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There were two top level comments yesterday that I didn't get a chance to respond to before they got buried. Fortunately, they dovetail nicely with one another, enough for me to create a new top-level explaining my take on things. The first of these asked what a conservative was, and while I don't really have a horse in that race I did come across Russell Kirk's Ten Conservative Principles. In many ways, Kirk is a relic, as it seems unlikely that he'd fit in with what calls itself conservatism today. But look at the first principle:
Now, I'll say as a preliminary matter that Kirk and other right-wing intellectuals suffer from the same problem as left-wing intellectuals in that they tend to speak in a kind of psychobabble that on the left results in Academicese and on the right in Biblical allusions and references to other people who have been dead for 200 years, and with both one predisposed to agree with the arguments finds himself nodding along without realizing that there isn't much there to even agree with. That being said, this principle illustrates conservative thought better than anything else I've read. As a liberal, I disagree with it as a matter of principle, and I could make a lot of normal, rational arguments about why it's wrong, but I don't find that very interesting. What I find much more interesting are the weird ways in which belief in this principle manifests itself among conservatives, and how these manifestations have convinced me that it's wrong more than references to Seneca or Thomas Aquinas ever could. And to see those manifestations, you need look no further than the discussion on food stamps that followed.
It's apparent to most that this board leans somewhat to the right, and I noticed several themes among what was said. I'm not going to call anyone out by name, but I will quote where appropriate. The most common one, both here and in popular discussion, is the desire to prohibit purchases of certain items, which some states have already begun doing. As a said in an earlier post on the topic, these items generally fall into three categories:
You can name certain staple items that nobody finds objectionable, like ground beef, chicken breasts, eggs, milk, etc. But then you get to the edge cases. Everyone agrees that grains are a staple of the diet. But what counts as a grain? Consider the following:
Someone in line behind a woman whose shopping cart contained a bag of rice, a box of spaghetti, Oreos, Ritz crackers, Chex, Nutri-Grain bars, Knorr alfredo noodles, pancake mix, Mrs. T's pierogis, and bakery Italian and was paying for it with food stamps nobody would probably bat an eye. But the person whom I originally compiled this list in response to insisted that everything but the first two should be excluded. A number of people below commented that food stamp recipients should be given no more than a basic subsistence diet.
Now, I don't have a problem with prohibiting pop and candy as some states have begun doing, at least not in and of themselves. The concern I have is that if I get 50 people who believe in some version of the above and ask them to make a call on a bunch of selected items, I'm not going to get any consistency out of their answers. There's no line everyone agrees on. The obvious response is "Well, nobody's going to agree on everything, but you have to draw the line somewhere." Well, we did draw the line somewhere, 60 years ago: No prepared foods, no alcohol, no tobacco. Everything else that's a food product is fair game.
Some people proposed away that would seem to skirt the problem by suggesting that the government provide food directly, "like they used to do", or focus on core items, like WIC. First, the government didn't used to operate the Food Stamp program like that. What they probably have in mind is government programs where agricultural surplus products were processed into shelf-stable products like powdered eggs and distributed to low-income people. While there are no longer dedicated pick-up locations, this program never went away, the food is just distributed through food banks and programs like Meals on Wheels. WIC is a different animal entirely in that participants are limited to purchasing specific items each month. But it's not a general food program, as it only deals with a few limited categories. Excepting things like fruits and vegetables which are usually sold generically, program guidelines limit eligible items down to specific brands. The program was developed to address specific nutritional needs of pregnant women and young children, and was never intended as a general food program. It doesn't scale as such.
I will briefly touch on the even more ridiculous idea that the government should just provide Hello Fresh or MREs, if only because it leads nicely into my next point. These items cost around $10/meal. Current guidelines for a single person max out around $10/day. I don't know what advantage these have that's strong enough to warrant tripling the program cost, an interesting supposition considering that many seemed to think that the $300/month that's budgeted for an adult is entirely too much. Now, I don't want to comment on this based on personal experience because my own food consumption is not that of a poor person looking to stretch his dollar; I spend a lot more than that on food, but since I'm not on assistance I assume I'm allowed. But keep in mind that the government doesn't set these amounts arbitrarily. If you want to know what goes into it, feel free to take a gander at the USDA publication Thrifty Food Plan 2021, and you'll get an excruciatingly detailed look at how they determine these things based on sample menus, nutritional requirements, and current prices, down to details like how a 12–13 year-old male's consumption of seeds, nuts, and soy products should total 92c/week following an economical budget.
The final broad theme had less to do with the program itself as the people who used it. Complaining about drug addicts using it. Being disgusted by fat people using it. Complaining about 25-year-old women using it. Saying it's clearly intended for people laid off from the mill. I bring this up last because it really goes to the heart of conservatism and the first principle. The idea underlying all of these objections is one of deserving. Certain poor people don't deserve access to government food assistance. Those who do don't deserve to derive any pleasure from eating beyond not starving. Cake and Pepperidge Farm brand bread products are luxuries you have to earn. Underlying all of this, of course, is a sense of moralism; alcoholism and obesity are moral failings and until you overcome them you're not deserving of assistance. Work is virtuous in and of itself so unless you're working you don't deserve any luxuries. Even the disabled don't get a pass anymore because we all know that they could probably work if they wanted to and they're just faking it to get their free Dr. Pepper and avoid work, which we all know they'd do if they were virtuous. Instead they're just moochers trying to ride off of the system. If any of us had any sense we'd do the same, except we're all too virtuous to ever dream of doing such a thing.
It's this last point that really sums it all up, the idea that the system is there to be gamed, largely is gamed, that there exists an advantage in trying to game it, and the self-congratulation that comes along with not gaming it. To make a seasonal reference, it's as if we are Christ tempted in the desert. Except anyone with half a brain knows that nobody on food stamps is getting any advantage from the system. For a single individual, the income limit is about $2600/month. Would you want to live on that in exchange for a benefit that maxes out at $300/month? And other dubious benefits, like reduced rent on a small apartment in a questionable area? And noticed I said maximum benefit; if you make anywhere near the limit you are only getting a fraction of that. I don't know how much but even if you're getting the whole thing it doesn't seem like a great deal. "But if I weren't working, I'd get the whole thing, and it might be worth it being poor if I didn't have to go to work." No, it wouldn't. You don't have to work, and unless your hobbies are watching daytime broadcast television or hanging around outside a Co-Go's, I believe you'd find yourself bored with the welfare lifestyle rather quickly.
Conservatives know this deep down, but they don't want to admit it because it conflicts with the First Principle. If there is an absolute, unchanging moral framework, then we can judge people based upon it. And to compound things even further, they are self-arbiters of this framework. They know what it is inherently, and if anyone tells them otherwise, they're just liberals trying to infect the culture. It makes about as much sense as someone confidently saying that frozen burritos are a luxury item that should only be available to the deserving. Because when it comes to any moral obligation on the part of ourselves, there is silence. No conservative criticizes food stamps on the one hand and speaks of an obligation to help the poor on the other. For all the Biblical allusions, I can't find the part where charity has to be earned through moral virtue. The moralism seems to be confused, solipsistic, incoherent. For his part, Russell Kirk was at least a generous man who was known to help strangers in ways that few of us ever will. But I'm not sure that he was really a conservative.
I have a great many objections to the way that you've framed this presentation, but this in particular really stood out to me:
Why do you take "government food assistance" for granted, here? Any conservative worthy of the name is going to hold that no poor people "deserve" government food assistance. For one thing, "government food assistance" is just a fancy way of saying "confiscating some people's property for the benefit of other people." Indolent people do not deserve food, even if it is morally praiseworthy to provide them with some.
Some people warrant charity, particularly when they have contributed, do contribute, or can reasonably be expected to contribute to society. But to insist upon the charity of others is quite morally objectionable; the only appropriate response is gratitude. The entitlement that many indolent people clearly feel toward my labor is absolutely appalling, quite regardless of whether they are afforded a life of luxury or relative privation. The strangeness that you are tracking in your post is not a problem with conservatism, it is a problem with conservatives trying to meet you halfway. They recognize that for various systemic reasons it would probably be a bad idea to just abolish food assistance entirely, so they fuss over details (like donuts) in vague and dissatisfying compromise. Then, having been given an inch, you reach for the mile.
The economics of food and government subsidies is--I'm sure you well know--complex. Farm subsidies here, food subsidies there, "cui bono" becomes an impossible labyrinth of special interests, not all of them neatly aligned to the red/blue grid. But another principle of conservatism is that you can't just decide to burn the system to the ground and start over. You must live in the real world, not the world of splendid ideas. So you try to at least put reasonable limits on the ways in which the government steals from the productive to benefit (or at least mollify) the unproductive.
I infer from this that you have surprisingly little life experience with conservatives. I haven't seen the inside of a church in a goodly while, but as a child I was treated to many sermons on both the evils of government assistance, and the obligation to help the poor. I understand that Trumpism has introduced a lot of confusion into political discourse on the right (as well as the left), but here you just seem to be indulging a maximally uncharitable stereotype of your outgroup.
It's pretty Lindy. Ancient Rome rather notoriously relied on poor relief ("Bread and Circuses") to maintain social stability. In medieval England, poor relief was the responsibility of the Church, which was effectively part of the government and used both spiritual coercion ("pay your tithe or go to hell" is coercive to people who actually believe in hell) and temporal coercion ("pay your tithe or we can legally seize your land") to collect revenue. This system broke down after Henry VIII dissolved the monasteries, and was replaced in 1601 with a national Poor Law based on elected local government with the ability to collect revenue coercively after it became clear that the practical consequences of not having a functioning system of poor relief were unacceptable.
The 1601 Poor Law was in force in colonial America, and replaced by broadly similar poor relief schemes (legislated at state level and implemented locally) after independence.
The balance between poor relief in the form of support for the deserving poor and poor relief in the form of coercive institutions to punish the workshy (while feeding and housing them) shifts over the following centuries in broadly similar ways in the UK and the US, with the same issues cropping up, including the eternal truth that people who are too old and/or infirm for coercing them into work to be worthwhile are the largest group of paupers, and widows/orphans/babymamas/bastards are the second largest, and the unfortunate truth that trying to "improve" the workshy costs more than just giving them a dole, while almost always failing.
In the US, the New Deal federalises the problem of the elderly poor and LBJ's Fair Deal federalises the problem of families with children but no male earner. But neither created a system of poor relief where none previously existed.
The cost of poor relief has increased a lot faster than the economy in the last century or so. The main reason is that we decided that aged paupers should be able to enjoy a middle-class lifestyle.
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