Comments on general news sites tend to be cesspools in general. Oddly, the same people posting weird vitriol about how America is being ruined by freeloading parasites seem to be: 1) not highly educated; and 2) able to spend hours and hours a day posting angry comments on news websites. I wonder where they're getting their own income from. Are they all retirees and students? People on SS disability? Stay-at-home parents whose spouse works? Survivalists in an internet-equipped cabin in Montana?
That's a great conspiracy but I'm not sure those folks have that much market share in the grand scheme of things (and it's possible liberal groups are doing the same thing). I don't know how many news site comment sections you tend to frequent, but I feel like I've seen just as much "dumbed down" liberal "trolling" as the reverse.
Obviously both sides will do it! I'm trying to offer an explanation as to why such nasty stuff will show up on news sites - political actors are paid to promote their viewpoints.
"This story is a great demonstration of my maxim that any headline which ends in a question mark can be answered by the word 'no.' The reason why journalists use that style of headline is that they know the story is probably bullshit, and don’t actually have the sources and facts to back it up, but still want to run it."
I'm politically centrist, supporting neither the Republicans nor the Democrats. I was opposed to the recent $40B food stamp cuts that the Republicans passed in the House, until I read this article. Angie appears to be collecting food stamps, instead of trying to find a real job, which it sounds like he could get. The premise of the Food Stamp cuts were that eligibility was too broad, and people were abusing the system, which I didn't believe until just now. Now I support the cuts.
The number of people on food stamps went from around 15M in 2001 to about 45M in 2013. I think many people need good stamps but the point of eligibility of food stamps is a good point, in that there are probably a lot of able-bodied people like Angie who are living on food stamps that shouldn't be. I'm all for the food stamp program but I do believe we need to tighten eligibility requirements.
I know several people who lost their jobs from the 2008 financial crisis. But instead of trying to find a job, they spent 2 years on fun-employment where they didn't need to work because of the generous unemployment benefits. If they found jobs that money could have gone to truly needy people in the mid-west. I now believe the same thing is happening with the food stamp program.
