General Discussion
In reply to the discussion: I gave ten bucks to a guy in the parking lot this morning. [View all]Journeyman
(15,031 posts)dealing with them? In the morally just universe you envision, how are you going to force someone to do what you believe is the right and proper thing for them to do?
My brother is hemiplegic; paralyzed on his left side. For decades, he insisted he could live on his own in his own apartment. My oldest brother and I had different thoughts, and we approached various lawyers and agencies to see what, if anything, could be done. The unanimous opinion: People have the right to live as they choose, people have the right to live in squalor. Until they pose a threat to others, or can be shown to be incapable of making decisions for themselves, people have a right to live as they deem fit.
Who are you and I to make such decisions for another person? Maybe they don't like your concept of shelter, maybe they disagree with my thoughts on what makes a meaningful existence. Who are we to force ourselves upon their lives?
You speak of mental illness, but how are we to determine who is mentally infirm short of rounding everyone up and subjecting all to a battery of tests? And what to do then, to the legions of the mentally ill we would find living lives of comfort and ease?
My brother, a brilliant biochemist before his accident left him brain injured, lived the next three decades with diminished capacities. But he knew, unerringly, when he was confronted with medical or social representatives who might threaten his position, and he would in those instances rise to the occasion and present a remarkably different persona. And this individual I speak of on the railroad tracks could do the same -- did the same often in talking with us. He was quite lucid, very self-aware, and highly perceptive. He just didn't want to live as we lived.
Who are we to impose ourselves on others? And when does an individual's desire to live distinct from the rest of us require our intercession?