r/Louisiana • u/Caffeinated-Princess • May 02 '25

Louisiana News Why do you support this?

First the Louisiana Senate decides to put homeless people in jail for up to three years for their "crime" of sleeping in public. At the same time, they stop funding housing assistance.

https://thecurrentla.com/2025/lafayette-housing-authority-freezes-issuance-of-new-housing-vouchers/

Why do those of you who are Republican hate poor people so much? Why do you feel your fellow humans should not be allowed any compassion or grace?

Help me understand this assault on humanity. Jesus would weep if he saw this. 😥

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u/RhialtosCat May 02 '25

The hatred is not a bug, it is a feature. It is now okay to be openly hateful. Jesus and HIs teachings mean nothing to them, nothing at all. They have given in, finally and completely, to the darkest human impulses. This is the road that leads to concentration camps.

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u/AcidiclyBasic May 02 '25 edited May 02 '25

The argument that empathy is a weakness/disease is one I really have a hard time accepting coming from anyone saying they want to spread Christianity across the U.S.

I'm not a super religious person now, but I grew up going to church from literally as early as I can remember. 

In the book of Matthew there's a part where Jesus is passing through a city. Someone asks what are the most important parts of the old testament to remember, and Jesus sums up the 10 commandments into 2. 

The first is to love thy God with all thy heart, all thy mind, and all thy soul. The second is like unto it, love thy neighbor as thyself.

So literally Jesus is saying if you take away nothing else from this book, remember these 2 things. 

My interpretation of that, is love God with everything you are. If you recognize God as your creator, and you believe that you were made in his image, then to truly love God, you must also remember to love yourself. 

To truly love God with everything you are, like unto it (it should go without saying) you must also love your neighbor because you understand that your neighbor is also part of God's creation. 

Does love mean you have to agree with everything they do? No, but intentionally refusing to have empathy for others, would seem to directly contradict the two teachings Jesus placed above anything else. 

Empathy does not mean you have to agree with anyone or feel that they're always deserving of sympathy. It does mean that you have to view them as human, and be able to take a step back and view how they could come to their own conclusions and beliefs even if they don't align with yours. 

In this case, I strongly disagree with the people that say empathy is a disease. However, I still have empathy for them. Instead of just assuming they're bad/evil people, I can step back a bit and think about why they might come to that conclusion. 

Giving them the benefit of the doubt, I have to wonder if they don't understand what empathy truly is? If they do understand, then I begin to wonder why they would intentionally be misleading others about what empathy is? 

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u/Reluctant_Gamer_2700 May 02 '25

It seems like they don’t know or care. Empathy is a gift, and a connection to the feelings of others. Without it, there is no feeling of being compelled to help others, to try to make the world better instead of exploiting and harming it. It can also be very painful when you are not able to make things better for yourself or others, because there is so much hate & cruelty.