On Feb 1, 1:27*pm, (Cynic) wrote:
On Mon, 30 Jan 2012 19:29:48 +0000, Steve Walker

wrote:
Good for you. But have you had to juggle normal life and caring for
someone 24/7. I can say that I have not first hand, but certainly second
hand. Even caring for my family when my wife was ill (not requiring 24/7
care) was enough to lose me my employment and saddle me with massive
debts which I am now working extended hours to clear. A couple more
months and we would have lost our home.

Why should that situation be anyone's problem apart from you, your
friends and your family?

When my wife was in a similar situation, it would certainly have
caused me just as much hardship as it did you *if* I had provided all
the necessary care personally. *There were however plenty of friends
and family members who between them were able and willing to provide
the additional necessary care without significant detriment to
themselves.

The idea that complete strangers had any sort of duty to solve the
problem by paying for her care did not even cross my mind.

A better way to conceive of the question, is whether 'complete
strangers' have the right to penalise you for engaging in behaviours
that are pro-social and reasonably necessary. For example, should it
be the case that your boss is entitled to exclude you from your means
of earning, because you took a certain period of time off to care for
your wife and family? Should your bank be able to evict you from your
home, because you temporarily need to miss a payment for the same
reason?

You might say there was some sort of agreement that gave the employer
or bank the right to do this, but in fact I doubt Steve gave any real
assent to such behaviour - both his employer and his bank, were able
to use their relative position of power, to impose choices and
contractual terms on him that he considered unreasonable (or perhaps,
later realised how unreasonable they were), but was forced to accept
because of the inequality of power.