GOPer Who Got Millions in Farm Subsidies Thinks the Poor Should Starve Rather Than Get Food Stamps

Originally posted by jssaylor2007Farms MUST be subsidized due to the gross government manipulation of agricultural commodities.

No. You have got it completely backwards. Subsidisation is gross government manipulation of agricultural commodities.

Farm subsidies are a classic case of big government waste. You are defending big government by insisting that farmers are subsidised by massive taxpayer-funded handouts instead of being allowed to succeed or fail on the basis of free market forces.

I must conclude you are a socialist.

The real problem is that government is providing the solutions to the very problems they created.....

This is the essence of Hegelian Dialectic...problem/reaction/solution
The more problems government creates, the more solutions are needed by government. And this is the awful cycle created by Big Government and people who profit from it.

As a Christian, I tell you this.

Thessalonians is written by an apostle whose credibility of writings are dubious according to religious scholars. I'm talking about apostle Paul. The same apostle whose many teachings oppose the teachings of Christ and the prophets. His very profile fits the one of the false prophet Jesus and Revelations warned us about. Paul, like the false prophet Jezebel tolerates eating of food sacrificed to idols among many other blasphemies.

So I tell you this, Jesus did not teach us anything about not feeding those who don't work.

Rather Jesus told that whatever you do to the least, you do unto him. Neglect the poor, you neglect God also, and you will be made accountable later on. Whose teaching would you follow? Paul's or Jesus?

You can find anything in the Bible, but not everything in the Bible comes from God, some came from the teachings of man/devil.

Good morning, everyone!
Quite a read to get caught up.

I want to thank you all for participating. I figured I'd get flamed into oblivion for this one...was even sort of shaking I was so nervous to post it.

I don't have a lot to add at this point, except it IS NOT the Progressives who are doing this, and it is Corporate Greed run amok that has caused it.

I agree with:
bring the jobs back to the US
get rid of these psychopath politicans AND the psychopath corporate vampires
expect American companies to pay taxes TO THE USA, and stop allowing off-shore tax havens
end sweat-shop factories EVERYWHERE

I don't believe in 'eating people', but honestly - desperate people do desperate things. You all ever seen "The Road"? Know about the Jamestown colony? The Donner party? Read Life of Pi? There is no reason for anyone on this planet to be STARVING, or to be so RICH that they have to run away to the Cayman Islands to avoid being lynch.....erm, TAXED.

Double taxation, even triple - is a huge problem. Taxed when we earn it, taxed when we spend it, and then taxed AGAIN if we buy things previously bought by someone else and being resold. Let alone perpetual taxation on personal property and real estate. The corporations could fix this whole mess, but they WON'T. Because they DON'T WANT TO.

As pointed out in
The 4 Big Ways That Insatiable Corporate Hunger for Profits Has Devastated American Life -- and the World Along with It, the other thread I posted, also sourced to Alternet:

[The] free-market system that has thrived on publicly-funded research, infrastructure, and defense. Yet in a brazen show of hypocrisy, major corporations have ignored all the problems they've caused, choosing instead to cut their taxes in half despite doubling their profits, to hold 60% of its cash offshore, to eliminate workers rather than create jobs, and to reduce the pay of their remaining employees.

An Apple executive explained: "We don't have an obligation to solve America's problems."

Yeah, well, that Apple executive is scum.

The World Bank estimates the total cost for a successful attack on malnutrition would be approximately $10.3 to $11.8 billion annually. Apple alone underpaid its 2012 taxes by $11 billion, based on a 35% rate.

It may be time to update [Apple's] quote: "We don't have an obligation to solve the world's problems."

It's sickening, and it's time to STOP DEFLECTING the blame to government or the working classes.

Most farm subsidies are given to large agricultural concerns. I agree with the idea that we should let the free market decide their fates. Not that I want them to fail, but for our duly elected, so-called "representatives" to stop shoveling out huge sums of money to already highly profitable businesses.Believe me, no CEO will starve if we do. However, many more will if we let the right-wingers take the axe to food stamps.

Big agra, like big oil, has a ridiculously strong lobby in Washington, which is the primary reason the situation isn't likely to change soon. It's truly awful to see the politicians pander to them in their sickening symbiotic dance. They do love it, though, what with all the money and power involved. Hey, support us and you'll get some hefty campaign contributions come next election cycle. I'll scratch your back, and you scratch mine and as for the poor, let them eat cake!

So, slash or even eliminate food stamps for those who are hungry, while assuring higher profits for the wealthy?
Open your average conservative and you'll find a hole where his heart should be.

Originally posted by wildtimes
GOPer Who Got Millions in Farm Subsidies Thinks the Poor Should Starve Rather Than Get Food Stamps

Stephen Fincher, a deranged Republican congressman from Tennessee, is very angry that the federal government is committed to preventing poor people from starving to death:

Republican Congressman Stephen Fincher of Tennessee, who supports cuts to the program, had his own Bible verse from the Book of Thessalonians to quote back to Vargas: “The one who is unwilling to work shall not eat,” he said.

Nice. (NOT)

He fulminates about people who are allegedly "unwilling to work" sucking off the government teat with impunity. This is a patently dishonest representation of the SNAP program. Most people who receive food stamps cannot be dismissed as losers who are "unwilling to work." Nearly half (47%) of all food stamp recipients are children. Another 8% are 60 years of age or older. The "working poor" - people who live in a household with income from work - represent another 41%. Between children, the elderly, the working poor, and people who want a job but cannot find one - someone should tell Fincher that there are still more than 3 unemployed job seekers for every 1 opening - that leaves very few people who can be accurately described as being "unwilling" to work.

Good God this stuff makes me insane.

What a ridiculous bunch of tripe. This is what the Far-Right screechers about 'Nanny Statism' actually think is the right thing to do! I find it completely immoral and unbelievably sadistic. Who in their right mind thinks that it's okay for people to starve, whether here or in places where 'mutlinational corporations' pay only pennies per hour while Americans go without?

I've heard people say, "Well, they had to go overseas to survive." And, "it's not tax evasion, it's legal to go to whatever country offers the lowest tax rates" (in response to corporations CAUSING unemployment and poverty here at home)

I just can't accept that those statements are sane. Or that intelligent people would think that this isn't really the problem.
For heaven's sake, people!!

REALLY?!!

Shame on Fincher, and anyone who spouts this crap as "moral" and "standing for liberty."

I know Progressives aren't popular here, and are maligned as "commies" (which I persistently try to point out is FALSE) - but I'm not gonna shut up about this stuff. It's inhumane and disgusting, and its the child of RAMPANT GREED and CAPITALISM GONE BERSERK.

I hardly know what else to say. So here you go, ATS. Discuss. Let's figure out a REAL SOLUTION after identifying once and for all the REAL PROBLEM: GREED and PROFITS-ABOVE-ALL mentality. It's antisocial, psychopathic barbarism.

Well, yeah, interesting to see how a political career ends. I hope a plague of locust devours his farm. Fincher is a hypocritical apostate. The Old Testament clearly states that the poor have the right to pick at the fields for their substance(only what they need to immediately eat to survive, cattle is excluded though, only pickings from the fields).

Fincher, by suggesting that the poor ought to starve to death, while at the same time not offering the pickings of his fields to the poor, while he himself is unjustly enriching himself from the public coffers..

It is like a story in the Old Testament about a Master treating his servant kindly. Forgiving the servants mistakes, debt etc. But the servant treats those beneath them cruelly. Doesn't forgive them their mistakes or cut them slack with debt. After that I believe either a)the master flipped out at the head servant, and or b) the head servant was cursed by God, or something along those lines. Either way it was a moral lesson about how vile that type of behavior is.

The sad reality is, that type of behavior is saturated among the top of our society. From banking, to manufacturing, electronics, textile, energy industries, healthcare system, Judicial system, even educational systems suffer from that mentality.

reply to post by korathin

It is like a story in the Old Testament about a Master treating his servant kindly. Forgiving the servants mistakes, debt etc. But the servant treats those beneath them cruelly. Doesn't forgive them their mistakes or cut them slack with debt.

Yep! Thomas Jefferson did the same thing....hired KNOWN thugs to manage his farm, while he sat back and crowed about 'equal rights'. He didn't stop his 'manager' from torturing and brutalizing his slaves. Sick.

I always laugh when someone in the government, complains about people living off of people.

Originally posted by jssaylor2007

If someone is UNABLE to work then that is a completely different story. I personally have a friend who receives foodstamps, welfare, and his wife was national guard, so there are some more benefits. His stance on getting a job is, "Why should I go get a job when the government is going to pay me more to sit here and play computer games."

Justify that, because a HUGE portion of welfare recipients are THAT.

Uh, no. A "huge" portion of welfare recipients are not that. Different studies on the subject show that only a very small percentage of people will game the system. Most people who use it are actually in need and using it the way it was intended.

My wife is an unpaid advocate for special needs people. I have never seen such misuse and fraud as with people with a special needs family member.
So when I see liberal clap-trap like above, I consider the source and wonder how many 'assistance services' that particular Obama supporter is receiving...

All loyal Americans. Remember who is supporting this imoral administration. Because, there will be another 2016 version of the House Committee on Un-American Activities.
I can already see someone crying about the 'Bush Administration', because no one can honestly support this one!

reply to post by wildtimes


The answer is: They no longer work for us, we "work for them" the only time they're concerned about us, is tax time and voting time.

reply to post by daveinats


I don't know which post you're referring to by 'liberal clap-trap' or if you're referring to the entire thread as well as the OP.

It doesn't really matter, though, as you clearly have a closed mind about the issue, and apparently support the thinking of Fincher.

Originally posted by wildtimes
reply to post by JeffreyCH

 

I was in my 20s in the '80s'! I remember them quite well.
Okay, I have to crash now. You all carry on, I'll be back tomorrow.
G'nite.

(And yes, I drive a Honda.....they last forever)

Back then had more people protested imports, we might not be in the situation we are in now. It is not our responsibility to feed the whole world, or fix others political shortcomings...especially since our country is in such a mess. We send out billions in foreign aid while we are going broke! We have asshats like in the OP who steal millions that are meant for POOR family farmers, not corporate ag industries bolstering their bottom line. We have companies like Walmart that intentionally pay low wages so WE can subsidize those workers with welfare while they mark up record profits. Sam Walton would roll over in his grave if he knew how his children are running his company. The first Walmart I ever walked into had a sign by the front door that read "All products in this store are made in America" the employees used to have stock options, what happened?

I can't really begrudge Japan, at least they kind of hold up their end in regards to trade agreements. They have numerous assembly plants here in the states, I thought that's how it was supposed to work...

Tunnel vision, one issue campaigners are turning American society into Swiss cheese.

The poor and jobless, or underemployed are not dragging down the American economy. Try the trans-national corporations shipping jobs overseas and moving mountains to avoid paying taxes.

reply to post by wildtimes


Our country wouldn't have about 50,000,000 americans on foodstamps
if we still had jobs here to go to.Americans are not being allowed to work
or even be self-sufficient.We are slowly being dumbed down,unemployed,
and dependant on government handouts.

reply to post by mamabeth


Correct. And it's not okay.

reply to post by ipsedixit

Correct. And it's not okay.

I can't really begrudge Japan, at least they kind of hold up their end in regards to trade agreements. They have numerous assembly plants here in the states, I thought that's how it was supposed to work...

Yes, that is how it's supposed to work.
And yes, they 'hold up their end' -- their products LAST, and Americans have jobs due to their doing so. Planned obsolescence is also a huge problem.

reply to post by JeffreyCH

It is not our responsibility to feed the whole world, or fix others political shortcomings...

Who do you mean by "our"? It is every human being's responsibility to work toward fixing things and seeing to everyone being fed.

And that takes communication and cooperation toward the common good.
Otherwise, I agree with your post.

I've said it once and I'll say it again. I'd rather my country waste monies accumulated through our taxes on feeding people instead of foreign aid and wars that have nothing to do with us. I also doubt this senator actually does any 'work'.

reply to post by GenerationGap

it's the Progressive left (which includes the GOP) that will be bringing it to fruition.

WHAT?!!!

I was just going to ignore your post, but in reviewing it, I have to protest. You obviously have no true understanding of what 'Progressives' stand for. Fail.

reply to post by Abstruse

I'd rather my country waste monies accumulated through our taxes on feeding people instead of foreign aid and wars that have nothing to do with us.

I agree with you in principle, but it is NOT a "waste" of money to feed people.
Foreign policy should be limited to that, in my opinion.