More to the point: I am not in particularly good financial straits, but nutrition is not a concern for me. I buy dried beans and rice in bulk, add whatever cheap veggies are available, and that consists of approximately 10 meals a week. If meat or poultry is being sold at a big discount, I might splurge. No, it’s not exactly gourmet cuisine, but it keeps me healthy and my stomach full.
Given that, there’s no way that I’ll even consider food stamps. And even if I had no choice but to apply for them, I still would have trouble looking at myself in the mirror.
However… as, in the midst of financial difficulties, more people feel that money is being unjustly extracted from them, and as they see abuse of welfare systems, they will start rethinking. If a productive, responsible, independent citizen’s standing is akin to that of a cash cow, and there is no stigma to taking advantage of the welfare systems, people will start succumbing to these perverse incentives.
And once the erstwhile productive citizens take advantage of welfare, down crashes the whole system. When that happens, the truly needy are those who will be hit hardest. Their plight will be almost as bad as that of my moral superiors, who will suffer intellectual disorientation regarding how their best intentions did not result in utopia.
