Li Zheng Bing's Sob Story

Houston Chronicle: China's social safety net in tatters

Kneeling in shame on a sidewalk, he appeared as infinitesimal as any man could: a rail-thin, shirtless beggar with no arms.

Around him, Shanghai glittered. Businessmen and tourists strode past. Some flipped coins or small bills into his tattered satchel.

I can feel the dichotomy being set up...

Li Zheng Bing was alone on the city's most impressive street. The grand columned bank buildings of the colonial Bund district stood behind him. The futuristic skyline of the Pudong commercial center loomed before him, across the harbor.

Here's the pitch...

Who cares for a man with no arms in China, a country where the wealthy live in splendor, and the poor, even those with healthy, undamaged bodies, often struggle to survive?

China has lost its social safety net. With so many immense problems to solve, stemming from overpopulation and its decades-long effort to replace communism with capitalism, it is easy for a man like Li to be ignored.

*crack*

"And it's outta here!"

Once, when this was a closed communist country without mobility, there was a system in place in most communities to acknowledge the underprivileged. But there are no more of the typical work units or communes. People can move from the city in search of work. Hospitals charge money. Disability pensions are pitiful or non-existent.

*blink*

The sheer greedy capitalist greed of the greed-driven egoist tyranny is on display for all to witness! Can you not see it? People have to pay for health care! People shouldn't have to go anywhere for a job - it should come to them! These...these, abominations must end!

*blink*

Michael A. Lev of the Chicago Tribune wrote this and I cannot take anything he says seriously from this point on.

So Li Zheng Bing must beg.

"This is my job," he said. "It's the only thing I can do."

He said he is 25 and lives alone in a tiny rented room that he enters by grasping the doorknob in his mouth. He buys rice dishes at small restaurants and plants his face in his plate when other people are not looking. He uses his feet as hands to dress and clean himself.

[...]

He said he was born in a poor county in far southern Guizhou province. At age 4, he touched a high-voltage wire that rendered his arms dangling and dead. He received no medical care, and his arms eventually shriveled and disappeared.

I admire anyone who can get as far as this man has without killing himself or simply giving up. Living like this is barely within my ability to understand and I am certain it would be a miserable existence.

He does not want to be a beggar, he insisted. If the government could provide him with a place to live and enough to eat he would stop. "But I don't think that's going to happen," he said.

This is the knee-jerk reaction to stories like this. Yet no one apparently cares about the consequences of this line of action. The government doesn't just produce housing or wages for free. That wealth must come from somewhere. That somewhere is the wallet of the citizenry. Yet, square that with this

He wears clean tan pants with an elastic belt that he washes himself. He slips his satchel around his neck and moves around the city to avoid becoming a spectacle.

"If I stay in one place I would sometimes see the same people, and I wouldn't want them to feel they have to keep giving me money. I'd feel guilty about that," he said.

Sir, you feel guilty about presenting an image of desperate need to people passing by, guilt-tripping them into giving more handouts? Do you feel as guilty about wishing the government of China would force those very same strangers to hand over that money?

Not once in this entire article did Mr. Lev attempt to prove that China's "shift toward capitalism" is leaving behind the needy (nor would he be able to do so effectively, as far as I'm concerned). To me, the purpose of this piece is to guilt-trip us into rethinking our vile capitalist ways. To hold up a sorry bastard and say "Look at this retch! His pain is your fault! Only your sacrifice can save him!"

I oppose welfare assistance for the ultra-needy and emergency disaster assistance for the same reason: there is no rationale whatsoever that justifies the theft of my property and the coercion of my will when I have committed no injustice.

Posted by Drizzten at November 09, 2004 10:03 AM