Here is what he wrote:

Now, I think you're arguing that societies only responsibility is to let
people help themselves...forgive me if I've misunderstood....here starts the
rant...

As with most people who argue against society having a moral responsibility
to help those less fortunate, you seem to assume a level playing field for
all, which is of course exactly not true.

Not everyone is born with the necessary intellect, physical abilities or
confidence to seize all these wonderful opportunities which are just laying
there for anyone to pick up.

Not everyone is treated fairly by society for reasons of race, sex, (class
in the UK) etc. regardless of rules that society might lay down to try and
prevent this...those in a vulnerable positions don't have the power in order
to defend themselves.  You might argue that anyone could bring a law suit
against an employeer making unreasonable demands of it's workers, but that
isn't facing reality.

Not everyone is gifted with enough prescience to avoid ever making wrong
choices in life or being disadvantaged through plain bad luck.

Not everyone is privilaged to be possitively influenced through their
formative years (school) - believe it or not, some young people are denied
even seeing the wonderful opportunites and see instead very little
possibility of escaping the environment they are born into and give in to a
nihilistic self destructive course - for example, drug taking, alcohol abuse
or crime...but it might manifest itself "just" as depression, an
unwillingness to even try in case they fail etc.

Some people are even actively repressed by others and feel unable to fight
back.

...and lastly,  as some seize their own "opportunities", this involves
exploiting others.

So, unless you're claiming that everyone aged 18 (to be arbitrary) will have
an EXACTLY equal opportunity, then the question remains, what should a
_caring_ society do?

Ahhh....or maybe you are saying that society doesn't care, and it's everyone
for themselves and hell to those that can't crawl/fight to the top?

If that is the case, image yourself a millionaire, with stock options,
investments left and right, multiple employees, contracts buzzing making you
money hand over fist.  Now, image waking up tomorrow to find that you've had
a stroke and you're unable to think clearly and physically hardly able to
take care of yourself.  Image further that when you go to call for your
private doctor that you're told that you don't have any medical insurance.
But of course you would have that!....except that your accountant has been
taking his "opportunity" by skimming off money from things like that into
his own Swiss bank account, and he's also disappeared now with your entire
savings.  Now imagine that those contracts which promised to make your next
million all now need the creditors paying in order to keep any of the
businesses going....No problem, your stock will save you...except that the
market has crashed, and not only that but you'd covered some insurance
losses which have just come up and actually you owe Lloyds of London more
than a small country makes in a year....you're bancrupt.  You have no family
as you didn't have time for that...you're on the street....but you can
hardly move because of the stroke, and you can hardly think either...you get
mugged for your shoes and a gang decided to beat you up for the fun of it.
It's all too much for you and you have a break down and you now think the
world has been invaded by aliens who are trying to get you, so you can't go
anywhere where they might find you or use your own name....

An unlikely chain of events?  Sure...but imagine the day you'd be facing
after all that.  There are 1,000's of people on the streets facing something
similar because of their own chain of events.

A different situation - picture yourself as a blond, blue eyed all American,
but society has gone strange all of a sudden, and now there are only a small
number who look like you or talk your language, and most of what you learned
in school is now not valued in the workplace, and you need a job.  You go
for an interview - nothing too ambitious as you know you don't have the
skills, and as soon as you walk in, the dark haired interviewer looks
obviously replulsed by your very presence.  Everyone else applying is blond
too as they can't get work either, except for one dark haired person who
doesn't seem to care if they get the job or not - and you find out that they
were the one who was given the job.  This happens 100 times, and you've no
money left to eat....

I could go on, but the point is that society isn't "fair/equal" for
everyone, and that bad things can happen to anyone.  Some people are
undeniably in a bad situation, and at least some of them through no fault of
their own.  They may have worked harder than the 10 richest people in the
world, they may be nice good honest people who just need a hand to lift them
out of the problems they've ended up in and they could then go on to be the
next Einstien, or Bill Gates....but unless they get that hand, they are
doomed to remain in the gutter.

Now, some people seem to be able to ignore the real plight of those around
them and justify not wishing to help with platitudes about not wanting to
hurt people as people have to help themsleves....but if that is the view
that dominates, then we'd have to agree that we don't live in a caring
society.

Let me put it this way.

Some people don't want to help anyone for fear that they might inadvertantly
help someone who doesn't realy need it. (and tough to those who really need
it)

Some people (myself) want to help everyone who _might_need it for fear that
they might not help someone who really needs it.(and so what if some people
get help they don't need)

Imagine how cold the world feel if you were crying out in need and everyone
walked quickly by refusing to help saying "Come on, help yourself, it's
easy!"

Image if you were injured/ill and drowning and everyone on the bank refused
to throw you a lifeline saying "you can swim if you can just be bothered to
try"

Now...would you want to live in a society that thought that was acceptable?

So, do you want to live in a caring society that wants to help people who
need it? (if not, why???)  If so, what way can be used to best help those
who _need_ it?

Forget those who don't need it - an ideal mechanism wouldn't help them, but
is some level of compromise might be necessary.