Do we have a right to cast judgment onto others when we don’t agree with their lifestyle? It’s a difficult question to answer, since there are so many varying degrees to which you can choose to live your life.
More specifically, do we have a right to cast that judgment if another person’s lifestyle only negatively effects themselves? Even trickier.
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People have a lot of different opinions on panhandling.
Some would argue that we’re contributing to institutions that systematically make it impossible for people to get out of poverty.
Others think that things like homelessness are more of a choice than a circumstance thrust upon someone, and that it is unfair to those who work hard to think otherwise.
One man was becoming increasingly annoyed by a local panhandler he saw as he drove to work every morning.
Tyler Blair of Bellevue, Tennessee explains that it bothered him to see a man named Chad Fox standing alongside his dog on the corner of Old Hickory Boulevard and Highway 100 asking for food and money every day for years.
“I work very, very hard. I work very hard. Too hard to just see people hanging out asking for money for nothing.”
“I think it was just more of a built-up thing where every day it builds and it builds and it builds,” Blair says. “I straight-up told him, I was like, ‘You can get out of here; no one wants you here. I don’t want you here and you can leave.'”
Blair finally decided to send a message with his own sign.
Blair stood on the other side of the road from Fox that morning and held a sign that read ‘He can get a job’.
He plans to stand across from Fox every single day until Fox leaves and finds a job.
But…but wouldn’t that interfere with his own job…?
According to Blair, Fox has declined several job offers.
“He’s been given help, he’s been given a truck, he’s been given a place to live,” Blair stated, “he’s been offered jobs multiple, multiple times and turns them all down.”
Fox defended himself, stating that he obviously doesn’t want to do this for the rest of his life.
“I don’t want to hop around from convenience store to fast food to a different job every six months,” he told Fox17 , explaining that he doesn’t want to end up working somewhere in which he would be unhappy.
Do you think that Blair’s criticism is fair?
Is he overdoing it, or is he completely right in this situation?
I can’t be the one to answer that, though what I can say is that helping your community tends to work a lot more effectively than trying to isolate people from it.
Actions speak louder than words—especially words written on a cardboard sign.
