this post was submitted on 03 Jul 2025
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Words matter.

You aren't writing an academic paper. Always use simple direct language.

  • Help the poor
  • Healthcare for everyone
  • Good treatment at work.

Don't use complex words.

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[–] [email protected] 15 points 12 hours ago (1 children)

Anyone can be poor, but only they are on welfare.

Publishers note: They usually refers to African Americans, but can be used for any suspicious minorities.

[–] [email protected] 5 points 11 hours ago (1 children)

its almost always used as negative connation against blacks, or unsavory demographics. while the people, white conservatives railing on these people are the biggest welfare queens.

[–] [email protected] 4 points 9 hours ago

don't forget wall street and corporations. if you fuck up, congratulations now you're homeless. if they fuck up, congratulations you're gonna bail them out.

[–] [email protected] 16 points 13 hours ago (1 children)

Don't use the buzzwords Republicans have spent decades poisoning.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 11 hours ago

yup, including entitlements, Woke,,,,etc.

[–] [email protected] 6 points 13 hours ago (1 children)

Psychological damage is present.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 3 hours ago

Nobody is immune to propaganda

[–] [email protected] 30 points 20 hours ago

As someone that works with the general public.

People are fucking dumb. Like not I'm not even kidding, there's a skill gap to even get to a site like this...and not everyone has the ability to do it...I'm not even kidding. People are just stupid.

[–] [email protected] 24 points 21 hours ago (3 children)

Yep. Never use a ten dollar word when a 50 cent one does the job better. The left wing needs to dump it's highbrow (and cringe celebrity endorsements) and use the language of the common people in simple terms that cannot be demonised (or would sound insane to try).

Also, this is a prime example of how demonising words, especially buzzwords, is the strategy they use to make it lose all rationality with the public... the notion of being "woke" originally a good thing, welfare a good thing, etc...

[–] [email protected] 5 points 12 hours ago

They managed to make DEI a divisive word, I presume because they always used the abbreviation, because how else can you poison these words.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 12 hours ago (1 children)

Sadly, more than 50% of Americans a grade school vocabulary. Imagine trying to convince a kid in grade 6 that helping the poor is not bad.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 5 hours ago

Ngl but most of the kids have no problems with helping other people.

[–] [email protected] 7 points 20 hours ago

Doesn't work, they take the cheap words too. "Fake news" was originally used for right-wing propaganda. The only solution is education so that future generations are more aware of and resistant to dog whistles and doublespeak.

[–] [email protected] 13 points 20 hours ago (1 children)

Just want to point out that this negative association is based on racist dog whistles like the, "welfare queen," which were propagated by right-wingers to convince low-income whites to hate the programs designed to help them.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 5 hours ago

And I think theres a place to break that association, but .aybe candidates that are running to change our system dont need to be the ones to do it.

[–] [email protected] 8 points 19 hours ago (1 children)

I get the critical comments here, but I think there's a basic association of the word "welfare" with the CURRENT system of assistance which leaves too many people out. Democrats have made the current apparati too hard to qualify for with their means-testing. If they were sincere in working for the masses, they would push more universal programs, but at least on the national level, they are bought out by the same corporations as the Republicans.

[–] [email protected] 4 points 12 hours ago

Democrats have made the current apparati too hard to qualify for with their means-testing.

I kind of doubt that democrats are the ones who MADE it too hard, but they definitely are the ones that preserve it's difficulty.

[–] [email protected] 16 points 1 day ago* (last edited 1 day ago)

The issue is entirely a media problem. Can you tell yet?

[–] [email protected] 7 points 21 hours ago (1 children)

Did the study define the kinds of assistance at all or was it simply the choice of terms?

“Welfare” is defined and had a lot of baggage with it. Opinion about welfare can be wildly different individually and demographically.

“Assistance” isn’t defined, people can place their own restrictions on what that hypothetical assistance is, who gets it based on their own prejudices, needs, and ideology.

[–] [email protected] 12 points 20 hours ago (1 children)

Nah, see, you're falling into the trap. "Welfare" has baggage only because conservatives have attached baggage to it via their relentless propaganda campaigns. In practice, welfare is literally just assistance. In practice, the two words are synonymous. The fact that you perceive a difference in them is evidence that the conservative propaganda is working.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 16 hours ago* (last edited 16 hours ago) (1 children)

Kind of you to assume it was my baggage I was describing, and that I don’t understand the subject at hand.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 13 hours ago

Pleasure's all mine, partner

[–] [email protected] 13 points 1 day ago (3 children)
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[–] [email protected] 20 points 1 day ago (9 children)

Assistance implies that it is temporary, that it is help to help themselves.

Welfare implies that it is continuous.

If you have to continually support a part of the population then you have a systemic problem. The correct solution would be to change the system. People who support the continuation of the current system either profit from it or don't see an advantage in a change.

[–] [email protected] 11 points 22 hours ago

Assistance implies that it is temporary,

Not it does not. Ever heard of "aim assist"? "Assisted living"? "assistive touch" (the iOS feature)? I don't see how any of these are temporary.

But yeah the correct solution is indeed to change the system. There will always be naysayers who argue that "no one system can suit everybody" so I guess we'll need a system of systems.

[–] [email protected] 4 points 20 hours ago (1 children)

If you have to continually support a part of the population then you have a systemic problem.

To a point, maybe, but populations are always going to have disabled persons or people with chronic illnesses that require continual assistance to live a dignified life. Be careful not to write those people off with sweeping generalizations like this.

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[–] [email protected] 8 points 1 day ago (7 children)

Also, "assistance" is something that is given out of the kindness of your (or the government's) heart and that the recipient should feel gratitude (and/or have to grovel) for. "Welfare" is seen as something the recipient is entitled to as a right. FWIW I support a UBI that is adequate for food and shelter and the necessities of life - as an entitlement for everybody.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 4 hours ago

41% of the population would object, together with 29% who don't support assistance at all. If you want UBI in a democratic society you have to sell it differently.

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[–] [email protected] 3 points 20 hours ago* (last edited 20 hours ago) (1 children)

Do parapelegics require "temporary support"? There are some people who need continual support and they're always going to exist in any society. Disabled people. And they aren't a "systemic problem".

[–] [email protected] 0 points 6 hours ago (1 children)

there are governmental systems that would disagree on that last point.

[–] [email protected] 4 points 5 hours ago* (last edited 5 hours ago) (1 children)

And they would be immoral and evil if they suggest letting disabled people die off. Yes, I know about Libertarians and their selfish, egotistical, unempathetic views towards people less well off than they are. Anyone who believes "every man, woman, and child for themselves" is how a society should function is a piece of shit, sorry. And obviously you can lump Conservatives in with them on this issue too.

[–] [email protected] 0 points 5 hours ago

I could see a religions having a belief that being burdensome is a fate worse than death and a government then mandating that religion. Which admittedly goes against human rights, but is done in a few countries.

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[–] [email protected] 19 points 1 day ago (2 children)

One of the main reasons why USAID was the first part of the government targeted was because of things like this.

If you frame their work as "Assistance to disasters" or other variations, plus the context of it being under 1% of the Federal budget, Americans were find with it. If you call it "giving taxpayer money to foreigners" then it's wildly unpopular.

Which is to say that the lesson is that most people are idiots and have no idea what's going on in the world. Framing a narrative can get the same individual to simultaneously support and hate literally the same thing. It can get people to support policies and actions that directly harm them.

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[–] [email protected] 19 points 1 day ago

IIRC "ACA" and "Obamacare" had similar divides. Propaganda is a helluva drug.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 20 hours ago

Godamnnnnn we are fucking monkey smooth brain fucks

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