Recently, I witnessed a small-town America estate liquidation, in which an old woman had been put in a home and her chosen legal guardian had "gone bad", more or less. This guy decided to get rid of all of the woman's possessions, including her land, her house, and everything in it. It was sad. Everything this woman had accumulated throughout her long life was taken outside, sorted into lots, and auctioned off to a pack of complete stangers. There was bidding, there was competition, and the whole thing had a sort of carnival atmosphere. There were even people grilling hotdogs and hamburgers and socializing, including some guy running for a local office who was handing out cards and meeting people. On top of all this, the woman was still alive, albeit in a nursing home somewhere.
Never have I witnessed a more thorough destruction of someone's life. The fact that this is legally allowed to happen is just...sad.