Do you qualify for food stamps?

sandyd · 05-09-2012, 02:45 PM

http://www.snap-step1.usda.gov/fns/

CanadaSue · 05-09-2012, 02:55 PM

SHOULD you qualify for food stamps?

sandyd · 05-09-2012, 03:14 PM

Does it matter CS?

Finding out if you do, tells a lot about each state and maybe tells a bit about our 'overlords' and where they think people need help.

Once you know if you do, deciding to take 'em or not is a personal decision.

I KNOW I do not, nor did I when everyone in the home was unemployed, nor does my father who earns so little he is under the poverty line. For California, it's not all about earnings, it's also about assets-what do you have.

I'd also wonder, should all the states be more in sync with each other with how to qualify?
Heck, for a long time I've thought there should be even more limits on what folks can buy with SNAP bennies. Enough to live on but not anything you can enjoy....would teach folks how to save for what they want to enjoy.

As a kid, how many of us could make cookies or cakes or a pie all the time? Or had steaks often?
I remember my parents setting coins aside to save for cake mixes for birthdays. Steaks were a treat. I even have memories of going out looking for soda cans and bottles to turn in for the deposit to get enough money to buy an ice cream or chocolates for chocolate chip cookies that I made from scratch!

Do food stamps allow folks to buy already mixed, frozen cookie mixes? Frozen pies?
I think that is crazy....but the leaders seem to think it's important to make sure folks get their cake and ice cream.

Mousehound · 05-09-2012, 03:29 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by sandyd

I remember my parents setting coins aside to save for cake mixes for birthdays.

Making a cake from scratch is cheaper that with a cake mix, to which you still often have to add fresh ingredients. My mother would often tell me about poorer people coming in for food hand outs at our local church who didn't know what to do with real food stuffs. The art of cooking is being slowly reduced in the modern world, and that is expensive.

jane333 · 05-09-2012, 03:43 PM

I don't know why everyone doesn't get a food allowance.

We live in one of the richest nations to ever exist. It's not like we ask to be born, and yet here we are. Do we have a right to food? Not really, not in a world where there are no rights, only privileges. And worse, our Western society says we must work, earn money, then buy food. Our nation's leaders, as far as I'm concerned, are obligated to provide some minimal level of sustenance for us, its citizens...since we are neither allowed to harvest our own food from the wild nor live on the land.

Even the cavemen had the 'right' to hunt and fish.

I say everyone gets issued a card and a stipend, for food. According to one's income.

CanadaSue · 05-09-2012, 03:56 PM

and who pays for that jane?

sandyd · 05-09-2012, 04:05 PM

Everyone would pay for it CS. I do see her point. Am I allowed to get my bow and arrow and go kill a bunny for dinner? Odds are if I'm seen, I would get in trouble. Yet, simple hunting is what got people through the last depression and through many lean times. So did growing food or keeping chickens or other critters to eat.

Many cities have total hissy fits if you try to grow corn in your front yard...it's not pretty enough? WTH? Food seems a lot nicer looking to me when I'm hungry than lawns and flowers!

Mousehound · 05-09-2012, 04:12 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by jane333

I don't know why everyone doesn't get a food allowance.

We live in one of the richest nations to ever exist. It's not like we ask to be born, and yet here we are. Do we have a right to food? Not really, not in a world where there are no rights, only privileges. And yet our Western society says we must work, earn money, then buy food. Our nation's leaders, as far as I'm concerned, are obligated to provide some minimal level of sustenance for us, its citizens...since we are neither allowed to harvest our own food from the wild nor live on the land.

Even the cavemen had the 'right' to hunt and fish.

I say everyone gets issued a card and a stipend, for food. According to one's income.

Your comment reminded me of this:

Quote:

During the Russian Civil War (1918–1922), the Bolsheviks nationalized all productive property and imposed a policy of war communism, which put factories and railroads under strict government control, collected and rationed food, and introduced some bourgeois management of industry.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Communism

jane333 · 05-09-2012, 04:29 PM

CanadaSue,

Taxes don't stop coming into state and federal coffers when every citizen is issued a food benefits allowance. If a government is going to tax its citizens, then food could certainly be one of its basic levels of service just like roads, schools, police and hospitals. I also believe that housing is a minimum requirement. Even the cavemen could take possession of a rock shelter, or raise a thatch roof against the rain. Any who cannot afford privately-owned or rented homes in this rich nation of ours should be housed, dormitory-style, at the least.

Unless local governments want huts and slums like in Calcutta.

And that may be where we're headed.

sandyd · 05-09-2012, 04:52 PM

Permanent slums here are rare cuz we tear down the temp types and chase the folks off.
I have wondered why we don't offer rooms with shared bath/shower and no cooking beyond microwave or hotplate.

That was normal in years gone by. When I was 19 I discovered old hotels in downtown San Diego that were like that, pay by the week, no limit on how long you can stay.
Many are gone cuz they were in the gas lamp area but I still see some near downtown advertised on Craigslist. $25/night

dharma · 05-09-2012, 06:11 PM

jane, you really need to expand your ideas into a book. "The Parasite Manifesto"! It'll sell millions.

sandyd · 05-09-2012, 06:15 PM

dharma, what do you get for the taxes you pay?

If we can't pay less, why not think maybe we should get more?

veggiecanner · 05-09-2012, 07:59 PM

We don't have enough to go around. so yes we should help those who need it, but in the same situation just letting people keep their own money would work one heck of alot better.
Every one who can do for them selves should.
I think we could get food stamps, but choose to grow our garden instead. We should make that an option to as many as possible since we are borrowing/printing the money for food stamps.
if people are so upset about being born well, they need to get over it and grow up. Maybe your parents should support you, they are the ones that produced you. Not every one else.

Feather · 05-09-2012, 09:53 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by veggiecanner

I think we could get food stamps, but choose to grow our garden instead.

In Iowa you can use food stamps to buy vegetable seeds so you cna grow your own. You can also use them at the farmers market to buy food from some of the vendors.

dharma · 05-09-2012, 10:36 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by sandyd

dharma, what do you get for the taxes you pay?

Primarily abuse from the two parasite classes (welfare and politics) that think I don't pay enough, it seems like.

Quote:

Originally Posted by sandyd

If we can't pay less, why not think maybe we should get more?

Honestly, sandyd, are you yanking my chain? You have to be joking, right? You can't sincerely be asking a question this transcendently dumb with a straight face, can you? You do get that not only do personal income taxes not cover more than about a third of the federal budget, but that we borrow trillions to make up for what is not covered at all?

Put more plainly: the parasites are already killing the host; the host does not have the option of becoming a parasite itself.

sandyd · 05-09-2012, 10:56 PM

If they are going to keep bleeding me, I want something too dharma. The host may die one day and should you and I get nothing for what we give?

Sure if there is a way to stop it, I'm for it but if we can't stop it then what?

Look at ALL possibilities.

They may kick the can till anyone paying taxes pays 90% and dude, at that point the only way I can eat is they gotta give me SNAP and I probably will need housing too!
Or does going postal look more appealing?
Or maybe set yourself on fire as a protest?
Or you can leave and move somewhere maybe it is not happening. I know I won't, so while it's an option for some, it's not one I look at for me.

What other options are there?

dharma · 05-09-2012, 10:58 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by sandyd

The host may die one day and should you and I get nothing for what we give?

sandyd, here it is in words of one syllable: you and I are the host. You can open a vein and drink your own blood if you like, but you'll be a pretty sick vampire.

sandyd · 05-09-2012, 11:06 PM

If I'm already being drained and going to die anyway, why not? Is there a reason I should be hungry while others are full of my blood?

dharma · 05-09-2012, 11:34 PM

Yes, sandyd, there is. Someone who steals is a thief. Vampires are villains for a reason.

sandyd · 05-09-2012, 11:49 PM

At this point in time, from what I see, it's totally legal. Can you show me where it is not only against the law, but actively being prosecuted?

If not, then with that in mind, if it stays that way, then what?

From my POV, if I'm gonna be drained, I'm willing to eat my own to avoid feeling hungry as I die. Is it more noble and will I get virgins in Heaven if I suffer instead?

CanadaSue · 05-09-2012, 11:58 PM

There's a difference between 'legal' & 'right'.

Problems areb't fixed by becoming part of the problem; by buying into the "if you can't beat 'em, join 'em" mindset.

dharma · 05-10-2012, 12:04 AM

Legal? Are you mad? Since when are legal and moral synonymous? Slavery was legal once; would you have used that for proof of its rightness?

Taking other people's money is stealing, sandyd. When I call welfare recipients parasites, I'm not being merely insulting, I'm being factual. It is what they are.

If you are not mentally or physically disabled, and you feel comfortable taking money that was extracted from others against their will, money that they worked hard for (and you did not), then you are as much a criminal as anyone stealing in the street. You are scum. You are human garbage. You are not fit to live in the same world as decent people.

There. Is that clear?

sandyd · 05-10-2012, 12:19 AM

I understand that but I also know, without a doubt, if I had lived where slavery was legal, odds are, if I had the chance, I'd have owned one. Or more. If it benefited me and mine, I'd be surprised to find most, if not all, would. I try to be realistic about humans, myself included.

So would just about everyone. Going broke and dying, and your family farm going to ruins when you could use slaves, would be rather useless in day to day life. It would really suck if it meant you lost the farm, your children were homeless and going hungry, wouldn't it? I might stand on a high moral ground and die myself but taking others with me?

Which is why, if it came to it, I have no doubt, I'd drink rather than burn myself in protest, go postal or other choices.

Other than complaining on the net, what do you do to slow/stop this horrible immoral stealing from happening?

I have, and would again, vote for reform of many of the systems.

I would not, as society is today, want a complete cut off of it all though. IMO, THAT could endanger my life and you bet, I'll pay for protection as do many humans who do it outright to those with guns in their lands. Do I think it's wrong, sure but I wouldn't defy and die over it when it would not stop the practice.

You are free to choose other. I suspect of those who don't like it but will live under that kind of system, most will cave. It's human nature. I'm not going to hate humans for being humans.

sandyd · 05-10-2012, 12:29 AM

Quote:

then you are as much a criminal as anyone stealing in the street. You are scum. You are human garbage. You are not fit to live in the same world as decent people.

IMO, you are saying odds are your ancestors and mine and probably everyone alive today, is descended from scum.

High odds we all are.
And of the 7 billion humans alive, I'm guessing but would you bet given the choice of stealing or dying, all but maybe a million would steal? And if not for themselves, put there kid in the picture and ask 'steal or watch baby die'? What is the human response?

Not right or wrong, just easily over 90% will pick what, in your opinion? Might you be in such a minority that you are on the wrong planet? That this is NOT a planet of what you consider decent people?

dharma · 05-10-2012, 12:38 AM

As you wish. I prefer honor and morality to parasitism and rationalization.

Quote:

Originally Posted by sandyd

Other than complaining on the net, what do you do to slow/stop this horrible immoral stealing from happening?

Here's a start: I don't steal, myself.

I don't apologize for those that do, or subscribe to philosophies (liberalism, socialism) that try to dress stealing up in fancy language to fool people that it's moral.

I vote libertarian.