mekka okereke 1d ago

They pay $34 for burgers. Should their fire department service be free? Opening a new fire department in one of NYC's richest neighborhoods has some of America's pettiest journalists asking silly questions in headlines again.🤡

The article acknowledges the fire department analogy, then blows past it.🤷🏿‍♂️

The solve for "Sometimes when a service like free childcare is available to all, marginalized communities get squeezed out," is "Address that racism."

It's not "Therefore waste incredible amounts of time and money trying to means test something that society should just make available to all.🤡"

Show threadLaura "Tegan" Gjovaag ⛈ 🐸1d ago

@mekkaokereke
When school lunch programs throw out the "who deserves to get free lunches?" and just provide for every child, the entire program is cheaper due to the lack of an enforcement layer, all children get fed, and children learn more and pay attention better.

Being overly concerned that someone might get something they don't "deserve" usually ends up screwing over the ones who need help most.

We're supposed to "promote the general welfare" of the public - not gate-keep who gets help.

Show threadCarolyn1d ago

@realtegan @mekkaokereke Sigh. I really hate the mindset of “what if someone undeserving benefits.”

So what? Especially when it involves children.

Show threadLaura "Tegan" Gjovaag ⛈ 🐸1d ago

@CStamp @mekkaokereke
Exactly.

And by giving everyone a free lunch and breakfast, it removes the stigma of "being too poor" to pay for lunch. That removes a tiny portion of the humiliation that comes from living in poverty.

Then there's the families who cannot figure out how to apply for the free lunch program - or don't have time because the parent(s) work extra jobs. Those children don't go hungry if every child is fed.

We need to stop gate-keeping who needs help, and just help people.

Dinah 🕊🇺🇦23h ago
Show threadCarolyn

@realtegan @mekkaokereke If the US has trillions of $ to bomb children in other nations, they certainly have $ to feed its own kids. :(

Kids are the most importantly resource of any country.

Apr 3 at 4:52pmWeb
Show threadStephen Dioxide 1d ago

@CStamp @realtegan @mekkaokereke
“Civil government, so far as it is instituted for the security of property, is in reality instituted for the defense of the rich against the poor, or of those who have some property against those who have none at all.”
― Adam Smith

"The primary function of government is to protect the minority of the opulent from the majority of the poor."
- James Madison

Show threadAdrian Riskin 22h ago

@Steve @CStamp @realtegan @mekkaokereke

And at least Madison thought this was a feature rather than a bug. In fact Madison's obsessive worry that in a democracy the majority of the poor might vote in laws that would protect them from capitalist predation, which after all is how he and his founding buddies made their dough, is why we have a republic rather than a democracy. He lays it all out in the open in Federalist 10.

https://billofrightsinstitute.org/primary-sources/federalist-no-10/

Federalist No. 10 by James Madison | Majority Rule v Minority Rights

Federalist No.10 written by James Madison defended the form of republican government proposed by the Constitution.

National Leader in Civic Education Resources | Bill of Rights Institute