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Notes -
The poor wouldn't starve even if foodstamps was abolished; they might eat shitty diets, but even the literal homeless do not starve, and you kinda need a kitchen to make use of foodstamps.
The homeless have charitable interventions keeping them alive.
Exactly my point; private charity in a society as wealthy as the US is more than capable of preventing people from literally starving to death.
I wrote "without government or charitable intervention." in the comment you responded to?
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Why can't the poor?
They could as well, we chose not to do it that way. People think they deserve faceless government gibs, they don't like realizing that they are relying on the beneficence of others.
I guess there are people in the margins who even the most charitable charity would rather not serve. Charities cluster in cities, poor people cluster in rural areas. When the most awful drunkard wifebeater comes up for his bowl of daily soup, would some charities turn him away? Maybe. Progressives are scornful of the idea that there should be individual human judgement in such things.
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