this post was submitted on 21 Sep 2024
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[–] [email protected] 53 points 2 days ago (1 children)

When you feed the poor, you're called a Saint

When you ask why the poor have no food, you're called a communist.

[–] [email protected] 18 points 2 days ago* (last edited 2 days ago) (1 children)

I work a couple food service jobs and the waste brings a tear to my eye. And that's just what makes it to the restaurant. Oh this tomato doesn't look perfect? Throw it away.

Perfect tomato's for sale: $10 each.

Then the pile of perfect tomatos rot as hungry eyes look upon it from outside the store. (They aren't allowed inside, the vagrants might steal!) Rotten like the hearts of those who gatekeep necessities for profit and power.

[–] [email protected] 8 points 2 days ago

That just Is word for word the peak of "grapes of wrath "

"The oranges needed to be dumped in kerosene and burned. It is cheaper than dumping them in the river and making sure the poor don't take them... why? All for the sake of profit"

[–] [email protected] 29 points 2 days ago (2 children)

Charity can serve as a means of control. This is way Republicans advocate against social services.

The government cannot mandate that you attend church to receive EBT. A church can require you attend a service to feed you.

I’ve heard from friends in Utah, for example, that access to many social services is through the church. Friend was trying to rescue a girl from FLDS - pretty much all job training/housing required she play along with mainstream Mormonism.

Orgs like the Salvation Army are known to require trans people to detransition to recieve services as well.

Another benefit is the rent seeking - Goodwill is a good example. You can still turn a profit with the right combination of PR, and tying access to services based on things that’ll make you profit (Goodwill “provides employment” for disabled people - they are legally allowed to pay them far below minimum wage.)

It’s the two pillars of the contemporary Right - control and grifting.

[–] [email protected] 8 points 1 day ago

Charity can also be used as a tax avoidance scheme and weaponized for political purposes; this is why the rich love it, through charity they are able to help themselves even further

[–] [email protected] 8 points 2 days ago

We will feed you if you believe in our religion and work our fields, your true reward for your good works and piety will wait for you in heaven.

It's like your pension plan in the sky.

[–] [email protected] 17 points 2 days ago

It's either this fairy tale, or its flip side, the myth that 'private vices' somehow add up to 'public virtues'.

[–] [email protected] 14 points 2 days ago* (last edited 2 days ago) (1 children)

We are also born unable to care for ourselves. Or speak. Or...

[–] [email protected] 14 points 2 days ago (2 children)

Kids don’t want to work these days

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[–] [email protected] 32 points 3 days ago* (last edited 2 days ago) (12 children)

I know I would be attacked by entire fediverse, but I want to say that charity also has egoism as backing cause. People help other people because it makes them feel good. And people expect themselves to be noticed or praised or rewarded, even if they tell themselves and everyone else that they don't.

Also don't presume that I am a capitalist, before you decide to attack me.

[–] [email protected] 24 points 2 days ago (7 children)

I mean, you're not wrong, but your point is also kinda meaningless. Of course, you only ever do things because there's something in it for you, even if that something is just feeling good about yourself. If there was truly nothing in it for you, then why would you do it?

But that misses the point of the "people are inherently selfish" vs "people are inherently generous" discussion, because it's not actually about whether people do things only for themselves at the most literal level, instead it's about whether people inherently get something out of doing things for others without external motivation. So your point works the same on both sides of the argument.

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[–] [email protected] 14 points 2 days ago* (last edited 2 days ago) (7 children)

Communism Killed 100 Zillion People

Now the massive population of China and Venezuela and Vietnam and Cuba and California are going to take over the world

No, they aren't doing Real Communism. That's just Authoritarian State Capitalism.

Yes, we have to fight them. That's why we need the western governments to spend trillions of dollars on private military services.

We have to kill all 100 Zillion of them. Because they've been infected with the Mind Virus of Communism.

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