Because Being Poor wasn't Humiliating Enough

The United States must have some kind of envy towards poor people. I'm not entirely sure what it is, but there's just something about being poor that means you become the envy of the middle class. Everyone goes out of their way to talk about multitude of different ways that they want to make your life miserable, and this fellow from The Daily Caller is no exception.

I'm not all that familiar with the Daily Caller, but because they let a publication like this on their webpage, I'm going to assume that they have a mild right-wing bias. Lately, it seems like we're seeing a furious attempt to reinstate the power of masculine authority - putting the father in the Fatherland, as it were. Attacks on POCs, attacks on trans and gays, attacks on women's rights, xenophobia, a strong nationalistic bend with a worship of men who were nothing like the people being worshiped, the merging of corporate interests and "heroic capitalism" with the "grassroots" movement... why, if I didn't know any better, I'd suggest that these folks were fascist. But they're not, clearly, because they say they're not. And that's all that matters, because you'll be damned before you can convince them that they're wrong about the historical truth about the positions that they hold.

I digress. This guy from the Daily Caller is a piece of work. He believes that poor people who have to survive on government assistance - who don't have it hard enough as is - should be punished even more. They should have a scarlet "P" stamped on their forehead. It's their fault for being Black Latino poor (don't you dare tell me that's what I'm thinking when I say "poor", you racist liberal). The Right has turned out a parade of monstrous, sociopathic clowns over the last 10 or so years - so much so that the Joker would feel right at home, if he hadn't made it clear that he was an "American villain" when he refused to join forces with the Red Skull. Brion McClanahan is little different, with the exception of the fact that he'd readily jump at a deal to work with the Red Skull.

These are fine examples of what many Americans witness on a regular basis. The other day, while my family and I were waiting in a check-out line at Wal-Mart, I noticed that the woman checking out in front of us was texting on her $200 cell phone (which probably costs at least $100 a month in service fees and may have been paid for by the government as well) and holding what my wife says was a $100 designer purse, with a stack of junk food, beer and cigarettes on the belt behind a line of subsistence products like milk, cheese, cereal and meat.

People pay for “necessary” items with their EBT government debit cards and then use cash for their smokes, beer and munchies. Yet, I have to fork over my hard-earned dollars for every item in my cart (and in essence theirs as well, since I pay taxes while they probably get “refunds” every April). Something is wrong here. Why is the average taxpayer both screwed by the system and forced to watch his tax dollars being wasted on people who abuse the system?

OMG POOR PEOPLE HAZ PHONES.

I just recently went looking for a phone, because my previous one died a humiliating death. I couldn't find one under 30 dollars. I have a halfway descent phone now, and my plan costs 35 dollars a month. I'd love to have been there; I could clearly point out all the ways in which asshat here is wrong. For starters, it likely didn't cost that much. I paid about 105 for mine, and I can do all the same stuff. Second, he has no evidence it was paid for by the government. Third, oh my what a juicy Red Herring you have here, waving it in front of the faces of the idiots who read this tripe and believe it.

One lady has a 100 dollar phone (that might have been a gift) with a purse your wife says is a designer purse (because we all know you can't get those cheap if you know where to look, or, more likely, it wasn't a designer purse or it was also a gift, or she bought it before she lost her money, or...) with a stack of junk food - beer and cigarettes (which, while expensive, you can't buy with EBT cards - he highlights this in the second paragraph) with "subsistence products" like milk, cheese, cereal and meat. Why not just say they were brand name cereal and throw in some 100% Angus beef, you classist motherfucker? What did the "sbusistence products" have to do with anything at all? You buy food with the EBT card, you stupid shitstain. You know this. You highlight it. Why bother pointing it out?

"Necessary". It's got the scare quotes because...?

I really wish I was there so I could see what the tally was. I bet the total cost for food outweighed the cost for the cigarettes and beer. Fuck, a gallon of milk is damn near 5 dollars. Cheese? The cheap stuff is 3. Meat? Oh shit, don't even go there. The combined total of the alcohol and cigarettes could never have balanced out the total for the food. A pack of cigarettes is about 5 dollars. Two, three packs is 15. A six pack of beer is about 8 dollars, depending upon brand. That's 23 dollars, 30 dollars at most. That's about the cost of paper products alone when my family does grocery shopping for the month - that's not even including food (you include food and watch that boy skyrocket up over 190 dollars).

And OMG they're spending their money how they want too! I couldn't do grocery shopping for one person on 30 dollars. That's 6 meals eating out at McDonalds, a place that's supposedly cheap as far as fast-foot joints go.

Do you know why beer and cigarettes can't be bought with EBT cards?

People like shithead here threw a massive tantrum and demanded that them dirty poor people shouldn't be allowed to buy that stuff with "their money," so the government put in regulations that they can't. Now shitstain is saying they shouldn't buy it at all.

Welcome to the image of the mythical poor. The minute you vary from the image of the Mythic Poor Person, who lives on the side of the street panhandling for 10 cents and plays really neat songs on a harmonic like they did in the cartoons when asshat here was growing up, you are officially "un-Poor" while still considered "poor". It's almost like being a woman - you can't win no matter how to slice it. There's simply no fucking way; it's a goddamn groundhog day loop of logic that works against you every time you look up.

Now, I know what you're thinking dear reader. There's now way that's the mythical poor person. The mythical poor person drives a Cadillac and has 17 children, all of whom are sucking the state dry because they've saved up over 10 million dollars in pop bottles.

No, you're wrong reader. That's not the mythical poor person. That's the mythical Black person. Of course, there's really no difference. After all, when a Right-winger opens his mouth and starts talking about poor people, replace it with "Black people." It makes so much more sense.

I'd probably be better served calling them "the deserving poor". the Deserving poor, in the eyes of this guy, are white, lead wholesome lives and never succumb to vice (in short, are not human), attend church every day and wear clothes that look poor. They don't get gifts from family members or friends in the from of purses and phones. Their parents won't help them with money every so often, they don't suffer from depression due to their circumstance and turn to self-medication. No, the deserving poor is just like him, but ... poor. But otherwise just like him (in short, do not exist).

I watch myself get screwed over daily by a capitalist society. Why am I sacrificing my tax dollars to sustain banks and corporations that abuse the system and furthermore, abuse me? You're looking in the wrong direction, jackass. That poor lady with the cigarettes and beer isn't your enemy. That fat cat who just stole 10 billion of yours and mine both in tax breaks. You want to know a little bit about capitalism? Huh? Well, here you go: Capitalism is working as hard as you can while getting paid next to nothing for your time, getting no vacation, and constantly worrying when the order from the top is going to come down and chop your job. This is capitalism. Capitalism is sacrificing your life for something that doesn't fucking matter. It's you becoming a cog in the wheel; becoming part of the machine that sustains the illusion you're worth something when really, you aren't, and never were.

Capitalism is you and me spending billions of dollars on a war based on a lie.

Capitalism is you and me spending billions of dollars on war spending that doesn't even make it to the soldiers - it gets trapped in the MI complex, and funds massive military projects so large and sprawling that no one person has any clue what's going on.

Capitalism is you and me spending billions of tax dollars in tax cuts for the top 1% of this country, including banks and corporations that actively fuck you over. Screw passively; they are out to get you, and they've got dumb ass attack dogs like you acting against your own best interest.

Capitalism is the illusion that unregulated markets create anything other than chaos and social disorder.

Capitalism is us spending hundreds of dollars a year at the pump due to an artificial shortage of gas created by companies that export their gas overseas so they can sell it at a cheaper rate.

Capitalism is a system that doesn't work, never worked, and never will work. Just like your empathy for other people, selfish asshole.

I have a solution: Dharma-style food stamp reform. Fans of “Lost” will recognize the reference, but for those who did not watch the show, the Dharma Initiative packaged its own food to supply members of the project on the island. Each item came in a package with a simple black-and-white label and a basic description. Beer cans were marked with the word “Beer.” It probably tasted as bad as it looked.

Dharma-style food stamp reform would have four basic components. First, the federal government would create a government “brand” of essential food items such as milk, cheese, meat, cereal, vegetables, bread, peanut butter, beans, juice, soup, baby formula, diapers, etc., and would package the items with simple black-and-white labels and basic descriptions. The word “Government” would be stamped across the top in bold letters so everyone would know it was a welfare item. These items could be manufactured by major companies through government contracts, thus not creating a net loss to private industry. Because competition is not an issue, taste and quality, with the exception of the baby formula and baby food, would not be a top priority. Snacks, soda, cigarettes and beer would not be available through the program.

*sigh*

Who agrees on what's "essential?" To me, pop is essential. I can't survive a day without at least a glass of something, otherwise I feel like someone's busted my skull with a baseball bat at the end of the day. Who defines what "snacks" are? Some people define snacks as fruits and vegetables. A "snack" is anything that's not a major meal. A "snack" can be anything. Is he talking about chips? Is he talking about cheese and bread? Is he talking about lunchables for school? Is he talking about Little Debbie chocolate cakes? Some people define "cereal" as a snack food, because surely we're not basing this off of nutritional value (otherwise most cereal, juice and most forms of soup shouldn't even be on that list). What about people who are diabetic and require certain types of foods? People who are intolerant to certain things? They don't matter, because clearly, the only thing matters is punishing these fuckers for being poor and thinking that they could spend my money on anything they want. The only way you can get away with spending my money on anything you want is if you're rich.

Why stop at baby formula and baby food? Clearly you don't care about them once they get older, so why the fuck do you pretend to care about them when they're younger? They're out of the womb. They're not something you can use to control the sex life of the mother anymore, so logically, they don't matter. So why the hell are you pretending like they matter to you? C'mon man, they're poor! Don't back out on me. We need to go full on - chop them fuckers up and cook 'em in pies. We'll feed 'em to the British, you classist, sadistic asshole.

Let's stamp the word "Government" across it. This is "government" brand. I understand it's pretty nasty. I understand that it would do nothing to help poor people stop being poor. I understand this is nothing more than a petty, petulant shitfit by a tiny-ass motherfucking enema stain who is upset because he was standing in line one day and saw a poor person who actually possessed something and, therefore, was automatically disqualified as "the deserving poor." My grandmother uses her EBT card, because she doesn't have a job and likely could never get one. She's 86 years old. She should damn well be able to buy whatever the fuck she wants to, having lived that long and having that many years on you, asswipe. Take your fucking temper tantrum and shove it.

Fourth, anyone who accepts government aid would have to submit to a monthly tobacco and drug test. Food stamp recipients are, after all, wards of the state. They are slaves to the government and should be reminded of that fact. If a recipient is found to have tobacco or drugs in his system, he would be dropped from the program. People on government aid would also lose the privilege of voting. That way they couldn’t vote for greater benefits or easier terms (most of them don’t vote, but now they couldn’t).

What he means there is poor people on government aid would lose the right to vote. Because it's not fucking privilege, you asshole, it's a fucking right, enshrined in the motherfucking Constitution - you know, the Constitution you worship but HAVE NEVER FUCKING READ?!.

Because only landowners should have the right to vote. We all know that poor people vote Democrat, so if we can take the voting privileges away from the poor people, then we'll win Republican style - dishonestly, through busted and broken laws that rig the system against the poor person and the people who vote against us.

Honestly, this anti-Democratic, anti-poor, anti-human tripe disgusts me. Whatever rock this fucker crawled out from needs to be found so we can smash him under it, thereby ensuring him and his kind don't ever see daylight again.

While I believe the federal food stamp program to be unconstitutional, immoral and a state issue, [emphasis mine]

I'm done. I'm just done.

My reform measures might seem draconian to some (and the antithesis of the free market), but they would hopefully have the desired result of reducing food stamp rolls so we could eventually eliminate the program and let the states handle the issue. Before accepting food stamps, people would have to carefully consider whether they want to face the loss of voting privileges, the humiliation of shopping at government stores and using government food, the inability to smoke or do drugs and the added inconvenience of having to make two or three stops for their groceries should they choose to buy snacks with their own money. Plus, tax producers would no longer have to knowingly be face to face with people at the check-out who are on government assistance but have nicer cell phones and accessories than they do.

There is nothing I can say to this. Nothing. But that won't stop me.

VOTING IS NOT A PRIVILEGE, YOU STUPID DUMBASS MOTHERFUCKING PIECE OF SHIT. IT'S A FUCKING RIGHT. A. FUCKING. RIGHT!