Animal Instinct??

As humans, we have evolved beyond the limitations of only instinct, developing reason, advanced cognitive processing, and deeper affect than all other animals.  This development in reasoning carries with it certain responsibilities that we should all maintain for one another in order to continue striving as a species.  In particular, it is each person’s duty on this planet to help ensure the health and safety of one another.  So, yes, every person, regardless of their vulnerability in this world, is deserving of basic health and social services.  To a certain extent, perhaps ensuring others safety is animal instinct, as seen in this video: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LU8DDYz68kM   This video depicts what we should all internalize as our responsibility – we need to take care of each other or the whole population suffers.  Like the buffalo in the video, you protect everyone in your group, regardless of how small, weak, hurt, or insignificant they may seem to be to the larger scale of the population. 

Looking at the photo essay of the Roma groups, I would venture to say that these people are who they are because that is simply what they were born into.  Like royalty, some elite, indigenous people, or regular folk, they simply don’t know what other life to have because being gypsy is all they know.  Does this mean we condemn them simply for the family they were born into?  If so, I can’t imagine this being different than the discrimination shown to slaves in pre-Revolutionary United States, or to the Jews in Hitler-ruled Germany, or even to “colored people” in the 1950’s.  Somewhere along the line, this reasoning we’ve attained has made us feel entitled to judge other people’s rights, when in reality we all deserve the same things in this life.

I understand that this altruism is very easily defended, but extremely difficult to manage financially.  However, there must be a way to help every person receive care without an enormous financial burden.  Perhaps we need to look more into having those who are given free care return their health with service.  So for example, if a person receives services valued at $1,000 that they are unable to pay, they must repay the care with their own time of 5 hours.  This may seem too simplistic, but something has to be better than the nothing that most would offer now.