this post was submitted on 27 Aug 2024
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The typical issue with people making these statements is that they tend to wildly exaggerate and straw man the positions of anyone who disagrees with them on anything.
Who out there is actually saying "children shouldn't be fed", for example? Fucking nobody, lol.
Yeah, they’re referring to the old idiom ‘actions speak louder than words’.
When people pass laws saying kids don’t get lunch at school, that trans people can’t legally change their gender, that being homeless is a crime, and that women can’t have abortions, they are saying all those things.
And when people tell you who they are, believe them.
What actions? This is done most commonly toward strangers they don't know at all.
If someone were to say, for example, "I'm okay with the government picking up the slack to keep a kid from starving, but it shouldn't be treated like a solution. Instead, it should be seen as a temporary necessary measure while resources are put into solving the real problem, by preventing children from being in a position where their own parents aren't capable of feeding them to begin with, since they're the ones who should be doing it", the people I'm talking about would happily contort it into "they want kids to starve", because that requires no thought/effort, and you get to look morally superior to boot, since now that guy's just evil, because what a horrible thing it is to want children to starve!
Fact is, almost nobody is willing to even take the majority of people at their word, much less actually steelman an argument, which is how you really end up with rock solid positions and arguments, instead of having to rely on stupid rhetorical and semantic maneuvers.
Oh for… that’s not the law they passed. The law they passed banned school lunches, and they did nothing to address child hunger to make up for it. I would say they most certainly want kids to starve.
And if your take overall is ‘that person’s actions/beliefs are fine as long as they only impact people they don’t know’ that’s… not great. To quote Calvin & Hobbes, ‘we’re all ‘someone else’ to someone else’.
Reminds me of a line from the Simpsons, when Nelson, the school bully, refers to "a victimless crime, like punching someone in the dark."
The OP is talking about maintaining friendships with individual people. When was the last time you actually picked an individual person's brain about where they stand on something, instead of just putting people in whatever stereotype bucket confirms your biases the best?
I have to say, in a comment chain about people uncharitably extrapolating and twisting viewpoints, this is very fitting, lol. What an absolutely ridiculous interpretation.
I've picked at coworkers brains on this frequently. They hedge, avoid, and misdirect about what they believe, or try to change the subject to something banal so as to avoid discussing their actual values.
In my experience, what Republican voters care about is personal wealth. The ones who will commit to values anyway. They feel like voting Republican makes more money for themselves and they don't care about literally anything else. The ones who hedge and act like that's what they care about usually give me the impression that they're bigots of some kind and know better than to speak their bigoted views outside of people they already know to agree with them.
While annoying, its always interesting watching Republicans run these logical theoretical loops to explain how ACTUALLY they dont WANT children to starve, they should just be allowed to (or the same for whichever issue) while arguing thats not a thing republicans do and its actually our fault for just never actually talking to one for more than two minutes.
My Dad wants to kill protestors. My high school best friend thinks healthcare should be a premium commodity. I could go on, but these aren't obscure abstractions I'm extrapolating, they're sentences these people have said out loud to me (or in text.)
If you tell me poor children shouldn't be provided lunch, I'm going to think you're an asshole because you just told me you dont think poor children should be provided lunch. Jerk off about the free market and all these high concept solutions (that any other time most people would LOUDLY bemoan because it would require way more organized action than providing school lunch) all you want, children are still starving because you won't just let us feed them.
It's rarely said in that exact manner because it sounds bad, but the policies they support amount to it.
Reminds me of people who say Americans can’t be Nazis because America isn’t 1940’s Germany. lmao
Reminds me more of when I got called a Nazi on Reddit for nothing more than stating the fact that one of the main reasons long term capital gains tax is lower than income tax is because it incentivizes investment, lol.
Unfortunately I can't remember why on the other side, but I'll never forget the most notable thing about that day--that was the day I got called a Nazi and a Commie on two different subreddits on the same day, lol.
Don't even try to pretend that this isn't a very common move, especially online.
Well sure, of course people can be stupid as fuck. I think my comment pointed that out very clearly.
It’s a catch all for a perceived “bad guy”.
This isn't what people saying x can't be nazis, because it isn't the 1930s-40s, are saying this too. They are saying this when people are pointing out people who are nationalists, and support ethno-states, and the like, as nazis. In the situation you are talking about they just say that everyone is a nazi online or these days. That specific statement though, it comes from particular people, for particular reasons.
That's just the kind of thing a Communist Nazi would say!
"I know what they really mean!"
Perfect example of what I'm talking about, lol. Lazy ideologue tactics 101.
If you don't realise how supporting a politician who defunds school lunches is an active statement that childen shouldn't be fed, then your cause-and-effect detector is broken.
I'm not falling for that, I know the games legislators play with bundling shit into a bill so that anyone who votes for/against it based on one part is now declared as being firmly for/against everything in it, because 'they voted for/against it'.
And what you're saying here takes it a step further than that, by taking it beyond a bill to "supporting a politician". So let's say a politician makes it so that hospitals have to be more transparent about itemizing things on their bills. Okay, I support that, and say so. But now people like you come along and say that I'm "supporting a politician who" and then name all sorts of shit I said nothing about supporting.
No.
Yeah, if a bill has unacceptable riders, then anyone with a conscience will vote against it and say clearly why. "Oooh I wanted the bill but not that one part of it" isn't an excuse to vote for starving children or kicking puppies or any other unconscionable thing.
Anyway your cause-and-effect detector is busted as fuck. Sorry little buddy, good luck fixing it.
Of course not, you've already fallen for something much worse.
I like your take, and your nuanced approach. People seem to be under the impression that their rage matters more than actually thinking about what caused it, and how best to address that.
If I were Republican, or voted Republican, and this shit happened, I'd be pissed. But more to the point, I'd find ways of fighting it, to whatever degree I can.
It is simply an unfortunate artifact of our system (of many systems) that there's a lot of potential to lie. Changes in our system that mitigate that, and that fundamentally allow for more parties to participate in the process, are where we really need to head, long-term.
And in the short term, fuck that policy.
You're getting blasted in this thread, but I wanted to thank you for bringing some nuance to this ridiculously partisan and strawman-y conversation.
Edit: Lol and they banned them for it. Jesus Christ Lemmy, you're supposed to be better than Reddit.
I will say that their sentiment was borne in bad faith from the get-go so that didn't harness any charity from Lemmy, but I do see what they're saying. Politicians can be multi-faceted, as can the bills they draft, the laws they write, and the people who elect them.
Kamala Harris is a good example of this for me. She supports doing something about the greedflation in the economy, restoring health care for women (i.e. reproductive health care), and fighting against supposed fascism in favor of freedom.
Where I don't agree with her is her stance on Gaza and the Palestinian Genocide, notably that she is not willing to place an arms embargo on a state that is literally committing war crimes and breaking the Geneva Convention on a continual basis. Also her tendency to gravitate to the middle as she's tended to do across her entire career, and the overall message of her campaign as "freedom" when the US' actions directly lead to the destruction of freedom for Palestinians at the same time (the message is essentially conservative: freedom for me (an American), but not for thee (non-American)).
People participate in the political life for all sorts of reasons. From my point of view, Republicans do so out of selfish reasons more than altruistic ones, and ones that stymy diversity in favor of uniformity. Democrats do so to provide safety nets for those who can't do so themselves, and generally have a greater capacity not only for compassion and empathy but for acknowledging and believing in science as a tool for directing policy. There are still special interests in both parties that actually occupy said offices, but I want to say that the general population follows those sorts of trends (from my PoV).
Given that, people of course read politicians and issues and bills and laws from a certain perspective that places priority of some things over others. I think it is unfair to call people out on things that they didn't necessarily intend on coming true, but sometimes things happen nonetheless. It's the difference between virtue ethics and consequentialism, essentially. To wrap it up, most people don't vote once and didn't just start voting, so my rule of thumb is to still hold people accountable for, like this thread says, voting in restrictions to school lunches or books or whatever. You can't really claim self-immunity because reality doesn't exist in a vacuum.
I'm not even American and I know that plenty of people are saying this 🙄
Here's one example:
Here's another example:
Children who had access to food now don't have the same access, thus "children shouldn't be fed".
You're fucking callous.
Wait, in your quote - their reasoning for blocking CEP is just "we think parents should be paying for their own kids' lunches, unless they're eligible for support (poor)"?
That's not really saying "children should starve".
"There are plenty of people saying this"
shows no one saying this, and does the exact kind of extrapolation and exaggeration I talked about
Thanks for making my point for me.
Your argument is basically "yes, everything they do is racist, but they didn't publicly say the N-word, so they can't be racist."
If every action a politican takes makes it so kids can't eat, they don't want kids to eat.
Whether they say "I don't want kids to eat" doesn't matter at all. The fact that you have to hear the literal evil being spoken aloud to acknowledge it is "you" problem.
But, if the quote about CEP is correct, the Republicans aren't against feeding children at all. They are against providing free meals for people who can afford meals, and still providing free meals for eligible (poor) kids.
Providing free meals to every child is drastically more cost efficient per meal than attaching means testing, accounting, tracking and enforcement. It also prevents ignorant, overwhelmed or stubborn parents from feeding kids that should qualify but whose parents won't enroll them. That last number accounts for nearly 20% of eligible kids in Minnesota alone:
It also helps kids who may be able to afford a meal, but whose circumstances prevented them from getting a meal that day. It also helps the local economy.
The cost for that free school lunch program in Minnesota? Less than 1% of the states yearly school budget.
No, the primary issue the GOP has expressed about feeding children is that "its welfare" and "there is no one hungry in our state." That is the main, stated issue with feeding any kid, that people will appreciate the program and vote for more like it.
Its not fiscal responsibility, its vindictive, partisan attack on children because the thing that demonstrably helps them and society at large undermines their party platform.
I'm not arguing that the Republican's stance has technical merit. I'm arguing against the idea that Republicans are just evil.
They do however, believe in power and personal responsibility. But let's just say for a moment that their leadership, and some percentage of their public body is evil.
What then? Do you think that hate and shame are the solutions? Do you look at the democratic party and think "aha! Here we have a morally upright group of people, who are capable of winning hearts and minds!". Do you truly not see your own hate?
..because I look at the democratic party and see a bunch of people freaking out because they have a lot of power and don't know what to do with it - and they keep fucking it up and losing to the most basic of opponents, or chooses poor candidates when good ones are available.
I see a party that, when it wins, on some level thinks of all of the hate they've spewed, and think "I did a good job fighting the good fight." I see a party that is a large majority, and justifies abuses of some minorities as valid, and others as invalid. I see a party that claims it seeks equality, but does so only for it's particular brand of equality. We are all equal, you just have to be a Democrat, think like a Democrat, virtue signal line a Democrat, and hate what a Democrat hates. And a lot are totally unapologetic, unironically just thinking that they are genuine providers of justice, while the system they created backs atrocity.
Democrats can win. I believe they can, and that they will, particularly this round. I like Kamala, with reservations. I doubt, however, that the democrats will, overall, succeed in creating any kind of true equality, because they are so fond of forcing their opinions on others, and so certain in their rightness, but so lacking in insight. To me, Democrats are just another Christianity, but with different demons.
If you opt to starve children because you have an ideological issue with feeding them, you are evil. Flat out.
I have no idea why you just wrote 4 paragraphs about how bad the democrats are while hand waving away the GOPs evil. Why are you talking about the democratic party at all here? They passed a federal law that fed all school school chidlren for 2 years and tried to keep it going. The GOP, who for partisan reasons want to starve children, opted to block it. Why does the GOP despicable neglect of children reflect poorly on the Democrats fighting to help them?
If you, as a leader recognizing the general trend to simply demand more of the government while we are already drowning in debt, and you think "where does this start? Ah, a lack of personal responsibility. Let's create and enforce policies that require that of people," you aren't necessarily evil, even if you do things that look evil.
But, of course, there also is evil, and that will ride along and twist where it can.
Because you are a Democrat, and you, ostensibly being the more self-aware and non-evil, could potentially recognize how what you do perpetuates the problem.
When I talk with Republicans, I call out the lack of logical consistency, the weakness of their stance, the moral corruption that they have signed on for, and the ongoing sacrifice of love for power.
With both, I encourage the un-burning of bridges, a shift towards sovereignty, and the acknowledgement that it requires personal growth to overcome - that the split in politics is directly tied to logical and emotional necessities and lack of perspective that directly manifest in external dealings.
The most vociferous Democrats and Republicans can't even conceive that the other side is anything but evil. And they both have valid reasons for getting that, although they are both shit for advocating them in a way that the other side can identify with.
I'm not a Democrat, but that's fine.
Evil isn't an abstract, unknown force that just occurs. It's a choice that is made by people, against people. The GOP has made the choice to literally take food out of children's mouths.
The cost of feeding those children was miniscule, a complete after thought. As I commented above, the Minnesota state bill that fed all children was less than 1% of the current state school budget. Not the whole state budget, just the school budget. Federally, it was even less money compared to the overall budget. This is literally nothing when all the the immense, measurable positives of well fed children are measured against the cost. Well fed children have higher test scores, stay in school, stave off homelessness better, live healthier lives, and are more productive long term in the workforce. Feeding kids helps solves dozens of problems we have as a society at almost no expsense, and it's also a kind thing to so.
Cutting that utterly tiny bit of spending to let children starve instead is not only stupid, but its stupid done in the service of evil.
Fair enough, non-democrat.
Evil isn't an abstract, unknown force that just occurs. And it's not a choice that is made by people, against people. It is the consequences of a person's psychological framework playing out in a way that fucks with others in ways others (and they themselves) can't intuitively grasp. In short, it's naïveté and ignorance in action.
Perhaps you think choice counts for a lot more than I do. But what choices you can make have a very large, complex mixture of instinct, intuition experience, understanding, preexisting choices, and knowledge. People rarely have life-altering moments, and generally, it's not exactly a choice. It's an impact, or a recognition. Then the pattern, or principles, that they live by change - and the choices they make likewise change, conforming to that pattern.
That isn't to say that choices don't matter at all, but they seem, to me, more implementation of a pre-existing framework - consequences of pre-existing things. However, sometimes the choices you make do cause you to discover and be impacted by something new.
And these frameworks that drive is aren't simple things. They are not unreasoned, though sometimes they are overwhelmed by one experience, concept, emotion, or another. Sometimes we build up coherent thought processes in different areas of our lives, and while it might be consistent and functional in one situation, it might be problematic in another.
The thought process of the right are just as founded as those on the left. And both the right and left write each other off as evil, without taking these frameworks into account. Because they can't even imagine why the other would do it that way, and it's just easier to say it's evil, because from each perspective, that's the pattern that fits.
But again, even if it is, how do you make change? If you think that it's through hate and the assumption that the other party is evil, go right ahead. But you're missing a lot in the world, and missing out on ways you could actually make things better.
On the technical side: I do understand the overhead of tracking peoples' finances, and that the government gets way too fiddly and controlling to make that a worthwhile prospect. I also understand the desire for people to just take care of their own children, because the world does not owe you anything. However, I very much favor giving kids lunches at school - not because I'm (according to your thought process) not evil, but because it doesn't make sense to do so.
If we had a government we could trust well enough to track our finances, then sure - only if you are actually in need. If the cost is so miniscule, parents can foot it themselves, except those too poor to eat. And that is not me taking food from the mouths of children, it's me preventing people from taking from those who actually need it.
But we don't have that government. So blanket school-food is the best option.
Actions > words.
This here is why no one wants to be your friend.
"We should cut funding lunch programs for public schools"
There's a real man under the cover of a strawman. I mean, not a "real man". Real men care for the wellbeing of children.
But, their argument and reality of what they are trying to implement isn't "kids can't eat", it's "only the poor kids get free food, and others have to pay".
Voting against school lunches is literally a gop policy