this post was submitted on 21 Aug 2025
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Leopards Ate My Face
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The reason this horrible excuse for a human being supports Medicaid is only because it affects her personally. Like most Republicans she doesn't give a shit about anyone else as long as she gets hers.
If it had been anyone else's son and family in identical circumstances she'd tell them to pull themselves up by their bootstraps. She should do the same.
Their selfishness is second only to their shortsightedness.
Honestly, I can work with selfishness. I just can't work with stupid. My partner and I are well enough off to likely never need to rely on the social safety net. Not crazy wealthy, just a couple, both with STEM backgrounds. Well enough off that we are unlikely to ever qualify for any needs-based programs, but not so well off that we don't have to work for a living. We stand to gain little from a strong social safety net, but we strongly support public housing, Medicare for all, tuition-free universities, etc.
We do this for two reasons. One, there is the moral aspect. There's a genuine desire to not see the poor and working class live in squalor and misery. In a country as wealthy and technologically advanced as ours, no one should have to worry about access to the basic necessities of life.
But the other reason is actually pure self-interest. Nothing in this life is certain. Unless you've put away enough to live off the interest of your investments, you are not immune from a job loss. Obviously the better off you are the less you have to fear from this. But unless you literally don't have to work anymore, you're at risk of ending up broke and homeless. Even us, with the right combination of job losses and medical emergencies, could end up needing to use that social safety net. If the fever dreams of the AI chuds come true, and the professional classes are replaced by LLMs, well my partner and I are both out of work. Even if I will likely never need public housing, I want it to exist, just in case I am unfortunate enough to need it. We've been quite fortunate and had some lucky breaks. But fortune can change. And in an era of rapid technological advancement, anyone is at risk of their entire career path suddenly being made obsolete when they're right in the middle of their career. Too late to start from scratch; too early to retire. It could happen to any of us. One of the reasons I support a strong social safety net is pure self-interest.
The other aspect of self interest is that a good social safety net reduces the number of crazy people out on the streets. Want to ride the metro without crazy, screaming weirdos? Social supports... Want to have clean functioning public bathrooms that arent used as injection sites for addicts? Social supports... So much of life would be better if we took care of the lowest in society instead of leaving them in a state of living death on the streets.
The research is very clear about this as well. Many social support programs are good investments, even from a conservative fiscal perspective.
Housing First programs are one example. These are programs that give shelter to unhoused people first without requiring them to quit drinking, do drug testing, go to counseling or church, and so on. Not only do these programs directly save lives, they are more fiscally responsible than the continuum of care/ war on drugs approach that is typically used. This is because people who have shelter use fewer emergency services, need to go to the hospital less often, have less frequent contact with police, and so on.