Transcription
A Twitter post by Fuckin’ Princess @8WithaTiara that reads “Everybody talking about how poor people shouldn’t be able to buy junk food on food stamps… Well, I don’t think billionaires oughta be able to buy 14-year-olds on private islands… But here we are.”
Used to work at a convenience store and definitely saw plenty of people come in, spend all their cash on 4-5 packs of cigarettes and a 12-pack of beer, then put food on the counter and pay for that with food stamps. It always felt a little wrong to me, but as I got older I realized these people are living lives of despair and it’s really just not the biggest problem in society when you have the rich engaging openly in corruption and violating laws while going unpunished. The rich get subsidies for fossil fuels, one of the most profitable businesses and no one audits that. Airlines and banks get bailed out all the time, and no one audits that. Trump takes bribes in the Oval Office and no one cares. Who gives a shit if someone making $7.25/hr uses food stamps to buy a pack of M&Ms when their employer doesn’t pay them enough to make ends meet, necessitating that they be on food stamps in the first place. We should be prosecuting businesses that underpay their employees and subsidize their bottom lines by making their employees rely on state benefits.
I agree it’s weirder that people don’t recognize poor people as humans with human needs.
It’s ok to stop and get a $7 coffee sometimes and still be poor. You are allowed to spend $100 at a bar and be poor. Not everyone is mismanaging their money that got them to be poor, some of them grew up in it and stay that way.
Some poor people know there is no miracles going to pull them out of a shitty situation, doesn’t mean they need to live a life of fucking toil and despair. Everyone needs to get off their fucking backs for enjoying a moment of what most well off folks get to enjoy without a thought.
Calvinism did a number on this country. “Good things happen to good people” -> “Bad things happen to bad people” -> “If you are poor you probably deserve it, so we shouldn’t help you” -> “It’s okay to give money to billionaires, they wouldn’t be billionaires if they weren’t good people”.
Corollary: “Even though poor people are bad and I’m broke, that doesn’t mean I’m a bad person. I’m just a temporarily inconvenienced millionaire, thus a good person, so it’s okay to help me specifically. But not the poor, they’re bad.”