There’s a lot going on right now about poverty, and welfare, and Obamacare, and insurance, and all sorts of other “are”s, and some of the current discourse makes me want to puke.
For example, there’s a post out there about how people on welfare shouldn’t have a cell phone or an iPad, and that’s an incontrovertible fact. Well, lemme lay this out there for you – there are no incontrovertible facts about poverty, and until you’ve lived in somebody’s house, you should probably keep your damn mouth shut about them. If you live in your car, you might be better off paying a cell phone bill than a rent bill to actually get a job. And if you’ve recently gone from not-broke to broke as hell, you might still have a few nice things left over that were worth more to you either functionally or sentimentally than they were to pawn or sell on Craigslist.
Look, I get it. We’re all raised to believe that you work hard and good things happen, but it doesn’t always work out that way. Sometimes you make one bad decision and it screws you financially for years, or maybe even generations. Sometimes you’re just unlucky, or you didn’t do well in school, or something outside your control screwed you, and you need a hand getting back on your feet. I’ve certainly had my fair share of times over the years when I’ve had it rough and had to beg and borrow to make ends meet, and without help of friends and family I wouldn’t have made it through.
So if you’ve got enough to get by, good on you. If you can reach down and help someone out, please do so. You never know who you’re helping get out of a tight spot. And someday it might be you.
And if you want to be judgmental and not share any drop of the milk of human kindness, then go fuck yourself.
