The Wal-Mart Problem

Originally Posted by mrnoodle

It's our responsibility as fellow humans to make sure the other humans in our sphere of influence are taken care of.

It's not the job of government nor of corporate entities.

Corporate entities are in the business of making money. Period. The purpose of government is something else again. Why do we have a local police force? To try to prevent law abiding citizens from being harmed by criminals. Why do we have an army? To protect our citizens from foreign aggression. We have government to "promote the general welfare," bottom line.

I am not going to argue that people should have a social conscience or an imagination or feel empathy. Been there, done that on this board.

What I have discovered is that arguing social conscience is like arguing religion. It seldom gets one anywhere. I find it especially interesting that so many fundamentalist Christians actually have very little compassion for the disadvantaged. Noodle's If she wants to turn her life around, that's great. But it's going to be an uphill battle, and the reason isn't because the rest of us are mean or selfish. It's because she did a bunch of stupid stuff. is a nice summation of the religous right's outlook (and the conservative outlook, in general).

I have often wondered why this should be so. I think people want to beleive that somehow life is fair and God rewards the good and punishes the guilty. This outlook allows a person to beleive he can remain safe from the slings and arrows of outrageous fortune by working hard enough and being good enough. It also has the by product of allowing the person who is well off to feel superior to those who are not - be they retards, drug addicts, whatever.

Whatever floats your boat, folks. I happen to disagree with this point of view. And I'm not going to beat a dead horse. Over and out.