this post was submitted on 27 Aug 2024
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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.