[gyardley]

You can't possibly actually believe this.

When I'm doing volunteer work, I'm working for the interest of the disadvantaged. My synagogue collectively works for the interest of the disadvantaged through their social action programs. My town's interfaith food bank is run very well and addresses a collective problem without taking a dime of government support.

Government plays a role in helping the disadvantaged but it doesn't play the only role, it's not necessarily the most effective role, and since it involves taking money from people involuntarily, we should make damn sure the help's truly necessary and there's not a better, voluntary way to do it first.

[forensic]

It's disingenuous to say you're working FOR the disadvantaged. They aren't directing your activity and they have no power in the matter.

Government actually responds to the desires of the disadvantaged so the difference is infinite.

Volunteer organizations only serve a very, very narrow sliver of the disadvantaged, and they usually don't work to eradicate the disadvantaged but rather to exploit them to perpetuate their institutions.

The customer of the volunteer organization is the donor or charitable person. They dictate the behaviour of the organization. The product is the disadvantaged person, who is used in sales pitches and so on to convince the customer to hand over their credit card information.

Just because the disadvantaged are used by private charities to extract donations from the wealthy doesn't mean that the volunteer organizations are working FOR the disadvantaged.

Simple fact of the matter is that working for the disadvantaged would include a lot more responsiveness, a lot more prevention, a lot more intelligence, a lot LESS volunteer work and a lot more professional work. (volunteer work is poverty tourism 99% of the time--the poor don't need people handing out soup at soup kitchens. They just need money to buy their own soup and a social system that gives them some opportunity to become self-sufficient.)

[gyardley]

Your comment is bizarre.

First, if government has been responding to the desires of the disadvantaged all along, it would seem that a good portion of the poor and disadvantaged want to stay poor and disadvantaged. I don't believe that's the case - so either the government hasn't been responding to the desires of the disadvantaged or the government has been rather ineffective at it.

Second, your description of a volunteer organization is so ridiculously counter to reality, I'm certain you've never spent time working for one. Here's how something like a county food bank actually works: civic organizations (mostly churches, but also groups like the Rotary and Lions Club) organize food drives and solicit donations. Grocery stores and restaurants donate food as well. Volunteers sort and bag groceries and man the food bank during pickup hours - anyone who wants the food gets the food. (Other volunteers drive food to elderly or disabled people who can't make it in.)

No one is paid, no one even has the ability to handle credit cards, and no disadvantaged people are paraded around in fundraising pitches. Donations of food mainly come from everyday people, and are widespread throughout the community. We serve a lot of people in our county, not a 'very, very narrow sliver'. You calling the work done by volunteers 'poverty tourism' is just you being an ass.

As for whether the food bank encompasses 'prevention' - no, it does not. There are plenty of other community organizations that do, though. The biggest and most effective are probably the marriage counseling and parenting classes provided by local churches to their members.

[forensic]

Perhaps, when I say something quite abstract, I'm MAKING A POINT instead of, you know, ignorant of very mundane facts like what you are blabbing.

God the literalism in the software industry is just pathetic. It's like all you ever read is technical documentation.

I'm imagining you reading Camus and then trying to educate him on the dictionary definition of "absurd"

"Excuse me sir, but let me educate you about this extremely fucking obvious fact that everyone already knows while I completely miss your point because I'm dense as lead"