I’ve gotten myself into trouble by wading into the political waters with the few friends I have who identify as right-wing leaning.

And apparently, I’m pretty annoying with my little liberal tendencies because I’ve been asked to stop posting about it by some of those people.

But the more the fear gets ratcheted up by those who make money off it, the more I cannot stand it. I see people who I know to be loving, giving individuals make such ignorant (of the facts) comments and it makes me wonder: what are you afraid of?

Just this morning, someone I used to be friends with long ago posted some vile shit on Facebook about claiming everyone on food stamps and welfare as their dependents on the tax forms. (It was some insipid joke sent around via email, I’m sure.)

She ignored everything I wrote about safety nets we ALL pay into as part of the social compact we agree to as citizens of the United States and proceeded to go off about what my views are on gun control. (WTF? Okay.) I said no need for ANYONE to have military grade assault weapons so yes to banning those (again) and to enforce what rules we do have about background checks (which we are not doing) etc.

That elicited her comment that clearly I want to chip away at the Second Amendment. Uh. no. I think she doesn’t understand why and for what reason the SA was created so I shared some background on that. (“well regulated militia” = National Guard and none of it was written giving permission to overthrow the government.)

I said, given her views about social safety nets, I expect she will also be foregoing Social Security and Medicare when the time comes for her to participate.

Another friend of hers chimed in about the perception that those on food stamps are lazy and don’t want to work and pointed out that a good percentage of food stamp recipients are the elderly, those single parents who are working but not earning enough to feed their kids etc. And that friend confided that she herself had taken advantage of this safety net a couple times when she could not find a job (but was able and desperately willing to work.)

My mom, who was on every government program she could apply for, was one of those who thought that SHE was entitled (because, after all (she’d tell you) she WORKED for it) but not others. (Others = African-Americans, to her)

Underneath all of that was the fear of “there’s not enough for me and someone (aka: a black person) is going to get what’s mine.

She even said as much. Truly, she did.

Fear is all it is. And those in power take advantage of that base instinct and prey on people. I can’t stand to see that.

My friend said that there’s too much abuse in the system (food stamps, medicaid, etc.) and while I’ll agree that there is abuse in ANY system like that, the answer is not to scrap it all and start over and especially so when so many people depend on it just to survive.

What I thought was shitty was her “joke” – if you think abuse is rampant and a part of the problem, what can YOU personally do to help change that? Sharing a vile “joke” that denigrates millions of people is not the best answer, IMO.

I was so angry about it, I whipped myself into a frenzy and yelled at Duty for something totally unrelated. Why do I feel so strongly about this kind of thing?

(I know this wasn’t the most coherent of posts but I think you get my drift about being angry at what’s being done to keep people in fear and believing things that are not true. Grrr.)