even if they aren't using it to just apply for jobs, having an internet connection is part of how you participate in society; and an iPhone is hardly a big deal in regards to the welfare queen stereotype.

[Edited on September 16, 2013 at 9:57 AM. Reason : basically, you guys are missing real issues because you're distracted by shiny things]

9/16/2013 9:56:25 AM

http://www.theatlantic.com/business/archive/2013/09/can-smart-economics-turn-us-into-better-parents/279695/

Today I Learned: teen moms aren't as good of parents



Who woulda thunk?

9/16/2013 1:14:05 PM

Haha, single black teen moms.

9/16/2013 2:45:21 PM

...addicted to retail

9/16/2013 2:48:24 PM

http://www.attsavings.com/raleigh-att-north-carolina-internet-deal.html

uh ... yes you fucking can.

14.95 a month.

9/16/2013 6:39:15 PM

Oh SNAP.

9/16/2013 6:44:45 PM

^^That's only good for 12 months, and only then if you also have landline service with them (which itself is super-expensive)

9/16/2013 7:44:47 PM

cable is 19.95 a month. and it's stupid easy to just cancel at 12 months and sign up again under someone elses name ot keep the introductory rate

my point remains

9/16/2013 7:55:30 PM

Quote :

"landline service"

9/16/2013 7:58:31 PM

At&T charges my parents $21.xx for their 756k dsl. non-contract. not an introductory rate.

also:

Quote :

"hose around the poverty line will sometimes use phones to try to bridge the digital divide"

WTF.

You can't even properly feed yourself and a phone with a data plan is a higher priority? Public libraries have computers with free internet access. Don't try to justify an uneccessary smartphone purchase. If you need a phone, get a prepaid one and use it for what it is. A mobile telephone. If you want internet connection, then I can see buying a $100 tablet and using wifi at McD's or some other cafe'. Heck, most malls have free wifi now, and if not, there's bound to be a coffee shop broadcasting. Just find a spot where you can pick up a signal and voila, free data plan. A single $100 purchase for a tablet is definitely justifyable compared to a $80/mo phone bill.

There are ways around the digital divide that doesn't involve those on food stamps spending money they can't afford to misuse on things they don't need.




[Edited on September 16, 2013 at 8:56 PM. Reason : .]

9/16/2013 8:53:08 PM

Quote :

"Please expound upon "education.""

Education regarding contraceptives and the consequences of not using them. Education for securing financial success (not necessarily the other money pit that is college).

9/16/2013 10:56:21 PM

Quote :

"sign up again under someone elses name"

a.k.a. fraud

like the kind of thing you people already accuse SNAP recipients of

k

9/16/2013 11:37:12 PM

you're a moron...

9/17/2013 1:36:36 AM

Digital divide is just another term the left uses to get people to buy into class warfare.

9/17/2013 7:05:10 AM

Quote :

"Digital divide is just another term the left uses to get people to buy into class warfare."

hmm, I believe it is also a term for the difference in connectivity of social classes.

9/17/2013 8:47:42 AM

Quote :

"Digital divide is just another term the left uses to get people to buy into class warfare."

"The left" is just another term that people use to get people to buy into class warfare.

9/17/2013 8:55:00 AM

"class warfare" lol

9/17/2013 9:13:22 AM

"class warfare" is now just a term used by the Right to disparage advocacy of social justice

9/17/2013 7:24:58 PM

Quote :

" "class warfare" lol"

9/17/2013 7:59:22 PM

Social justice is just a nice way of saying that it's okay to pick your neighbors pocket.

9/18/2013 12:56:53 PM

Ownership is arbitrary. Permission to own something is given for entirely utilitarian purposes (meaning it makes a better society).

If you don't agree, then argue to me why we grant ownership rights to land but not to air. Or if you believe we should sell shares in air that's valid.

As long as ownership is arbitrary the concept of social justice is a valid one. After all, homeless people would be better off if land was not own-able. No?

9/18/2013 1:27:22 PM

There is this thing on WRAL about the food stamp system in NC not working (like the computer system) and the responses are hilarious.

9/18/2013 4:26:58 PM

Welfare Pays More than Minimum Wage in 35 States: Q&A with Cato’s Michael Tanner
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cqUE8u4RNWs

Seems to me the biggest problem here is the flippant use of the word "welfare", which refers to a number of programs that are all quite different and need careful navigation in order to get any appreciable amount from. So it's not like they don't have a job, it's more like their job is dealing with the complicated bureaucratic system of dealing out welfare - exactly the same hurtles that assure that it doesn't accomplish its intended purpose.

9/19/2013 12:28:57 PM

I believe Michigan is voting to tie SNAP benefits to community service tonight.

9/19/2013 12:42:33 PM

This kinda blew my mind:

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/06/19/food-stamps-military_n_3462465.html

Quote :

"Nearly $53 million in food stamps had been cashed in by people eligible to shop in base commissaries, including disabled veterans and others with military ID that entitles entrance to the facilities, through the first half of this fiscal year -- from October through March, according to data provided to The Huffington Post by the Defense Commissary Agency. "

So many of our military families and veterans can't even afford to eat. The Republican response: "Get a job ya bunch of lazy poors."

[Edited on September 20, 2013 at 8:59 AM. Reason : can't not can]

9/20/2013 8:48:25 AM

http://opinionator.blogs.nytimes.com/2013/09/19/red-state-pain/?smid=fb-share&_r=1

Quote :

"Certainly there are frauds among the one in seven Americans getting help from the program formerly known as food stamps. But who are the others, the easy-to-ignore millions who will feel real pain with these cuts? As it turns out, most of them live in Red State, Real People America. Among the 254 counties where food stamp use doubled during the economic collapse, Mitt Romney won 213 of them, Bloomberg News reported. Half of Owsley County, Ky., is receiving federal food aid. Half."

9/21/2013 6:43:36 PM

ahahahahahah

9/22/2013 9:51:35 PM

^^ THat makes sense doesn't it?

If Obama was prez during that time, they're going to correlate Obama with their misery, and are partially right.

What they failed to realize was that Romney would have likely made things worse for them, but poor, dumb people won't really think much deeper than the former.

The democratic party should be all about helping the poor and unfortunate. This should be the core and substance of their message and policy. They spend too much time on unions, gun control, abortion rights, and taxing the rich. If they spent more time talking about poverty, its effect on the country, and how it impacts the entire system, a lot of the other policy considerations would fall in line.

[Edited on September 23, 2013 at 12:31 AM. Reason : ]

9/23/2013 12:25:32 AM

both parties are about self-preservation

if their constituents became more prosperous and educated, do you really think they'd put up with the BS that they get from Republicans or Democrats? for every downtrodden inner city Democrat-dominated ghetto, there's a struggling Republican stronghold small town.

9/23/2013 2:21:45 AM

Downtrodden Democratic inner city ghetto.

Struggling Republican small town.

lol

9/23/2013 10:20:21 AM

http://reason.com/archives/2013/09/23/gop-food-stamp-bill-will-increase-govern

Fun! I do love how our government defines a cut as a smaller increase in spending as opposed to an actual decrease.

9/23/2013 8:00:01 PM

You do understand that programs are run on a 10-year budget system. Of course cutting spending out of future budgets is cutting spending.

Once again, you have demonstrated your complete lack of knowledge for how government works.

9/23/2013 11:45:38 PM

9/24/2013 12:01:21 AM

weren't these things bumped up by a 2009 federal stimulus bill? haven't they expanded by something like 70% or some shit over the last few years? I think we'll be OK if we cut them back to "normal" levels.

10/14/2013 9:59:50 AM

^ There are 2 very different developments you're talking about. One is legislation that expanded the program to some extent. Another is that more people signed up because they became eligible, because of the recession.

Resetting the program back to normal won't make things "normal" again. It's larger now mainly because we have more poor people than we used to.

10/14/2013 10:19:55 AM

Many of whom actually work and still don't make enough money to be disqualified.

[Edited on October 14, 2013 at 12:59 PM. Reason : ]

10/14/2013 12:58:49 PM

^^ Agreed; I understand that there are 2 different things at play.

The complaining about "cutting" the program...is that just "cutting" it back to what it was before '09?

Regarding the latter, the bottom line is that we don't need 1 in 6 people on food stamps. I find it awfully hard to believe that the threshold shouldn't be lowered.

[Edited on October 14, 2013 at 1:12 PM. Reason : this stuff is lower on my list of things to cut, but still, that's a little crazy.]

10/14/2013 1:10:56 PM

Quote :

"for every downtrodden inner city Democrat-dominated ghetto, there's a struggling Republican stronghold small town"

actually several

small backwards towns dot the landscape

[Edited on October 14, 2013 at 1:20 PM. Reason : the bottom line is we don't need 1 in 6 people poor

10/14/2013 1:19:23 PM

Quote :

"weren't these things bumped up by a 2009 federal stimulus bill? haven't they expanded by something like 70% or some shit over the last few years? I think we'll be OK if we cut them back to "normal" levels. "

What are "normal" levels?

Since the recession, more people need these programs, and salaries have dropped, so even people that are working are still in poverty.

We're at normal level unless we can do something about the income gap...

10/14/2013 1:32:27 PM

Think about how many fast food restaurants there are. Not just McD's and Wendy's either. Most places like Subway and Jersey Mike's. Other restaurants that don't pay much. Cashiers, Wal-Mart workers. Small towns with no opportunities. There are tens of millions of working poor. 1 in 6 is about 17% of the population. Does it really seem that far-fetched that this many people need assistance?

Honestly, the fact that corporations and the extremely wealthy are not fulfilling their end of the bargain as far as society goes has CREATED the need for government intervention. The reason we didn't need food stamps as much in the past is because people could make a living being a cashier and it wasn't looked down upon. That world does not exist anymore. Capitalism with no social regard is why so many people need food stamps.

10/14/2013 2:18:17 PM

Umm, I don't think "cashier" or "burger flipper" are just recently plummeting to the bottom of the [employed] social strata.

Also, what happened to the old libertarian imstoned? ...or am I imagining a past that never existed just like you are?

10/14/2013 4:27:14 PM

Quote :

"You do understand that programs are run on a 10-year budget system. Of course cutting spending out of future budgets is cutting spending. Once again, you have demonstrated your complete lack of knowledge for how government works."

Except that, when the time comes, the cuts never actually happen - they get negotiated out of the budget well before they materialize.

10/14/2013 5:21:06 PM

Quote :

"what happened to the old libertarian imstoned?"

he grew up

I too was once a libertarian

10/14/2013 9:11:52 PM

I'd say that's more a criticism of being a full-retard ideological purist than specifically of libertarianism. My definition of libertarianism is much, much broader.

10/14/2013 10:23:19 PM

In other words, everyone who disagrees is just immature. Air tight argument there, I'm not even going to touch it as my entire worldview would immediately crumble if I tried.

Vague opposition to oppressive government policies doesn't make you "a libertarian", it just means that you're at least partially aware of your surroundings.

[Edited on October 14, 2013 at 10:27 PM. Reason : ]

10/14/2013 10:23:42 PM

I realized that the US is fucked because without the institutions that government provides people would eat each other alive for fun. Without the order and structure that government provides society would disintegrate. Because people don't realize that just because they have freedom means they have to use it. Ironically, I think libertarianism is incompatible with a cut throat capitalist system, which is what we have. Libertarianism only works if people are extremely decent to each other.

The whole reason we have such a large and powerful government is to keep the most powerful among us from shitting all over the less fortunate. And people are too stupid to realize that one party wants to keep letting the very powerful gain more power within the government. If republicans stopped getting elected we wouldn't have absolutely ridiculous court decisions like citizens united and whatever that new one is they're going to strike down in the next couple of months.

10/14/2013 10:24:30 PM

Quote :

"I realized that the US is fucked because without the institutions that government provides people would eat each other alive for fun."

File this one under "shit that statists actually believe". This is pretty close to Elizabeth Warren saying that without the government we'd have exploding toasters.

10/14/2013 10:26:04 PM

If by statist, you mean I believe there should be a state, then yes. There is absolutely no way we could have anything resembling a complex society without the structure and order that government provides.

The problem is that people conflate having freedom with exploiting freedom. For example, the 2nd amendment allows people to possess firearms. Idiot conservatives seem to think that the freedom to own a firearm means that they can shoot people for frivolous reasons. That leads to people thinking we need gun control to stop people from shooting each other.

For whatever reason, people are too stupid to exercise their freedom in a way which minimizes negative effects on other people. If they didn't misuse their freedom, we wouldn't need government.

10/14/2013 11:26:01 PM

Quote :

"Idiot conservatives seem to think that the freedom to own a firearm means that they can shoot people for frivolous reasons."

Who fucking believes this?

10/15/2013 10:06:57 AM

http://www.brentroad.com/message_topic.aspx?topic=639142

Quote :

"Store owner Rodney James Duve, 52, of Corpus Christi, Texas was arrested Saturday night after shooting and killing an unidentified 39-year-old man who attempted to leave his store without paying for a 12-pack of beer. The man was shot multiple times outside Duve’s Quick Stop, and police say he was shot “at least once” in the head. He was taken to Spohn Memorial Hospital where he was pronounced dead. Duve was charged with murder after the shooting and is currently being held in Nueces County Jail on $35,000 bond."

This guy. I could maybe understand shooting someone to stop them from fleeing but this guy hit the thief multiple times, including once in the head. He was clearly shooting to kill. All this over a fucking 12 pack of beer. And multiple people on TWW agree with him and I'd say he has a decent chance of getting away with this because he lives in Texas. People all over the country agree with this radical escalation of violence over something that probably didn't cost more than $20. Lots of people believe what I said. So what's going to stop it? More freedom or more government regulation, because something about this is extremely fucked up and these type of things happen every day.

10/15/2013 11:54:14 AM