Listening to Two Homeless People: A short-short story

After the Ball Dropped: A short-short story

Letter from an Angry Reader

On PsychologyToday.com, I've been posting composite letters that embed issues my readers and listeners have queried me about. Today's is the angriest.

A Liberal vs Libertarian Approach to Homelessness

This comes from the San Francisco's Libertarian Party website, posted by Steve DeKorte.

I recently asked my friends' little girl what she wanted to be when she grows up. She said she wanted to be President some day.

Both of her parents, liberal Democrats, were standing there, so I asked her, "If you were President what would be the first thing you would do? " She replied, "I'd give food and houses to all the homeless people." Her parents beamed.

'Wow...what a worthy goal." I told her. "But you don't have to wait until you're President to do that.. You can come over to my house and mow the lawn, pull weeds, and rake my yard, and I'll pay you $50. Then I'll take you over to the grocery store where the homeless guy hangs out and you can give him the $50 to use toward food and a new house. "

She thought that over for a few seconds, then she looked me straight in the eye and asked, "Why doesn't the homeless guy come over and do the work, and you can just pay him the $50?"

I said, "Welcome to the Libertarian Party."

Her parents still aren't speaking to me.