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Comment by aharonovich | Hacker News Reader

Totally. Leave it to socialists to attack someone who had actually tried to help the poor. The worst thing about homelessness is said to be that some people fall into poverty over bad luck, and if they would only get a break they can pull out. So that's what amazon did - have them a brake. Even with a seasonal job, I'm sure some of them pulled themselves out of poverty.

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Where, exactly, did you see that someone who identified as a socialist attacking Amazon for this?

Definitely a trend that socialists talk the most about helping people but conservatives are the ones you'll more likely find getting their hands dirty.

IDK why.

I've rarely seen this trend, personally...

Yeah, not sure what the parent is smoking but it sure does sound amazing.

Conservatives are known for their "fuck you, got mine" mentality, powered by the belief that if you're poor, it's your own damn fault.

It'd be tough to find good data on the topic, but the "fuck you, got mine" mentality seems to be sprinkled around fairly randomly among privileged people. Political leanings are often inherited and don't seem to correlate with that attitude.

If I had to guess it's because socialists believe that everyone should bear the cost of helping the financially disadvantaged, whereas conservatives believe that its up to each individual to decide of they should help someone (beyond such things as emergency/military services which are socialist but have been enshrined into our view of government).

So a socialist who wants to help the homeless will spend their time fighting the government to fund to social services.

Does political action count as "getting your hands dirty"? Well I'm not one to decide.

Depends. FB activism I would argue is not getting your hands dirty, but more involved actions count, IMO.

Edit: This is actually a really interesting topic and I didn't mean offense by my original post. So it's sad to see people downvoting/unwilling to talk about these things.

>Definitely a trend that socialists talk the most about helping people but conservatives are the ones you'll more likely find getting their hands dirty.

This is an incredibly dubious statement. 99% of americans are literally afraid to touch a homeless person, it's pretty pathetic.

Is your 99% figure hyperbole, or do you have a source for it?

It's hyperbole.

I think it's just a little unfair to say "people are afraid to X with a Y person" when the word "Y" can be removed and the statement is still true.

Not a socialist thing per se[1], but a common, general mentality that the taint of the profit motive counts very strongly against even a large amount of good effects in the moral calculus.

[1] Edit: Let's be fair -- there are probably a lot of intelligent socialists who have a more nuanced understanding of the impacts of these programs and the dynamics at play.

> conservatives are the ones you'll more likely find getting their hands dirty.

> IDK why.

I could venture a guess that many very religious people are on the conservative side of the spectrum, and their religion compels them to help others. Though in most cases, "helping others" means "attempting to convert them to your religion." And many times you can just replace "religion" with "cult" and it comes out about the same (e.g. Scientology has outreach programs, though I think that's more for converting survivors of disasters than helping the homeless).

Because without public funding, socialism can't happen; and public funding has been systematically undermined in favor of private funding.

That's not a trend I've noticed. Once you take into account donations to churches, conservatives are less likely to give time or money for charitable work.

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