Whenever we speak about SNAP benefits, healthcare, or any other public assistance, the response of the GOP is “I work hard for my money.”
In a recent forum, my opponent stated that he is running for office because he wants to preserve our way of life which is in danger from being taken over by socialists.
He went on to say that he works, and his father worked and his grandfather worked.
It echoed the same complaint from the GOP that I’ve heard for years. “I’ve worked hard for my money. Why should I have that money taken away from me to buy healthcare and food for other people?”
It sounds good on the surface, but let’s take a deepdive.
Who provided the food that you ate today? Who made the pots and the pans it was cooked on? Who paved the streets and the roads that you drove on to get here?
Who sewed your clothes, and sheared the sheep? Who made your razor and harvested your rubber? Who picked your cotton and removed the seeds?
Who cleans your office floors or washes your dishes? Who processes your sewage?
Where did you get your health? Why are you walking when someone else isn’t? How is it that you can hear when others cannot?
Who gave you the ability to work? Why were you born to your parents? Did you choose that?
Did you choose the color of your skin or that you were born in the 20th century to a middle class white family in Minnesota rather than in a war torn country in Africa?
The fact is this – and we need to face it squarely. It will make us better people:
Your wealth has very, very little to do with your choices. “Time and chance happens to all”.
Yes, that is in the Bible.
In a moment it could all be gone. You could wake with cancer, or the market could fail and you could lose everything in a heartbeat.
Most Americans are one or two paychecks away from homelessness, through no fault of their own.
It isn’t about how they budget. That is a myth. It is that most Americans are battling forces that they didn’t choose that are designed to make the wealthy wealthier and the worker poorer.
And the wealthy have used the excuse “I work hard, and deserve the fruits of my labor” for years. (I just heard this on Fox News.)
That might be true. But it isn’t just the fruits of YOUR labor. Your wealth is the fruits of the one who picked your cotton, fixed your car, picked your vegetables and harvested your wheat. It is the fruit of the one who cleans your shit and sweeps your floor and makes your clothes and cooks your food.
It is the fruit of the mechanic, the plumber, the guy that is out fixing the lines when the trees are blown down so that your lights go back on. The woman teaching your kids.
The janitor cleaning your kids’ school.
I just happen to believe that they also deserve the fruits of their labor.
They also deserve to eat, to be sheltered, to go out to dinner from time to time, to buy a cake and a sprite for their kid’s birthday, to go to the doctor or dentist when they get sick.
To walk to school without getting pulled over by masked thugs.
That is the Minnesota I want to see for everyone
