Benchwarmer drive sets new meanness record?

If this story doesn't show what a bunch of crybabies some people can be, nothing will.

In San Diego, some wingnut has come up with a cruel and cowardly idea to sweep the homeless out of sight. The busybody who is affiliated with a merchants' association has sent out an e-mail asking people to sit on public benches so homeless people don't have any place to sit.

She cried, "Right now, a bum can sit out in front of a store, and they can do it all day, day after day."

Tough shit, genius. And unless you help come up with real solutions for homelessness instead of trying to fight the homeless, the homeless are going to keep sitting on the benches, because they have nowhere else to go.

A more accurate statement than the above quote would be: Right now, people are homeless, and they're homeless all day, day after day. If someone who isn't homeless actually has the time to serve as a benchwarmer to keep a homeless person from sitting down, they've got a lot less to worry about in life than the homeless or any other disadvantaged people.

Remember when Phil Collins had that song that went, "Think twice...It's another day for you and me in paradise"? Maybe the spoiled baby who complains about homeless people sitting on public benches should give that tune a listen.

So far, however, nobody has volunteered to act as a benchwarmer.

How is a homeless person sitting on a public bench any worse than a benchwarmer deputized by the merchants' association sitting there? The homeless have the same right to use the benches as anyone else. The benchwarmer program is a legally questionable attempt to stop someone from engaging in legally protected activity.

Another day, another story about some greedy, privileged elitist not giving a shit about the less fortunate.

(Source: http://kob.com/article/stories/S373501.shtml?cat=648;
http://www.signonsandiego.com/news/metro/20080308-9999-1m8bench.html)