by Smitty
People have been looking a Fort Meade and trembling in Orwellian fear, but it looks like civilization may be more likely to end up drowned in a bong than sent to Room 101:
Welfare recipients can’t use their EBT cards at liquor stores but they can at marijuana dispensaries in states such as Colorado that have legalized pot, Sen. Jeff Sessions revealed Tuesday.
The Alabama Republican announced that he was drafting legislation to close the welfare-for-weed loophole after the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services confirmed to him that marijuana shops were not off limits to EBT cards, which replaced food stamps, or other federal benefits.
Thought experiment: you can be on the dole, or you can vote, but not both. The quote usually focuses on the government bribing people with their own money. However, there seems to be a reciprocal problem of the deadbeat people offering votes in exchange for handouts. There has to be a way to diminish that threat.
If you use your EBT card to buy dope, what will you use to buy munchies?
Pretty much the way to go is to differentiate earned and unearned benefits. Veterans ones that can be taken away for misconduct are different from TANF, SNAP or Pell Grants.
Good to know we have someone like Jeff Sessions of Alabama to help correct this terrible evil! You actually don’t need to change the rules because poor rednecks on welfare are guaranteed to vote for conservative candidates because their petty hates for gays, blacks, Mexicans, and smart people overrides their desire to eat.
[…] — I believe I was discussing this very thing over here a while […]
It’s actually a bullshit story perpetuated by conservatives to smear poor people as though everyone on public assistance, especially in this dreadful economy is a drug addled, deadbeat. Funny how this comes from the party who believes the other side is creating a class war. Truth is, people were able use their EBT cards to get cash at an ATM in Colorado which might have been used to buy grass but never directly. What we have here is another useless conservative senator playing to the fears of his old, chucklehead base and fighting another non existent boogeyman.
God forbid we should winnow out the drug-addled deadbeats, so we could assure that all the welfare funds were going to people who really need the assistance!
The bill was defeated last time because all they would be doing is stopping people with EBT from getting money from an ATM, the majority of whom are not drug addicts. The real issue here though is the way the situation has been twisted, mostly by Fox, and now Republican senators in order to tar the poor, but mainly to attack Colorados successful repeal on marijuana prohibition. Their success is leading the charge across the nation, and the world to stop the wasteful, and destructive drug war.
“There has to be a way to diminish that threat.” Offer them free meth.
EBT cards should not ge able to be used at ATMs in liquor stores, dope sellers, strip bars, hookah bars, tobacco stores and the like. People receiving entitlements do not need to be in those places, period. I’m not going to bankroll the vices of people, the majority of which won’t work, not can’t find jobs. And don’t tell me that “some of them aren’t using the cash for dope.” There are plenty of ATMs all over the place; they can use one of those.
In fact, I personally don’t want them getting cash with EBT cards. The only places that should accept them are welfare housing, utilities not to include cellphone or cable vendors, and grocery stores. And that’s it! If they want more than that, they can bloody well get a job. There’s jobs out there, they just won’t do them.
In Soviet Russia there was never a shortage of Vodka. However, food, toilet paper and other items necessary for everyday living were frequently in short supply. If Huxley was in charge, there would never be a shortage of Soma
As Huxley said in the foreward to Brave New World
“… As political and economic freedom diminishes, sexual freedom tends compensatingly to increase. … ”
Gotta provide distractions…
Sexual liberation and availability of distractions such as getting drunk/high, meaningless bull on TV and misinformation delivered by MSM are all means of political control. People who are distracted and addicted aren’t going to be protesting against the state or getting organised in any meaningful way.
Can’t argue with that.
Rule 5?
Catch222 did you get all sadz over the GOP being so mean and uncaring that they had the temerity to complain about EBT card abuse?
So, the real reason for drug prohibition was so people challenged the state? Well, then mission accomplished since they were mostly challenged on the failed, race based drug war we’ve had going on for the last 50 years.
There was no abuse. That’s the point. The idea that people are using EBT cards to buy pot is false. People can get cash from an ATM with their EBT card that might have been used to buy pot, but it was never proven. all this so called law would do is stop people who have done nothing wrong from getting cash out of an ATM with their card. Saying there was this kind of fraud is just a way for conservatives to attack welfare, and the successful prohibition of pot which is catching on everywhere.
*successful repeal of prohibition
And the implication that people who use EBT to buy “drugs” is a vicious smear, and immoral.
So you say about the abuse.
I am for pot legalization by states.
I am against EBT cards being used as cash cards.
And that’s certainly one way of looking at it. The other more accurate, and non conspiratorial one is that the state should have no business imprisoning people for smoking grass as it’s a violation of basic freedoms, and telling consenting adults how, and with who they can have sex.
A sure sign of trollish behavior is the use of multiple login IDs to make it harder for the trollhammer wielder.
Those who engage in obviously trollish behavior have summarily lost the argument.
In what way is your view more accurate?
In what way is my statement “conspiratorial” and how do you define the term?
“Thought experiment: you can be on the dole, or you can vote, but not both.” That’s reasonable, rational and according to the USSC, completely illegal.
I love the way you offer so much evidence in rebuttal.
“A democracy cannot exist as a permanent form of government. It can only exist until the people discover they can vote themselves doobies out of the public treasury…”
I’ll go one further.
I’m against EBT cards.
That the real reason for decriminalizing pot is to have a dumbed down populace. marijuana consumption was actually shown to increase rebellious, and what the state saw as anti social tendencies, and was used mostly by political, and social radicals. Same goes for other psychoactive drugs like LSD , psilocybin, etc. You, and your ilk, confuse weed with Huxleys SOMA, showing that you’ve never soled grass, and are confused about this class of drugs. Huxley also indulged in psychoactive drugs, and for reasons of consciousness expansion. SOMAs modern day equivalent are the mass produced SSRI’s to numb the effects of anxiety, and depression, and to take away any unpleasant thoughts that might push you toward personal, or social change. even in the novel the Malpais use psychoactive drugs like mescaline to raise awareness and are presented as the opposite of the citizens of the techno utopia. In short you’ve completely confused different classes of drugs or lumped them all in the same place.
*smoked grass
“you can be on the dole, or you can vote, but not both”
I’ve often thought this would be good idea, but I also include just about everyone receiving a check from the government, including employees and SS recipients. (Military is excluded from this of course.)
Wish I could upvote that sentiment about 1,000,000 times.
And as long as “we’re” (i.e., Catch22) going to share unsubstantiated opinions, I’m going to speculate that percentage-wise, we’d see substantially more alcoholics and drug abusers in the EBT class, than those not in the EBT class. Which would also account for their “inability” to work.
Yeah, but Wombat is not easily fooled.
BWAHAHAHA!
I’m not sure what point you’re making here exactly, but I have smoked weed; vast tonnage of it actually, along with dropping acid, smoking crack, snorting coke and all sorts of other things; I can’t even keep track. So I can confirm absolutely that recreational and “consciousness raising” drugs eff people up in the head, and in their attitudes, and they’re bad, mmkay? If a person needs Rx drugs because holistic, homeopathic or nutritional solutions aren’t working, then fine. Otherwise, people don’t need that crap.
When my father was in the Air Force, it was rare to see military personnel vote. They truly believed in civilian control of the Military, even to the extent of not being voters and, thereby, controlling the Government even indirectly.
A much more innocent time it was.
The welfare state is also illegal, so I guess it’s a wash.
I don’t think government should have ever gotten into the “charity” business. Not only did it drive thousands of existing charities out of business and end up prolonging people’s dependency, but do you really want the same mindset that produced the DMV and “too big to fail” to be Moral Guardians giving out free money?
I think we’re just going to start routing all you people without legitimate e-mail accounts straight to the spam bucket.
It’s using the same IP address. It’s really not as bright as it thinks it is.
There are many reasons why this country has come too such a bad pass – many little things have contributed to the decline of The Republic.
One of those small things was the expansion of the Franchise that started in the Age Of Jackson.
At the very least, it should be restricted to those who own physical Property and those who have risked their lives to defend our Security.
Modest proposal: privatize welfare. Or at least decentralize it down to the county level. If your county is too poor to dole out what you think you need, move.
Fine. Take back the safety net first.
As Dems have bent over backwards to pander shamelessly to some groups, they’ve lost their grip on others. Can’t win ’em all.
I actually don’t want any amoral entity making any moral decisions for anybody. I want a government that builds and maintains interstate highways, secures the borders (BWAHAHAHAHA!), maintains a standing army (not to include DHS, TSA, et al), prints precious metal-based currency, enforces the Constitution rigidly upon itself, and THAT’S ALL.
I think “derp” is the word we’re looking for here.
May the banhammer fall as it will…
It used to be privitized, into private charities, which is where it should return. But then our power-drunk, bloated tick of a government figured out it was a great way to buy votes for themselves at the expense of the productive class (not to include the executive, legislative or judicial branches, obviously.)
*grins*
That would be a great start.
I agree that government is amoral if not watched very carefully. Government is dangerous. And government shouldn’t make moral decisions.
I want a government that is smaller than absolutely necessary.
I believe that people are perfectly capable of making their own choices and that society is the better if people do exactly that.
I believe that faith and religion can be a tremendous source of individual morality and a dangerous tyranny in society.
Are all the trolls we’ve been dealing with the same person? Not terribly imaginative, if so.
Can’t wait until it calls me a repressed lesbian again for making this comment.
I’m good with that, but you know, people can and do misrepresent, and I don’t have to give you any examples of that. You already know them. And people can claim to be Christian, but they aren’t really. The Bible says that no one can come to Jesus unless God the Father draws them to Him. True Christians know this, and they know that if the Father doesn’t draw someone, He doesn’t draw them, and they don’t force anyone to do anything. It’s not our place. So therefore, true Christians are not the source of any tyranny. The opposite, in fact, because we are commanded (not requested) by God to love others as we love ourselves. This is where godly morality comes from.
However, apostate Christians can bring dangerous tyranny, which has happened before in history. And any other religion, or the atheist religion, or no religion at all, can, and does, do the same.
The Bible also says that where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is liberty, so living in a country filled with true Christians would be a great place to live. Unfortunately, we now see true Christians being marginalized and diminished.
Like many others, I’ve dealt with some Not Nice™ people calling themselves Christians. Because of that I’m leery of any morality system that claims a Christian basis. Such a system is going to exclude me and anyone else who isn’t a Christian.
The thing is, morality and virtue aren’t exclusive to Christians. The virtue isn’t in the label, it’s in how you live your life and treat other people. It’s the manifestation of faith, not faith itself. Speaking from personal experience, people who put the label first usually don’t want others to look closely at what they’ve done.