I’ve picked at coworkers brains on this frequently. They hedge, avoid, and misdirect about what they believe, or try to change the subject to something banal so as to avoid discussing their actual values.

In my experience, what Republican voters care about is personal wealth. The ones who will commit to values anyway. They feel like voting Republican makes more money for themselves and they don’t care about literally anything else. The ones who hedge and act like that’s what they care about usually give me the impression that they’re bigots of some kind and know better than to speak their bigoted views outside of people they already know to agree with them.

While annoying, its always interesting watching Republicans run these logical theoretical loops to explain how ACTUALLY they dont WANT children to starve, they should just be allowed to (or the same for whichever issue) while arguing thats not a thing republicans do and its actually our fault for just never actually talking to one for more than two minutes.

My Dad wants to kill protestors. My high school best friend thinks healthcare should be a premium commodity. I could go on, but these aren’t obscure abstractions I’m extrapolating, they’re sentences these people have said out loud to me (or in text.)

If you tell me poor children shouldn’t be provided lunch, I’m going to think you’re an asshole because you just told me you dont think poor children should be provided lunch. Jerk off about the free market and all these high concept solutions (that any other time most people would LOUDLY bemoan because it would require way more organized action than providing school lunch) all you want, children are still starving because you won’t just let us feed them.

• Vote for a politician who defunds school lunch programmes
• Children go hungry
• ???
• I did not vote for children to go hungry, Bill Riders said I’m not responsible

Yeah, if a bill has unacceptable riders, then anyone with a conscience will vote against it and say clearly why. “Oooh I wanted the bill but not that one part of it” isn’t an excuse to vote for starving children or kicking puppies or any other unconscionable thing.

Anyway your cause-and-effect detector is busted as fuck. Sorry little buddy, good luck fixing it.

I’m not falling for that

Of course not, you’ve already fallen for something much worse.

I like your take, and your nuanced approach. People seem to be under the impression that their rage matters more than actually thinking about what caused it, and how best to address that.

If I were Republican, or voted Republican, and this shit happened, I’d be pissed. But more to the point, I’d find ways of fighting it, to whatever degree I can.

It is simply an unfortunate artifact of our system (of many systems) that there’s a lot of potential to lie. Changes in our system that mitigate that, and that fundamentally allow for more parties to participate in the process, are where we really need to head, long-term.

And in the short term, fuck that policy.

You’re getting blasted in this thread, but I wanted to thank you for bringing some nuance to this ridiculously partisan and strawman-y conversation.

Edit: Lol and they banned them for it. Jesus Christ Lemmy, you’re supposed to be better than Reddit.

Providing free meals to every child is drastically more cost efficient per meal than attaching means testing, accounting, tracking and enforcement. It also prevents ignorant, overwhelmed or stubborn parents from feeding kids that should qualify but whose parents won’t enroll them. That last number accounts for nearly 20% of eligible kids in Minnesota alone:

While nearly 275,000 kids get free or reduced-price meals in Minnesota schools, at least 18 percent of students in grades K through 12  who could qualify for those benefits aren’t getting them because their families haven’t submitted the necessary paperwork to make them eligible.

It also helps kids who may be able to afford a meal, but whose circumstances prevented them from getting a meal that day. It also helps the local economy.

The cost for that free school lunch program in Minnesota? Less than 1% of the states yearly school budget.

No, the primary issue the GOP has expressed about feeding children is that “its welfare” and "there is no one hungry in our state." That is the main, stated issue with feeding any kid, that people will appreciate the program and vote for more like it.

The states that declined to participate in the program cited reasons such as problems with aging state computer systems, philosophical opposition to welfare programs, and a belief that existing free meal programs are sufficient. All 13 are led by Republican governors

Its not fiscal responsibility, its vindictive, partisan attack on children because the thing that demonstrably helps them and society at large undermines their party platform.