon as they see a homeless person they spit out invective poison at them. Yet the homeless are people who most of us really have no idea about. You don't know these people. You don't know if they are homeless because they are mentally ill, or because they ran away from a sexually abusive stepfather, or because they are just having a shitty spat of luck, or if they are just being "lazy". You know nothing about them, yet you automatically cast derision on them as a group, as if they all share some kind of common characteristic other than being homeless.

Then it hit me. The reason why you want to hate them is because then it's easy to not feel guilty about not doing anything to help them. You see, they are "Bad People" and bad people don't deserve your help, because they deserve what they get.

Who are bad people? Well let's see if I can make a list from memory;

Drug addicts, because they should have known when they were 16 that addiction was such a powerful force, and thus avoided giving in to peer pressure. And if they wanted to turn their life around they would just "buck up" and clean up their lives.

Teenagers who engage in unprotected sex, and thus get pregnant or get HIV. Again, because there is nothing more evil than a young person who is not acting like a responsible adult.

Welfare mothers, (their kids are also bad people since the Bible says that sins of the father shall be visited upon the son.)

Homeless pan handlers, because they get to loaf around all day getting handouts.

Illegal immigrants, because they have cheated our fair and balanced legal system and are letting themselves be exploited by American businesses.

Residents in the Developing World (or Iraq for that matter), because they are all just savages who want to do nothing but kill each other. None of them actually want to make a better life or change anything. They just like being slaughtered by rebel factions on Monday and government forces on Tuesday and then a natural disaster on Wednesday.

As you can clearly see, these are all Bad People, because good people have jobs. Good people don't do drugs. Good people don't make life-ruining choices when young. Good people have houses, they go to church, and they pay their taxes. Good people don't live in bad places, and they certainly don't stay there, since it's so easy to immigrate legally to where good people like us live.

How convenient that good people don't really need any fucking help, unless you consider lending them your hedge clippers or giving their kids a lift to the soccer game to be helping them.

So I've figured it out. It's the way you people deal with guilt. You can't handle just honestly saying you don't want to help those who are having a shitty life, after all, that would be Un-Christian (Un-Muslim, Un-Humanist, Un-American, whatever). Bad people get what they deserve and therefore you don't need to feel as bad about stepping over them when they are lying passed out on the street.

So give up trying to fool the rest of us with your long drawn out reason for why some unfortunate person is not worthy of your pity. Because you would save a lot of time by just being honest about the fact that you just don't want to give a flying fuck about anyone who actually requires real help.

It's okay, you're certainly not alone in that sentiment. You're in the company of a large number of other Good People ™.