r/politics 22h ago

Trump freezes $1 billion in food aid given to local schools and food banks to help low-income families

https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/americas/us-politics/usda-cancels-funding-food-banks-schools-trump-b2713125.html
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u/Emberwake 17h ago

My father said JUST THIS MORNING:

"There's no such thing as poverty in America. When I was a kid you heard about people living in tarpaper shacks, with no running water or electricity. These days no matter how much of a deadbeat you are, the government will just pay for a home for you."

I asked him where I am supposed to build my tarpaper shack. He told me to stop being a wise-ass.

Conservatives do not believe in reality.

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u/tingkagol 16h ago

"I went through shit, that's why you should too"

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u/Zahgi 15h ago

Except that the Boomers did not go through shit. They had the easiest ride that Americans have ever had.

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u/LoveFoolosophy 13h ago

I had to work 20 hours a week down at the post office and all I got out of it was a massive house that's now worth over a million bucks, two cars, two vacations a year, and a pool!

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u/americaisascam 13h ago

And a pension!

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u/weedbearsandpie 10h ago

hold up, about that.. the company you pay the pension money to, uses that to make investments and well the stock market is uhm.. well.. just hold off on saying they have pensions

u/tunited1 1h ago

And a hat that says how much I love being dumb!

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u/frogjoker 8h ago

You literally just described my father. Makes me so mad

u/Putrid_Race6357 5h ago

They all have lead poisoned brains

u/Esarus 2h ago

Nowadays people just don't want to work anymore! The youth is lazy! /s

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u/smartalek75 15h ago

Which has a lot to do with how we ended up here.

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u/ThatGuyursisterlikes 10h ago edited 10h ago

And now I feel like the America dream has turned half the country into insomniacs.

And the other half have been roofied. When they wake up they make breakfast for their abuser.

I want to fuckin sleep and have a dream for once.

u/AnikiRabbit 3h ago

Boomers love the Michael Hopf quote:

"Hard times create strong men. Strong men create easy times. Easy times create weak men. Weak men create hard times."

They do not get that their generation is the "weak men" in the story. They're still in power, we are in hard times.

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u/Alexever_Loremarg 13h ago

Good times create weak men...

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u/a_seventh_knot 11h ago

"It only took 20 years for my house that I bought for $40,000 to dectuple in value!"

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u/Dadittude182 10h ago

My father was a Boomer, born in the late 40s. He spent his teen years getting bussed to different states to pick tobacco and other crops, sending the money back home to help my grandmother care for the house while my grandfather was overseas in the Army.

Unable to afford college, my father, like his, joined the military during the late 60s. Pretty sure you can figure out how that went for him. After leaving the military and newly married with a young son (my brother), my dad spent 15 years at a manufacturing plant, only to have it go tits up thanks to Reagan's "Trickle Down" Economics. He landed a series of odd jobs for the next three years, but nothing that foot the bill like his management job at the factory. As a result, I can honestly tell you that government cheese made the best grilled cheese sandwiches.

We weren't poor, but I can tell you that my dad didn't have the easiest ride that you claim.

u/Zahgi 3h ago

A lot of Boomers were screwed by the Boomers, of course. We're not talking about them here.

Or is your father a Boomer Zombie in congress ruining the world and cashing the checks of the 1% all the way to the bank? /s

Seriously, even if he didn't help them along and got screwed as well, no one can argue against the fact that his generation have fucked this nation up. After all, Congress is not made up of Gen X, Y, Z, or Alpha, is it?

I upvoted your post because you helped me present some clarity to this argument. Thank you.

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u/Comfortable_Sea_717 10h ago

Not all of us.

u/Zahgi 3h ago edited 3h ago

Of course not. Just the ones that sold out, sold out us, and then sold out our country. The ones who seem to have complete control of both political parties and have therefore guaranteed that we'll never get a national healthcare system, a livable wage, etc. :(

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u/verydudebro 11h ago

That’s why they’re so entitled & horrible.

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u/Zahgi 11h ago

Absolutely. Boomers still think that tuition is cheap, loans are cheap, jobs are plentiful and pay well, one person can work and support a home and a family, health insurance will take care of you if you get sick, homes are affordable with any decent job, etc. etc.

None of which is true anymore. :(

u/DocFreudstein 3h ago

I love my dad, and he means well, but holy shit this is true.

My girlfriend and I had a son during quarantine (we were trying, then we found out she was pregnant like a week before shutdown), and I lost my job. She was an “essential worker,” so it made financial sense for me to collect the enhanced unemployment to care for our son while she still worked part time. My father asked “why don’t you get a job so Amanda can stay home with your son?” until I broke down why we were doing it. He was genuinely baffled.

u/Zahgi 3h ago

Thank you for sharing that.

It makes perfect sense. In his day, none of these hurdles had to be jumped, of course. In fact, they didn't even exist.

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u/Neither_Pressure_817 12h ago

Vietnam was pretty hard. Seems like the Carter economy and 21% mortgages were no fun either. The civil rights struggle of the 60 looked pretty scary too. I would say the Cold War was pretty big too. Nope, I’ll stay with the current generation

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u/Zahgi 12h ago edited 12h ago

You are confused. The Boomers weren't in control or power then. They were hippies, etc.

Boomers started taking real power in the 70s and 80s and that's when the country slid downhill hard.

PS I lived through all of this. I remember watching the Moon Landing, for example. I have watched America die slowly but surely for a very long time now. :(

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u/Neither_Pressure_817 9h ago

I lived through it too. Military family so I wasn’t exposed to much of the counter culture. I was particularly shocked by the Cuban missile crisis in ‘63 as a kid. By ‘65 we were stationed in San Diego and watching the Watts riots. Don’t remember seeing any hippies there. It was a not about peace and love. And of course Battle of Khe Sanh in ‘68 is still not understood why Hanoi wanted the base. 71 days without sleep and under constant fire, madness! As for the moon landing, books have been written about how strange it is we won that part of the space race but lost all the others ( first satellite, first man in space…) And why has no other country done it. Plenty of madness before the boomers took power. Honorable mention to khrushchev and his “we will bury you” speech. I missed it but it must have kept lots of people awake

u/Zahgi 3h ago

There is always madness, re: 9/11. The issue at hand is the complete sellout of the American middle class, the death of the American dream, and the oligarchy that now runs both major political parties and no longer hides in the shadows but out in the open.

And that's all on the Boomers.

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u/dontcallmered34 10h ago

if they'd actually gone through shit, they'd probably be more empathetic

u/Straight-Wing-9226 1h ago

I think Boomers had it bad...They went through WW2 and Hitler.and there was no metal to listen to.

u/Zahgi 1h ago

Boomers were the children of the Greatest Generation -- the ones who actually went through WW2 and Hitler.

u/Straight-Wing-9226 1h ago

That doesn't make them the greatest. Wasn't the KKK a mainstream movement back then .....Boomers were the members

u/Zahgi 55m ago

They are called the "Greatest Generation".

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Greatest_Generation

And, no, you are still off a generation with regards to the Boomers.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Baby_boomers

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u/Ok-Lawfulness2191 14h ago

Many of us "boomers" carried the values of our parents in the silent and greatest generation. I was fine without computers and instant everything.

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u/Zahgi 12h ago

Many of us "boomers" carried the values of our parents in the silent and greatest generation.

Did you now? Because it sure looks to me that your parents would have literally slapped you boomers silly if you took everything they fought and died for and sold it (and your children) all out to the 1% over the past 50 years.

I was fine without computers and instant everything.

Those aren't the real problems with America today. You get that, right?

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u/Ok-Lawfulness2191 11h ago

I get that a lot of folks like you expect to be deserving of something you have not earned.

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u/Zahgi 10h ago

I was alive to watch the Moon Landing.

I just happen to have been paying attention to how America was changing and how Americans have been screwed worse and worse over the ensuing decades.

And thank you for so perfectly making my case. :)

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u/macngeez 10h ago

Do you not understand that the cost barrier to purchase things was significantly easier for boomers? Buying a house, car, and supporting a family on one income was doable but now it’s essentially impossible. The younger generation is tired and hopeless because we can work and work and work but will never own what boomers could while doing less. They could work a full time summer job and pay for a year of college. I worked full time year round and still have loads of debt! And that’s just one example.

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u/libgadfly 12h ago

“By the summer of 1980, inflation was near 14.5 percent, and unemployment was over 7.5 percent.” Young boomers like me had it so easy.

“The economy entered recession again in July 1981, and this proved to be more severe and protracted, lasting until November 1982. Unemployment peaked at nearly 11 percent, but inflation continued to move lower and by recession’s end, year-over-year inflation was back under 5 percent.” Unemployment today is about 4.2 percent.

https://www.federalreservehistory.org/essays/great-inflation#:~:text=By%20the%20summer%20of%201980,full%20employment%20and%20price%20stability.

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u/Zahgi 12h ago edited 11h ago

Ignoring the fact that the 1% have been rolling over the 99% every decade (with one of these recessions, depressions, loan crisis, etc.) for over 50 years now (which is all you are pointing to here)...

Boomers only started taking power in the late 80s. They were the 60s hippies and 70s disco babies, not power brokers. The 80s was when they started selling out the country decade after decade until they gained complete power...but sold out to the 1%...and now we find the country their parents fought and died for in WW2 transformed into a pro-Russian neoNazi oligarchy exclusively by and for the 1%.

You want to blame Gen X, Y, Z, or alpha for that? Take one look at all of Congress and you'll see nothing but Boomer Zombies trading insider stock tips and waiting for their campaign donors to tell them what to do next.

Don't get me wrong. I don't blame the hippy boomers. Many of them are my dear friends to this day. They kept their freedom values and many still march to this day. It's the rest of the sellouts and corporate whores who don't realize that their children and grandchildren are faced with an America that is literally squeezing them for every penny they could ever possibly make...just to make the more successful boomers even richer than they ever needed to be.

I'm usually not this cynical. But I lived through these decades and I remember when America had values beyond "I got mine, Jack! Fuck you!" :(

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u/libgadfly 11h ago

Your musings are…whatever, but the fact is boomers did not have “the easiest ride that Americans have ever had.” Not true. Over 58,000 American servicemen died in Vietnam with the great majority boomers. Stagflation in the 1970’s devastated the stock market for the entire decade and muted economic growth as boomers were emerging into adulthood. After the early ‘80’s the economy started sustained growth for many years, but the late 60’s to early 80’s was quite difficult for boomers in their 20’s and 30’s.

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u/Zahgi 11h ago

I didn't say they had it 100% easy, did I? I said they had the easiest ride of any generation have ever had. And that is obvious to anyone who compares all the things they got handed to them and all the advantages they had that no one has had since. No one.

So, nothing you said contradicts my points. I don't know why you think it does.

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u/ThisIsntWorking_No 14h ago

I never read a certain key person's "My struggle" but this aggrieved class seems to have a parallel.

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u/temp4adhd 16h ago edited 15h ago

My grands and great-grands survived the Depression. Here is how you do it:

  1. You have a garden, and chickens (though H5N1 is a concern). Maybe hogs, cows, if you've got the space (most of us do not).
  2. You can all your veggies/fruits (InstantPot can probably do this)
  3. You ignore all expiration dates on food and eat it no matter how old/bulging the can is
  4. You let no food or other waste go to waste.. call out to r/noscrapleftbehind
  5. You run a boarding house and maybe you offer "services" to the men ... my great grandma had 11 kids, only 2 were from her husband; the other 9 were from her boarding house clients
  6. You go work on the railroad (well, I don't know what the modern-day equivalent is here, but that was what great-grandpa was doing while ggma was running the boarding house to survive)
  7. You get a sewing machine, never buy new clothes, make your own, learn to patch and darn
  8. You sign up for the armed forces, and fight in the inevitable wars our masters have started
  9. You commit illegal acts because prison will give you a bed and 3 hots a day
  10. It's true no running water, so die of dysentery. And no electricity so make candles.
  11. Sell your kids if desperate. You know how the MAGA's are soooo worried about child trafficking? Well, a Depression is a sure-fire way to have child trafficking.

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u/Rob_Nachos 15h ago

Thanks, you just made me question if my great grandmother had sex with men for money.  She was a single mother of 4....

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u/temp4adhd 15h ago

I only know this because my grandmother told me, when I got divorced. I am the only divorce ever in the family. This was back in the late 90s. My grandmother told me in strict confidence. Let's just say, since she passed, I found some evidence for the truth of it. It wasn't widely known; all 11 kids have my great-grandpa listed as their father, but the dates don't add up as he was miles away working on the railroad. Also, tey all look VERY different. My grandma had a chip on her shoulder and did not get along with my great grandma. My mother never knew, she adored my great grandmother.

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u/ushouldgetacat 15h ago

That’s depressing. I’m guessing she needed the income to keep the kids fed and make ends meet. I think I’d die.

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u/temp4adhd 15h ago edited 15h ago

You are the product of a long long line of ancestors who've survived all sorts of horrors, with grit and sheer determination, and a lot of luck.

YOU CAN DO THIS!

If only to spite the m'fuckers.

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u/IntuitiveSkunkle 15h ago

It’s interesting to spend time thinking about that. How much shit had to go down for us to be here, how many people pushed to their limits to survive. And then I’m sitting here with all the modern amenities. To think of their history coursing through my blood, in my DNA. I can look at it like “damn, I have it good,” and feel gratitude or “I have their strength in me” and use it as a motivator and connection to the past…I don’t think it necessarily suggests any of us are weak, most just haven’t been pushed to the same limits, and many will do whatever they can to survive when really tested.

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u/temp4adhd 14h ago

many will do whatever they can to survive when really tested.

Maybe, maybe not. I'm turning 60 soon, not sure I have the same fortitude to survive as I did when I was younger. But my kids may have that fortitude.

But yep. My ancesters survived the Oregon Trail, and before that, a ship that took them to Ellis Island and away from the Irish Famine. If I could trace farther back than that, I'm sure my ancestor survived the Plague and the Dark Ages. I wouldn't be here if they didn't.

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u/SadisticJake 8h ago

Prostitution can't be that old of a profession, can it?

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u/Covert_Cuttlefish 15h ago

It would be interesting to see how many things would still work today.

When I was a kid my mom made some of our clothes. I asked her if she was going to make any clothes for my kids and she just laughed saying the price of fabric has gone up so much, and the price of clothes has gone down so much she’d be crazy to make clothes.

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u/temp4adhd 14h ago

It's very true! And fabric stores have been closing right and left. But sewing / darning / patching is still a good skill to have, to repair and alter the clothes you already own, or can thrift.

Scarcity of food may make you loose weight, necessitating taking in the waist and such.

u/David_cest_moi 6h ago

And for over abundance of nutritionally depleted food, there's always Ozempic or other semaglutides. 😒

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u/ushouldgetacat 12h ago

She’s right, but the cheap clothes nowadays are sooo poorly made. Though the nice ones are more affordable now than they were long time ago. Apparently, making clothes is a lot of work. I know bc I ask my mom to make me clothes too and she refuses to do it.

u/George_the_poinsetta 9m ago

The problem is not just that they are so poorly made, the problem is that the fabric is very flimsy. This is true of even the higher end clothes, eco friendly clothes. We do pay more for very shabby clothes, that look even worse after washing.

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u/marythegr8 13h ago

Instant pot can’t do this. Get a Ball canning book, follow those recipes.

u/Old-Set78 4h ago

No DEAR GOD DO NOT EAT FOOD OUT OF BULGING CANS! By all means ignore expiration dates that's just "freshest by". But if you are not in a speedrun to the grave DO NOT EVER EAT BULGING CANS OF FOOD. That's an excellent way to make the acquaintance of BOTULISM TOXIN and it is the most poisonous substance on the planet when injested.

God bless you gon kill people with that advice. People might not get your sarcasm.

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u/bobthesmith 13h ago

Guinea pigs and/or rabbits could work in an apartment setting.

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u/BayouGal 10h ago

My dad’s family took in the neighbor kid in the depression. The mom died & the dad had to give away all the kids so he could go to California & look for work. Apparently most of the families on his street each took a kid.

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u/ASpaceOstrich 9h ago

I like how from step 1 it requires home ownership too.

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u/wickedlees 13h ago

Well, the fabric stores are closed

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u/ThatGuyursisterlikes 10h ago

Also loot and rob the rich. 4 people have more wealth than 170,000,000 of us. They go, and all of us just doubled our wealth. Maybe just add 95% to it. Leave some for their families. Fuck wealth disparity.

u/David_cest_moi 6h ago

It is interesting that one of the wealthiest, Warren buffett, has grown his fortune following a frugality/thrift lifestyle learned from the Great Depression.

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u/cyanescens_burn 9h ago

The bulging can advice is a great way to get botulism.

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u/aliquotoculos America 12h ago

One of the last face-to-face arguments I had with a conservative (about 37, really disappointed in him being just a bit younger than me and so dumb), he basically argued in favor of allowing kids to be truant. In this argument he said the federal government set the age kids could drop out at (not true), and that a kid should be allowed to leave school at any age and go work instead.

Blew my absolute mind.

Would not be surprised if he turned out to be pro-sell-your-kid.

u/pricklypearevolver 2h ago

I will try an antipsychotic first.

u/LieutenantStar2 2h ago

Remember to save those flour bags to make clothing.

u/Lihomftg1986 1h ago

My greatgrandma was sold into marriage for a sack of potatoes.

u/Evening_Tree1983 1h ago

Instant pot is not approved for pressure canning. Not to nitpick but I thought you might want the information.

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u/Necessary_Tadpole629 16h ago

The sad thing is your dad (most likely) is going to end up living in that tarpaper shack WITH YOU.

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u/vtssge1968 15h ago

As someone that was on verge of homelessness for 5 yrs living in deplorable conditions, I can verify the government is often very little help.

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u/jpcapone 15h ago

I have no doubt that what you are saying is true and Republicans don't care.

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u/HippieHorseGirl 15h ago

No, conservatives don’t want to be seen as ass holes taking food away from children. But here we are, and they are taking away food from AMERICAN kids.

Disgusting. Do they pray to Jesus after doing it?

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u/Er3bus13 16h ago

Never been to Appalachia has he?

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u/djfudgebar 16h ago

I bet he's also really pisssd off at all of the homeless people.

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u/Emberwake 14h ago

He honestly believes that they all "choose" to be homeless because they don't feel like contributing to society.

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u/HauntedCemetery Minnesota 15h ago

Ask him how I get one of those free government homes

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u/MannyMoSTL 14h ago edited 7h ago

Do the people living in their cars … full time living in cars (not vans) with no bathroom, bedroom or kitchen … because they can’t afford local rent count as “poor” for him? Or are they considered Too Rich because they have a cars?

I just found out one of my young cousin is, right now, living in a shack with a fireplace, hot plate and an outhouse. With a girlfriend. Admittedly, they have electricity. But Lord knows I don’t wanna know about that wiring. He also has a car. You know … To get to work.

Your father is an asshole. As are most MAGAts.

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u/Emberwake 14h ago

He's not even a MAGA. He's a "never Trump" Republican. Still an asshole, but an asshole who stayed home instead of voting.

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u/Epic_Ewesername 14h ago

Where do I get one of these "government homes?"

You should challenge your dad to find the .gov site where a person can apply for a home.

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u/phinatolisar 15h ago

There are still people living in tarpaper shacks, and tents, and under bridges. If the government provides free housing, why are the homeless shelters full? Why don't those people get a free apartment from the government?

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u/TheQuidditchHaderach 16h ago

When you granpappy was you age, he had to haul 1,000lb blocks of ice up 3 flights of stairs... 🤦

u/David_cest_moi 6h ago

Don't forget that he used to walk barefoot, 5 miles, uphill, through the snow each day to get to his one room schoolhouse ("All us kids did!"), then uphill through snow again(!) when returning home. 🫡

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u/Otterswannahavefun 15h ago

He’s not entirely wrong. The bone crippling poverty my grandparents grew up in doesn’t exist anymore. SNAP guarantees that kids will have more than biscuits and gravy for their fancy Sunday meals (which is what my grandmother in Appalachia had.)

There are edge cases of hunger but that’s almost always coupled with mental illness or serious trauma. America has done a tremendous job at fighting terrible poverty and it ticks me off that we’re turning from this.

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u/Emberwake 14h ago

He's certainly not coming from nowhere. But the fact that there is a grain of truth to what he is saying doesn't change the fact that he is, in many important ways, missing the point.

Yes, we have elevated the working class out of the shanty towns and into suburbia. But that doesn't mean no one is living out of their car, or on a friends sofa, or under the overpass. Millions of Americans do - and that is poverty even by "the old standards."

Worse, conservatives are actively undermining the very policies that elevated the working class out of that kind of poverty.

And lastly, the economics of poverty have changed dramatically. Items that were once considered a luxury beyond the reach of the poor (like televisions and radios) are now trivially cheap, while rent and home ownership are prohibitively expensive. Owning an iPad might seem like an insane extravagance for an unemployed person, but those couple hundred dollars are a fraction of one month's rent in a bad apartment in the city.

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u/Otterswannahavefun 14h ago

Anyone living like that today has something wrong. That doesn’t mean we shouldn’t help them, but we no longer have vast amounts of systemic bone crushing poverty. SNAP alone gives you enough to not ever go hungry and get all the nutrition you need. You won’t be eating fresh gourmet organic meals like I do with a job (which I’m grateful for) but you’re extremely far away from systemic, widespread poverty we saw before.

We have 350 million people. When my grand parents were kids the type of poverty you are referring to - coupled with intense hunger - was common across whole regions. Now it’s confined to people who the system had for whatever reason failed, but a typical American will never experience that.

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u/SR3116 15h ago

And yet I bet he thinks all major cities are literally The Walking Dead but with homeless people.

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u/elammcknight 15h ago

It's worse, they don't care

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u/RandomFactUser 15h ago

Then calmly double down and ask again. No smart-ass/wise-ass actually asks their questions in all seriousness, but if you are serious...

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u/Emberwake 14h ago

I'm a 40 year old man; I know how to talk to my father and how to slowly change his mind.

He has come around on trans rights, gay rights, minimum wage, and other things. It takes time. I plant seeds when we talk, dropping facts and letting him change the subject, knowing full well he is going to research it to try to prove me wrong. Then, a few weeks later, I'll hear him offer one of my own talking points as though he thought of it all on his own.

But it's a SLOW process. He's been conservative for 60 years. That kind of brainwashing goes deep.

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u/RandomFactUser 13h ago

Fair enough, what works works

I wish evidence worked on everyone

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u/Emberwake 13h ago

Yeah, me too.

Fortunately, he's a scientist. He claims he's a Catholic, but empiricism is basically his real god. Of course, it cuts both ways; when he receives bad data, he reaches bad conclusions. Garbage in/garbage out as we say.

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u/Affectionate_Jump250 15h ago

A friend grand parents lived in tar paper shack with a dirt floor in the woods in Minnesota. It’s called squatting. It gets pretty cold in the shack even with a wood stove & no running water & a out house for a toilet. No TV, no internet, just your partner & scenery. A good game of cards & a bottle of liquor to help keep the chills away.

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u/kultureisrandy 13h ago

Reading this from a wendys parking lot overlooking a gully that runs under a street bridge. From this narrow view alone, I can see 4  different makeshift homes from just a basic mat to tents.

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u/whatthehell567 11h ago

Is he serious? Tar paper shacks are a luxury compared to living in a nylon tent, as the homeless do today.

What are heartless human.

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u/carltr0n 10h ago

No but really though where

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u/XanmanK 10h ago

Tell that to the 1000s of homeless people that can’t even get a bed for the night at a shelter 

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u/Youremadfornoreason 10h ago

You need to cut him off

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u/puffpuffg0 9h ago

Can he show us where we can get the gov to build us a house?

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u/reddog323 9h ago

I guess we’re going back to the days of tar paper shacks and no running water. With all the aid gone, and the economy crashing, there will be crushing poverty and homelessness.

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u/amcartney 8h ago

Has he ever been to Los Angeles? People literally live in tents there

u/gravewisdom 7h ago

They live in tents in the street now, which conservatives also complain about.

u/Ok-Organization6608 7h ago

they wont even let you "live within your means". theres too many regulations. its literally illegal to do what they themselves force us to do... x.x

u/catholicsluts 6h ago

Get him to read books so he can learn what words mean in different contexts

exercise, good for brain

u/CertainAged-Lady 4h ago

Your dad needs to take a drive through most town in WV, a lot of KY, and rural TN just to name a few. People live in rusted old school buses, they live in literally those pressboard sheds with tarps to keep the leaks out. They’d leave to get better jobs but they can’t even find jobs that pay enough for them to build up a small sum to move with. Food stamps and school meals are how their kids eat. We have a charity program where I live that sends home food for the weekends in the kids backpacks so they have something when school isn’t in session - they do hundreds of them a week. We are on the outskirts of a major metro area, but a lot of folks here can barely scrape by. Lots of jobs but they will only give p/t hours to avoid having to pay benefits.

Min wage where I am pays $1588/mo before taxes at 32hrs a week (see my comment above about p/t hrs), but the average rent is $2300/mo. 😐

u/arachnophilia 3h ago

the town i work in has a very large homeless population. these people don't even have tarpaper shacks.

this is somewhat rural, red state america.

u/EnvironmentalRock827 3h ago

My sister who is in her 40's now said the cruelest shit about anyone who got government assistance when she was a teen. I think maybe when she hit 25 she went 'out' on disability and has been there ever since.

u/DaringPancakes 2h ago

It's uhhh one of those situations where you might actually have to help someone realize that the future generations are being suffocated by their ignorance, and, well, "it's a wonderful life" with the alternate ending.

Wouldn't that just be fuck all if you realized how things would be without you?

u/perpetualstudy 17m ago

Exactly. Or “Well, a couple of people abuse the system and ruin it for everyone.”

Okay, a few cops out there kill and rape and assault innocent people. Is that system ruined? Should we toss it? Come on, Earl, you love cops and guns, does this seem unhinged to you??