Still_Small_Voice

I can relate as well. This is very common amongst almost all families, both in the church and out. We should not make judgments about other people thinking that their life is perfect, when in reality they may have gone, or are actively going, though the exact same trials. This is a problem plaguing our ward at the moment...too much comparison, supposition, and speculation taking place. It is causing folks to resent their neighbors, seek for riches, forget how blessed they really are, and how they need to be more willing to serve others.
That being said, I will not bend over backwards for someone who isn't willing to do a little bending for themselves, and I have no problem letting someone fall on their face...so they can learn to pick themselves back up.

I can relate.   My wife and I both come from upbringings that had no small amount of toxic dysfunction in it.  Between our two families, we've got stuff like suicide, PTSD, drug abuse ending lives early, child neglect, a convicted felon, and multigenerational child abuse.  We both bear scars, and there are broken parts of us both that simply won't be fixed during our mortal probation.  I came up with the name "Broken Cycle Ranch" for our home, and both of us have bent over backwards to ensure that our kids aren't touched by the nonsense that touched us.  I think we're doing ok - a few months ago my teenager accused us of abuse because we turned off her internet until she did her homework.  🤣
Yes indeed, when I hear stories about the "lost and the least" of us, it's pretty easy to think "there but for the grace of God go I".  Charity without judgment is easier for me than the next person over.
(And now y'all know why my username is a hard won title.)

I can't help but think how much we (I) abuse the Charity of God, when I hear stories like this.
I can totally empathize with the frustration, lack of willingness to do what is necessary for oneself, lack of gratitude etc etc.  But then my thoughts turn on me... how often I have been ungrateful? How often have I reached out to the Lord for help and aid when I still haven't done the work?  How often do I find my self returning to my sins after he helped me get out.
I have nothing to offer to 'fix' the problem other then the acknowledging that in more ways then I like, I am acting much the same, just in a different area of life.
 

So, this may be terribly condescending on my end, but . . .
There is a staggering number of people out there whose brains just don’t work right.
It may be due to chemical addiction, or trauma in the early phases of childhood development, or bad culture, or bad genetics, or a bunch of other things.  But this is just how their brains (don’t) function, and they go through life from one train wreck to the next because certain things just don’t “click”; and the ability of therapeutic/chemical/surgical interventions to correct those kinds of cognitive errors is limited.
I was at a seminar a couple years ago that made this point in a much more delicate way, with something called The Brain Architecture Game.  At the time I was defending indigent parents whose children were in DCFS custody, and my takeaway (which maybe wasn’t what its creators intended) was:  your ability to fix these people is somewhat limited; so don’t knock yourself out trying.  If you can show kindness, and find a meaningful way to help the next generation be a little less dysfunctional than the last one, you’re doing the Lord’s work.
There’s more wisdom in the saying that “the poor you have with you always” than most of us are willing to admit.  

I'd focus first on: "what is charity?"  It is the pure love of Christ. 
It's not giving stuff away, it's not working for free, it's not feeding the hungry, it's not being part of a Facebook group, etc.  (Though charity can indeed motivate each of those actions).  It is first and foremost that feeling of God-like love.
People and situations are diverse.  Yes, there are times that giving of temporal goods in an act of love.  And there's also times where it is NOT a loving act.  Even God Himself can (and frequently does) answer prayers for temporal or other things with a "no".  And as part of our learning discernment is learning to likewise say "no" when it's the right thing to do.  And there are MANY times where "no" is the right answer and giving someone something they ask for is actually hurtful to them.  MANY times.  

I've been a ward finance clerk for three bishops now.   I've seen endless blessings flow through the fast offerings program.  There are handfuls of stories where a bishop has acted as broker, someone wanted to donate a car, bishop knows someone who needs a car, stuff like that.   It is great to watch the blessings of service reach both sides of the equasion.
I also have a small handful of experiences where, oh, let's say, people have struggled with behaviors and attitudes that have prevented them from experiencing the full load of blessings.  Or perhaps they're upset at a perceived lack of earned blessings.  Sometimes they get ticked off because the bishop and ward doesn't jump to do them the service they feel they deserve.
I've seen one example of fraudulent abuse of fast offerings, by a family of professional bilkers who are experts in appearing poor and needy and desperate.  The bishop found them out, and let them know that while the invitation to partake in the church's spiritual blessings was still open to them, they would no longer be able to avail themselves of the temporal ones.  
@Backroads, don't give up on humanity, just because you've found a place where scammers congregate.  The scriptures seem pretty firm on things, talking about how if you judge the beggar and use that judgment to not help, then you are sinning.  Just keep in mind on what helps people, and what doesn't.  Letting scammers scam, isn't charity and doesn't help.  We're supposed to be more than harmless as doves, we're also supposed to be wise as serpents. And serpents don't buy sob stories from grifters who are lying to get gain.  
If there's ever any doubt, you can offer to take someone to church, and talk to them about our fast offerings program, and what they need to do to get help from the bishop.  And should they disappear right in front of your eyes and move on to more lucrative pastures, try to genuinely love them enough to be sad for their choice.
 

Reading your post, I tend to want to commiserate rather than offer actual solution alternatives. So I'm of no help.
I have never seen such an attitude of entitlement as I see today. A year or so ago, my wife fixed a wonderful Indian dinner and, for various reasons, ended up with a lot left over. She advertised on a FB group that this was available for any who wanted it. Someone responded almost immediately, and my wife gave her the address. She told my wife that she didn't have a car, so couldn't pick it up, So my wife worked out a time FOR US TO DRIVE DOWN TO HER HOUSE AND DELIVER HER OUR FOOD WE WERE GIVING AWAY.
But wait. It gets better. So at the appointed hour, I (duly authorized by my wife) drive on down to the apartment housing where they live. The instructions on how to get to their apartment are absolutely horrible. I'm walking around this apartment complex, and no one is coming out to meet me or anything. I literally can't find the apartment (because, as it turns out, the instructions were completely wrong, as if given by a lost child), and after ten or fifteen minutes (!!) of looking, I have decided that I've had it, I'm going home. Just then, a car drives up (let me repeat: A CAR DRIVES UP) and parks. Out gets a very young woman and her boyfriend. They see me and ask me if I have the Indian food. They then show me to their apartment (because they can't be bothered to, you know, take the food from me) and instruct me to put it on the table. No thanks, no gratitude, no "tell your wife how much we love it". Nothing.
I was a people person until I met some people.

ANY disciple of Christ has the right to ask Him for aide, including driving out negative spirits.  For example, Joseph Smith did so during the preamble to the First Vision-- he had no priesthood at all, wasn't baptized, or even taught the fullness of the Gospel.  

A lot of the justifications I’ve seen for this are that a) Melvin was one of the entities that caused the 2008 meltdown (objectively untrue), and b) that it’s somehow wrong to “bet against America” by positioning yourself to make money if the market tanks.  In those respects, I wonder if some of the anger at Melvin is misdirected.
That said:  boo hoo.  The market is risky, options trading riskier still, and shorting . . . explosively so.  And if it’s true that Melvin or other hedge funds have deliberately dumped/bought shares en masse to manipulate prices, then I guess they’re reaping what they’ve sown.  It sounds like most of the Reddit folks understand that at some point they are going to take a bath financially, but they shrug it off as the price of revenge or revolution or what-have-you.  I admire their pluck, and wish them well.  

Gamestop is the primary one, (and boy do I wish I had invested in it during March of 2020...a little over $4 then, and yesterday selling for up to $370), but AMC and a few others have also increased in value in the past 3 days.
Gamestop was particularly malicious as some of the actions by a hedge fund from what I understand were designed to make Gamestop go out of business, and thus with the falling stock prices be able to short them very effectively and make a massive profit.  Instead, the move is to hold up the Gamestop stock prices until the shorts come due (on Friday?) which then will put that hedge fund (and perhaps another one which is propping it up) to face bankruptcy themselves instead.  It was the maliciousness of the act of the hedge fund that drove the individualsto unite so strongly against it.
However, we have seen some very blatant and obvious stock manipulation by some of the other actors and companies (some also say CNBC is in on the manipulation) in order to try to bring GME back down to earth, and perhaps save the hedge fund from owing such massive debts that they themselves face the same bankruptcy that they were trying to force on Gamestop.

"Only a virtuous people are capable of freedom. As nations become more corrupt and vicious, they have more need of masters." -- Benjamin Franklin
"We would not accept the yoke of Christ; so now we must tremble at the yoke of Caesar."  -- Bishop Fulton J. Sheen
"Our increased reliance on laws to regulate behavior is a measure of how uncivilized we've become." (D. Todd Christofferson, "Moral Discipline," Ensign, November 2009, 105-8).

The name "Melchizedek priesthood" is actually a nick name.  The proper name of it is actually the "Holy Priesthood, after the Order of the Son of God".  It is Christ's priesthood.    The nickname is used to show reverence to things properly addressed and to avoid too frequent repetition of things (like internet folks would totally acronym it).  
Priesthood in general is the authority to act in God's name, doing God's will, with God's power. We are His disciples, and should be doing as He would have us.
Back in the time of Moses, the children of Isreal were not ready for the fullness of Christ's law and convent (remember the whole golden calf thing...).  So as a preparatory step, the Old Law, Old Covenant, and Aaronic priesthood were put in place.  They are an appendage of Christ's fullness designed to help teach and prepare a person/people for the fullness of His ways.  Come Christ's mortal life, He taught that higher law, new covenant, and ordained with the fullness of His priesthood (nicknamed the Melchizedek priesthood). 
Nowadays, a young man is ordained to the preparatory Aaronic Priesthood, as they prepare and strengthen their walk with Christ.  Later they are ordained to the fullness of His Priesthood, the Melchizedek priesthood.  If a person's growing up in the church, these steps occur age ~12 and ~18.  

Thank you, @Vort. Your explanation helps--especially the first few sentences. Hebrews is largely meant to affirm the supremacy of Christ, so to read the understanding that the priesthood is Christ helps.

Jesus is the great high priest. The Priesthood, at least from our perspective and for our purposes, is Christ's. The Priesthood is, in effect, Christ. It is the very word of God, as Jesus is the Word. It is the power through which creation took place, both creation of things around us and creation of us ourselves. That a man, no matter how holy, can be given the very power of God is itself one of the greatest miracles I can imagine.
The Priesthood is one, as God himself is One. In the large sense, there are not two "Priesthoods". There is exactly one true Priesthood, and it is called Melchizedek. The name "Melchizedek" means "King of righteousness", and thus is a name of Christ. The man named Melchizedek was the greatest or best-known high priest (meaning a holder of the high Priesthood) of his time, and typified the righteous Priesthood holder. Thus, we have the "Priesthood of Melchizedek" standing as a name for The Priesthood, the only true Priesthood that exists.
But wait! If the "high priest" is a holder of the "high" Priesthood, that suggests there is more than just one! There must be a lower Priesthood or Priesthoods! Yes, it does suggest that. The suggestion is not quite true. There is indeed a lesser Priesthood, a Priesthood given to Aaron and his sons to serve the lesser Law of Moses after the children of Israel had rejected the greater law God sought to give them. This so-called Aaronic Priesthood is not really a different "priesthood" at all. Rather, it is a subset of the holy Priesthood, which concerns itself with outward ordinances and performances. Aaron's sons held this "lesser Priesthood", and through its authority they could conduct the temple worship of animal sacrifices that the Lord had revealed to Moses and other prophets before him*. These sacrifices served to atone for the sins of the people and bring them back to God, ultimately representing the great sacrifice of the Lamb of God which would truly accomplish those goals. The children of Israel quickly lost track of the underlying meaning of those ordinances, but the righteous and perceptive among them understood the meaning of the law of Moses.
*Note that the leader of the priests of Aaron was designated the "high priest", e.g. Matthew 26:3. This "high priest" is not to be confused with a holder of the high Priesthood. In normal conversation today, Latter-day Saints use the term "high priest" to refer to a man who holds the office of high priest in the Melchizedek Priesthood. So the term "high priest" has at least three meanings among Latter-day Saints: (1) a Latter-day Saint man who holds the Melchizedek Priesthood office of high priest; (2) any holder of the "high" or Melchizedek Priesthood (e.g. Alma 13:9); and (3) the leader or chief priest during the time of the law of Moses.
Even today, the outward ordinance of baptism by water and the blessing of the emblems of the sacrament in remembrance of Christ's sacrifice are delegated to the young men of the Aaronic Priesthood. So the Aaronic Priesthood continues to serve its function as a schoolmaster to bring us unto Christ. But the greater law as restored by the Son of God (and as brought back to us today through the agency of Joseph Smith and other prophets) must of necessity operate under the auspices of the higher or complete Priesthood, which we commonly call Melchizedek. Thus, a couple of weeks or so after the resurrected John the Baptist restored the Aaronic Priesthood to Joseph Smith and Oliver Cowdery on May 15, 1829, the last presiding leaders of Christ's Church, namely Simon Peter, James (the greater), and John the Beloved restored to them the Priesthood of Melchizedek. With this authority, they were enabled to restore the kingdom of God on earth once again.
This is an incomplete explanation, and I invite others to add to it. But I hope it helps answer your questions about how the Latter-day Saints understand the place and purpose of the Melchizedek Priesthood.

"Only a virtuous people are capable of freedom. As nations become more corrupt and vicious, they have more need of masters." -- Benjamin Franklin
"We would not accept the yoke of Christ; so now we must tremble at the yoke of Caesar."  -- Bishop Fulton J. Sheen
"Our increased reliance on laws to regulate behavior is a measure of how uncivilized we've become." (D. Todd Christofferson, "Moral Discipline," Ensign, November 2009, 105-8).

I believe we all agree - at least in words and theory  - that freedom and liberty is good.  However, I have become convinced that freedom and liberty will only work for a society deeply rooted in truth and a truthful knowledge of G-d.  However, I am also convinced that for justice to exist that there must be power within a society and government to deal with those that use their freedoms and liberties to exercise "unrighteous" dominion.   It seems to me that there is a problem in defining both what constitutes unrighteous dominion and to what extent to do what in whatever society and government be they allowed to exercise power  against those that over reach.
 
The Traveler

I believe it requires failure. You aren't going to learn critical thinking skills if failure isn't a possibility, or if the potential rewards aren't different. Too many parents and leaders baby their kids, and they never get a real chance to grow. They come home from their mission after 4-6 weeks because they miss their mom and the comforts of home. They enter the workforce, are told "NO' for the first time, and they don't know how to handle it and break down. You see these kids on college campuses all the time wanting their "safe spaces". You see them going from job to job because they can't handle directions and authority. Without income they cannot pay debts that they never should have entered into, and eventually wind up with the homeless crowd and become addicted to all of the vices that follow that lifestyle. I have sadly seen far too many kids with so much potential permanently fall into the gutter because they don't know how to do something hard. To them, anything difficult is not worth doing. They have never experienced the satisfaction (and increased appreciation) when you put time in and actually work for something.

I can't begin to tell you how many people I work with (in healthcare) that cannot remember the things they were taught in school, whether it be secondary or post-secondary education. The whole goal now is to pass tests, and people do it by cramming...not actually learning the material. (much of the material isn't worth learning anyways, but that's a different beast altogether)
Now, I was not a 4.0 student, and all of us have been guilty of cramming before a big test here and there, but more and more the information just isn't sticking because all that matters anymore is the grade...not what the grade is supposed to represent. Too many young people are graduating with degrees that certify they are knowledgeable in their field, when really this person is not. They find it hard to get a job because they don't actually know anything and bomb their interview, or can't hold a job due to being lazy. In college after my mission (around 2008) I was astounded to hear so many kids whining about not being able to get extra credit to get better grades in their coursework. I remember thinking "this is college...not middle school. What are these wimps saying?" But I heard it all the time, and it is now the norm. Kids want an easy ride and to be handed everything, and felt sad because they weren't getting a good grade...and many college "professors" are catering to them - giving them extra credit for volunteering at some wacky liberal arts event.
Parents have always been the main party responsible for their children's education, and they need to step up. Much of what we learn is also done outside of academy walls. Street smarts are pitifully lacking in the current generation. Many kids don't want to leave home because they don't understand basic concepts like insurance or retirement plans. And among those that do, many are just afraid to mess things up and face the world, so they retreat into their own private world like an Ostrich with it's head in the sand while life passes them by. These are the ones that want government to take care of them...the ones that don't know how, or are too lazy, to take care of themselves.

There is a propensity to limit education.  The first part of STEM is Science.  Science is the pursuit of knowledge and understanding.  It is contrary to true science to refuse learning of truth.  An education should not be a dictation of information and data but rather the tools of how to sift through information and data to discover truth.   Education should be how to learn truth and not how to parrot back information.  Some examples:  Removing religion from formal education is a gross error - it is impossible to understand the truths of history without understanding the truths of religious influences on the events of history.  Without a firm and accurate understanding of religion it is impossible for someone to be educated in history.
I would also suggest that how to defend one's self and the use of firearms is an element of education that if lacking - a person is not educated nor prepared to function in any free society.  Sadly it is my personal view that few are sufficiently educated to live or function in a free society based in liberty.  
 
The Traveler 

I like much of what you're saying here. The more I learn about education and teaching, the more I realize that critical thinking really cannot be taught explicity. It's just something you have to do.
But education is being driven away from getting opportunities to use and therefore develop critical thinking. 
 

As a kid I totally loved the old Godzilla movies. Men in rubber lizard costumes knocking over cardboard boxes, painted to look like skyscrapers. Japanese people with poorly-dubbed American accents running away "in terror". One of my bitterest childhood memories was of our TV exploding twenty minutes into "King Kong vs. Godzilla" so I never saw the ending of it. (And this was after a Napoleonic campaign on the part of my brother and me to persuade our dad to let us stay up late to see it!) Furthermore, I then had to endure the twisted knife of next-day schoolyard discussions of the movie.
But at last I've learned what happened!

I watch the 2nd Amendment a lot in this nation.  About thirty-six states presently have tolerable firearm laws.  These states do not have magazine capacity restrictions on citizens, red flag gun confiscations without due process or silly laws against pistol grips, barrel shrouds, flash hiders, bayonet lugs or adjustable stocks.  Detachable magazines are a nice feature to have for a long gun or pistol as it enables a citizen to reload faster.  
There is no such thing as a "high capacity magazine."  This was a term invented by people wishing to cripple and erode our 2nd Amendment liberties away.  There are "full capacity magazines" and "crippled capacity magazines." 
From what I have experienced and read, most magazines that have over thirty five rounds in capacity are less reliable, heavy and bulky.  

Remember your online buddies when the check comes in.

I got some trigger time with my son.