True compassion to the unemployed not found in internet links

Samantha Torrance - It is easy today to tell someone who is having trouble,
“here look at this link it may help.”
Links to supposed helpful charities are really just links to another
person who will gives a link and most of them lead to one source, a state
welfare office.



While this information is valuable for people who may not know
where to find all the resources available to them, is this the kind of help we
should give to the immediately desperate?

What if a person is on the internet and is claiming they are
about to commit suicide? Some people may give the phone number to the suicide
prevention hotline. But is that really any help? Is it helpful to just talk on
the phone to some anonymous counselor? Throwing links and phone numbers is not
going to help anyone on the edge who is serious.  While calling the police, if you know where
the person resides, can potentially save them their situation still remains the
same.

The unemployed who are passing the 99 weeks of unemployment
benefits are becoming a suicide risk and it is time for local communities to
act. The lazy charities of welfare are no longer substantive or available; your
tax dollars are no longer helping the common man. Even the loans from China are
beginning to look uncertain as America’s credit rating comes into
question.  If Tier V benefits are not
enacted more people will be homeless and jobless, and if Tier V is enacted it
will only be a matter of time before the unemployed face the same situation.

The only true way to help the unemployed is to take a step
back from the zoo of federal politics and begin looking in your own community.  The American people have lost a sense of
community and loyalty to the neighbors around us. People have become withdrawn
and relatively unfriendly with the me-centric attitudes of today.  The culture of America needs to change so
that people look to their neighbors and care about their communities once more.
What American’s need is a reinvestment into social capital.

Bowling Alone, and essay by Robert D. Putnam, explains how
our withdraw from community and society has weakened the fabric of America.  The new communities are found on internet
forums where anonymous personalities pontificate to each other without forming
the needed trust and bonding to give out names and addresses. So when a person
on an internet forum threatens suicide who is going to know what police station
to call? How will they find directions to drive, even cross country, to the
person in need? The most sobering question though, is who would take the time to
care past the flow of words on the screen?

Americans must reform their priorities, and exchange the
international and internet communities for their local physical
communities.  Once neighborhoods,
villages, towns and cities come together then real social change can begin.
Then a person can notice that their neighbor down the road lost his job and
cannot pay his mortgage. The neighborhood can respond with either helping out
monetarily, or by volunteering time to help them, or feed the family for a night,
and be useful references to give the man a chance at a job.

While the extension of unemployment benefits can help for a
short time, it is not the solution to the problem. The unemployed need family,
friends, and neighbors to help them over the hurdles holding

them back from succeeding.