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Am I My Neighbor's Keeper?

This sad story involves people not accepting responsibility for their neighborhoods:

Officials in central Michigan say a 93-year-old man who owed more than $1,000 in unpaid electric bills froze to death inside his home -- where the municipal power company had restricted his use of electricity.

Neighbors and friends of Marvin Schur want answers as to how this could happen.

"Now that we do know it was hypothermia, there's a whole bunch of feelings that I’ve got going through me," said Jim Herndon, a neighbor of Schur's. "There's anger, for the city and the electrical company."

I have shoveled walkways for many old people in my lifetime.  When an elderly neighbor died years ago while shoveling his snow, I was haunted.  I should have been shoveling his snow.

Mr. Schur died because he neighbors didn't give a damn about him.  Each person has the right to decide whether to give a damn.  No government should compel us to be our neighbor's keeper.

If you truly care about other people, do something yourself.  If you choose not to help others, don't try shifting the blame onto the government.  You made the choice not to help.  Take personal responsibility for your own choices and your own neighborhoods.  If you don't, spare everyone outside of your neighborhood the outrage.

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