Should we be surprised when a fellow human being helps us when we're in distress?

Is it an unusual thing?

Should we be grateful, or should we take it for granted?

Discuss.

as it's in my clipboard from the other thread: Good_Samaritan_law

Nice one DB I bow down to your cunningness.

..I generally go out of my way to help people in distress. Reason being, I never know when I'm the one in need..

I am all in favour of a society where taxation is replaced by noblesse oblige. Or...what was the question again

...sorry, got sidetracked...ehmm, we should expect to get helped, but also be grateful for it.

Definitely. I just dont see the need to start a thread of worship

see it as a thread of indirect thanks - to the person, someone upstairs, etc

oo, this is just waiting for a merger....

But to answer your question, I'd like to think I would help, but whether I actually would at the time, I'm not sure, depending on the situation in hand. Yes, I've offered to help people up who have fallen, but if I were to witness a serious incident, would I intervene? In all honesty, I couldn't say.

what's there to discuss eh?

Interesting, you do come off as an Classical Economist, with strong Ayn Randian influences; whose philosophy, in essence, is the concept of man as a heroic being, with his own happiness as the moral purpose of his life, with productive achievement as his noblest activity, and reason as his only absolute.

Sorry to make a random pschoanalysis of your statement. Didn't mean to sidetrack from the topic either.

No I don't think we ought to be surprised when human being help others in distress. I'd like to argue that it's human nature, but I have no philosophical/empirical knowledge to back that statement.

I do prefer to let the government tax us (heavily) and leave the resposibility of helping people in distress (the sick, the hungry, the poor) to their (our?) hands, while I think only individuals can help people with urgent distress (car hang of the side of an Alp) issues.

If you can afford the time and everything then of course one should help others in distress and no it should never be taken for granted!!

Of course it'd be polite, if those who have been helped etc by a 'good samaritan' would express a thank you!

I am a big believer in : ' What goes around, comes around!'

If you hand out good things,help and so on it will come back to you and you never know when you might need it!!!

Be grateful and don't take it for granted.

In the same vein, those who offer help should not expect anything in return unless otherwise stated upfront.

Isn't it the other way round? I mean, individuals providing emergency mountain rescue services? No.... And the State helping the poor? Since when has any State, regardless of tax burden, ever been good at helping the poor? Have you ever been to Sunderland?

I remember years ago growing up in Cornwall, there was a maritime accident and several volunteer lifeboat crew tragically lost their lives. In the wake of this, several collections were setup to help their families. However, the help was vehemently refused. The argument being that since the crewmen were volunteers, they expected, and received nothing for their services. Accordingly the families expected no financial help from the public.
The details may be skecthy, it was a long time ago however.

Why Sunderland... are they starving there or being sold into Slavery (credit card companies don't count, yet)?

No.

No.

In order: Yes. No.

I think the State's doing a pretty good job of helping the impoverished in Scandanavia (having lived in a few locations there shortly). And while it might not be possible to rip a car door open and pull someone out of a wreckage, it's often people that call emergency rescue services in these sorts of situations.

The US & the UK are exaclty the kind of nation where i don't feel Government is doing enough to put measures in place that assist the impoverished (see health care, low-income community education services).
Unfortunately many developing countries were force fed this capitalist democracy bulls**t in the 70's and 80's and we wonder why we end up with self-indulgent morons like Mugabe etc...

I'm not for communism, that doesn't work, but a moderate, rational framework incorporating individual rights and communally funded public services I do advocate.

Wow. I have just completely agreed with Phos.

But Phos, don't take it for granted. And I won't mind if you're not grateful.