hisannabelle
Posts: 1992
Joined: 12/3/2006 From: Tallahassee, FL, USA Status: offline
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greetings curiouslord, i'm not a socialist because i've read my marx and my political philosophy and all that bullshit. i'm not a socialist because i believe i should have handouts without working for anything. i'm a socialist because i have this bizarre, outdated idea that people actually have inherent worth. i believe no one deserves to die because they can't afford food or health care. it's easy to be angry at the whole idea of social welfare when you don't have to live in the middle of poverty. it's easy to say people should just pull themselves up by their bootstraps or get over it or just go get a job or whatever other line you want to come up with. i grew up in a household that was below the poverty line (and the poverty line in america is below what anyone can pay for food and housing, let alone health care or anything else). my mother had a job only for the health care, because i've been chronically ill since i was five years old - and even then, we could not afford vision or dental care most of the time (neither of those is covered under most health care plans). i know what it's like to grow up and at six years old, be doing all of the cookign and cleaning, and knowing how to work up a monthly budget by the time i was nine. i know what it's like to watch my mother, who was also chronically ill, struggle to qualify for disability (she died before she got approved) and kill herself working in the process. i will be the first person in my family to get a college degree - and the only reason i am able to go to college is because i am on a full scholarship and i take loans to help pay my medical expenses. i also work part-time (i used to work more than full time before i became too ill). i know what it's like to know that there is no chance in hell that my parents could EVER help me with college - meanwhile my roommates don't work and their parents pay everything, and they don't have scholarships. i know what it's like to lose both of my parents, be abandoned by my entire family, and basically left to make my own way in the world - by the time i was 18 years old. i'm doing pretty damn well, all things considered. there are plenty of people in the world - in this country even - in worse situations than me. because i'm still in college, the school health insurance is required to cover me - once i get out, i won't be able to afford it because the only way any health insurance would ever cover me (given my situation) is if i could pay them tons of money. internet and such is included in my rent (i live in one of those weird student apartments with multiple rooms but separate leases) so i don't have to worry about being able to make those extra bills every month. i can usually pay my phone bill and most of the time i have money for groceries. i have a master who loves me and takes me back and forth to the doctor (since i don't know how to drive and even if i did i couldn't afford a car). bless him he's one of those conservative nutjobs and he is in the same boat with all of you who think that we just need to pull ourselves up by our bootstraps, but i love him and i'll keep him around anyway :P in my opinion it's very easy to say that nobody should have a "handout" if you've never killed yourself working and still been dirt poor. to me, socialism is not about some abstract political philosophy. like i said, i've never read marx. i don't know a whole lot about much in politics, that's for sure. i just know that there has to be a better system than what i grew up with. if my government isn't here to make sure their citizens aren't living in poverty, why do i bother voting for them? for me, socialism is the radical idea that people should not go hungry. it's the radical idea that i voted for these idiots because they're supposed to be helping me out, not getting kickbacks from some corporation. rsepectfully, annabelle. p.s. before you all start yelling welfare! food stamps! medicare! - i don't qualify for food stamps or medicare (ask the state of florida - i don't get it either). even if i did qualify for medicare, they don't cover most of the kinds of treatments i actually need. and welfare (as in, a welfare check) doesn't exist anymore in florida as far as i know. (if it did, i'd probably get denied for that, too.)
< Message edited by hisannabelle -- 2/10/2008 12:36:41 AM >
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a'ishah (the artist formerly known as annabelle) i have the kind of beauty that moves...
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