Conservative Food stamp micro-managers - they love to dictate!

right wingers and their food stamp bleating, always make me laugh

Who actually wants to micro-manage what someone in another town actually eats anyway?

answer: someone with a dictatorial nature, love of authority, and love of being told what to do.

So no, not a 'communist' , but a weak willed, sheep like Conservative.

What a total joke, like how does it affect you whether a welfare recipient in another town eats a biscuit or an apple - like you care, yeah right

gotta love the hypocrisy

btw: food stamps should be converted into cash

any rightists agree?

 

I note how the rightists are avoiding this one like the plague..............

 

The rightists died in a plague. Funny coincidence, actually.

 

of course , it's often leftists that also approve of the food stamp committee, so perhaps there's a mini dictator in everyone

 

My dictator is rather average but I hear there are ways to enlargen it if I wanted.

 

The fact that such programs exist allow the government to gain authority over people in the first place. If people didn't get food stamps, no one could tell them what to do with them. Also, if you converted them to cash they'd just become Crack Stamps. I'd prefer to just get rid of food stamps by phasing them out over time.

BTW, I suspect that if anyone will start telling people what to buy with food stamps and micromanaging them it'll be Democrats, not Republicans. The Obama Admin. is already, with the First Lady leading the charge, working to dictate what people buy with them to ensure people make "health conscious purchases." In other words, Mitchelle is trying to use food stamps as a way to make sure America stops being fat by making sure they buy an apple instead of potato chips and fruit juice instead of soda with them. And you talk about CONSERVATIVES as the one who love authority? I'm a Libertarian, and I know Conservatives do and especially about somethings, but it is the LIBERALS who love the Nanny State. They love telling you that you can't buy a 20 oz. soda or that you can't smoke or can't do this or can't do that. Ever wonder why so many Americans are being pushed on food stamps now? It's because food stamps can effectively become Michelle Obama's anti-obesity program. How else to get people to buy what you want them to buy than to make them so broke they have to use a government program (food stamps) to buy food and then limit what they can buy with it.

Instead of just attacking Conservatives, how about lets not have a pot calling the kettle black situation and realize that BOTH Liberals and Conservatives LOVE authority, just in different ways.

 

I agree with you there, about cons and libs being the same (post 4) - but why not just use cash? only a small percentage will spend that on crack anyway, why punish the genuine because of a few druggies?

 

You prefer that corporations have authority over them with the alternative of death. This is very wise thinking on your part and I wish I had thought of it.

 

I'm all for food stamps being used for food. I object to them being used to buy cigarettes, though.

 

Cigarettes reduce the risk of Parkinson's disease, relieve schizophrenia, boost your brain cells, speed up your thinking, improve your reactions and increase your working efficiency.

 

Wow you love to only show one side of things. They also -- duh -- cause heart attacks, strokes, chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (including emphysema and chronic bronchitis) and CANCER, among other things. It leads to millions of DEATHS a year. Of course, if you're dead, I suppose your risk of Parkinson's is reduced to say the very lease

In 2004 smoking cost the U.S. $193 billion -- $97 billion in lost productivity and $96 billion in health care expenditures.

And I say this as a LIBERTARIAN! I think people SHOULD be able to choose to smoke. Just don't make ME pay for it by subsidizing their cigarette purchases via food stamps.

This is why the society you advocate won't work: First you want to give everyone food stamps -- in case form no less -- and you want to let them buy basically anything including cigarettes that kill people, jacking up health care costs. So now you've spent money basically dumping cash in people's laps and now you have higher health care costs (an I'm pretty sure you wanna subsidize health care via ObamaCare or something like it too) because you've paid for people's irresponsible habits, creating a moral hazard in the process. Suddenly, you find your economy shot to hell... and that's just on those two things. I'm sure there's tons of Socialist-styled handouts you also advocate that would further kill it. Money doesn't come for free.

 

No, I don't want them to exist. Also, why do you and so many others think that if government programs wouldn't exist everyone would just die? That there would be no alternatives? How about private charity, which already exists to help make sure people don't go hungry and if people were able to keep more of their money instead of, you know, being FORCED to subsidize things like food stamps they would have the NON-AUTHORITARIAN *CHOICE* to provide to charities (almost always more efficient in their operations than the government) for that purpose. What a brilliant concept! People helping people! Not government helping people! Wow!

And guess what? Corporations and lobbyists are all over the food stamp programs. Gotta make sure it sticks around because more money in people's hands = more people buying their stuff and if the government is shelling out the money, who cares right? So long as its not them, with their overseas assets and tax havens.

But the real problem is, and I hate to bring up... you know, ECONOMICS, but all this insane government spending does is cause the Fed to have to print more money which jacks up inflation and guess what gets hit the hardest? FOOD. Go Google right now and see the recent increases in food prices just this year so far. When you jack up the price of food, you kill all the purchasing power of the food stamps and all of a sudden they can't buy very much food anymore. In other words, the very thing that was support to help people be able to buy food actually contributed to helping people not be able to do so.

 

And they cause lung cancer, throat cancer, emphysema and are implicated in heart diseases. In addition, they ARE NOT FOOD.

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Please show evidence of these "Conservative Food stamp micro-managers." Not just people complaining about food stamp users, but actually government committees with the power to do such things.

 

The First Yeti for one.

 

It's sad. People have some ability to look at how their money will be spent if they voluntarily give it to someone who asks, but they don't have this privilege when their incomes are simply taxed and proceeds from that given to those who apply for it, yet they - we - who are being so taxed are just supposed to shut up and not worry about it..

 

I don't have any compunctions about making sure the poor are fed, and neither should you. Authoritarianism is not bad in every instance. If you have a problem giving a little money (and I am quite sure it is a little, this isn't your bloated government program) because it just happens to be government, that just makes you an uncaring person is all. We could call that funny priorities. The government should be seeing to it that they are employed - otherwise there are more talented people who can replace them, to see that they are. Seeing that they are employed would also be authoritarian. And I don't care. I don't have a phobia of authoritarianism, you can use it to destroy corruption or even get rid of bad police.

I would not rely on voluntarism to see that a deadly war is survived, and I would not rely on it to see that people are fed. Frankly, the only problem I have with government is their lack of talent and lack of involving me in it - i.e. the current government is corrupt. But that is a federal problem - it does not absolutely have to be true for my local government.

I somewhat doubt we need corporations in-order for people to be fed at all, but I hardly see not distributing food as a good place to start.

Inflation and unemployment is completely controllable by the creation of more products or services. That they, government and corporate leaders, do not see this done is because they are bad people. They have chosen to have the economy in it's present state. It's intentional.

 

First, it was the topic starter that brought up the authoritarianism angle, accusing Conservatives of being authoritarians because they want to control what people but with Food Stamps. My point was the Food Stamps are authoritarian by themselves. I want to help people in need, I just don't want to do it through the government, which does a poor job at it and wastes much of the money it tastes in the process instead of using it to actually help people. That doesn't make me uncaring, it makes me smart. I don't object to helping anyone, I just object that the government is designed for that purpose. Anything that in its nature is force, legally, is not meant for such things and I don't think it should ever redistribute wealth for such purposes. It's wrong to steal from someone and give it to someone else. Of course, politicians love this because it's a form of bribery of the electorate and forever the voter will always vote for the candidate promising the most. As the saying goes, a government that robs Peter to pay Paul can always count on the support of Paul.

I would. That said, I have less of a problem if such welfare programs are at state and local level than federal.

Sounds like Socialism or Communism to me. The free market distribute the food. People went hungry in the Soviet Union because there was no free market, because government was the one distributing food, not corporations. Remember the bread lines? Yeah.... Didn't work so well.

This reads like misunderstood Keynesian economics. When the currency -- the backbone of any economy -- is devalued by a Central Bank (i.e. the Federal Reserve) it's very hard for inflation to get under control. It's not the fact there aren't enough products or services, it's the fact that there's too much money floating around in the name of "economic stabilization." If I had a million more alarm clocks to try to reduce inflation all I'd have is a million extra alarm clocks and my company would quickly go under.

 

because food stamps are part of the farm subsidy program.

The same could be said for Section 8 housing, medicaid, or the PPACA--why not just give them cash if they are going to being making rational financial decisions and all.

 

My proposal is to just get cash instead, once that is spent, then no more money till next payday.

 

Alright, fine, you feel victimized. You can call food stamps totalitarian if you want, and you can call me totalitarian leftist. It's just a word.

This government probably does to an extent, yes. That does not mean this is true of all governments.

Unless you have a private organization which is going to do it better than the government, and propose the money be funneled to it instead, no, you aren't. You're just a person with a preoccupation for voluntarism.

Look, corporations have dominion over the economy. If you want something done, you have to decide and enforce it. Otherwise you're left floating dead in the water. You aren't in a position of open-ended choice. If you want healthcare you have to make it happen. That is, of course, not what happened with Obama, and I never expected that it would be, because you can't just put a populist demagogue in office and expect something to happen. You have to make it happen, starting with grassroots organization. But if you don't make it happen, you don't get anything. You get your choice of expensive healthcare. You get the world someone else is offering.

Capitalists obtain their money by adding an extra cost on top of the actual cost of the product. The amount they get is arbitrarily determined by them, based on what they think they can extort. The fact that the unthinking masses deal with them instead of dominating the functionaries like they should doesn't mean I automatically buy into some spiel about how it was a free transaction because they managed to extort what they could "freely." You want to claim that you personally made your money and deserve it, fine. I can be sympathetic to you personally.

Peter (the capitalist) robbed John (the people). If Peter was a better manager and wasn't so greedy, the profit he decided to skim off the people might be more respected by them.

Of course you would. The federal government has no involvement with the people, or middling wealthy like yourself. It favours the people who can pay them the most.

You're going to have to do better than that.

blah blah blah

People went hungry in the Soviet Union because Russia had a few bad years and Russia can't grow anything besides spuds, and because they messed around with collectivization experiments. China had no problem feeding people when it wasn't messing around with collectivization experiments, and the problem also eased in Russia. I'm not one to suggest that food should be collectivized a la 1930's Communism.

Remember when the United States burned food to make it more profitable?

The currency inflates when people aren't spending it on something. The currency is just a representative of production/consumption (of products or services). You can print as much money as you want as long as you can take it away again. That is precisely how the economy works and it is precisely why money is printed - if the printer is smart.

Yes well I could solve that even with just a bit of heavy industry now couldn't I.

Not if I make you enjoy the alarm clocks. The people can be made to enjoy all kinds of things. They enjoy very stupid movies.

 

Someone must decide on what can and cannot be purchased with a food stamp, some states restrict specific products such as biscuits, tea etc.... so a 'committee' of sorts decided this

 

There you go - Durandal the Dictator! living proof of a wannbe big shot.

What a frucking joke - you pay your taxes, that doesn't give you the privelege to boss how it is spent - don't like it, then don't pay

 

hah, that's dictatorial? So, by your logic, if I see a homeless man and offer him $1,000 to help him out, but say that he has to promise to not use it for drugs or liquor... I'm dictatorial?

mweh, w/e. There's a glaring hole in your reasoning and I'm feeling a laziness coming on. I don't care enough to go deep enough into it.

 

If you give him 1000USD in cash then he can do what he likes with it, whatever he says to you.

And that is the aim.

 

Heh.

Not paying taxes is hardly a choice these days, short of abstaining from working and from paying for anything with a tax attached to it (which is pretty much everything beyond life's basic necessities), though I certainly agree with that sentiment in principle. If we could withhold taxes from the government, we just might actually be able to make them listen to us for a change instead of to the usual monied interests that support their campaigns and their expensive lifestyles. They need all of those tax dollars from us to hand back to their rich supporters by various means, you see, thus returning the favor and completing the circle.