Stop Crying About Welfare

My generation believes pretty strongly in the legalization, or at least decriminalization of drugs, most notably marijuana. And, much to the disappointment of old people across the country, we also tend to vote democrat (the small percentage of us that actually vote). Despite these stereotypes, I have a number of friends in favor of drug-testing welfare recipients, which in humanitarian terms is a "douche move."

Yes, the same people who will favor legalization with logic like "it's your body, do what you want with it," are in favor of revoking those same rights for people who receive welfare. They'll use reasoning like "I get drug tested to earn my money, so should they," and "if they can afford drugs they don't really need welfare," as they sort themselves into the group that has "earned their rights." Nevermind that many welfare recipients also work but do not earn enough to provide for themselves or their family, or that many are unable to work (note: unable not unwilling). Nevermind that these laws were put in place without a shred of evidence or information to justify their necessity and that since then statistics have shown that welfare recipients actually use drugs at a lower rate than the general population and therefore continuing to drug-test them actually costs the state more than it saves. Nevermind that you have an option of where to work if you don't like the policies at any one particular workplace, and people who are unable to work but still need to eat don't have those same options. And of course, nevermind the fact that for the majority of jobs, recreational drug use is as meaningless as gender or ethnicity when it comes to actually getting the job done. 

Oh, I'm sorry. You don't like your tax money going towards providing welfare for people who might be on drugs? Well I don't like mine going towards funding unnecessary wars, or bailing out companies which maliciously screwed the American people out of their homes for a little extra money which they promptly lost, or that religious institutions are exempt from paying taxes despite the fact that they provide next to nothing to the community and are often breeding pits for hate and social unrest. No one likes paying taxes, and no one likes the idea that their taxes are being used for something they don't agree with. What you can do about it is go to some country where you can use your money to hire armed guards around your property so the poor starving people don't come around asking for handouts. What you can't do is decide who gets to eat. You can't chose who "deserves" it while you stuff your face and do whatever drugs you want. And you can't decide to subjugate an entire class of people simply because of your misconceptions about them.