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Homeless Student Is Intel Talent Search Semifinalist
An anonymous reader writes "Samantha Garvey, a senior at Brentwood High School, has managed to become one of the remaining 300 semifinalists in the Intel Science Talent Search this year. Her research focused on mussels and on her discovery that they change the thickness of their shells if a predator such as crabs are introduced. Why is Garvey's achievement so impressive? Because she and her entire family are homeless, and rely on a local homeless shelter. Such a situation would stop many students from being able to focus on studying, let alone a research project, but Garvey has instead used her situation as motivation."
Simple: Americans believe in the just-world hypothesis. They believe that "God helps those who help themselves."
Americans believe that anyone who is homeless is homeless because they deserve to be homeless. The proof is simple: they're homeless. If they didn't deserve to be homeless, they wouldn't be.
Likewise, the rich are rich because they deserve to be rich. Taking away their riches in the form of taxes would be unjust, because they clearly earned their riches and didn't simply inherit them or steal them. We know that because they're rich. If they didn't deserve to be rich, they wouldn't be.
Once you understand that this is how Americans almost universally think, the objection to universal health care and the refusal to fund programs to help the homeless should become clear. Americans don't believe in bad luck, they believe in a vengeful God.
I take it this AC is a wonderfully wealthy douchebag. Anyone else?
http://www.acetonestudio.com
Their situation is the result of a pattern of behavior, and a type of lifestyle. Other people would not end up destitute due to an accident; intelligent, responsible people have contingencies to mitigate disasters. You're creating an artificial split between "in the past" and "this time", when the two are intrinsically linked.