Be A Good Samaritan

Election years seem to bring out the worst in people and this year seems to especially so. The hate that people are spewing really is sad and discouraging. A local story that really highlighted this attitude made national attention yesterday.

It's the story of the tow truck driver and the disabled woman. If you haven't heard it, basically a woman got in an accident in Asheville on her way back to SC. A tow truck driver was called to tow her car, but decided not to because she had a Bernie Sanders bumper sticker.

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The tow truck driver says that the Lord told him to strand this woman on the side of a very busy highway - all he knew about her was that she was in the need of help and was a Bernie supporter. From everything I've read, he's very impressed with himself for being such a good "Christian".

In fact, he's basically the opposite of a good Christian, good person and whatnot. And I don't really consider this a political issues, it's a common human decency issue. In fact, what Jesus taught in the parable of the Good Samaritan was just the opposite.

You can read the whole passage here, but the end is what really speaks to me especially with this story.

“Which of these three do you think was a neighbor to the man who fell into the hands of robbers?”
 The expert in the law replied, “The one who had mercy on him.”
 Jesus told him, “Go and do likewise.”

Even if you are of another religion or don't believe in a higher power at all, it's a good thing for society in general to follow Wheaton's Law, which is simply put - Don't be a dick. In the case of this story, the tow truck driver backpedaled a little when he found out that the woman was disabled. He said that if he had realized that, he would have waited with her until another tow truck driver came.

My thought is, what good would that have done? She was still stranded on the side of the road, stuck in her car. And no matter who it was, healthy, ill, male, female, white, person of color, gay, straight, etc. People are people and they deserve to be treated with even a hint of human decency.

Hate is an easy path to go down. It's easy to hate people who are different or whose choices you don't understand. Love can be a harder path because there are going to be people you just clash with for whatever reason. If someone is making choices that you don't agree with, the decent thing to do is to let them be unless they are harming themselves or others. Even doing that little bit and trying to be kind to your fellow humans, and the world would be a better place.