General Discussion
In reply to the discussion: When you are poor and have an iPhone.... [View all]Moonwalk
(2,322 posts)People know their tax money goes for food stamps and welfare, and so they feel this "entitles" them to tell people on food stamps and welfare how to spend their money (i.e. the tax dollars the not-so-rich feel they've given to the poor--like telling a poor relative how to spend money you've loaned or given them). The way they think is: "If this person can afford an iPhone, then why are they taking *MY* money from me to buy food? I gave them money for food, and they damn well better spend it on food! If they've enough to buy other stuff, then they don't have to take *MY* money from me!"
Of course, the real bamboozling that's going on here is that the very rich have tricked the not-so-rich into thinking this. Into thinking that they're subsidizing not only lazy people, but people who are bamboozling them out of their money--and that if they vote against giving these people money, their taxes would go down significantly (the not-so-rich don't realize that welfare, unemployment and food stamps, don't comparatively cost that much tax-wise, and if they really want their taxes to go down, they should vote against tax breaks for the rich, etc.).
All this is, of course, a magic trick that does two things: (1) It keeps the not-so-rich from seeing how the rich are not paying their fair share and making the not-so-rich, not-so-rich. The poor are the scapegoat, they're to blame for the hard-earned money of the not-so-rich going to the government...if the poor weren't there, however, the not-so-rich might get angry with the rich. This fiction keeps the super-rich stay safe and unexamined. (2) The rich make the not-so-rich so sure they've been rooked out of their tax dollars helping the poor, that they vote against giving the poor anything, and this allows the rich to, ironically, make more more money. They can, for example, start a tax-free church which, they say, will feed the poor in place of the government. The not-so-rich thinks this is a deal, but doesn't see that they're still losing the tax dollars...and with no guarantee that the poor will be fed. And the "charity" pockets most of the money rather than giving it to the poor. EXACTLY what the not-so-rich thought their food stamp neighbors with the iPhone were doing.
It's not pathology folks, nor ignorance. It's human fear and stupidity. Anyone who can make us afraid that we're going to be tricked out of something that we deserve or is ours can make us stupid. Really, really stupid.