I’ve written about homelessness before, but mostly in regard to myself. People without traditional housing have been in the news more lately. If you don’t like it, too bad, you had better get used to it because the amount of homelessness in our country and worldwide is just going to be increasing as the woes of our troubled environment closes around our species like a industrial vise.
The lack of affordable housing and the number of people who are forced to sleep without adequate shelter is a truly terrifying situation. Perhaps in the past people could just live off the land and claim an unoccupied area for themselves, but for the most part those days are long gone. If there are areas where this is still possible, they are usually regions where no one wishes to live, and surviving is hard like the individuals living out of vehicles in the deserts north of Quartzsite Arizona and on the outskirts of the Mojave Desert in California. Otherwise, some people are just tossing up tents and hoping for the best, while others don’t have such basic supplies.
Books on this issue could fill bookshelves but I wish to, as usual, take this in a different direction than people usually go. Dipping for a moment into the bipolar nature of our current style of politics in this country lets take an overview of how each side regards the homeless. The left tends to see this as a horror which needs solving but has a hard time doing so. The Right tends to see the larger amounts of homeless in the “Blue States” as an indicator of the Left’s failure to provide for their own, while chasing the homeless from the Red States into the Blue States which just stretches the resources of those trying to find a solution for their own issues.
The Homeless as Heroes:
Thinking of people without stable housing as heroes might seem strange to some people. Of course, some of their day to day actions might appear to be heroic efforts compared to those of us who drive by them in our airconditioned/heated cars. When was the last time you walked ten miles to recycle cans in 110 degrees? Could you hump everything you own from one place to another all day just to try to bed down in a world of danger where no one wants you?
However, this isn’t the type of heroics I seek to discuss here. Again, I’d like to break down some of our modern ideologies down party lines. There are certainly many issues the Liberals and Conservatives endorse. I’m going to focus on one of the biggest platforms/beliefs systems for both sides of the fence and then prove to you how no one does better at them than the majority of our homeless.
Are you ready? It might be time to buckle in and get ready to throw your hypocrite hat into the nearest oil drum fire.
Why Liberals Should Respect and Admire the People Surviving Without Housing
There is no population more environmentally healthy than the Homeless:
I’ve touched on this before. I’ve also outlined the data within the first several WildernessPunk articles which came out in the beginning of 2019. But to quickly summarize, there are almost no real environmentalists in the United States. The average person in the US has a Negative Environmental Impact about 7 times higher than the average individual in India. Most of us use ten or twenty times the resources and create ten to twenty times over the amount of pollution the United Nations recommend each of us use yearly.
It doesn’t matter if you recycle like a madman, bike to work, or become a vegan, I hate to say it, but if you are reading this, you’re an environmental criminal. Yes, we should do everything we can to take the edge off and try to live more simply, but yeah, almost no one in the USA is an environmentalist with the exception of the homeless.
A short list of things most people without housing do not participate in:
- Driving
- Using Utilities
- Huge Amounts of Water Use
- Streaming
- Consumerism
- Online Consumerism
- Eating Exotic Foods
A Short List of Environmental Practices Many People Without Housing Engage In:
- Recycle and Reusing Discarded Items Bound for the Landfill
- Consuming Food which would have Gone to Waste
- Utilize Less Desirable Living Spaces
- Caring for Previously Unwanted Animals
So if concerns over Climate Change and protecting the environment are some of the most important issues we face, please realize all the homeless you see are doing twenty times a better job at protecting the Earth than anyone you know.
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Why Conservatives Should Respect and Admire the People Surviving Without Housing
For this to work I’m going to have to make an assumption, but since the assumptions is predominantly true, I’m going to make it and if you’re a Conservative and it doesn’t apply to you, I apologize in advance.
What I am proposing is, in the eyes of the New Testament, the homeless are being better Christians than you. Some of them more than others, but let’s face the facts as the Christian holy book lays them out.
Christian Hierarchy of Holiness:
- God
- Jesus
- The Profits/Saints
- Priests
- Christian Families
This religion elevated individuals breaking away from the idea of the family and wandering alone. Having time to think on your own in quiet contemplation was considered far more holy and closer to God than being part of a family. Priests are considered more devote and prove it by forgoing romantic relationships and family. Jesus himself is quoted saying, “Woman, what have I to do with thee?” (John ii 4) Avoiding sex is considered closer to the divine and lonely people living in the street are usually loners and don’t start families.
Of course, there are many families who endure homelessness together, but by Christian standards they would also be more holy. Everyone is guilty of consumerism, gluttony, and not giving what they could except those with nothing left to give. Score one more for the unhoused.
Lastly, many experts in the subject put the percentage of homeless individuals suffering from Mental Illness at 25% those others claim it is closer to 50%. In either case illnesses like schizophrenia will force people onto the streets if they don’t have outside support. One of the most common systems of schizophrenia is hearing voices. These voices often instruct a person on what is right and how they should be living a better life.
So Christains I would ask you this, what is more holy than an individual who has forgone his property, is wondering alone through the deserts, and being inspired by mysterious voices?
Make of this what you will but just remember the next time you walk by an individual living out there in the sun, whether you are a Liberal or a Conservative this guy is rocking out your belief system twenty times better than you.
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Thanks For reading.
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WildernessPunk 