Food / Government Assistance

[Riggerjack]

@7wannabe5
OMG, I'm so sorry your sister had to endure that! On the plus side, I'm sure she'll get plenty of mileage out of the story about that time in college when she was SO poor, her neighbors (dramatic pause) recycled electronics for money! (Insert gasps and reassuring murmurs here).

Please, from all of us, thank her for showing these misguided souls the error of trying to be independent, when the state is so willing to fix that for them.

Seriously, how do you think recycling happens? Or does it just offend your sensabilities that it is done in America, instead of shipping the work to 3rd world countries? I've known several electronic scrappers, all of whom worked full time, with me. They described it as "something to do with the wife when the TV is on".

Only an activist lawyer could turn this into a heart wrenching tale of oppressive poverty. I'm sure she'll go far.

[Riggerjack]

Wow. I'm sorry. That last post was angry and mean, even for me.
I'll write something more civil tonight, when I'm not using my thumbs.

[workathome]

In this thread (from TOF), some people are arguing that if you chose to retire early and take Obamacare subsidies you are engaging in the same sin as people here have argued against Food Stamps (taking other people's money when you don't need to).

http://forum.mrmoneymustache.com/welcom ... ?topicseen

I'd agree that the point is logically consistent. Subsidies from both programs were suggested as assisting people-in-need, even though ACA was engineered to lump the middle-class in that group and some ERE-folk might be unintentionally forced onto Medicaid (with the original purpose of helping those in poverty). At that point though, it's really an argument about passivity - the government forces you to take the health care option while you'd have to be active to get onto the food assistance program.

[7Wannabe5]

Riggerjack said: Only an activist lawyer could turn this into a heart wrenching tale of oppressive poverty. I'm sure she'll go far.

My sister is 47 years old and spent most of her adult life as a punk/metal composer/keyboardist/waitress. She also survived 2 major bouts with cancer which almost killed her. Her health field activism was ignited by the lack of treatment and research addressing issues of sexuality for women post cervical and ovarian cancer. Medical culture is still such in this country that billions of dollars are spent on new purple pills for old men too lazy to increase their circulation in other ways BUT a woman can have her major hormone producing organs removed and her entire abdominal region nuked and then experience literally being told by a doctor "My other female patients have never complained so I don't know what to tell you." She also basically made her living as a scrapper for a number of years working with me in my used book business. Law school is just what she is choosing to do now with the extra years she thought she wouldn't have. She doesn't have a problem and, in fact, is very much in favor of scrapping/recycling and she has lived in worse circumstances than the trailer park in Florida. What she does have a problem with is an elderly woman who already obviously suffers from advanced lung disease handling hazardous, known-to-promote-cancer materials in an unsafe manner in order to get by and not going to the doctor because she can't even afford the co-pay. What she did was convince her not to be afraid to apply for more government assistance so she could afford to visit the doctor, help her fill out the forms and provided her with transportation.

As for me, I believe in self-aware, self-care as core human functioning, although I do not always practice it perfectly. However, I also believe that being blind selfish is just as dysfunctional as being blind selfless. Also, a penny scrimped on social welfare today may very well result in a dollar you will be forced to spend on security tomorrow. That elderly woman my sister helped very likely would have just laid down and died eventually but that is not the universal rule governing power/resource unbalance.