
Here is how one 21-year-old Texas woman reportedly thinks we should solve poverty in America:
Give welfare recipients 50 lb. bags of rice and beans, bulk cheese and powdered milk instead of food stamps.
Conditions of Medicaid: Forced sterilization, mandatory drug testing.
Housing for the poor: Military barracks, subject to random inspections, must prove employment or join work brigades.
Disenfranchisement for the unemployed.
I really wish I was kidding. I’m sure this fascist nightmare scenario doesn’t represent the views of everyone in Texas, but enough of the population to be an utter disgrace. For full details, and more than you ever wanted to know about how republicans really think, read the forwarded email below:
Subject: Fw: WRITTEN BY A 21 YEAR OLD FEMALE FROM TEXAS !!
Wow, this girl has a great plan! Love the last thing she would do, the best.
This was written by a 21 yr old female who gets it. It’s her future she’s worried about and this is how she feels about the social welfare big government state that she’s being forced to live in! These solutions are just common sense in her opinion.This was in the Waco Tribune Herald, Waco, TX, Nov 18, 2011
PUT ME IN CHARGE . . .
Put me in charge of food stamps. I’d get rid of Lone Star cards; no cash for Ding Dongs or Ho Ho’s, just money for 50-pound bags of rice and beans, blocks of cheese and all the powdered milk you can haul away. If you want steak and frozen pizza, then get a job.Put me in charge of Medicaid. The first thing I’d do is to get women Norplant birth control implants or tubal legations. Then, we’ll test recipients for drugs, alcohol, and nicotine. If you want to reproduce or use drugs, alcohol, or smoke, then get a job.
Put me in charge of government housing. Ever live in a military barracks?
You will maintain our property in a clean and good state of repair. Your home” will be subject to inspections anytime and possessions will be inventoried. If you want a plasma TV or Xbox 360, then get a job and your own place.
In addition, you will either present a check stub from a job each week or you will report to a “government” job. It may be cleaning the roadways of trash, painting and repairing public housing, whatever we find for you. We will sell your 22 inch rims and low profile tires and your blasting stereo and speakers and put that money toward the “common good..”
Before you write that I’ve violated someone’s rights, realize that all of the above is voluntary. If you want our money, accept our rules. Before you say that this would be “demeaning” and ruin their “self esteem,” consider that it wasn’t that long ago that taking someone else’s money for doing absolutely nothing was demeaning and lowered self esteem.
If we are expected to pay for other people’s mistakes we should at least attempt to make them learn from their bad choices. The current system rewards them for continuing to make bad choices.
AND While you are on Gov’t subsistence, you no longer can VOTE! Yes, that is correct. For you to vote would be a conflict of interest. You will voluntarily remove yourself from voting while you are receiving a Gov’t welfare check. If you want to vote, then get a job.
So, let’s review. This supposed “conservative” is advocating selling poor people’s property, to put the money toward the “common good.” There’s a name for that…I’m thinking…it’s coming to me now…Socialism!
But this isn’t any sort of democratic socialism. This is “Work for whatever poverty wages you can wrangle out of Walmart or other corporation. If you can’t get a job and don’t want to starve, we’ll round you up, sterilize you, put you in military camps, feed you prison food, and sell your stuff” socialism.
It’s not like anyone would expect to find sophisticated political philosophy in a forwarded chain email, supposedly published in a Texas newspaper. But what this does provide, is a window into the conservative psyche. It’s bad enough that such people have such lowly aspirations for the “greatest country on Earth” that they’d want their fellow citizens treated like common criminals. But what’s really telling, is that they’d take away someone’s vote, simply for being unemployed. This comes right out of hard-right Koch-founded libertarian think tanks like Americans for Prosperity, who’ve long objected to the idea of democratic citizens being able to vote to tax the wealthy in order to provide benefits to the poor. They consider it a conflict of interest, rather than democracy. Twisted, I know.
But there’s something else: In the conservative psyche, a person in poverty is automatically assumed to be a person of color. And when you look at this email through that lens, it’s just the same old Confederacy, looking to extend slavery through the private for-profit prison system–because that’s who’d be running these “barracks,” right? Because whenever you read about a policy that punishes the poor, there’s always an angle for funneling even more money to the already wealthy.
The forced sterilization hearkens back to the dark days of Eugenics and Buck v. Bell, one of the worst Supreme Court decisions in American history. History it’s clear the writer of this letter doesn’t know.
But what’s most appalling, is the ease with which supposedly freedom-loving Americans can be convinced to sign on to blatantly fascist policies toward people they don’t consider to be worthy of citizenship. And forward emails like this to their friends and family without a single ounce of shame.
17 comments
Hey, Sean. You were 21 once right? Me too. Remember those good ol' days when your brain was still forming, but you still thought you knew far more than your parents? When you thought you were invincible behind the wheel after a drink or five? When you thought you'd live forever and those that were over 40 should have died by now? When you were only about 4-5 years from making your first million? Remember those days? Someday that woman will look back on her letter and remember it too.
If she makes it to 22.
"You were 21 once right?" You don't have to be young to be ignorant or stupid. I've held most of the same opinions for 40 years while I have coworkers in their 50's that would agree with that 21 year old. My own brother who was raised to know better…..
I seriously wish it was only a few misguided young people who felt this way.
I am all for helping people in need and have personally done so. However, the abuses in the current welfare system are rampant. Provide the basics for the people in need but if you want the luxuries then work for them. Judge Joe Brown hates stupid people that do not take care of business. A lot of black people hate the? stereotypes and degradation of black people. Lazy, welfare abuse, fake balling, cheating, lying, stealing, fraud, and other actions in that line are hated by the majority not just black people. Yes, I loathe those things I admit it. Let's not make this a race issue, it is a character issue.
I have a white grandson who is lazy (at 25) and wants to live off of others. He is married and has one child. His mother (my daughter) kicked him out because of his laziness and no desire to find a job. He, his wife and daughter are now living with his father (for how long I do not know) and he still has not found a job nor looking for one. But, they get welfare support and free medical care. No, none of my family nor his wife's family want to help them any more. Maybe they need to get homeless before they wake up and realize that you need to earn your living just like my wife and I did and the way we taught our children to do. Be productive. We started in poverty earning below poverty level and most times had only one meal per day but we pulled ourselves up. Sometimes I worked two jobs (16 hours per day – 5 days per week) just to make ends meet. We never received any help from the government. No food stamps, no rent paid, no help with electricity, no free telephone, nothing.
As a final, I say I agree with the 21 year old. Get a job just like I did and if you are unemployed in return for the money you receive from the government do some community service during the time that you are not searching for a job.
just another Christo-fascist, whats the surprise?
As long as we allow the retarded to vote, why wouldn't people consider the views of the retarded to be valid?
This is a problem that is very curable, but the American People have become a bunch of Politicaly Correct Pansies, which is why the cure hasn't been mentioned since it really is the only cure to the problem!
You simply delegate the retarded back to where they were in the 1950's, npt allowed to vote, not allowed to work, not allowed to get amrried, not allowed to give birth, basiclly a non human status!
People will say thats cruel, but I want those old enough to remember to think about WHO got the retards so many rights, it WAS those that gave birth to the "Religious Right", it was an effort to "CREATE" a Costituency that would vote for a THEOCRACY, and the plan is still in play!
So, the woman that wrote the letter is an idiot, and the solution to her idiocy is to carry out every single policy she proposes? How does the cognitive dissonance not kill you?
Thanks!
I don't want to laugh but I have to. This woman has deep seated fears of her future and I am sure many other young adults do also. She is aware that to be rewarded in life we must work for what we want. We must return industrialization back to this country. Benjamin Franklin stated that we must be industrious or we will lose our morals. George Washington said, to be a leader one must have impeccable morals: We must lead by example. Vladimir Lennon said, that a nation can be destroyed through debauchery. Everyone should have something to do even the street men and women. How are those of low degree to be raised up if they have no self-respect.
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My favorite Warren Buffett quote is this: The rich are always going to say that, you know, just give us more money and we'll go out and spend more and then it will all trickle down to the rest of you. But that has not worked the last 10 years, and I hope the American public is catching on.
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interesting…
I admit I have not been on this blog in a long time it was joy to find it again. It is this important topic and ignored by so many even professionals ! I thank you for leaving people more aware of these issues. Just great stuff per usual !
This gal sounds like our highly embarrassing governor, Rick Perry! No, all Texans do not think like that! I will point out that, while it's being assumed this little know-it-all is a "Christian" she doesn't say so! Be that as it may, she probably thinks she is!
The myth believed by this 21 year old and many like her is that the majority of welfare, food stamp, medicaid and charity care recipients don't work and have lots of kids. Not true. They are either working under the table or working and reporting their income and the food stamps and medical benefits are a supplement to their meager earnings. The Clintons made it illegal to collect welfare without working or going to school and that reform has not improved the lot of he poor. The US government refuses to pay for abortions, so if someone who is poor has unwanted children, it is often the policies of the government that is responsible. The answer is love and generosity, not to withhold even more from the poor. We live in a country of abandondoned homes, excess food and lots of stuff that you can pick off of the streets for free to furnish your home. There is no need to worry about a future that is lacking – except for the lack of a clean and healthy environment. This 21 year old should start concerning herself with reversing the damage done to our environment and stop worrying about those who have less than her getting the help that they need.
the lady that had written the correspondence is an fool, and the remedy to her idiocy is to bring out every individual plan she proposes? How does the intellectual dissonance not destroy you?
Since this article is over two years old I'd love to hear if she still thinks so..