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Homeless people
Feb. 22nd, 2006 09:27 pmWhen I visited L.A. last spring, there was a guy wandering around Venuys (sp?) Beach, jingling a cup and singing, "Jingle Bell, Jingle Bell, help me get drunk!" I gave him some change.
There's a guy on the Plaza that asks people for a down payment on a hamburger. The first time I heard him say that, I gave him a dollar.
When I told a group of people I was hanging out with on Monday about these two incidents, I was surprised by the response I got. Two of them were horrified that I was contributing to the booze fund of a homeless guy, and two of them immediately started hollering that the "down payment on a hamburger" guy isn't really homeless, he has a house in Brookside, he's just ripping people off, etc.
I don't see this as helping out a dude on the street. I don't see it as contributing to a decline into drunkenness. And I don't see it as allowing myself to be ripped off. I see it as paying for entertainment, much as I might drop some money into a musician's hat or stick a quarter in a slot machine. These men thought up funny lines and delivered them well. They made me laugh, and that was worth some spare change to me. Whether they're really homeless or what they planned to do with the money is irrelevant to me. I am paying them because they amused me.
I'm curious as to how many people consider this immoral. What do you think?
There's a guy on the Plaza that asks people for a down payment on a hamburger. The first time I heard him say that, I gave him a dollar.
When I told a group of people I was hanging out with on Monday about these two incidents, I was surprised by the response I got. Two of them were horrified that I was contributing to the booze fund of a homeless guy, and two of them immediately started hollering that the "down payment on a hamburger" guy isn't really homeless, he has a house in Brookside, he's just ripping people off, etc.
I don't see this as helping out a dude on the street. I don't see it as contributing to a decline into drunkenness. And I don't see it as allowing myself to be ripped off. I see it as paying for entertainment, much as I might drop some money into a musician's hat or stick a quarter in a slot machine. These men thought up funny lines and delivered them well. They made me laugh, and that was worth some spare change to me. Whether they're really homeless or what they planned to do with the money is irrelevant to me. I am paying them because they amused me.
I'm curious as to how many people consider this immoral. What do you think?
