Romance and politics

Bookmarks: Romance and politics • No job? No food stamps. • White people haven’t recovered. • This week’s Tweets •

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Carolyn Hax: That tiny voice called doubt? Listen up when a date deploys pressure.

This just reminds me so much of the current political situation.

The two 20th-century French existentialist philosophers Sartre and Camus had a famous, long-running conflict. Camus insisted on a right to be ambivalent about the use of violence against the forces of injustice. Sartre insisted that there is a moral imperative to ally oneself with the victims of injustice, regardless what methods they chose.

This is similar to a catch-phrase of the 1960s and 1970s, if not also today: “Not to decide is to decide” — in favor of the unjust.

The woman who wrote to Carolyn Hax is being pressed to decide — his way.

So similarly we have two groups in America today, and one is insisting that the others decide — its way.

In effect, they’re saying:

“We must be free to speak. Not you.” “Our feelings matter. Yours don’t.”

Related: Free Speech Handbook, Guideline 12, “Be willing to say, ‘I don’t know’ …

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The controversial reason tens of thousands of people just lost their food stamps

I’m not sure how to look at this.

I just applied for food stamps on March 28. I haven’t received them for years. Albeit I certainly hope to have earned income within 90 days, there’s no telling what my alternatives will be if I fail to find work in that time and find myself with no income at all.

I have no cognitive assent to parasitism, but I also wonder at this apparent attempt to legislate morality. The numbers I think I want aren’t being provided: those who found work — what sort of work did they find? If the objection is to how much the “freeloaders” cost the SNAP system, how much does the work mandate actually save? Does the work these newly working poor find, offset their SNAP entitlement that much?

The sheer politicization of the issue is not a good thing.

Here is a right-wing debunking of the exact job growth numbers some use to back the work mandate:

How Good Is Job Growth? The Chart Obama Doesn’t Want You To See

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