joanspoliticalposts:lynati: nentuaby: givemeunicorns:death-burst:My usual retort to people who d
joanspoliticalposts:lynati: nentuaby: givemeunicorns: death-burst: My usual retort to people who don’t want “universal healthcare/education/basic income/etc.” under the pretense that “the rich shouldn’t have access to it” is that it’s cheaper to just give it to everyone no-question-asked than to try and judge every single case just to exclude a tiny minority of them. But this tweet thread? This right there? That’s a damn powerful argument. Something that can actually convince people emotionally, more than my cynical, it’s-cheaper-that-way, pragmatic approach. I’ll keep it, and I’ll re-use it, because it’s with thread like this that you change the world, one opinion at a time. The number of people I know, myself included, who stayed in the closet because they feared the lose of financial support from their parent is crazy. My partner grew up poor. Her parents didn’t have shit. But they managed to financially abuse her in this exact manner just by refusing to provide documentation that they were poor. No parental income documentation? No FAFSA. No FAFSA? None of the need-based aid she was 100% qualified for. No aid? No college for her poor ass. So no, this “but what if a person who didn’t need the help got it” rhetoric will not just harm the children of the rich, even the marginalized and estranged children of the rich. It harms everyone whose parents don’t want them to succeed. If the rich are actually paying enough taxes that everyone gets to go to college if they want to, why should their children be excluded from that? If the system says, “by our estimation you make enough money to put you in a bracket where you’ll be taxed to cover the costs of 22 people’s college educations” and they pay it, I have no problem with their own kid being one of those 22. Their kid’s not special. This is exactly why American social conservatives oppose UBI, free college, etc.: they believe that parents should have control over their kids long after the kids are legally adults. That’s part of what they mean by “family values”: they value family bonds over individual self-determination. Some even oppose Social Security because it allows old people to continue to live independently instead of having to move in with their grown children. Withholding access to money in order to control one’s relatives who are less well off? That isn’t financial abuse to them; it’s rightful parental authority. A LOT of conservative ideology jsut comes out of the idea of the father having absolute control over his family -- source link