this post was submitted on 03 Nov 2025
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Imagine being the kind of ghoul that thinks if people need assistance, that assistance should be the absolute bottom of the barrel lest someone who didn't need the assistance chose to not spend the money they have the freedom to decide how to spend.
Life isn't zero sum.
If you want fancier mustard and you're not on food stamps, just spend one of the extra dollars you must have to cause that. It's not gonna run out
Edit: typo
That is the crux of it. They believe it is. Wholeheartedly. It's part of their core being at this point. If someone is receiving something, they must be losing something in return. It's their tax money.
They're incapable of making the mental connection that corporations and the rich aren't paying anywhere near even a fair share of taxes that could entirely pay for those programs to apply to every citizen, including themselves. And the media preys on that to further pit themselves against their fellow citizens because it's all owned by those same rich assholes.
And even if it was zero sum, they still wouldn't grasp who's getting the plus for their minus.
It's not even just that, they believe that people on government assistance need to be constantly shamed and humiliated, otherwise they will never have the motivation to pull themselves out of poverty.
I had an argument with a big-L "Libertarian" acquaintance who straight up admitted that he would rather pay more in taxes to implement new stricter oversight and systems to restrict what people spend their WIC/SNAP benefits on than endure the possibility that someone might buy a bag of Doritos with said assistance. The cherry on top was him--again, a "Libertarian"--claiming it would be to ensure they are making healthy, state-approved, food choices.
I love libertarian ideas like let people do what they want, government should have minimal intervention in peoples' lives, stuff like that. But the libertarian party is full of the worst type of people and they will never be taken seriously for any major election.
Libertarian ideas about freedom from government intervention are taken to an extreme and wrapped up in the denial of funding social supports, because pooling resources for the overall benefit of society is evil or something.
Many countries establish personal rights in a way that still allow for freedom without the libertarian selfishness aspect.
and most of them are just republicans that arnt "out loud"
Libertarians want minimal government intervention only when it comes to services that THEY don't need. Libertarians have no philosophical restrictions on military spending that protects THEIR assets from foreign invaders.
Lol we (the US) haven't had "foreign invaders" since the War of 1812.
Let people do what they want. Unless they're buying junk food with food stamps!
Some junk food purchases became allowable only after the increased homeless population forced poor people to eat food that didn't require a stove or refrigerator.
that seems like the opposite of libeterianism, have the state decide what you can and cannot eat.
All libertarians are frauds.
The thing that annoys me the most is that some countries having a percentage of people unemployed is literally a feature not a bug
Not all countries. Just the capitalist ones.
Exactly!
I can see how it happens because we’re all subjected to capitalism from birth and taught to compete with each other but I feel like it shouldn’t take that much in the IQ department to realize how fucked that is.