Seriously, Reason Magazine, Moynihan Just Sucks - Item #938
[I posted a modified version of this elsewhere, but spent enough time on it that I put it here.]
While I'm libertarian, some harder-core sorts might think I'm soft on welfare programs. I was Team Blue-leaning up until college, after all. Also, I like indie music (relevant as you'll see, below).
So, out of intellectual honesty married with just plain ire, I showed Michael C. Moynihan's little kulturekampf "People Who Need to be Punched: Baltimore Edition" bit on the Salon "Hipsters on Food Stamps" article to my friend, aka zamiel. Alex is also known as "the Squidlord", an angry anarcho-fascist, welfare state-resenting, war-mongering, Blue-baiting, hipster-hating misanthrope.
How misanthropic is he?
Not an exaggeration.
So, what did he say?
"Why should I care what they buy with it?" he asked incredulously. "The people bitching about indies drinking soy lattes were the same people bitching about college students eating ramen last week."
But, it's taking from tax payers, innit?
"It's noise in the system!" And yeah, we looked up the budget. We actually got contradictory numbers from different sources, but the largest was under $35 billion in FY 2008. ( http://www.fns.usda.gov/cga/FactSheets/SNAP.htm ) "To put this in context, the whole federal discretionary budget [for 2010], purely the discretionary budget, not the entitlement spending - Social Security and Medicare are not part of this budget! - is $1.421 trillion...On the grand scale, this doesn't even show up on the balance."
We traced the "logic" here:
1) They qualify for the food stamp program.
2) They buy stuff that's entirely eligible for that program. ("I think it's great that Whole Foods takes food stamps.")
3) But they get "foodie" stuff, including (horrors!) "fresh produce". ("Oh, my God! They bought ciabatta bread! They bought overpriced bread with the money you gave to them in the first place!...Is it better if they eat shit?" Alex demanded.)
4) This is somehow terrible and contemptible. ("...What?")
Seriously, if you've lost the Squidlord on something involving hipsters and tax money, you've lost.
So, while Operation BSU has been on hiatus for months, we've joined together to award Michael C. Moynihan not the punch he recommends for hipsters eating organic produce, but an official Operation BSU Kick in the Ding.
(This almost deserves to be a real kick in the ding, but I'm into non-aggression and Alex isn't local to him. And he's lazy. ;) )
While I'm libertarian, some harder-core sorts might think I'm soft on welfare programs. I was Team Blue-leaning up until college, after all. Also, I like indie music (relevant as you'll see, below).
So, out of intellectual honesty married with just plain ire, I showed Michael C. Moynihan's little kulturekampf "People Who Need to be Punched: Baltimore Edition" bit on the Salon "Hipsters on Food Stamps" article to my friend, aka zamiel. Alex is also known as "the Squidlord", an angry anarcho-fascist, welfare state-resenting, war-mongering, Blue-baiting, hipster-hating misanthrope.
How misanthropic is he?
Not an exaggeration.
So, what did he say?
"Why should I care what they buy with it?" he asked incredulously. "The people bitching about indies drinking soy lattes were the same people bitching about college students eating ramen last week."
But, it's taking from tax payers, innit?
"It's noise in the system!" And yeah, we looked up the budget. We actually got contradictory numbers from different sources, but the largest was under $35 billion in FY 2008. ( http://www.fns.usda.gov/cga/FactSheets/SNAP.htm ) "To put this in context, the whole federal discretionary budget [for 2010], purely the discretionary budget, not the entitlement spending - Social Security and Medicare are not part of this budget! - is $1.421 trillion...On the grand scale, this doesn't even show up on the balance."
We traced the "logic" here:
1) They qualify for the food stamp program.
2) They buy stuff that's entirely eligible for that program. ("I think it's great that Whole Foods takes food stamps.")
3) But they get "foodie" stuff, including (horrors!) "fresh produce". ("Oh, my God! They bought ciabatta bread! They bought overpriced bread with the money you gave to them in the first place!...Is it better if they eat shit?" Alex demanded.)
4) This is somehow terrible and contemptible. ("...What?")
Seriously, if you've lost the Squidlord on something involving hipsters and tax money, you've lost.
So, while Operation BSU has been on hiatus for months, we've joined together to award Michael C. Moynihan not the punch he recommends for hipsters eating organic produce, but an official Operation BSU Kick in the Ding.
(This almost deserves to be a real kick in the ding, but I'm into non-aggression and Alex isn't local to him. And he's lazy. ;) )