I hope AOII Angel is making a distinction between Independents and "Independents who ride the fence."

Just like I remind myself that all Democrats and Republicans are not brainwashed fools who believe that "choosing a side of the fence" is the solution to complex social issues. Only some Democrats and Republicans are brainwashed fools who blindly vote straight ticket because they think that party alliances substantively mean something beyond politics.

:D (That grin doesn't change the words but, instead of attempting condescension through smiley, it relaxes the tone since I assume none of us are "heated" over this discourse. It certainly isn't the first time we've had this conversation off and on the Internet, right? Such is the life of those who like to discuss REAL topics.)

I swear to GOD you people make the best debates into a pile of meaningless words.

If the words are so meaningless to you, contribute to the debate by saying something universally meaningful and awesome.

Actually a TV does have something to do with whether or not someone can afford heating. If someone can afford a $1500 TV then they could have afforded $1500 worth of heat.

It really does not matter if the TV was a gift or not. The TV is an asset. The woman can sell the TV and cancel her $50/month cable and make it through the winter with heat and no TV.

Again, if any of you would pay $1500 for that TV, you're getting ripped off big time. You can get that size TV for $500 brand new and probably sell it used for $100. Let's see.. heat bill in the winter, per month= $300. So you can sell your TV and cancel your cable and pay for almost half of your heat bill for one month and 1/6th of your heat bill for the other months (with the savings from the cable). Then, when you get back on your feet, you can spend another $500 to buy another TV.

You honestly don't even know that she's at her own house. After all, if she doesn't have heat, would she be staying at her own place?

Sigh. You're right. Everyone who makes claim to need, truly needs, nobody makes bad financial decisions, and nobody should EVER live with the consequences of their decisions.

Is it really that far out there to think she might have never saved anything and had just blown all of her money on stupid trivial shit? That's a lot more believable to me than these suggestions of it not being her house or the TV was given to her by a charity. What charity would give a poor person a huge ass TV instead of clothing or food?

Nobody is saying that nobody should ever live with the consequences of their decisions. However, a lot of people are making huge assumptions about someone they don't know based on a 3 minute clip on the TV news AND completely ignoring what the story is actually about. The woman is not complaining that she didn't receive assistance because they determined she wasn't in need. She is complaining that the process is that the first 218 people in line get assistance REGARDLESS of anything but when they got in line.

Don't you find that a little nuts? Wouldn't you think that everybody who needed assistance would apply and THEN they'd apply some formula to income/assets, etc. and THEN determine who got assistance based on that? Instead of focusing on that, all anybody cares about is that there is a big screen TV in the background in the news picture. (The article does say that she's in the one warm room in the house so yes, she is at her own house.)

I know too many people who have been out of work for more than a year, who had savings that they have now expended but who paid into these systems and gave to these charities for decades before hitting a rough spot. Most of you who are complaining haven't contributed even a fraction of what some of these people have paid in taxes since before you were born! A large number of people (not just in this board, but in general) are so quick to harshly judge others without having any clue what the circumstances are.

In the words of Harper Lee, via Atticus Finch: If you just learn a single trick, Scout, you'll get along a lot better with all kinds of folks. You never really understand a person until you consider things from his point of view... Until you climb inside of his skin and walk around in it.

True. I bet the lady camped out for 2 days in front of WalMart to buy the TV and the X-box. She probaby has limited edition sneakers too.

The discussion has jumped around a bit but the bolded was brought up by me. I think it's unfair myself but as AOII Angel said, "Life isn't fair".

I contribute annually to The Heat and Warmth fund here in Detroit (THAW) and if I found out that this was how they were distributing the funds, I would probably reconsider donating to them.