It’s very important to some people because that single mom is colored and the world just doesn’t make sense if we let something halfway decent happen to them.
There are plenty of people in this country that would rather die than watch someone get something they need to survive. It’s actually the strongest lever of power over Republicans other than what is directly happening to them personally right now. This is why they’ll inevitably always end up like Gollum, confused as the lava kills them, and also why they should be shamed instead of leveled with.
people in this country that would rather die than watch someone get something they need to survive.
Wish they would, then. Leave us to clean up the mess, we can handle the hard work they clearly can’t (or they’d be better people… self work is work!).
Here’s the thing. Why should others struggle less than I did? That’s not fair. These programs are rife with abuse, I just cannot provide any data that supports the rampant fraud that I speak of. In fact, I’ve never seen fraud at all—I just believe what the angry white man says on television!
These are real things I’ve heard from those that work in the same factory as I do. They have no idea that they are the useful idiots.
Not to downplay how frustrating that must be, seriously, I live in a regressive area as well. It genuinely sucks.
What i find works moderately well is to describe programs in ways that benefit those people directly. Meet them where they are willing to be; selfish.
Don’t mention the other people, focus on how it could help them and their family and friends.
If you can’t fix selfish, which in this economy you probably can’t, fix framing. Make it all about how much they win from social programs that “they pay for and don’t get any of”. Thats getting easier to do with healthcare and UBI, as things get worse and the top few benefit, and they apply to everyone. Don’t mention that it helps other people at all. Thats’s a negative to them, just tell them how much less they will be paying, how much their family will benefit with that extra money.
The abuse is usually a store charging against your benefits when you are not in the store and ultimately not getting the things that your benefits paid for… Walmart is by far the biggest welfare fraudster
There’s some broken nonsense in conservative world views.
Perhaps chief among them (no pun intended) is the idea that hierarchy is good and natural and inevitable. Flowing from that there’s the idea that different rules apply to different people. And the famous “in groups to protect, out groups to bind” thing.
So things like welfare are abhorrent to them. That’s messing with the hierarchy! Some people need to be down in the gutter. Without the underclass, then everything falls apart and all their auffering was for nothing, and their sense of self can’t handle that.
I recently witnessed an interaction about this.
Cashier at a supermarket is complaining about the previous customer buying “Luxury items” with the social credit card.
Mind you, those luxury items where not booze or expensive skin care products… No, there were not-the-cheapest brand of orange juice and milk.
The cashier reasoning was that if he can’t afford those things, poor people shouldn’t either.
So as you can see, they’d rather be angry with a mom buying decent food for their kids rather than asking themselves why everyone is getting poorer.
And yes, said customer was high on the color grading.
I know this isn’t the issue, and I am fully in favor of expanding social safety nets including food stamps, not reducing them…
That said, I find no conceptual issue with limiting the kinds of items food stamps can be used for to actual food. No one needs soda or candy bars or whatever other processed, practically poisonous crap we eat. We’d all be better off if we didn’t. I don’t think it’s unreasonable to limit tax-dollar funded food assistance programs to actual food items.
If you disagree, tell me why.
I disagree because I think it’s morally wrong to limit someone’s choices based on your own ideals simply because they’re poor. You also never know what someone is going through and comfort foods can be really beneficial to mental health. If the problem is you don’t want people to spend money on things that are unhealthy then that battle should be fought for everyone through education reform and easier access to healthy foods, not by further restricting what little autonomy poor people have
Where does the limit sit? It’s not so simple, especially in the US, to define what has too much sugar or is too processed as to limit what people are allowed to buy on food stamps.
Furthermore its reducing agency of people, basically trying to make people think their lack of a job is their own fault and because of that they must eat what the government thinks they deserve. I just think that could start to have negative psychological impacts on some peoples self worth.
and yes its to distract the epstein files, thats why trump has to come up with new ways everyday to fill the news with gaffes.
Modest proposal: EBT should be able to be used on Epstein’s clients, cooked or not
