Words matter.
You aren’t writing an academic paper. Always use simple direct language.
- Help the poor
- Healthcare for everyone
- Good treatment at work.
Don’t use complex words.
Welfare isn’t assistance to the poor. Welfare Is specifically designed to degrade and humiliate the poor.
That’s just associations’ war.
Complex words have more specific associations. Except specific associations are easier to change via propaganda than generic associations. And people love to pretend to be smart like I do, so use complex words when they can.
This rule shouldn’t be limited to outsiders. It should be used when talking to your own as well. Using compound concepts of simpler ones in discussion helps preserve understanding (and filter the kind of people not better than tankies).
Reminds me of how many people were really against Obamacare, but loved the Affordable Care Act.
Reagan’s smear campaign on welfare is still paying dividends
Anyone can be poor, but only they are on welfare.
Publishers note: They usually refers to African Americans, but can be used for any suspicious minorities.
its almost always used as negative connation against blacks, or unsavory demographics. while the people, white conservatives railing on these people are the biggest welfare queens.
don’t forget wall street and corporations. if you fuck up, congratulations now you’re homeless. if they fuck up, congratulations you’re gonna bail them out.
That actually follows from the traditional argument against possibility of welfare - if the state can do such help, it’ll first give it to closest to it, which are the people who need it the least.
But I think with direct democracy it’d be fine. At least some middle ground would be found between those voting for “free money” and those voting so that others wouldn’t get “free money”. Unlike now when depending on who you are it’s either always free money or always fuck you.
EDIT: In general radical political models are better thought through fundamentally. Real world ones work in arcane ways, usually not the ones publicly declared, and rely on lots of inertia to be functional. But both radical marxism (direct democracy and full on social involvement) and radical ancap (no common decisions at all, no common social involvement at all) lack such vulnerabilities. That’s unfortunately the reason people with real world power don’t need them. If you have real world power, you’d support the change that gives you more power or preserves what you have. So for a model to be plausible it needs to have vulnerabilities, to attract real-world support. Only disadvantaged people really want a perfect model, and they are not the ones deciding.
Hence another radical variant - radical agnosticism of political systems, try to always keep as variable and diverse mix as possible, so that power, advantage and disadvantage were more or less equally spread, allowing people to live maybe not in heaven, but not in hell too. Decision-making systems as mixed as possible, legal spaces as diverse as possible, and so on.
Don’t use the buzzwords Republicans have spent decades poisoning.
yup, including entitlements, Woke,etc.
Entitlements is a weird one. A person who wrongly believes they are entitled to money/power/respect is “entitled” in a derogatory sense. A person who has paid into the Social Security and Medicare programs for three or four decades is truly, genuinely, entitled to the payout of those programs.
And Republicans believing entitlement programs are bad, when so many of them are dependent on these programs to maintain a basic standard of living, is an astounding level of doublethink.
Psychological damage is present.
Nobody is immune to propaganda
Yup, I consider myself better than most at critical thinking, playing devil’s advocate, and identifying sources of propaganda. I’ll still find myself getting overly agitated and upset when I read five articles and posts within thirty minutes that all tell me why to be upset and who to be upset with.
As someone that works with the general public.
People are fucking dumb. Like not I’m not even kidding, there’s a skill gap to even get to a site like this…and not everyone has the ability to do it…I’m not even kidding. People are just stupid.
Yep. Never use a ten dollar word when a 50 cent one does the job better. The left wing needs to dump it’s highbrow (and cringe celebrity endorsements) and use the language of the common people in simple terms that cannot be demonised (or would sound insane to try).
Also, this is a prime example of how demonising words, especially buzzwords, is the strategy they use to make it lose all rationality with the public… the notion of being “woke” originally a good thing, welfare a good thing, etc…
They managed to make DEI a divisive word, I presume because they always used the abbreviation, because how else can you poison these words.
Doesn’t work, they take the cheap words too. “Fake news” was originally used for right-wing propaganda. The only solution is education so that future generations are more aware of and resistant to dog whistles and doublespeak.
Sadly, more than 50% of Americans a grade school vocabulary. Imagine trying to convince a kid in grade 6 that helping the poor is not bad.
Ngl but most of the kids have no problems with helping other people.
Just want to point out that this negative association is based on racist dog whistles like the, “welfare queen,” which were propagated by right-wingers to convince low-income whites to hate the programs designed to help them.
And I think theres a place to break that association, but .aybe candidates that are running to change our system dont need to be the ones to do it.
I would actually say that would he a great strategy in building working-class solidarity. Making poor whites realize that their declining standard of living isn’t caused by minorities accessing social programs but the ruling-class gutting the those programs is key to building a progressive coalition.
I get the critical comments here, but I think there’s a basic association of the word “welfare” with the CURRENT system of assistance which leaves too many people out. Democrats have made the current apparati too hard to qualify for with their means-testing. If they were sincere in working for the masses, they would push more universal programs, but at least on the national level, they are bought out by the same corporations as the Republicans.
Democrats have made the current apparati too hard to qualify for with their means-testing.
I kind of doubt that democrats are the ones who MADE it too hard, but they definitely are the ones that preserve it’s difficulty.
The issue is entirely a media problem. Can you tell yet?
Did the study define the kinds of assistance at all or was it simply the choice of terms?
“Welfare” is defined and had a lot of baggage with it. Opinion about welfare can be wildly different individually and demographically.
“Assistance” isn’t defined, people can place their own restrictions on what that hypothetical assistance is, who gets it based on their own prejudices, needs, and ideology.
Nah, see, you’re falling into the trap. “Welfare” has baggage only because conservatives have attached baggage to it via their relentless propaganda campaigns. In practice, welfare is literally just assistance. In practice, the two words are synonymous. The fact that you perceive a difference in them is evidence that the conservative propaganda is working.
Kind of you to assume it was my baggage I was describing, and that I don’t understand the subject at hand.
Pleasure’s all mine, partner
FREEDOM DIVIDEND 🦅🇺🇸
UBI is pretty naive unless there are checks in place to prevent landlords and consumer goods from increasing costs by the same amount.
increasing penalties for predatory loans and banning shit like klarna would probably do a decent job at preventing that
And updating regulations to promote building denser housing in locations people want to live!
- Does UBI increase inflation?
The impact of UBI on inflation depends on various factors, including the funding mechanism, the level of the UBI payment, and broader macroeconomic conditions. Some studies suggest that modest UBI programs are unlikely to significantly impact inflation.
– https://ubiadvocates.org/universal-basic-income-faq-all-about-ubi/
Assistance implies that it is temporary, that it is help to help themselves.
Welfare implies that it is continuous.
If you have to continually support a part of the population then you have a systemic problem. The correct solution would be to change the system. People who support the continuation of the current system either profit from it or don’t see an advantage in a change.
Assistance implies that it is temporary,
Not it does not. Ever heard of “aim assist”? “Assisted living”? “assistive touch” (the iOS feature)? I don’t see how any of these are temporary.
But yeah the correct solution is indeed to change the system. There will always be naysayers who argue that “no one system can suit everybody” so I guess we’ll need a system of systems.
Also, “assistance” is something that is given out of the kindness of your (or the government’s) heart and that the recipient should feel gratitude (and/or have to grovel) for. “Welfare” is seen as something the recipient is entitled to as a right. FWIW I support a UBI that is adequate for food and shelter and the necessities of life - as an entitlement for everybody.
41% of the population would object, together with 29% who don’t support assistance at all. If you want UBI in a democratic society you have to sell it differently.
Hey, a UBI supporter! Just curious, how can UBI be implemented in a way that doesn’t result in hyperinflation? If a society was to ration out food/shelter/necessities directly, I understand how that would work. But if it’s done through the intermediary of money, what would prevent the economy from entering an arms race where the producers raise prices to adapt to the new purchasing power of the population, and the government raises the UBI to keep up with the rising prices?
if the government treats the UBI as a seperate “currency” that guarantees a certain amount of food water and shelter and in major cities the government is the primary provider of qualifying products it would only affect the non major cities, which would be small enough to not effect the greater market
Existing studies show little or no affect on inflation.
https://ubiadvocates.org/universal-basic-income-faq-all-about-ubi/ (#11)
So, “just handing out money” is a way to implement UBI without hyperinflation.
hmm interesting. Will take a look.
Just curious, how can UBI be implemented in a way that doesn’t result in hyperinflation?
I don’t know - and we’re never going to find out, in the United States at least. I may support UBI but that doesn’t mean it’s not the biggest pipe dream in the history of pipe dreams.
A buyers market. Let competition drive down prices, or cooperation from people with UBI who don’t need the profits.
That’s for basic goods. It’s good that other prices rise so that people are motivated to work.
If you have to continually support a part of the population then you have a systemic problem.
To a point, maybe, but populations are always going to have disabled persons or people with chronic illnesses that require continual assistance to live a dignified life. Be careful not to write those people off with sweeping generalizations like this.
You are right.
Do parapelegics require “temporary support”? There are some people who need continual support and they’re always going to exist in any society. Disabled people. And they aren’t a “systemic problem”.
there are governmental systems that would disagree on that last point.
And they would be immoral and evil if they suggest letting disabled people die off. Yes, I know about Libertarians and their selfish, egotistical, unempathetic views towards people less well off than they are. Anyone who believes “every man, woman, and child for themselves” is how a society should function is a piece of shit, sorry. And obviously you can lump Conservatives in with them on this issue too.
I could see a religions having a belief that being burdensome is a fate worse than death and a government then mandating that religion. Which admittedly goes against human rights, but is done in a few countries.
But it doesn’t have to be the same group in the population. Probably a portion is the same but the larger picture is all those you help up again so they can help support the community/country/state, and the price is helping the group that otherwise make the community unsafe so they in large can … act decently to others and live a life without violence
helping the group that otherwise make the community unsafe
Why does such a group have to exist?
Why the downvotes. I cannot think of a group that is inherently unsafe. Who do you have in mind that you consider it an insult?
In a perfect world they wouldn’t. But its hard to ensure that everyone gets a traumatic free childhood, or that any natural insedent traumatise some people to the point where they cant/won’t be helped. I guess the downvotes is because your comment feels too unrealistic idealistic (otherwise I can’t see why)
non offending pedophiles are a classic example of a group that makes others unsafe. and removing them would be mass murder of innocent people.
If they can settle in their own town, there is no threat and they don’t need welfare. An example where initial assistance is needed but no continuous welfare.
