Hat tip to Scott Keyes of Think Progress who had this to say:
I don’t throw around the term “hero” lightly, but it takes a special kind of person to look at a homeless man on the street — with no home to stay warm in, little access to a shower or clean clothes, and few possessions — and decide that he’s got it too good. But Fox Business host John Stossel bravely took up that mantle Thursday morning during a guest appearance on Fox & Friends, warning viewers about the perniciousness of giving money to the poor.The things I have seen, that I wish I could share with this man.
I really wish I could sit down with Stossel and take him through some of the slum neighborhoods here in DC. I wish I could show him the things I've seen here. And I've only been here for four weeks. There are plenty of places in New York he could visit if he gave a damn.
I wish I could take him on a tour of the rural slums of Appalachia, to meet entire families living in almost total destitution, families who are proud when a family member manages to get a paying job at McDonalds, because she's the first one to get something quasi-permanent since the factory that employed their town closed down under Reagan.
I wish he could meet the woman I sat with, who local republicans expected to work until she died, who'd been a migrant farmworker her entire life. I wish he could see five generations of her family crammed into one room in a shotgun house. I wish he could see the extended families living in cramped apartments here in DC, or in NYC.
And I wish he could see what it's like, what it's actually like, for someone to lose everything, and have no support, no help, nothing.
I wish he could see how people treat the blue-outfitted Doe Fund workers, who clean up the mess left behind by drunk financial workers in the UES every morning, scrubbing vomit off the street, and collecting shards of broken bottles in front of swanky scotch bars and tapas joints.
But he's a libertarian. And I'm sure he'd respond with wilful, intentional ignorance.
The appalachian family should have followed the jobs, and left their town. Nevermind that the property they own there is literally the only thing they have, and previous generations literally worked themselves to death so that the family could afford to buy that tiny bit of property with its crumbling house.
The families in DC and New York? I'm sure he'd repeat that bullshit line I keep hearing from New Yorkers. "Do you really have to live in NYC?" I've even heard that here at DailyKos.
Yes, asshole. Somebody's got to staff the shops, and tend the bars, police the streets, clean up the trash, and walk your purse dog. You expect them to commute several hours a day just for the privilege to work minimum wage, or less, in your city?
The Doe fund guys? They're receiving charity! They should be grateful - GRATEFUL I SAY - to spend their time scrubbing up the vomit of rich New York drunks.
The panhandling woman who sobbed when I gave her a pound of grapes from my grocery bag? She's obviously choosing to be on the streets, what with all the wonderful charities this country has. Nevermind that food banks are empty, and the homeless shelters are full, and generally full of working people.
It's that same old moral bankruptcy we always hear from conservatives. Charity is sufficient, and besides, the poor deserve it.
It's not the fact that vulture capitalists are attacking this country, oh no, that has nothing to do with why so many Americans are struggling! These people are there because of the choices they've made!
Even if that were true, the idea that I should punish my brother for his failures rather than reaching out my hand to help him be successful is unamerican, unchristian, and inhuman. But that's the Republican Class war for you.
If conservatives want to keep touting this randist bullshit, they shouldn't consider themselves members of any of those three groups.
Here's the full video of Stossel on Fox and Friends this morning:
I'm going to go shower. After dealing with this man, I have a powerful urge to wash.