Years (lifetimes?) ago, when Barack Obama was president, I was having a 'conversation' online with someone who was trying (and failing) to explain to me why the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) in the US was a bad thing. This does exactly what it sounds like--provides monetary assistance, in the form of something like a debit card, to people who have very low incomes. There are strict limits on what these cards can be used for--that is, food. People are not using them to buy cigarettes and booze. Now, this person was not shy about telling people how she decided Jesus thought they should live and making judgments about how they fell short in many areas of life. And I'm no Biblical scholar--or a Christian, for that matter-- but even I know that Jesus said quite a lot about caring for the poor. And, you know, he fed people--loaves and fishes, right? So given those excellent ideas clearly spelled out in the book she claimed to base her life on, she should have been quite in favor of helping hungry people eat. Here could be a commonality between our worldviews! It was not. People who received SNAP benefits were, according to her, somehow not worthy for several reasons. And here was what was supposed to be her moment of triumph, her best argument: Her friends owned a deli. A full 60% of their business came from people using SNAP cards to pay for their food. So as a result, those people were squandering taxpayer money.
Of course there are problems with this argument that leap out at once, so I immediately replied that it was lucky for her friends that SNAP benefits exist, since if it's true that fully 60% of their business comes from people paying with SNAP cards, they might have a very hard time making that business up should those benefits be taken away, taking 60% of their business with them. Could they even stay in business? It seemed like her deli-owning friends were also beneficiaries of the SNAP program. I got no reply to that, so it was the end of the conversation. As a result, I didn't get to suggest to her that there could be reasons why people were not buying ingredients and cooking at home--they might not have much in the way of working kitchen appliances or the tools with which to cook. They might not even have a kitchen or a home for that matter. Or maybe they just wanted a sandwich.
4 comments:
You silly woman, Shari, trying to reason with people like that. What were you thinking? She already knows that she knows what is right before you get into the conversation. Kind of like the Jehovah's witnesses that come to your door. Now if only you'll accept Jesus, my dear, all will be well - or was that Thor or Odin, Shiva or Buddha, Confucius or the Dalai Lama - one of them anyway. They all have it written in a book that tells everything, and best of all you can interpret it any way you want. Don't you feel better now?
What really annoyed me about the conversation was her deciding that some people weren't worthy of help while not seeing that her friends were also beneficiaries of the same program. There's a lot of that kind of situational blindness around and people need to get out of such a narrow-minded way of thinking. And maybe she should read her book. I've known and still know Christians who have read it and take it very seriously indeed. They were/are wonderful people. I'm sure they were wonderful anyway, but they take their faith seriously, which I respect, as I do anyone who has a deep sense of ethics, kindness, respect for others, etc and walk their talk. :-)
I know. I agree with you about what so many people believe and how they twist things for their own views. The Bible quote that stands out to me is "Love thy neighbor as you love thyself", and that is definitely missing from too many people, even many who say they are Christian. It's why I have a hard time with so many religious people. Have a great new week.
And she somehow could not see that her friends' business was also reliant on the SNAP benefits their customers used to pay--at least if what she said was true and 60% of their business came from people paying that way.
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