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missfrillypants -> RE: Why is Socialist a 4-letter word in the US? (2/13/2009 8:08:18 PM)
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ORIGINAL: NeedToUseYou
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ORIGINAL: missfrillypants
re: food stamps. first off, it is my own personal idea that in this country, most of the "working poor" spend a lot of time trying to hide the fact that they are poor, because of the stigma attached and because we, as americans like to pretend that we do not have a class system, when in fact every country on earth is going to have some people who are more wealthy than others, that's a natural effect of having a finite amount of resources. there are many people who were born in snug upper middle class families and are unaware of the realities of real people of the lower classes except for those they see on the street who are obviously homeless, those who live in ghettos, and largely what they see on the television, so they don't know why people are complaining or why those lazy people don't just try a little bit harder because they have no idea what it's like to try to live your life without a safety net or a head start. and i usually try to say this by telling people that if they themselves have never been on food stamps, or if their parents were not, then they do not really know what it's like and only have a limited perspective on poverty. this is not always true, but it often is.
secondly, most people on food stamps are women with children. most of them work at least one job and one of the reasons they still cannot afford to feed their child is that they do not have a significant other or their SI also must work to pay their other bills, and finding someone to watch their child is very expensive. (most of the people who are against food stamps are also against abortion, and therefore have no right to say that it's their fault for having children. ) they work, sometimes two jobs, and they are very busy and tired because they also must care for a child, and therefore they buy things like pizza rolls and chips that they can make quickly or that their children can make for themselves once they are old enough to legally be latch key children. many children can-not or will not cook complicated meals, or will refuse to eat them and there is only so much fighting with a ten year old you can do about something like coke or chips when you work 55 hours or more per week. MANY people in this country have junk food addictions, and you know what? healthy food is more expensive. wonder bread is cheaper than even a moderately priced wheat bread. raumen noodles are cheaper than the ingredients to make pepper steak or pasta primavera. there are MANY studies that have come to the conclusion that the reason there is an obesity problem with the poor is that the food that makes you fat is cheaper. even "good food" is made with more fillers and sugar and things like that when you get to the cheaper brands... a cheap canned pasta sauce's second or third ingredient, for example, is usually high fructose corn syrup.
re: Disability
there are a lot of people who get disability, who, if they had the money to get job training in another field, could work again, but can not afford said training, even with disability payments. a person who has back problems may be capable of doing a job where they answer the phone, but many receptionist jobs or things like that now require a person to have at least a tech school degree. or that person with back problems may need to be treated with pain meds in order to think straight, which she gets help with paying for because she is on disability, and which she could not afford on the salary she would get paid if she got the job that would otherwise support her... shame there's not some sort of government system in place that would pay for her meds so she could work, isn't there? or some kind of program that will train her to do another kind of job?
You live in another universe apparently, I grew up on welfare, so I'm not talking out of my ass here. I used to go to the grocery store with my mother, buying food on foodstamps.
Here's the deal some people do need assistance, however, your lame argument that women raising single kids need the government to provide them with pizza rolls, and cokes, is stupid, in the extreme. So, your argument, is since they are single mothers they can feed their kids trash, because they are working 50 hours a week and the state should pay for it! LOL. Insane. You know it's proven that diet in a kids younger years is very important to mental and physical development, so let's just pay for trash food, so the ladies can have a break. Whatever.
I'll tell you what would happen if they could only buy real food with it, they'd cook it and eat it, whether tired or not, because hunger will make you do whatever it takes to eat, and people would be healthier for it, and learn to cook!
Seriously, I simply can't believe you aren't ashamed of even posting that argument. Single mothers need to be able to by Sodas and pizza rolls or else their children will bitch about it. LOL. Grow up. Kids always want bad food, no kid prefers spinach over a happy meal. This fight even goes on in affluent households.
There you go, let's just make the food stamps redeemable at Mcdonalds then no one needs to cook at all. Problem solved. Or let's let them use them for pizza delivery, or even better.
I mean seriously that's just ridiculous from top to bottom. And for the record, and I know more welfare moms than one should meet in a lifetime, most work sporadically or one job. The go getters, and the ones that want off welfare, eventaully get out of the system. If you are a single mom, for example you can go to college for free, in Illinois you could anyway.
Oh, well, in summation, the whole reason I'm against most programs, is because of people that get involved start thinking like you in your paragraphs above. As if, As if, they have a right, to living as leisurely an existance as people that pay for everything they consume. NO, but I don't even think people should be left to starve, I just think maybe they should buy green beans, instead of burritos, if they want money for food.
i do agree that buying pizza rolls may make your money go a little faster than buying some other things, but it IS true that most unhealthy foods are cheaper than healthy ones, and i don't think that just because someone eats junk food is a reason not to let them eat at all. i do not think that pizza rolls qualify as a "leisurely existence." be realistic. the kind of logic you are using is the same kind of logic that would annoy the crap out of you if, say, since your employer paid for your health insurance, they got to decide what kind of food you ate since they would be paying if you someday got heart disease for eating too much. many junky foods are NOT covered by food stamps but just because you can microwave one food and not another does not make it less healthy. there are a lot of foods that if cooked with cheap ingredients are just as bad for you as microwaveables. and the truth is, that not matter how much they would like to, some people can not learn to cook or to cook food beyond grilled cheese, ricearoni type stuff, and noodles, which is not so much healthier than microwave pizza rolls or frozen pizza that you get to be sanctimonious about it. some of the unhealthy things are purchased because they have more calories and will fill a person up more quickly and cheaply. although i am aware that there are some people who do abuse the system, i think that the solution to that is having more caseworkers and having them make regular appointments to speak to people and to make sure on a case by case basis that people are not cheating because a lot of the problems we have come from trying to say that everyone's opportunities are the same when this is not now, nor has it ever been the case. in my state there is a legal requirement that you work or attempt to find more work if you are not employed more than a certain amount of time per week if you wish to receive food stamps, but there is no program to let single mothers attend college for free. if there is, guess what it is? socialism. there are a few programs to help pay for some of the tuition, but they are non-comprehensive. also, i do know a few women who were going to go to trade or beauty school to get more education to find better employment but were unable to because there was no one to watch their young children. i know a lot more people who do not have vehicles and have incredibly inadequate public transport where they live and could get a good job, but cannot get to said job or cannot get to school from where they live. i am not saying that abuse of the system does not happen or that people do not get off of any kind of government assistance eventually if they want to, i know that is true because i've seen it happen, but i do not think that just because some people try to scam the system that no one should ever be helped if say, they need help for six months or something and then get a better job. i think that if people wish to reduce the amount of money spent on food stamps there are many ways to do so, but many of them involve more evil socialism or a change in policy which the religious right does not want to think could possibly be bad for people because that would make them ask uncomfortable questions about their religion.
for example, i think that anyone who is female and capable of getting pregnant should be given free birth control and abortions if the need them (in my state any woman from age 18-24 gets free birth control, pregnancy tests, the emergency contraceptive pill, and things like pelvic exams as long as they don't make too much money. it's called the waiver.) by the government. maybe some small bonus could even be give to women on welfare if they are on birth control. children are incredibly expensive, and they take up a lot of a woman's time and i do know that some women could work more hours if they did not have children at home who needed care, either because they tire them out or because child care is hard to find. once you are not financially dependent on the government, you can feel free to have as many kids as you want, but when you're already so broke you can't take care of what you already have in your life, you should do what you can to not put more on your plate. i do not think anyone should be sterilized, or that any one group is more unworthy of having children, but i think that there are a lot of people in our society who have children for stupid reasons, and lot of the people having children never know how much work and how much money they cost, and during sex ed children need to be taught that, too, in addition to how to use birth control to prevent disease and not get pregnant. if less people have children, it will help to benefit the economy because there will be less people competing for resources, and generally if people wait to have children until they not only can support them, but are mature enough to care for them properly and sure that they actually want to devote their life to having children, the children and parents will have better lives.
providing childcare to people at affordable prices on a sliding scale, and improving public transportation so that people who cannot afford a vehicle at the moment can get a better job which will keep them off of welfare and reduce pollution is also a good idea. so is lowering the cost of education and helping as many people as possible get training for good jobs, and making sure people don't need to go on welfare or disability because they can't afford their medication by providing healthcare for everyone, especially children and those with disabilities of any kind. and of course, a minimum wage increase would also help many people to be able to support themselves with what they already make. i would like to add that the economy that is growing the most at this point in time is china, which has a very socialist system although they are moving towards more capitalism. i am not saying we should adopt a society like theirs, but that their system is working and ours is not, and that's something we need to think about which is relevant to this argument.
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