[throw2016]

Its easy to label those who advocate for more empathy as 'leafy liberals' or hypocrites. But this this just a ruse to justify the lack of empathy for those who make this argument.

The immediate shift of the focus from those who are homeless and suffering to the consequences just confirms their priorities. They don't care about anyone else, they just feel entitled to a life without homeless people and that's what bugs them about homelessness. But no one promised you that. 100 years ago poverty and suffering was widespread but this got solved, not by complaining about their existance but with better policies and concern. Thats why modernity is associated by a more humane caring society compared to the past.

Dehumanizing others carries a great cost, you are just dehumanizing yourself and a society that has no value or concern for human beings is not a civilization. Homelessness cannot force anyone from left to right, these people were nowhere near left or liberal to start with. These are not labels for your personal living convenience, they stand for values and ideas.

[closeparen]

Hats off to anyone who truly empathizes and engages with deepest suffering of the world each time they go to buy groceries. I really mean it. I thought I would do that, I said things like you’re saying here, and when push came to shove I couldn’t. If the price of living in a city is to be some kind of monk, it’s not for me.

What I won’t respect is people who have simply chosen a different way of excluding the homeless from their community - car dependence - being sanctimonious about people in higher density environment wanting the same things.

[throw2016]

Empathy is the first step to action. if you were born 100 years ago this would be a fact of life, child labour, poverty, racism and homelessness was rampant. And economic downturns like the great depression brought these right back. How do you imagine these problems were solved?

Talking about liberals, hypocrisy and inconvenience is not going to solve anything and is not designed to. How is talking about car dependence going to solve the problem of thousands of homeless people in cities? This just highlights how without empathy the only problem people can see is how their own life is impacted.

But widespread homelessness is simply an early warning system telling you there is something broken in your society. Those without empathy will keep complaining about how their lives have been ruined by the existance of homeless people like HN has been doing for the last 5 years without any engagement with history, economics, policies or inequality and those with empathy will solve this like they have done multiple times before.