I Ask You: Is our empathy for people growing?

The following letter appeared in The London Free Press, April 2003;

Needs-based society knows no limits

A wise man once observed, “If you put the bird food out, the birds will come.”

Why can’t politicians grasp this simple concept?

Restrict Hydro’s ability to prevent cutoffs and people with excuses not to pay for hydro skyrockets by more than 200 per cent. The excuses seem unlimited, their challenges too daunting, their ability to milk the system, uncanny.

For seemingly all the right reasons, London’s THAW program began as a modest $10,000 proposal only four years ago. The cost to the taxpayer has already soared well past $200,000, soon to be $300,000, with no end in sight. Of course the need is always overwhelming.

There is no end to a “needs”-based society. There is no end to the “sacrifices” taxpayers are asked to make to pay for it all.


[Link to "One little junco, so quiet"]

Can you imagine if the government ever got involved in other “essential” necessities of life, such as food, shoes, clothes, automobiles or dentistry? Where once there was “plenty” and “lots of choice”, there would soon be “countless needs, chronic shortages, lineups and waiting lists”, as we already see in social housing, education, health care and now utility relief.

Wisely, Quebec Premier Bernard Landry said, “If a small bird with a tiny brain can house and feed her young and look after herself, why can’t people?”

Robbie Smink, St. Mary’s

The following week I wrote a response to Smink’s philosophy of life in The Londoner.

Stay tuned for another episode of “IT STRIKES” Again.

Meanwhile, I ask you: Is our empathy for people growing?

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