Panhandlers outside Walmart suck

[Drach]

You could have at least read the first sentence of the post before blithering your opinion.

I don't like to be hit up by anyone asking for money. I do make an exception for the homeless as we could be better people that feed and give basic shelter.

 

[Perknose]

I don't think I've ever seen a Hare Krishna out in the wild.

You must not frequent airports.

 

[sdifox]

I don't think I've ever seen a Hare Krishna out in the wild.

ISKCON Toronto – Toronto's Hare Krishna Temple | the city's heart of bhakti yoga

torontokrishna.com

I have seen them here. That is prime real estate.

 

[sdifox]

You must not frequent airports.

They have been banned in quite a few airports.

 

[Captante]

Yeah. I've never seen a religious panhandler in my life in New England. Steve lives in San Antonio, maybe things are different in Texas.

Look closer dude. I saw them outside the Milford CT Walmart this past Saturday. (and they're there all the time.)

 

[Vic]

Conservative Christianity is IMO defined by the fact that Walmart has prayer meetings for associates required to work on Sundays.

 

[DaaQ]

Not just Walmart it's everywhere.

They make more money from handouts and begging than they do from food stamps.

Guess I just miss them, since they are all in the Dollar Generals, swiping koolaid packets underneath every barcode they pass across the self check out. whole basket of groceries for 35 bucks.

While my wife and I get not one penny from the state to raise our grandaughters as custodial guardians because ?? I make more than 40k yr.

Underage girls was the 5th person from that family to scan the koolaid packets that day, and was the one busted. Family still votes R.

Very sad to make your underage child go and ripoff a store. I'll be the first to admit the stores are making too much profit. When they send a truckload extra of goods, and tell the MGR to stock what you can and donate the rest. (which means dumpster)

 

[GodisanAtheist]

Just to take this thread I a slightly different direction, I was caught off guard the other day seeing a white, blonde, middle aged, conventionally attractive woman in standard middle age woman clothing panhandling at a busy intersection at my street. Little grimey, but wasn't putting out drug addict vibes.

I paused for a second and realized I wouldn't have given her another thought if she was Mexican or a ratty bearded white guy, or some toothless older lady.

Just really sucker punched me in my preconceptions, that's all.

 

[MtnMan]

Just tell them to find a book on money management, and give it to their god, for their god has always been poor and begging for money.

 

[MtnMan]

tl;dr version -- don't go to fucking Walmart on a Sunday

To expand on this...

...don't go to fucking Walmart... ever
...don't go out to eat on Sunday afternoon.

Churchgoers are not good people.

Food Service Workers Agree: The ‘Sunday Morning After Church’ Crowd Are The Worst Customers Ever

 

[Puffnstuff]

Here in FL it got so bad that the stores now have security in the parking lots to run them off.

 

[pmv]

What annoys me are all the charity collectors (known as "chuggers") who constantly knock on my door. They try to get you to sign up to make regular donations by bank transfer to whatever cause it is.

I don't like being repeatedly disturbed at home, especially as whenever anyone unexpected knocks it's almost never anything good (some of my neighbors are dodgy people). And you know these people are earning money on commission for every one they get to sign up (I believe they are employed by profit-making private companies who in turn are contracted by the charities).

Plus, having dealt with charities a couple of times as a supplicant (and also having done voluntary work for some), I don't really like most of them (with a few exceptions) and I don't much like the sort of people who work (as paid employees) in the charity sector.

Many of them are in that line of work for entirely self-serving reasons. Either to further their career, in a very cynical way, just to get some lines on their CV because they can't get a proper job in whatever sector they are interested in, or to earn as much money and perks as they can (especially the case for those at the top of the charity sector, who often earn a fortune) or just because they enjoy bossing the supplicants around and acting like Lord or Lady Bountiful. In some cases they are outright abusive (cf the scandals around some of Oxfam's overseas operations).

Charity is not the noble, righteous, thing it's made out to be. It's riven with dodgy motivations and questionable practices. And that's not even considering the fact that elite private schools and right-wing lobby groups that propagandise for the interests of the rich (like the Institute of Economic Affairs or umpteen others) are classed as 'charities' in our stupid system.

 

[Perknose]

Just to take this thread I a slightly different direction, I was caught off guard the other day seeing a white, blonde, middle aged, conventionally attractive woman in standard middle age woman clothing panhandling at a busy intersection at my street. Little grimey, but wasn't putting out drug addict vibes.

I paused for a second and realized I wouldn't have given her another thought if she was Mexican or a ratty bearded white guy, or some toothless older lady.

Just really sucker punched me in my preconceptions, that's all.

^^^ So much THIS. If we can just be moved to see ourselves in the human beings begging before us, we, collectively, would demand better for them.

Dignity. When circumstances force you to hold your hand out, clothed in an aura of abject failure, you are more broken than merely hungry.

We are a rich nation.

That we fail so miserably to "provide for the general welfare," which is written into our goddamn Constitution, Article I, Section 8, Clause 1, is a stain on our supposedly Christian soul.

 

[Perknose]

Charity is not the noble, righteous, thing it's made out to be. It's riven with dodgy motivations and questionable practices. And that's not even considering the fact that elite private schools and right-wing lobby groups that propagandise for the interests of the rich (like the Institute of Economic Affairs or umpteen others) are classed as 'charities' in our stupid system.

^^^ And THIS! "Providing for the general welfare" is not charity, it is a fundamental human right which should not be outsourced to insufferably smug privateers.

 

[pmv]

I don't like to be hit up by anyone asking for money. I do make an exception for the homeless as we could be better people that feed and give basic shelter.

As far as the homeless or destitute themselves asking for money (as opposed to those professional charity collectors, who get a commission out of the donations they get) it only bothers me when they approach me after dark, when there's nobody else in sight, in the early hours. Because it's a fuzzy-line sometimes between a beggar and a mugger, and I feel anxious enough without being approached like that.

 

[Ajay]

Look closer dude. I saw them outside the Milford CT Walmart this past Saturday. (and they're there all the time.)

IDK, maybe because I live in NH. I've only seen boy scouts, girl scouts (cookies!!!), the salvation army and the Marines collecting toys for Christmas. Stores, our airport, nada.

 

[nakedfrog]

You must not frequent airports.

I've been through five different airports in the last five years, 3 of them international, so IDK.

What annoys me are all the charity collectors (known as "chuggers") who constantly knock on my door. They try to get you to sign up to make regular donations by bank transfer to whatever cause it is.

That seems particularly objectionable.

Charity is not the noble, righteous, thing it's made out to be. It's riven with dodgy motivations and questionable practices. And that's not even considering the fact that elite private schools and right-wing lobby groups that propagandise for the interests of the rich (like the Institute of Economic Affairs or umpteen others) are classed as 'charities' in our stupid system.

The only charity I'm donating to currently is a local coffee house that allows uhoused folks to use their bathrooms, charges their devices for them, and gives them coffee and soup. So I specifically fund the soup/coffee offering while I'm there.

 

[Perknose]

I've been through five different airports in the last five years, 3 of them international, so IDK.

Yeah, that's old news, sorry. Posted it for the cheap joke. They used to infest airports, though. Not in a bunch of years, however. Probably kicked out. Gee, I wonder how they managed to identify them?

 

[repoman0]

Look closer dude. I saw them outside the Milford CT Walmart this past Saturday. (and they're there all the time.)

Connecticut and Rhode Island are the south of the north so that makes sense