Republicans Think People Aren't Entitled to Food

[Content Note: Racism; war; food insecurity; class warfare.]


Former Republican Representative Ron Paul, who wanted to be your president and now wants his son to be your president, did an interview with libertarian blowhard Lew Rockwell earlier this month, during which he said that the Congressional Black Caucus doesn't support war because they have the unmitigated temerity to want to use that money to feed poor people in the US:

I was always annoyed with it in Congress because we had an anti-war unofficial group, a few libertarian Republicans and generally the Black Caucus and others did not—they are really against war because they want all of that money to go to food stamps for people here.

Now, just for the record, most of the Congressional Black Caucus supported the war resolution for Afghanistan, and none supported the war resolution for Iraq. So, Paul's entire premise that the CBC is routinely and universally anti-war is not accurate.

Also, the CBC's collective voting record on the Afghanistan and Iraq wars actually suggests the members of the CBC's war votes are decided on the principle of the proposed war, rather than on partisanship or popular opinion. Which is not typical of Congress as a whole.

And I'm sure that some or all members of the CBC would say that they'd prefer to spend treasure on feeding people at home, rather than killing people abroad, but I'm also sure that every member of the CBC is well aware that funding for food stamps rarely (ahem) gets redirected from the defense budget, no less from special funding for wars.

"We should be feeding people here at home and reconsidering the way we prioritize our spending" is a rhetorical tool, as well as a true thing, which does not necessarily translate into a literal refusal to vote for a defense action because you want and expect that spending to be redirected to food stamps.

But implying that it does is a neat (super racist) way of making the members of the Congressional Black Caucus sound like simpletons who don't get how shit works, man.

And naturally we're meant to think it's absurd to suggest that maybe instead of spending trillions of dollars on wars of choice, we could invest in providing basics to people in need in our own country. But it's only absurd to libertarian fuckos who think "let them eat bootstraps!" is a solid political and social policy.

To decent people who believe that everyone in the wealthiest country on the planet is entitled to fucking eat, what sounds absurd is the suggestion that there's something wrong with prioritizing feeding hungry people over wars of choice.