Some family, some politics, and some welfare.

Some of my extended family is intensely conservative, both politically and spiritually. Every time I have an encounter with them, I tread cautiously in the conversation, because it feels as though I am entering a land mine field. A topic comes up wherein I express a belief that they disagree with, all hell breaks loose, and then they tell me that my head is full of mush. (That exactly happened to my older brother once when he told them he was considering voting for Obama in 2008.)

Naturally, like-minded people attract each other. So it was no surprise to me when my cousin's husband posted a link to an article on Facebook entitled, "Maine Just Put Welfare Leeches in Their Place." And it was no surprise that Facebook told me that she liked her husband's post (because Facebook is creepy and it tells me these things.)

So I read the article. It was worse than I expected. It was unbelievably pejorative toward welfare recipients. The state of Maine introduced another requirement for citizens to receive various forms of welfare; citizens must volunteer at least 24 hours a month, complete 20 hours of part-time work per week, or enroll in a vocational training program. Not surprisingly, the number of welfare recipients fell from 12,000 to 2,500.

Of course the number fell. People who had depended on welfare for survival because they cannot find a job or are denied access to jobs are now no longer eligible to receive it. The decrease in the number of those receiving benefits is not, in fact, reflective of people getting jobs and no longer needing welfare, as conservatives would like to believe; the decrease in the number is because it has become harder to receive welfare. Those who were on welfare before are not made better off by this new law; they are made worse off. And who benefits from the law? Those who are not on welfare, because they now have to pay less in taxes. Who passed the law? Those who are not on welfare.

But, oh, the language used in this article. Welfare recipients are described as "capable adults," as if there is no excuse; they are described as "lazy parasites to society who suck the vitality out of American taxes"; they are the "leeches of society" who can be "utilize[d]" to benefit the community. And of course, Democrats are painted as "sore losers."

I'm sorry, writer(s), but not everyone has the privilege of having your skin color, which endows you with all kinds of societal privilege. I'm sorry, writer(s), but not every family has generations of accumulated wealth backing their family up and enabling them to have savings. I'm sorry, writer(s), but working one, even two, full-time minimum wage jobs does not generate enough money to support a family, much less to accumulate savings. I'm sorry, writer(s), but not everyone was able to go to college, which makes them inherently underqualified for many decent-paying jobs.

I think this is why you almost never see those in poverty vote Republican.

Back to my family. So these are the views that members of my extended family hold. That the most vulnerable in society are leeches whose life source must be cut off. It is very hard for me to consider my relatives "family" when they view and ideologically treat others as absolute shit. In fact, it is embarrassing for me to consider these people "family" when they act this way.