Thanks to strands of Scottish Calvinism that have unfortunately made their way into the ideology of American Capitalism, we tend to see the poor as somehow deserving of their lot. So it goes against the American Dream to look at poverty as anything other than a moral failing of the individual and an enemy to be defeated in a war. By such a viewpoint, the poor as seen as willingly giving an aid to an enemy of the Republic. And so they are treated as such or, in the best of circumstances, are looked over as “collateral damage.”

But as Jesus reminds us, “The poor are with you always…” It would be good not to see poverty as an enemy but as a part of the human condition that offers the opportunity to repair what can be repaired while exercising both sympathy and empathy with a real helping hand.