Op/Ed Fridays: “I’ve been on food stamps and welfare. Anybody help me out? No!”

February 7, 2014 by Joshua
in Awareness, Freedom, Humor

This quote by the actor in the video below reveals such profound lack of awareness, you can only imagine the denial that could resolve the conflict between accepting direct government aid and welfare while decrying government aid and welfare and saying nobody helped him. I don’t know if the programs he talked about help or hurt society or him. I don’t know his situation. I only know what he said (the context of the whole interview is below):

“I’ve been on food stamps and welfare. Anybody help me out? No!”

I’m surprised the video only has around 150,000 views. It seems revealing.

Anyway, here’s the full interview for context. The clip above comes around 3:40. The interviewer doesn’t point out how the actor contradicted himself, the sense of entitlement, or how he undermines his case against the actions. Again, I’m not taking issue with the points he’s making. I’m looking at the mental contortions he’s making to condemn certain values while living them and benefiting from them.

I don’t pretend people don’t have internally contradictory beliefs. I try to behave more humbly about them.

Ironically, their conversation revolves around issues I think Henry Thoreau treated best in Civil Disobedience, my first inspiration in my Resources and Inspirations page. If you haven’t read it, I recommend reading it before watching the context video. Thoreau acted on his beliefs first, then talked about them.

Read my weekly newsletter

On initiative, leadership, the environment, and burpees

We won't send you spam. Unsubscribe at any time. Powered by ConvertKit

Leave a Reply

Sign up for my weekly newsletter