My Time in Life: Why Hypocrites Need to Think Before They Speak



YUMMY!

I was in the grocery store yesterday and was in line to buy my Bailey’s, and my apple pie flavored gum (delicious, by the way) and there was a woman in front of me. A nosy peruse later, I see that she has green beans, sweet potatoes, apples, and a few other essential items that were probably the components of a nice Christmas dinner. No longer impressed, I turned my interests back to my liquor and dessert gum. Until, alas, this woman asked the cashier if she could swipe her…gulp…EBT CARD through the swiper at the desk!!! My head turned like Regan MacNeil being prayed over by Father Merrin (it’s The Exorcist, people). At that point, I decided to follow this case through to the end. This woman left the store with her green beans and apples and, you’ll never believe what she did next! She put what little cash she probably had in her wallet into a big, red bucket and THEN had the gall to thank the woman standing there ringing her little bell. Disgusted, I followed her out of the store right to her humble sedan, probably an early 2000’s model. I couldn’t take anymore after that and burned rubber right out of that parking lot. After all this I thought, I should’ve spoken up when I had the chance. As soon as I counted this woman’s 14 items in the 10 item or less lane I knew she was trouble!

In case you didn’t pick up on it from the title or the snark in the previous paragraph, this rant is in response to a young woman from my hometown who recently went viral with a blog post titled My Time at Wal-Mart: Why We Need Serious Welfare Reform.

I won’t hold this woman’s young age against her, though the argument from lack of life experience is a valid one. I detest when people use “kid” as a pejorative. Intelligence and idiocy comes in all ages and to dismiss someone outright because they are, “just a kid,” only makes it look like you have no real defense. Rousselle’s age shouldn’t be a knock against her, nor do I think it gives her a free pass from having the glaring irony of her essay pointed out.

I won’t debate this woman’s argument because, frankly, she’s got a point. There are people who abuse the welfare system. The abusers should be rooted out as best as possible, but when you have programs that are intended to help the needy, you’ll inevitably have those who screw it over. It isn’t just the poor who lack ethics (think, Enron, Bernie Madoff, WorldCom, et al). Corrupt people are just that—self-absorbed assholes—no matter how much money they have in the bank.

I find it incredibly ironic-If not hypocritical-that this young woman took a paycheck from and presumably patronized a corporation that is responsible for perpetuating poverty in the towns it swallows up. Wal-Mart sets up shop, drives down retail wages, and forces local businesses to close their doors. But I’m sure Miss Rousselle is a pro small business Republican.

Wal-Mart uses government subsidies so it can continue to grow like a urinary tract infection in a nursing home. Taxpayers also indirectly subsidize Wal-Mart with the huge number of its employees who are on Medicaid. Not only do they make crap wages, but it’s less expensive for them to take government insurance than to go on their employer’s rolls. You think Wally thought of that while he was making up the benefits packages? I suppose Miss Rousselle thinks it’s different for a multi-billion dollar corporation to take advantage of “taxpayer generosity” than her hot dog vendor buddy out in the Old Port, or that anyone paying with an EBT card, must therefore also be unemployed, and not looking for a job.

I’m sure at this point my more conservative friends are ripping their hair out screaming, “WELL, AT LEAST SHE HAS A JOB!!!!” Calm down, chill out, go grab a glass of chardonnay, and put down the mouse before you throw it through the monitor. I’m sure Wal-Mart was happy to have Miss Rousselle as an employee as she was probably on her parents’ health insurance. I’m also sure she didn’t complain too much about the crap wages because she, most likely, wasn’t trying to raise a family of four.

Working for Wal-Mart only perpetuates poverty, encourages foreign product sourcing, and supports gender discrimination (oh, wait, the conservative Supreme Court said that because Wal-Mart’s has a policy of non-sex discrimination, the glaring disparities within the company are purely coincidence…Yes, you read that right. Why is there no sex discrimination at Wal-Mart? Because Wal-Mart says so).

For this woman to take wages from Wal-Mart and then speak out against welfare is hypocritical. Wal-Mart is as much of a welfare abuser as any single person who shops there. This girl is naïve, but I’m sure she’ll learn to appreciate the liberals a little more when she graduates from Providence and either can’t find a job or gets a crappy job with no benefits and needs to stay on mommy and daddy’s insurance.

Yours,
Liz

Oh, and P.S.

When you say you want to be the next Ann Coulter, you immediately lose all credibility as an impartial observer and expose yourself as someone who only wants to throw out inflammatory rhetoric and offer nothing constructive.