Ethics of getting Free Food from the Government!!!!!

[Kim Chee]

This thread is for the discussion of ethics in regards to seeking and obtaining food stamps. If you have thoughts on Government assistance with obtaining food, kindly share.

 

[ped]

does a bear in a zoo deserve his lunch?

How about the ethics of getting free sidewalks, free defense, free libraries, free roads, free parks, free education, free fire fighting while you travel around not giving anything back.

How about the ethics of 47% of the population have zero or net positive taxes from the government to make babies because the corporation, richer than a hundred million lifetimes, fears more jobs than people thus driving wages up? (while also paying net zero taxes)

How about the ethics of zoning laws used to shut down farming collectives by the FBI? How about the use of zoning laws that forbids us to build a small house and provide basic needs for ourselves? How about hundreds of millions of acres that are tied off preventing us from hunting, fishing, and growing? How about charging us $10,000 an acre for decent farming land while forcing us to pay $10k+ for rent without price controls, but only guaranteeing $13,500 net income?

 

[Kim Chee]

This thread is not about ethics

Nice derail attempt, @ped.

This thread is for the discussion of ethics in regards to seeking and obtaining food stamps. If you have thoughts on Government assistance with obtaining food, kindly share.

 

[ped]

This thread is not about ethics

Nice derail attempt, @ped.

This thread is for the discussion of ethics in regards to seeking and obtaining food stamps. If you have thoughts on Government assistance with obtaining food, kindly share.

It's the title that threw me

Ethics of getting Free Food from the Government!!!!!

Is it ethical that you hop freight trains costing them millions in security? Is it ethical to squat at all anywhere that isn't your own?

In case you have problems making the connections of relevance to my post, why and how are any of these things I have asked more or less ethical to food stamps....

you cant possibly be on a squatting website telling stories of freight hoping, stealth camping, and begging for change and fuel, but questioning the ethics of food stamps and not be either brain dead or overcome with irony.

you either believe in fully making your own way totally, that includes paying taxes for the roads you drive on, etc, or you don't.

 

[James Meadowlark]

I just received this in my inbox today at work. This is as good a place to put it as any- a flyer for National referral line / info from the USDA for food referrals. Not sure if anyone will find it helpful or not, just thought I'd share, but I'm sure it's been posted somewhere on these forums before but I've not seen it, my apologies if a re-post.

 

[AAAutin]

Back in my John Q. Citizen days, I scoffed at the very notion of accepting any kind of assistance (especially from Uncle Sam). I believed in personal responsibility, pulling myself up by my bootstraps—all that good government bullshit. But that misplaced pride only served to embitter and isolate me.

Fast-forward to my life now, and food stamps have enabled me to eat real food on a regular basis (as opposed to trash and kickdowns every few days). Have I earned said food in a capitalistic sense? Absolutely not. Do I feel as though I'm entitled to it? Nope. Is there some shame associated with being an able-bodied individual essentially living on someone else's dime? Oh yeah. Does that make receiving it unethical? I don't know. Am I going to continue to do so? Fuck yes...because I'd rather be a happy hypocrite than a sound martyr.

 

[ped]

Back in my John Q. Citizen days, I scoffed at the very notion of accepting any kind of assistance (especially from Uncle Sam). I believed in personal responsibility, pulling myself up by my bootstraps—all that good government bullshit. But that misplaced pride only served to embitter and isolate me.

Fast-forward to my life now, and food stamps have enabled me to eat real food on a regular basis (as opposed to trash and kickdowns every few days). Have I earned said food in a capitalistic sense? Absolutely not. Do I feel as though I'm entitled to it? Nope. Is there some shame associated with being an able-bodied individual essentially living on someone else's dime? Oh yeah. Does that make receiving it unethical? I don't know. Am I going to continue to do so? Fuck yes...because I'd rather be a happy hypocrite than a sound martyr.

government is a gang, a cabal, a mafia. Its men who out gunned someone else and took over land. That mafia doesn;t let you hunt, fish, build a home, or grow your own food without the currency they have issued. the only way to get that currency is to work for their friends who profit handsomely and pay rations from your work.

I'll ask again does a bear in the zoo deserve his lunch?

did the plantation negro deserve his bread?

 

[Vanholio]

I'm getting SNAP now. It ain't much, about $40 a month. But until my income increases, I'll take it. It doesn't bother me in the least. I've paid shitloads of taxes in my day, and I likely will again.

What bothers me is my taxes that have gone to bomb innocents with drones in developing countries. What bothers me is taxes going for kickbacks to lobbyists and corps.

No, sharing food around through SNAP don't bother me in the least.

I was just in a town with a soup kitchen serving breakfast for a requested $1 donation. Several lifestyle vandwellers/RVers at the state park there went for breakfast every morning. (I didn't. But I'd have been happy to. Just didn't work out for me.) Is it right? <shrug> I'd be happy to take advantage of a $1 breakfast and will next time I'm in that town. Hell, I'll pay $1.50 or $2, still get a giant bargain, and help someone who can't even come up with $1.

 

[ped]

Oh yeah where that?

 

[Kim Chee]

...How about the ethics of getting free sidewalks, free defense, free libraries, free roads, free parks, free education, free fire fighting...

The obvious difference between the things you mention and food is that they are not necessary to survival while food is.

Kindly stay on topic.

 

[Kim Chee]

...you cant possibly be on a squatting website telling stories of freight hoping, stealth camping, and begging for change and fuel, but questioning the ethics of food stamps and not be either brain dead or overcome with irony...

@ped, if you feel defensive for accepting food stamps, I understand. I hope you don't take it personally when my intention was for people to have a healthy discussion about the ethics of getting free food from the government since it is a very debateable issue.

Again, kindly keep to topic within this thread.

If you wish to discuss other matters, feel free to create your own thread.

 

[Vanholio]

Oh yeah where that?

Columbus, NM

 

[ped]

@ped, if you feel defensive for accepting food stamps, I understand. I hope you don't take it personally when my intention was for people to have a healthy discussion about the ethics of getting free food from the government since it is a very debateable issue.

Again, kindly keep to topic within this thread.

If you wish to discuss other matters, feel free to create your own thread.

Again, wtf are you talking about being off topic? Do you not understand what ethics means?

It's simple fact you're a hypocrite if you oppose food but go ahead and take all the other shit. You're getting something for nothing.

since you've yet to debate ethics in your own thread. Make your case as to why food stamps are bad for us to debate. You called me a fascist for opposing someone who does nothing but pop in these threads and call us "victims" (there's none more hopelessly enslaved....err nevermind)

 

[rooster831]

i had them when i first hit the road, then lost them and didn't have them for over 2 years

i didn't have a problem getting food at all, and people always wondered why i didn't have them, so i explained "i don't care"

but now i can see the benefits of having them again, especially when it comes to contributing to the community pot

as far as ethics goes, i have no qualms getting foodies

that plastic card means my friends, other kids, and i get $195 to eat with every month on the first of every said month

and anyone who has a problem with that can just shut the fuck up imo

food stamp programs are there to benefit us poor folk, and as long as i can get it i will

 

[AnOldHope]

I was on food stamps for about five months years ago. As a taxpayer, I do not object to them. The fact is, hungry people will do increasingly desperate things. We have the resources to provide food to everyone. I do not believe the program is managed well, but even in its present form I support it and don't mind continuing to pay for it.

My meta-ethic is that philosophical error should not be punished with starvation. Nothing should. By tonnage we throw away a grotesque percentage of the food in this country. We should remedy that waste before we fault the poor who need to eat.

 

[ped]

I was on food stamps for about five months years ago. As a taxpayer, I do not object to them. The fact is, hungry people will do increasingly desperate things. We have the resources to provide food to everyone. I do not believe the program is managed well, but even in its present form I support it and don't mind continuing to pay for it.

My meta-ethic is that philosophical error should not be punished with starvation. Nothing should. By tonnage we throw away a grotesque percentage of the food in this country. We should remedy that waste before we fault the poor who need to eat.

yes but the kim chee argument goes people can always work but they don't. Travelers out living it up instead of getting a job.

then further into the right, people are only poor by their own doing, ergo no one should get food stamps.

 

[AnOldHope]

yes but the kim chee argument goes people can always work but they don't. Travelers out living it up instead of getting a job.

then further into the right, people are only poor by their own doing, ergo no one should get food stamps.

I respect your right to have an interpretation of Kim Chee's position, but it makes more sense for me to respect their right to present their position for themselves.

It's not that I don't understand your frustration, critique of those who receive charity seems like callousness and in an applied sense it often is when manifested as policy.

Studies in primates have shown they get very upset when they observe another primate receiving more reward than they did for the same task. They do not have elaborate abstract constructions of justice or ethics that informs their response, rather evolution has given them an internal countermeasure against gluttony, against one of them taking too much from the group.

Humans, as a "higher" primate (although I believe we're pissing that title away, the Bonobos are effectively now more reasonable than we are), can consider that someone taking food for free is not taking too much, as long as they are only taking what they need to survive.

So long as food stamps are not excessive (and again, I emphasize the program should be managed differently), they are a worthy cause, but understandably some will object for reasons more ancient than we are.

 

[ped]

I respect your right to have an interpretation of Kim Chee's position, but it makes more sense for me to respect their right to present their position for themselves.

this is a continuation of another thread where positions and cases were stated. It got started right after I posted that I had got approved for food in the other one.

I agree with your psychological point. That wiring in us is something that is very skillfully exploited, too. Hence why I tried to make the case an abstract about systematic inequality from the foundation, not merely a work - reward ethic.

 

[AnOldHope]

this is a continuation of another thread where positions and cases were stated. It got started right after I posted that I had got approved in the other one.

I agree with your psychological point. That wiring in us is something that is very skillfully exploited, too. Hence why I tried to make the case an abstract about systematic inequality from the foundation, not merely a work - reward ethic.

I think Technology will force the question quite severely in the next century.

When emerging memory metals that shape themselves form artificially controlled muscle fibers solving the motor-miniaturization problem in robotics, the 50th percentile human will have nothing to trade or contribute.

A global guaranteed income is the only humane solution, but the remnant of the Puritan work ethic will delay its acceptance and deployment until it is too late, ironically collapsing the system and destroying civilization to avoid the ethical issue of a person getting something they didn't work for.

 

[spectacular]

We're in the middle of a giant shitstorm (ie our obsession with material goods has generated vast stores of STUFF) and we're hungry, tons of food gets thrown away every day at grocery stores, why not pick some of it up. Not like the farmers are gonna stop farming. I ain't gonna feel bad.