
Responding to Beggars - solipsist
http://www.stallman.org/articles/responding-to-beggars.html
======
mehulkar
This has been a huge problem for me. I recently moved to San Francisco after
many years of living in the Midwest. I was born and lived the first 10 years
of my life in Delhi where poverty was no big deal. It was accepted and not
questioned. After living in the States and doing all the chores that someone
else would normally do for me in India (dishes, laundry, etc.), it became
difficult for me to see people as anything but people and I began to notice
poverty.

After 3 months in San Francisco, I'm noticing the pendulum swinging again in
the other direction. I don't see anyone paying attention to the homeless, and
I know a few pennies here or there aren't going to solve the problem, so I am
once again starting to become cold and removed.

I cannot stand saying no to people on the streets, but I have not found a way
to get them off the streets either. I promise myself that right now is not the
time, and one day I will make a difference.

It feels naive and stupid to think this way. I am 22.

~~~
coryl
There are ways to help the homeless without giving out money. For example,
volunteering at a soup kitchen, shelter, etc.

~~~
barry-cotter
In the USA? No, there aren't. They're mentally ill or serious drug abusers.
Also, your money can go a hell of a lot further and help a hell of a lot more
people even in in the US. But you can save a life for about 800 dollars in the
developing world.

<http://www.givewell.org/>

<http://lesswrong.com/lw/37f/efficient_charity/>

[http://lesswrong.com/lw/6z/purchase_fuzzies_and_utilons_sepa...](http://lesswrong.com/lw/6z/purchase_fuzzies_and_utilons_separately/)

~~~
eli
Wait, so are you saying it isn't possibly to help homeless people in the USA?
Or that they don't _deserve_ help? Either way, I think you are very wrong.

~~~
barry-cotter
It is possible to help people who are homeless in the USA who are neither
mentally ill nor drug abusers. The mentally ill are incapable of accepting or
using the help available to them. The drug addicts prefer the drugs and being
homeless to being off drugs. There is more than a little help available for
people who want to quit drugs and if you want to see what kind of support is
available for the homeless in the USA visit San Francisco, the only first
world city I am aware of where one regularly has to dodge human faeces in the
street.

I'm not saying they don't deserve help. I'm saying that your money can do more
good elsewhere, which is not something I'm willing to argue as being blatantly
obvious. If one subscribes to the idea that there is a continuum of
"deserving" to "undeserving" poor most of the drug addicts fall under
undeserving and the USA is no longer willing to imprison people indefinitely
for being mentally ill so they're probably beyond help. Very possibly also
better off because mental hospitals are the closest I have ever seen to Hell,
but beyond help.

------
robocat
I like to leave money (coins or notes) where someone who needs it may find it
- under a bridge, down low where a child might find it, etc. Sure to brighten
anyone's day :-)

"Donating" money directly is difficult to do with respect and pride for giver
and givee... I try to get it right because I feel i could end up poor, old,
and drunk on the street. Some beggars strike me as being somewhat
entrepreneurial :-).

Try to treat each situation as unique.

Occasionally I will give a beggar money for no reason, occasionally pity,
occasionally random, occasionally respect. I accept sometimes I am a chump,
but I would rather err on being a chump than be a selfish thoughtless jerk.

When a traveller in poorer countries I become much more generous - the price
of a beer at home, or a birthday card, can make a big difference for many. Any
person who can fly to a 3rd world country can afford to be _very_ generous.
1st world travellers with excuses for being tight piss me off.

The difficulty is giving without demeaning the receiver ... respect.

~~~
bhickey
All but one of the beggars who approached me in Kathmandu were children. If
children can productively beg there is no incentive to educate them. Just send
them out on the streets.

It isn't a matter of being greedy. It's avoiding counterproductive behavior.

~~~
abhaga
This. In India and probably in many other countries, a lot of beggars operate
under some gangs and most of their income goes to them. Especially true for
beggars one sees at the traffic signals. So if you pay them, it is added
incentive for the gangs to put more people out on the street.

My take on this is that everyone has a different way of being most effective
in helping others. To really improve their situation, a homeless person needs
someone who can invest a lot more time and effort. So if you want to help
them, give to charities that work with them. In our individual capacity, we
are more effective in helping someone who already has a platform. Consider
financing the entire education of a child. That is more effective use of the
money than distributing it piecemeal to several homeless people.

~~~
robocat
> So if you pay them, it is added incentive for the gangs to put more people
> out on the street.

I sometimes think that is just a handy excuse.

I actually _enjoy_ seeing tourists get taken advantage of, and actively
encourage it with my own behaviour.

I often admire go-getting capitalist tourist scams or annoying vendors - at
times even illegal or immoral behaviour (people take risks because they need
to, not usually out of choice).

Love the rest of your comment... exactly my point that we can all find ways to
truely help (while avoiding ways that damage).

~~~
ido

        I actually enjoy seeing tourists get taken advantage 
        of, and actively encourage it with my own behaviour.
    

Why?

~~~
robocat
Hard to explain - however I don't mean in a Schadenfreude way...

E.g. vendor selling something for 10x what a local would pay. I don't haggle
much and admire chutzpah. If someone steals my wallet because that is the only
income they can get, I won't like it (but I am not about to go hungry, get
rickets or fail to get healthcare).

Obviously hard to delineate what is 'bad', or what are downstream effects.

~~~
jtheory
I had my wallet stolen several years ago -- I set it on the bar at a cafe
momentarily while paying, and somehow left without it (maybe someone subtly
laid a paper over it? maybe I was just distracted?) and it was gone when I
realized about 30 seconds later and came back in.

I can't say I admired the chutzpah, though.

The thief took a minor risk, earned less than 20 euros, and cost me days worth
of my time and more than 100x that amount of money, to replace documents I
hadn't realized would be so difficult to replace (the big one: my US driver's
license, and I didn't live in the US anymore; replacing the US credit cards
was also non-trivial, but less expensive).

The small amount of cash they got was about commensurate with the risk they
took (fairly small); but the waste entailed was huge. I would much rather have
been mugged and had my cash taken, and my watch as well -- i.e., items
valuable to the mugger, not simply my wallet (which contained things mostly
only valuable to me). Or they could have tossed the cashless wallet in a
trashcan nearby. They didn't (I searched them all).

The real cost to society of this kind of theft and waste is not so much
monetary; it's more psychological. That experience burned into my head fairly
well that there are plenty of people around who care so little about me,
they'll happily take whatever they can from me, regardless of the suffering it
causes.

I have a suspicion that it's the series of experiences like this that turn
people from political liberals to conservatives as they age -- they feed
easily into racism and classism, they turn us from thinking "how can I help
people who need it" to "fuck 'em -- they'll do the same to me if they could".
Etc..

------
ricardobeat
The situation is not much different here in Brazil. It's almost impossible to
tell when a beggar is telling the truth or not - they have perfected their
story-telling out of necessity.

Once I was walking up to a friend's apartment. Just a few meters from his
door, a guy with a desperate face approached and asked me to borrow some money
for gas/something, so that he could get to his wife who was in the hospital
(red flag). I refused, and then he proceeded to tell me the exact address he
was going to, handed me his license and car keys to check. I felt ashamed for
being such a cold person, and gave him ten bucks. Just as he was turning
around the corner, my friend who was leaving his apt saw him and said -"did
you give that guy money? He is always around" :(

Never gave out money since. I try to make up for it by being very straight
about taxes and civilization in general.

------
shocks
In the UK we have The Big Issue. It's a magazine only sold by homeless people,
for £2.50 per magazine. The sellers buy each magazine for £1.25. The sellers
are trained, sign a code of conduct and wear badges so you can recognise them
easily.

<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Big_Issue>

I like this approach because I know that they have some degree of control. For
example, they can't spend all the money on booze/drugs because otherwise they
can't purchase more stock. It's a start.

That said, I like Stallman's method. I might try that sometime.

~~~
makmanalp
In the Boston / Cambridge area where Stallman is talking about, we have "Spare
Change":

<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spare_Change_News>

There just are more homeless people that gather there than can viably all sell
the newspaper.

------
paulsutter
For me it isn't a question of being duped or scammed. It's a question of
whether the gift is really going to help them. It turns out this is a very
difficult question. When you give money to a beggar, you are saying "great
job! here's a bonus to encourage you to keep begging!". At the same time,
these are usually people who are in need. I also know that substance abuse is
close to certain. I don't have a good answer. Most of the time I give nothing.
Occasionally I'll hand a guy a 20, without regard for his story or whether I'm
being scammed. It's a gift given freely.

What I know for sure is that I can be polite to them. Recognize them as
humans, not treat them as lepers. If they engage me in conversation ask their
name, where they are from. But usually ignore them on the ask. Because I can't
rationalize that it would help.

But it's not an easy question.

------
lisper
My experience trying to get a homeless person off the street:

<http://graceofgodmovie.com/>

Available on iTunes:

[http://itunes.apple.com/us/movie/but-for-the-grace-of-
god/id...](http://itunes.apple.com/us/movie/but-for-the-grace-of-
god/id469930988)

If you watch it and like it please write a review.

~~~
shawndumas
Been there done that. I have actually helped a man get off of alcohol and
street, securing him a job and a place to live; only to have him go back to
the streets: Twice.

------
mistercow
I really don't understand why people care so much what the beggar uses the
money for. Give him a dollar, or don't. If you do, don't worry that he might
use it to buy booze; just feel good that you did something nice for someone.
If you don't, don't try to justify it to yourself by saying he might be a
liar. Just say "I have the right to not give beggars money because it's my
money" and be done with it.

There, I solved all of your altruism problems. You're welcome.

------
andywood
I've always made this decision based strictly on whether I am feeling generous
enough in the moment to give money to a stranger who asked for it. I
personally find bothering oneself about what they are going to do with it to
be extremely condescending, and I sometimes suspect it might be a cop-out for
simply wanting to hold on to your money. Not that there's anything inherently
wrong with wanting to hold on to your own money.

~~~
sage_joch
From the article it's pretty clear that Stallman just didn't like the feeling
of being deceived. I don't think condescension has anything to do with it. As
an aside: there were two instances in the last year in which I gave a stranger
in need of help $20. I analyzed the interactions in the aftermath, and I'm
convinced that the first person really did need help and the second person
scammed me (I can't say for sure, but when adding up all the little details,
things start to ring true or false). When I realized that I had been scammed,
I felt pretty raw about it. It wasn't about the money, but the fact that
someone would prey on my willingness to help like that.

~~~
AndrewDucker
My general feeling is that anyone who is scamming people on the streets in
order to get by has real problems.

~~~
its_so_on
I'm sorry, but they have a duty to their shareholders to do whatever will
maximize shareholder value, including doing marketing research and pandering
to what works.

Oh wait, were we talking about beggars? Nevermind, they should be held to a
higher standard than the Fortune 500. They can afford it. (Billions and their
own jobs aren't riding on it.)

------
cturner
I don't think there's much you can do to help someone on the street in a way
that gets them off the street. That's not to say that nothing can be done,
just that the initiative has to come from the person on the street to get out
of that pattern.

I can't remember where I got it from, but I carry a pack of cigarettes around.
When I get asked for change, I remember to offer the person a cigarette
instead. If you're on the street then lung cancer is the least of your
problems, and it's a way of showing support to the person but in a way that
doesn't contribute to their pattern.

Our culture has some strong messages about charity and a taboo about
questioning it. People tend to give to things that are branded as charity in
order to comply with this message. The result can often be an office full of
people in a nice location, pulling down wages, and doing very little
meaningful work towards the cause. It is itself a variation on the deceptive
begging pattern, feeding on popular ideas about charity.

I think the best approach for helping people is to look out for things
directly in your sphere where you can see how your action will lead to a goood
result, and then act at that level.

------
pemulis
For the most part, I only give money to homeless people who put out a cup or a
hat and don't try to sell me on a story. I've been lied to so many times that
I assume every story is a lie. I don't try to buy specific items like food or
train tickets, either. I don't want to dictate what they ought to spend the
money on. If they want to spend it on food or clothes, great. If they would
prefer to spend it on drugs or lotto tickets, I'm not going to reverse a
lifetime of bad habits by forcing them to get a sandwich. The money is theirs
once I give it to them.

~~~
cturner
Why would you do that? Is it because you're told to by a priest to be
charitable or because your sense of guilt push you into making the world a
worse place. Or sympathy?

Look at the long view. It only takes a few people to keep doing that, and
they'll keep existing at that level instead of finding a better way to get by.
You're enabling them.

~~~
pemulis
The three main causes of homelessness in America are sudden economic
misfortune, mental illness, and addiction.

People in the first category are actively looking for a way to get back on
their feet. Giving them money is better than giving them a meal, a ticket, or
a bit of clothing. They know what they need most, and will spend their money
accordingly. Insisting that they choose from my list of pre-approved spending
options does more harm than good, from a utility standpoint. From an emotional
standpoint, it's condescending and demeaning.

In the second case, the person has few employment options and a weak support
network, otherwise they would not be out on the street. They won't use the
money I give them as well as people in the first category, but who am I to say
what they want or need? I'm not trying to solve a social problem. I'm trying
to ease the suffering of an individual.

It's difficult to distinguish people in the third group from the people in the
second group, since mental illness and addiction often work in tandem. I don't
bother to try. Anyway, the addict's hierarchy of needs is roughly: Food >
Drugs > Shelter. If I buy them a sandwich, they can spend the remainder of
their money on drugs. If they're a serious addict, a lack of charity won't
stand between them and the drugs they need. If they can't scrounge up enough
money through legitimate means, petty crime is the next step. Overcoming
addiction is a complicated process that comes from within. You can't starve
the addict into going clean. If I give a homeless person a dollar and that
money goes towards drugs, that's a shame, but at least it eases their
suffering for a moment.

Again, giving money to a homeless person isn't a long-term solution to social
problems. It's a small gesture from one individual to another. They have a
cut, so I give them a band-aid. Homelessness is a difficult and complicated
problem. Withholding charity won't suddenly result in homeless people
straightening up and flying right. The reality is that many of them, at least
in the short term, are unemployable. Withholding charity just increases their
suffering.

------
kgrin
I was on my college debate team; the Nationals final round in 2003 was about
this hypothetical ("Give a homeless person a dollar?") I was pleasantly
surprised to recently find that it was taped and available online:
<http://www.parlidebate.com/recordings.php?id=36>

I can't fairly condense the salient points, so I'll just encourage you to
watch the video - it's long, but well worth it. I can honestly say it changed
how I evaluate these sorts of situations (aside from being a very fine round
of debate, but that's more of an acquired taste).

(Just to be clear: I was _not_ one of the debaters, just happened to be lucky
enough to be in the audience).

~~~
kkwok
Thanks for the video. Interesting round to watch--makes me miss my debate
days.

Which direction did it shift your views?

~~~
kgrin
In the direction of giving - either money, or if time allows, something like
what Stallman is doing/advocating. The main thing that shifted my views was
the notion that even if the money is "wasted" (or might be more effective
dollar-for-dollar elsewhere), there's a lot to be said for the human
connection - and that even if the recipient is operating under false pretenses
(which does happen sometimes), that human connection is worth it.

~~~
aes256
_> In the direction of giving - either money, or if time allows, something
like what Stallman is doing/advocating. The main thing that shifted my views
was the notion that even if the money is "wasted" (or might be more effective
dollar-for-dollar elsewhere), there's a lot to be said for the human
connection - and that even if the recipient is operating under false pretenses
(which does happen sometimes), that human connection is worth it._

Pardon me if this was mentioned in the debate — unfortunately I'm not in a
position to watch the video at the moment — but the worst case in giving money
to beggars is not just that the money is "wasted".

In the UK, the overwhelming majority of beggars are not homeless, and are
simply begging to fund a drug addiction (usually to 'Class A' drugs such as
heroin). A survey by Westminster Council found 86 percent of people begging
spend the money they receive on drugs and alcohol, and seven out of ten of
those arrested for begging (begging in public is illegal in the UK, although
enforcement of the law is sporadic) had Class A drugs in their system (see:
[http://www.thamesreach.org.uk/news-and-
views/campaigns/givin...](http://www.thamesreach.org.uk/news-and-
views/campaigns/giving-to-beggars/))

In other words, when you give money to a beggar in the UK, you are more than
likely funding a Class A drug addiction. An addiction that drastically reduces
that person's life expectancy, and increases their chances of premature death
due to an overdose.

------
gbog
I never give, I pay, for example I'll pay to the one who play nice music. I
don't pay to soften culpability either, I handle this myself. My preferred way
to fix the poverty issue is to participate in this kind of economy: I prefer
giving a good salary to a nanny coming from countryside than giving random
bucks to those who earned a pithy price in the streets.

------
twfarland
I never give money to beggars after having seen how they operate in Berlin.
The standard ones are extremely pushy, and in areas like Ku'damm, there are
organised gangs of women who bring their children with them. I've seen them
converge and hand over money to a central man at the same spot day after day.
He doesn't look poor.

------
jurre
I have tried this approach for a while and not once did a beggar accept the
proposal. A couple of times when I didn't have cash on me I got cursed at and
since then I stopped giving to them. I should also mention that I'm from the
Netherlands and no one here needs to be homeless, it's always because of drug
addiction.

~~~
prawn
Or mental illness?

~~~
DanBC
I don't know about Netherlands, but in UK there's a complex mix of substance
misuse and mental illness amongst the homeless population. It's difficult to
know which causes what.

In theory "homelessness" is a solved problem in the UK. In practice, there are
people who sleep on the streets and there are people who are effectively
homeless but who have short term accommodation and there are plenty of
beggars.

~~~
aes256
_> In theory "homelessness" is a solved problem in the UK. In practice, there
are people who sleep on the streets and there are people who are effectively
homeless but who have short term accommodation and there are plenty of
beggars._

The situation in the UK is somewhat unique. As you mention, homelessness is
not really an issue. All homeless people are entitled to benefits to cover
accommodation and food.

Unfortunately people still tend to associate begging with homelessness, when
the link between the two is tenuous at best. The overwhelming majority of
beggars are not actually homeless, and most are begging to fund a drug
addition (see: [http://www.thamesreach.org.uk/news-and-
views/campaigns/givin...](http://www.thamesreach.org.uk/news-and-
views/campaigns/giving-to-beggars/))

There really is no need for anyone in the UK to beg in order to survive, hence
why begging in public is illegal.

------
SagelyGuru
I wonder if modern enterpreneurs are recruiting their marketing staff from the
ranks of these street scammers. Many scammers are masters of the art of
salesmanship: telling people what they want to hear in order to get them to
part with their money.

I find it hard to distinguish between their methods, the only substantial
difference being much larger turnover for the 'respectable' marketing and
advertising experts.

------
AndrewDucker
I give money to Shelter, a British charity which helps homeless people. I
figure they're the experts, and can put the money to the best use.

------
mikeash
I have seen enough professional beggars who live well that I pretty much just
assume that they're just about all like that. It seems that if you're good at
it, you can make quite a bit of money. And this is hardly new: there's even a
Sherlock Holmes story that revolves around a man who gives up his profession
to become a beggar because the money is better.

If you feel guilty (and why wouldn't you? it's only natural), give money to
charitable organizations which help the homeless. They know how to put the
money to better use.

------
jakobe
When someone asks me for money, I just give them money. I dont care what they
do with it. I think people complaining about being deceived are just looking
for excuses for being greedy. The end result is the same, no matter if the
beggar is honest or not: i'm more happy because I feel generous, the beggar's
more happy because he got money. The first time I relised that the story I got
told was a lie I was upset, but I realised that it doesn't matter.

~~~
corry
I guess some people's problem is that we "care what [the beggars] do with it"
when we give money.

i.e. I don't want to give someone money that they'll use to further destroy
their life with drugs/alcohol/whatever. I don't want to be complicit in that
action. If that's too 'morally' or 'judgemental' for some people, so be it.

Now, I'm more than happy to buy them some food, transportation, etc. Or even
better, spend some time with them (when possible) and treat them like a real
person for a few minutes.

~~~
LargeWu
Well, when there is a high probability they will use the money to buy drugs -
substance abuse is one of the primary reasons for homelessness in the US -
then it does in fact matter what they do with it. Giving money to beggars is
virtually synonymous with supporting the corner dealer in many cases.

------
Jun8
I think that in certain situations the moral question of doing or not
performing an act is either a weak function of the entities we interact or is
not a function of them at all. I think this is one of those cases: I would
give a small amount of money (e.g. a quarter) to _anyone_ who has to ask for
it for _whatever_ reason. I find Stallman's attitude to be condescending to
extreme, i.e. "you lied to me", how can you judge that person?

A similar ethical question: Should we eat animals? Some people object to this
citing the misery, pain, etc. that the animals have to endure. But suppose we
create a certain pig/chicken/sheep clone that is incapable of thinking (or, as
in <http://www.amazon.com/The-Pig-That-Wants-Eaten/dp/0452287448>, actually
wants to be eaten): Would your attitude on this matter change? I think it
should not.

The way I treat entities with less power than me (homeless people, animals)
wholly depends on me and not inputs from them.

~~~
derekuser
How can you judge them to be needy?

~~~
Jun8
That was my whole point: I don't.

------
jawns
I know how important Richard Stallman is to the tech community, and I
appreciate his tech-oriented stuff ... but I'm kinda getting bored with seeing
his LiveJournal posts on the HN homepage.

~~~
photon137
Well, there are a lot of others nowhere near as influential as RMS whose
"LiveJornal"-esque posts about "entrepreneurship" - a la: How I made $2
million from $2 - regularly make the HN homepage. I could live with the former
(and for once, RMS is making sense).

------
zaccus
Some panhandlers really need money, and some don't. There's no way to know for
sure which is which, and I can't afford to give money to everyone who asks for
it. So the only "rational" solution is to not give money to panhandlers at
all.

Of course, I don't follow that rule perfectly because saying no or ignoring
somebody makes me feel like a dick. But I'm not going to pretend that giving
money to a panhandler is ever a rational act.

------
mark_l_watson
I used to do the same thing while I was commuting to San Francisco to do an
expert system for PacBell. Lots of homeless people begging and the people I
worked with lectured me on not giving them money. That was in my pre-
vegetarian days and I had a serious hamburger addiction; occasionally when I
bought a hamburger, I would buy a second one to hand to an apparently homeless
person.

------
meatpopsicle
I think I'm going to apply this to my day-to-day life. I bet I'll give out
less money overall, but more money to those that need it.

~~~
pacaro
I've done this in the past. When I used to travel by train (and live in
England) I spent a lot of time waiting at London train stations. If my train
wasn't imminent and I was approached I would offer to buy the beggar a meal at
any of the concessions in the station.

In contrast to Stallman's experience, I was never rebuffed - occasionally
asked to go outside the station to get vegetarian food (seemed reasonable to
me) and once asked if I could also buy food for someones girlfriend as well
(chutzpah pays!). Some of these people where interesting, some less so, just
the same as any random sample of the human race.

I don't find myself in those situations in my current living/working
situation, but I like to keep my mind open to these possibilities

~~~
aptwebapps
If they're walking up to you on the platform and you're offering them free
food of their choice (within reason), why not? Whereas if they're in a good,
high-traffic, spot, they might not want to give it up for the free food.

I had a guy run up to me just as I was getting on the bus to ask if I could
spare fare for him too. I dug it out and handed it over and he turned around
and walked off. I thought that was pretty funny, especially as the fare was a
quarter.

------
lucian1900
My mom taught me never to give money to beggars, only ever give them food.
Seemed entirely logical.

------
no_more_death
I keep a couple of gift cards in my wallet and hand them out if someone's in
trouble. I tell them there's money on it but not how much. Obviously, someone
could still sell the gift card, but the buyer will have to take him at his
word.

------
spung
This is what my parents have taught me to do as well.

It's also a possibility though that the beggar wanted to be efficient and
accumulate more money for other fares throughout the day, just trying to be
efficient.

------
captaincrunch
Tickets, food and anything else is always almost refundable, so in most cases,
it would have been cheaper to have given them a quarter, even a dollar.

------
sparknlaunch12
Is a beggar an analogy for a startup looking for funding?

~~~
ExpiredLink
and you are an angel.

~~~
sparknlaunch12
Not yet. I only asked the question in context of this article being posted to
Hacker News. I thought maybe the author was describing an approach to more
than just qualifying requests for money from beggars.

------
wilfra
In Thailand this situation is quite terrible. The Mafia collects people with
missing limbs and other disfigurations, basically the people who will elicit
the greatest sympathy, and forces them to sit on the same corners begging day
after day, month after month and year after year - and turn all of the money
they collect over to them. If they steal any, they die. In return they are
provided with the bare minimum subsistence living one could imagine.

This situation is so bad that the country had to pass a law giving the death
penalty to anybody dismembering children for the purposes of turning them into
beggars - because people were doing that on a large scale.

~~~
Muzza
The situation is similar in Sweden, but I have thankfully not heard of anyone
disfiguring someone else for these purposes. Yet.

One of the glorious benefits of being a member of the EU is that we now have
to put up with organized gangs of beggars coming in from Romania, Bulgaria etc
harassing us on our streets. (The leftists have proposed that we add these
people to our welfare rolls and give them their own apartments - an
entitlement not available even to Swedish citizens, mind you. Of course, the
only reasonable response is to institute a sufficiently vague law against
vagrancy and then deport them.)

~~~
gioele
Have you a problem with Bulgarian people or Bulgarian criminals?

If you have a problem with Bulgarian people in general, then, well, that is
called xenophobia or more simply racism.

If you have a problem with Bulgarian criminals, then complain to your police
force. How come you able to spot such criminals so easily while they cannot?
Did you make precise and detailed reports to the police about cases you
witnessed, experienced personally or know from local hearsay?

Talking about apartments, do you agree on the principle that access to public
housing should be given to those most in need? Do you also agree on the
principle that the needs for every lawful person should be addressed
regardless of their country of origin? If you do, what is the problem them? If
you do not, why?

Question for the US readers: do scenes like those depicted in Steinbeck's
novel The grapes of wrath still happen? Are people from rural zones like
Oklahoma's countryside treated as filthy dangerous foreigners in California?
Because that is what we are seeing and experiencing right now in the EU.

~~~
chappi42
Read the parent post again, no problem with Bulgarian people in general.

What's with your xenophobia/racism haunch? It is not unreasonable to discuss
such effects due to relative open - e.g. compared to US - borders.

Last year in Germany I myself saw 'gangs of beggars'. While not a problem, it
annoys me when on touristic places you'll get asked for money every two
minutes from one of the (romanian) women with child. It feels like an
industry.

~~~
DrJokepu
The same reason you don't say black beggars or Mexican criminals. The racial
or national background of these people might be interesting for sociologists
but it's unhelpful in everyday discussions. It strips people of their dignity,
whether it's intentional or not. Don't be that guy.

~~~
v0cab
It is interesting and helpful, because the reasons that these beggars are
operating in Sweden was given (internal migration within the EU).

If he hadn't said it, replies would have expressed surprise that the
prosperous Swedes had resorted to aggressive organised criminal behaviour, and
there would have been speculation on why that is.

There would also have been questions on why the government hasn't done
anything about it yet, which he also addressed in his comment.

Stop telling us what we can and can't talk about.

~~~
DrJokepu
Look, this is about good manners, not censorship. Everything you've just said
is trivial and unhelpful. Naming ethnicities this way will only make you look
like a fool and undermine the point you're trying to make.

------
georgieporgie
In SF, I witnessed the classic: guy offers sandwich to 'hungry' homeless guy.
Homeless guy responds, "what kind is it?" Apparently, beggars _can_ be
choosers.

~~~
taligent
Did you ever think he might have had a life threatening allergy to certain
foods ? It's pretty common.

~~~
raintrees
When asked for money for food a few months back, I offered to buy the guy a
burrito. I asked what ingredients he wanted, he suggested no beans to make it
easier on his fellow humans...

------
nerdfiles
Ask them to break a $20.

What happens if they naturally learn to collect money, and we record these
activities through our hearsay? If we expect them to be able to break a $20?

------
twinturbo
I love how this page has no styling information. Just times new roman on a
white background. User agent stylesheet ftw.

