>>Nobody is suggesting starvation.
>>I was suggesting that maybe my dear cousin's lives would have turned out better if they had learned how to hold onto a job, instead of being "entitled."

What job would that be? These days there's competition for Walmart greeter and burger flipper jobs. The danger is that people interpret advice to get a nonexistent job as "let them eat cake" and we know what happens next.

>>Besides, our rioters seem more interested in big screen TVs than bread.

Yep. Big screen TVs are a major motivation. FWIW I once was on the spot when a riot began. Outwardly cheerful people enjoying a free concert suddenly were smashing shop windows and upending cars and lighting fires. Nothing the Police could do for an hour or two, when the riot devil suddenly departed and order restored itself. When they say that disorder in any urban environment by as few as 10,000 people cannot be controlled at all by Police- I believe it.

>>My father is a homeless guy who has had plenty of soup kitchen and Salvation Army meals.
>>He is mildly mentally ill - electroshock will do that to someone.
>>Not a danger to anybody, and not sick enough to put away.
>>Not a thing anybody can do to force him to live the life you and I live.
>>I give money to the Salvation Army, I don't know what else to do.
>>In any case - he gets enough to eat.

Sorry to hear this, and one of the signs of a decent society is that he can in fact live this way if he chooses. If he had kids or other dependents, it would be a little different.