Hurting the Homeless : What Would You Do In This Situation If You Were There...

reply to post by ProtoplasmicTraveler


I have to applaud your effort to help out someone in trouble.

And it came back to you without thought of your being repaid.

Truly something that rarely if ever happens.

I really wish I could tell you some altruistic story like that who was homeless.

Unfortunately, I cannot, it has never happened, at least nothing positive.

Each and every time I have ever tried to help it lead to someone misusing the money.

Sorry, if someone is homeless, I might give them a sandwich, if I had it.

I have done that.

But never cash.

Not again.

Far too many times have I seen it go to booze, drugs, or a con.

And I do not drink and my mom divorced my father for alcoholism.

I do not believe in illegal drugs.

But I commend you for what you did.

Originally posted by zooplancton
reply to post by ProtoplasmicTraveler

 

AMAZING story proto!!!
wow, people like you are what we need more of.
thank you for posting this. this made my night.
thank you.
friending you now.
-zoo

Your welcome my friend, it sounds trite I know, but what the world needs more of is just unconditional love.

So many of us become obsessed with conforming and living up to what are often impossible standards, that we come to resent those people who have chosen not to bother at all, or aren't trying as hard as we imagine they ought to be.

Everyone has a different cross to bear, and in my humble opinion we spend way to much time judging others, and holding others to standards we often can't even live up to ourselves.

It's not my place to judge other people, it's my place though to try to help others when and where I can and make the world a better place in the process.

Some of the homeless have dropped out, some don't have the skills or capacity to participate in the rat race, and some have been shut out through bad luck and misfortune.

They are all human beings though and our brothers and sisters, and if you can't wish your bothers and sisters well? Well...

The truth is each and everyone of us truly can make a difference in the world, the greatest challenge we face, is far too many of us don't believe that.

Thanks my friend.

Well, if it happened here in my town, and i was there, i'd probably do something that would get me locked up

You don't just go up to people and hurt them, especially the poor. How sick these kids are. Yeah i did some messed up stuff as a teen, but i never would have done anything like this to a fellow human being, especially a homeless one! These kids need to be locked up for a while.

reply to post by elcapitano75


My parents would have disowned me if I ever did something like that.

I was always being pushed into some "volunteer" situation.

Yes, I got "voluntold", by my parents.

Lectures, volunteerism, or reading I was never doing anything remotely as stupid as these teenagers, it was never, and will never be in my nature to be that stupid.

I see it as ignorant barbarism.

reply to post by SpartanKingLeonidas


I can appreciate your perspective my friend, and I don't blame you for being cautious in who you choose to help and why.

The truth is in my case I have no expectations of what people are going to do with their own free will.

I just consider everyone a part of my community and family so to speak.

I feel honestly that most of our life is fated, and that the universe actively puts us into situations and relationships and circumstances as a form of learning experience, but also kind of like gaurd rails and marker signs to keep us on that course towards fate.

I got up half way through this post to answer a meow at the door. A stray cat I have been feeding for a month now. I don't even like cats. Yet for some reason the universe wants me to be kind to this cat.

Maybe one day when I am feeding the demanding meowing little furball, and am delayed getting out the door to do that, the car that would have run over me on my bicycle now is no longer going to!

Who knows?

The homeless drunk who I gave 5.00 dollars too might be sharing that bottle with a happily drunk street urchin who might otherwise have been out to stick a knife in me.

Who knows?

Yet that cat who is actually pretty darn well behaved for a cat, might one day make a little girl or boy very happy, or that homeless man might have spent the 5.00 dollars on rice and beans to feed his hungry children for the next couple of days?

Who knows?

All I know is if I am in a poisition to help, I generally will.

I don't worry about policing the world, because let me tell you my friend, policing me? For-get-a-bout-it!

I hope things improve for you soon my friend.

reply to post by SpartanKingLeonidas


Yeah i did some mean stuff before, and i wasn't a very good kid. But this is just beyond being bad or mean, it's a freakin injustice.

Someone should make these kids homeless for a while, see how it feels, no money, no job, no hope. Or dress them up in girl's clothes and give them a public tazing. Seriously, these kids NEED a lesson, big time.

reply to post by ProtoplasmicTraveler


I just see things clearly and read people instantly in regards to intent.

I do not necessarily have any expectations except actually using the money for what it was meant for, if they're asking for money, for food, use it for food, or move on.

Yes, I agree, free will is necessary.

I just practice the free will to say no when I see the intent is not true.

People have told me before I'm completely heartless when I talk.

Sorry, I've had enough of people scamming, conning, or outright lying.

While yes, everyone is a part of a community, not everyone is a part of my family.

Only those who I select and or feel I can trust.

Fate?

Destiny?

I believe in both.

Your comment about situations, relationships, and circumstances hit home.

I agree.

I've learned a lot of hard lessons in my life.

And I hope I never stop learning although the difficulty level is in question.

Of course.

I love a challenge but I'm not stupid.

And I'm an animal person, cats, more so than dogs.

Policing the world is for Law Enforcement, the Military, or Intelligence Agencies.

I do however "police" my own actions and remember my responsibilities.

And "policing" Government in all capacities is the responsibility of citizens.

We both know Government sure as Hell will not be accountable to us.

While I am certainly not responsible for every Tom, Dick, and Harry, I do sure remember my actions may just enable the next drug users, which may overdose.

But we both have differing opinions about recreational drugs.

I say if we're going to War on Drugs eradicate the source.

Otherwise we're wasting our tax money.

Back to the homeless.

If I saw this happening I would put on my Drill Sergeant voice.

And scare the crap out of these teenagers after dialing 911.

Then I would see how the situation went from there.

[edit on 5-8-2010 by SpartanKingLeonidas]

Originally posted by ProtoplasmicTraveler


All I know is if I am in a poisition to help, I generally will.

Thats the approach I take as well. If I can give or help, I do. For me, there is also a "feeling" I heed though. If the feeling says help, I do, no matter what the circumstances. No matter what I think they will do with what I give them. If the feeling says "not this" I dont, no matter how bad it might look to others.

I let that inner compass guide me, and usually it does guide me to help or give, but not always. There have been a few times where the message I have gotten is to politely decline and walk away. Dont know why, but I dont question that guide. The few times in my life I have declined to listen I have lived to regret it.

Originally posted by Illusionsaregrander

Originally posted by ProtoplasmicTraveler


All I know is if I am in a poisition to help, I generally will.

Thats the approach I take as well. If I can give or help, I do. For me, there is also a "feeling" I heed though. If the feeling says help, I do, no matter what the circumstances. No matter what I think they will do with what I give them. If the feeling says "not this" I dont, no matter how bad it might look to others.

I let that inner compass guide me, and usually it does guide me to help or give, but not always. There have been a few times where the message I have gotten is to politely decline and walk away. Dont know why, but I dont question that guide. The few times in my life I have declined to listen I have lived to regret it.

Paying attention to that sixth sense is a critical part in playing your role in life.

Lest we ever forget our learning and growth experience is the other person's too.

Real help isn't always what the other person wants, expects or desires in their specific request. What they perceive as being immediately beneficial to them, might not be of benefit at all.

However your reasoned and considered response might be precisely what the universe wishes, if you are paying attention to your sixth sense.

Instinct is usually a better guide than rationalization, because our rationalization can only utilize the sum total of our known experiences to formulate it.

However instinct can incorporate much more and is not just limited to those above limitations.

One of the greatest challenges we face is indoctrinated learning and media and goverment propaganda has instilled in us often a belief that self defeating, harmful or irrational things are rational, wise or politically correct.

In many cases this overrides the sixth sense and gut insinct and most people are even aware of that at that time and can feel that, but the peer pressure to conform and please is so overwhelming that people will and do often defy their inner nature to achieve those standards and the presumed absolution and respect that is inferred as being replete with that.

Tust in the force Luke, let your feelings go!

Thanks for sharing my friend.

If I saw that happening I wouldn't intervene but I would try to contact the proper authorities.

In my home town a group of teenagers beat a homeless man to death. They did it for "fun".

reply to post by SpartanKingLeonidas


I am likewise a shrewd judge of character, I know most people better than they know themselves, and know in most every circumstance what they are going to do before they even know it.

Yet there are two additional considerations. Even though I might not choose to pursue the same things, it doesn’t mean that it’s not vital for them to pursue those as part of their own important destiny. Two is every now and then people will surprise you and do the unexpected.

One of the things I struggled with early in life, because I did spend some significant time on the streets, and in other various rarified and challenging atmospheres was whether I was going to become cynical and jaded.

One day when I was still also in my late teens my mentor asked me, how I was internalizing my experiences, was I bitter, was I growing indifferent inside to the plight of others, because circumstances at times were so challenging it almost necessitated being indifferent towards myself.

I thought about that honestly, and I said no, I don’t feel I am. He was in his mid fifties, and then he asked, how to you think you will feel about it all though when you are my age, when most of your life is behind you?

I told him I hoped I would feel the same.

So for the most part I have been very successful using that as a yardstick and doing my level best to let the worst of life’s hard knocks and tragedies and obscenities and injustices witnessed roll off my back like water on a duck.

I ponder them, I consider them as they are going down and then I let them go. I try to keep a fresh, almost child like irreverence to the ‘serious’ side of life, knowing that hey, it’s not really all that serious because I am going to die one day eventually anyway.

I am not fighting a war on drugs, or terrorism, or teen age pregnancy, or anything else. I am not the government, I am not bound by it, I am not dependent upon them for my identity or perspective.

I have my own code that I live by, and the only law I consider is that code, and the only goals I have are my own.

Words like illegal, immoral, unlawful, are just concepts, ones where often what you see on the surface is the opposite when you probe the soft white underbelly, the biggest criminals I have ever met, and let me tell you I have met some big criminals, are the people who make our laws. The most amoral people I have ever met, and let me tell you I have met some people without a shred of morality, are the ones who set our moral standards.

These are just ways to control and subjugate people and to subvert them towards an agenda that only serves those in control who are subjugating them.

I am my own Master, and that jobs filled!

I don’t feel there is anything wrong or improper about your perspective and ways, but neither do I feel there is anything wrong or improper about mine.

I honestly feel that most of what ails the world is just a lack of communication that could lead to mutual understanding and a true understanding, and a true respect.

Ultimately I can’t respect others without first being able to respect myself, and that requires I live my life in a fashion and by a code I can respect, and that’s just what I do, and I advise everyone to do the same, and honestly feel if you have to look to the government or religion for that code and direction your in trouble, likewise if you just base it on the narrowest set of circumstances and examples instead of the broadest.

The law of averages will lead people to a realistic common denominator if they just first consider the entire scope and the parameters in which things exist betwixt and between.

Thanks my friend.





[edit on 5/8/10 by ProtoplasmicTraveler]

www.wtvn.com...

Reynoldsburg police say there are some "rumblings" about possible suspects in the beating of a homeless man, but so far, no arrests to report.

Robert Wirtz is known by residents who have seen him walking the streets of Reynoldsburg for hours at a time.

Monday morning, the owner of Connell Hardware on Main Street found Wirtz laying on the sidewalk. According to Reynoldsburg Police Lt. Jim O'Neill, Wirtz had been beaten to the point of being incapacitated.

O'Neill says police have never had any problems with Wirtz, but knows there are some businesses that don't want him sleeping around their property. And, while O'Neill says Wirtz poses no danger to himself or the community, "some might find him scary or outwardly menacing".

Wirtz is hospitalized in stable condition. Friends and well-wishers have started collecting donations to help pay his medical bills.

---------------

(Dont know how to snippet)

This happened in my neighborhood, I know John (Known as Robert Wirtz in this article for some reason) personally. We called him Reynoldsburg's Jesus, hes a great guy and until recently looked like those photos of jesus.

Myself and my brothers happened to know who the guys who attacked him were and yes we did "intervene" and very harshly. No one deserves that treatment, especially a man who has been traumatized in a war for our country.

[edit on 5-8-2010 by The Bear Man]

[edit on 5-8-2010 by The Bear Man]

Originally posted by kj6754
If I saw that happening I wouldn't intervene but I would try to contact the proper authorities.

In my home town a group of teenagers beat a homeless man to death. They did it for "fun".

Each person reacts as to their ability.

Do what you can when you can.

And let no one tell you have done wrong.

Except if you were one of those monsters in the video.

I do not see anyone on ATS as capable of those monstrosities.

reply to post by ProtoplasmicTraveler


And this is why you and I are friends.

Whether we agree, disagree, or come to some sort of neutral stance.

I agree about your additional considerations.

People, unfortunately, have stopped surprising me.

And doing the unexpected in my presence gets my ire if it is the wrong "unexpected".



I keep trying to stop being cynical and or jaded.

At age 13 I was told I was as cynical as a 30 year old by a 45 year old.

I was taught to internalize everything.

Eventually, I learned how to stop doing that, and externalize things.

Creativity is necessary of course.

While yes, I am not specifically "fighting" a "War on Drugs", my Government allegedly is supposed to be doing so, according to our countries policies.

I do hold my Government accountable to those actions.

Even if they neglect doing so themselves due to a lackadaisical and duplicitous foreign and domestic policy, because these allow them to bypass the citizens.

While yes, I am not specifically "fighting" a "War on Terror", my Government allegedly is supposed to be doing so, according to our countries policies.

I do hold my Government accountable to those actions.

Even if they neglect doing so themselves due to a lackadaisical and duplicitous foreign and domestic policy, because these allow them to bypass the citizens.

And a plan where they intend on screwing all free people because they can.

Teenage pregnancy?

That's easy.

Don't want to get pregnant as a teenager?

Keep your legs closed or use contraception.

I'm not fighting that fight nor am I paying for those consequences.

While I am certainly not "Government" I pay tax money for accountable actions.

And I expect the money I pay to go exactly where it was intended.

Otherwise, that is theft, fraud, or embezzlement.

I do not need Government just as I am sure you do not.

Government in my estimation is a huge broken joke.

Both you and I run by our own codes.

Government has a way of doing things which sets us up to be a criminal through attrition.

Eventually.

The biggest criminals are at the top of the heap and that involved all of Washington D.C.

1600 Pennsylvania Avenue is where the number one criminal resides.

But the Secret Societies above, around, and revolving around him are active criminal empires.

Political Currency : Secret Societies, Those They Blackmail, and the Corrupt Currency...

All public service should be voluntary and non-paid.

Like you, I am my own master, I serve no one but myself.

But we both know no "public servant" will volunteer free work.

Not a politician.

And this is why the homeless are homeless.

This is why healthcare sucks.

As well this is why Social Security is nothing more than a Ponzi Scheme.

Because those bastards in office know nothing of the common man or woman.

Except as a means to have someone to fleece.

[edit on 5-8-2010 by SpartanKingLeonidas]

Thanks for sharing. Wonderful video. Gives everyone a little bit of hope.

I would positively absolutely intervene. How I would intervene would depend on the circumstances, but I would intervene.

I was homeless for 18 Months, 1 FACT 99% Of People Don't Realise Is That Alcohol IS A DRUG So So Caled Decent People With Their Wine Are Druggies to ...

I would grab the nearest thing I could find for a weapon and make them happy they'll be going to jail. If you just walk away, you're just as guilty as the people doing the actual attacking.

reply to post by Skid Mark


Thank you, people are constantly guilty of this. TV experiments proven.
second line (first time!)

reply to post by SpartanKingLeonidas


Quite some years back my kids and I were waiting for a bus and a homeless man just started talking to us. It turned out he was a doctor, divorced with 3 kids, spent most of his life studying as well as a specialist in orthopaedics. He said his brain just one day shut down. We brought him a beautiful lunch and spend a couple of hours with him and we talked some more. Probably one of the kindest men I've met. He never asked us for anything but we parted with smiles on all our faces.

I see some of them as opportunists who just don't want to work. It is very easy for most of them to hold a job and do it right. They do not have to be dirty and smelly because there are places where one can take a shower. Their clothing does not have to be dirty because the change they can get from a little panhandling, can get them a load the at the local washing place and some soap. With clean clothes, you can easily hold a job at a McDonnalds for some income. Millions eat "clogger" everyday, and I am sure minimum wage is better than no wage. They do not have to go hungry.

This of course does not give anyone the right to treat any other human being like crap. Here in San Diego, the homeless are treated like crap, but mainly by the police. I used to talk to several homeless people and they all say the same. One example is when I used to work in PB a homeless who used to have a gig around were I worked was getting paid 20 bucks a day for 5 hours to hold a pizza sign at the corner. He used to tell me how the Police would pull over and tell the homeless to get in the car because he would take them some place in downtown were they will get some warm food and a bed to sleep in.

When they reached downtown, the Police would pull over in random spot and drop them off telling them to stay out of PB, that they are not wanted there. The cop would say that he better not see them over there anymore.

Crazy. The homeless do need our help, but they need to help themselves out as well. Life is hard, and to some it is harder. Still, the Earth provides, and there is no reason to stay within city limits to try and survive unless you are trying to get into the system. I am sure it is possible to survive off the land if need be.