During the longest government shutdown to date, there were a lot of disruptions in the United States, including air travel, national parks, and the military, but no sector was more affected than the food stamp program, or more so than the single mothers that got kids.
00:01:50.000Welcome back to Change My Mind, where we reason through our positions on seemingly controversial topics.
00:01:56.000During our most recent and longest government shutdown to date, there were a lot of disruptions in the United States, including air travel, national parks, military.
00:02:05.000But no sector was talked about more, or one could argue, than the subject of SNAP.
00:02:11.000It goes out for the single mothers that got kids.
00:02:17.000Let alone, if we do have jobs, again, what can we do?
00:02:21.000Around 42 million Americans depend on the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, also known as SNAP.
00:02:27.000And who the f ⁇ they think celebrating these motherfucking holidays with no food stamps?
00:02:30.000I don't know where the f ⁇ we gonna get the food from.
00:02:32.000They showed that the Republicans don't actually believe their LMBS when it comes to populism, when it comes to funding SNAP.
00:02:39.000I will be at motherfucking Walmart with my spiel toes on and my motherfucking helmet and I dare a f ⁇ try to stop me from walking out that motherfucking store with my girlfriend Trump.
00:02:50.000It ain't nothing like, please, I'll go steal a whole turkey and a ham.
00:02:55.000Like, what I'd be natural to assume that a subject inspiring such strong feelings would be amongst the most necessary, virtuous programs allocated in the United States $7 trillion budget, right?
00:03:11.000But surprisingly, the truth is, it's not, which is exactly today's topic of discussion that took place at Oklahoma University in this installment of Change My Mind.
00:03:24.000The conversations ranged from productive-ish to cordial to a little or a lot off the rails.
00:03:33.000But you may be surprised by which students or canines had the most to offer.
00:03:40.000So sit back, but hold your chair tightly for this latest installment of Change My Mind and Snap.
00:03:53.000Let's get the off-the-rails stuff out of the way first.
00:03:56.000I can't fathom this idea that like Trump is, instead of cutting aid to say, stop funding the war in Ukraine, stop sending so much aid over to Israel, stop giving the rest of the world so much money, we're giving so much money away, like just can be to everybody.
00:04:14.000Stop paying yourselves salaries even while the government's shut down.
00:04:18.000I think the stat I saw was we're giving Israel enough to where every citizen of Israel gets basically like a million dollars a year.
00:04:24.000We're giving like three to four billion to Israel, which we should stop, but over a hundred billion a year on SNAP.
00:04:29.000But the idea that we're giving Israel all of this money, it's not even our country, and then we're telling Americans, hey, get back to work at listen.
00:04:35.000You can't have Coca-Cola, you can't have candy, you can't have a nice meal for your family.
00:04:39.000You absolutely shouldn't have Coca-Cola or candy if you don't work.
00:04:41.000The $3 billion to Israel that we should also cut has nothing to do with it.
00:04:45.000I just think we should solve all of those other extraneous problems before we start telling American citizens we can't have the nice luxuries.
00:05:05.000By the way, I say cut all of it, but it's not even close to SNAP, let alone if you get to what illegal immigration, the social safety nets, the welfare state that we have is so much astronomically higher.
00:06:17.000Based on the demographic of SNAP recipients that I'm thinking of being like single mothers and based on the cancel inflation that you went through in 2021, do you see how that like is kind of like no, I don't.
00:06:30.000I don't see how it's relevant to subsidizing a government program that's a failure and rife with fraud.
00:06:35.000I just think it's interesting that you have put someone in a position of potentially needing to rely on that and then turn around and dunk on the other people who also need to rely on that.
00:06:42.000I think it's potentially interesting that you believe things that you see in the media and have no idea is the situation that she is.
00:06:48.000You think she's on SNAP, an ex-wife, but I'm not allowed to discuss it because that's the mother of my children.
00:06:54.000I'm glad you respect the mother of your children.
00:06:56.000Yeah, I'm not going to be discussing that.
00:06:58.000And I think it's a very feminist thing to then go like, well, since I can't actually argue this point, let me go to something personal when they're ushing in.
00:07:07.000Like the fold divorce thing, that's a whole other topic.
00:07:09.000I wish we would have talked about that instead.
00:07:23.000Yeah, I just think it's interesting that a lot of women end up on SNAP from situations like that.
00:07:30.000Yeah, to be honest with you, this was later in the day.
00:07:32.000Not all the conversations were taking place in good faith or were productive at all.
00:07:37.000And surprisingly, very few people had anything to disagree with once they knew the money on which we were spending these resources for SNAP.
00:07:46.000But this conversation was different from most we've had in the past and I would say productive.
00:07:52.000And this young lady is lovely as a button.
00:08:10.000It's not gotcha, it's not scoring points, it's not dunking, it's not meant to be clipped for reels, though people will do that.
00:08:16.000It was created almost a decade ago to have authentic conversations in good faith and see where we agree, disagree, and are able to present our opinions on controversial topics.
00:09:21.000Because it's a very rural, very small town, and we have a lot of small jobs that pay minimum wage, so people are not able to afford rent and eat.
00:09:35.000We heavily have to depend on horticulture, agriculture.
00:09:40.000We have, like, you know, a Tyson factory.
00:09:43.000We do so much of that kind of work, but that does not pay well.
00:09:48.000So, you know, we're paying to keep the lights on, not me personally.
00:10:39.000You can get Halloween candy on SNAP, which I think is immoral and I think is ridiculous.
00:10:43.000Which is why if we want to go back to a food stamp program for bare essentials, well, that should help people who are in need.
00:10:48.000But it sounds to me like you're talking about a nation or the Cherokee Nation and this neighborhood, sorry, our community was most poor to third poorest.
00:10:56.000Sounds to me like you're almost advocating for perpetual use of SNAP, which we know has been very prevalent in the Native American community.
00:11:03.000And would you say that's made the Native American community stronger or weaker?
00:11:17.000Like, we're in a very poor rural area, but we're not able to change it dramatically because we're not having more people invest and spend time and work more in our rural areas because they're going to bigger and better places.
00:11:32.000Why do you think that other rural areas are able to do so?
00:11:35.000There are other rural areas that aren't that poor and certainly not for decades at a time.
00:11:39.000Why do you think it's so specific to the Native American community who get far more, disproportionately more, government benefits and contribute less?
00:12:17.000And just let me know, too, if you want, because I don't want to dominate the conversation, but I also know you don't sit and talk as much for a living, so if it helps.
00:12:24.000I would say that it has kneecapped and irreparably damaged the Native American community.
00:12:28.000I would say the Native American community has been handicapped.
00:12:31.000They're not a particularly industrious people because they don't have to be and because they are ultra-reliant on government services.
00:12:38.000And I would say that let's grant your scenario, which I wouldn't say is necessarily true in most scenarios, but a wealthy person coming in and investing in a community.
00:12:48.000Those people would be very, very hesitant to invest in a community that seems to be dependent in perpetuity forever on government assistance with no interest in getting off of it.
00:12:59.000That would be, I mean, I would say that.
00:13:01.000I would say that there's a reason that not only is that one of the poorest communities, but Native American reservations, despite having advantages in a lot of ways, pretty much everyone looks like an episode of cops.
00:16:39.000I've spent my whole life with these people who, out of pride, would not take SNAP or EBT.
00:16:45.000And when they find out what they're paying for, that's a really tough pill to swallow.
00:16:50.000So could we, so I just say, do away with food stamps for essentials for a very limited amount of time, work requirements, meaning, I think it should be more than 80 hours a week.
00:16:59.000I think to get anything, you should be working, sorry, 80 hours a month.
00:17:44.000Like, how are we at this point as a country when we're talking about being fiscally responsible and people who aren't working, who are able-bodied, are getting caviar or potentially through SNAP?
00:17:54.000Could we agree that maybe that's a broken system that we have to do away with it, start from the ground up with essentials?
00:18:34.000I think you thought, man, someone who's struggling, who's getting bare essentials, I don't think you realize that people who can work, who choose not to, are getting fatter on this shit, all done in the name of equity.
00:18:58.000People, like, for example, veterans, but there are other ways to deal with those.
00:19:01.000You know, there are other ways to deal with, and we can categorize those, but we're not.
00:19:05.000So that's, again, why I say if you defund this to the tune of hundreds of billions of dollars a year, you'd actually be able to allocate the funding more effectively to the people you're talking about who need it.
00:19:15.000I do agree that we should help handicap veterans.
00:19:18.000I do believe that if people are actually mentally handicapped, whatever, adjudicated, mentally defective, whatever term you want to use, that they could use some help.
00:19:26.000I think we could also help by removing some of the red tape for charities.
00:19:29.000I did volunteer work with these special needs.
00:19:32.000They would all live in homes together.
00:19:34.000They do a friendship club thing every, I think it was Tuesday of the week where we bring in food.
00:19:40.000And a lot of that is hard because of the red tape.
00:19:42.000But I think that we need to separate that.
00:19:43.000That's not who's typically using SNAP.
00:19:47.000And those people end up being shortchanged because that person is treated the exact same as an able-bodied baby mama who eats Halloween candy.
00:20:37.000Hopefully this helps, but I'm being a little silly.
00:20:39.000One of the scariest things I ever saw, and I mean like testicle disappearingly scary.
00:20:45.000I was at a flea market in a rural area of Michigan, and it wasn't just a furry, but it was a furry in a full mascot outfit who put on top of it slacks and like a t-shirt to be a furry during Casual Friday.
00:21:00.000I was like, that is a disturbed individual.
00:22:05.000It's healthy to be nervous when you're speaking publicly.
00:22:08.000It's like the number one fear in the United States.
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00:24:42.000You know, the owls, the thing that's cool about them, if you've seen them, if you've ever actually watched them catch a rodent, they can be completely silent on approach.
00:24:57.000I'm tired, so I'm a little scattershot.
00:24:59.000Twistle, I don't know how familiar you are with this series or these installments.
00:25:03.000What we do, let me just kind of set you at ease.
00:25:06.000It's not designed to be, gotcha score points on the topic at hand.
00:25:10.000This was pre-Debate Bro, pre-Youtube shorts when it started, and clips.
00:25:13.000It'll be uploaded, you know, provided we both have a conversation in good faith in its entirety.
00:25:18.000So you will not be taken out of context, even if it's a controversial topic.
00:25:23.000So this topic right now, I obviously just switched it, is I think that in 2025, considering the abysmal failure, the corruption, it is beyond repair, we absolutely need to wholesale, cut, snap, done, and if anything, put something else in its place.
00:25:40.000If you disagree, Twistle, you're welcome to change my mind.
00:25:43.000I mean, I don't know much about this topic, so I would not, I prefer not to give any comment.
00:25:50.000At least when they invited me here, they said it was mostly going to be about like the...
00:27:25.000And the good thing is, people won't know your real identity, so hopefully you can shoot me straight.
00:27:30.000Are you one of these people you've discussed?
00:27:33.000Or what percentage of your community would you say also have some type of sexual proclivity or it being included in their identity as a furry?
00:27:42.000So I would say that I can't put any percentage on it, but it's not necessarily an insignificant number.
00:28:57.000Let me ask you, what type of intersect do you think there's with like LGBTQ?
00:29:01.000Because a lot of people think it's now just a modern expression of gender.
00:29:04.000And I will tell you this, a lot of people view it as degeneracy when it's an expression of gender, sexuality, because those things should be kept in private.
00:29:17.000Well, you know, when you look online and you look at the furry community, there's usually a lot of the intersectional sort of camaraderie there with LGBTQ and they sort of tag it along to it.
00:29:27.000So whether you intend for it to be or not, that is the perception that's by design from a lot of activists in the furry community.
00:30:09.000I also don't love people's positions on SNAP and on illegal immigration.
00:30:13.000I think we want to do it at a costume party, but I think walking around in society where people have to adapt to it is uncomfortable, and I do think it's pretty abnormal.
00:31:20.000None of my friends personally fall into that category, but some, a very small portion do have like, they say they have a spiritual connection.
00:31:45.000But when you have a chorus of people saying, hey, this is just as legitimate as heteronormative styles, by the way, we're tagging on with LGBTQ, isn't it incumbent upon you to say, no, that's kind of degenerate to try and thrust a sexual preference like this into the public spotlight.
00:32:00.000I mean, I'll say what most cases of that happening are in a private setting.
00:32:27.000The destruction of heteronormative sexual behavior.
00:32:31.000And people are kind of at the point where we're like, yeah, we're less accepting of it because we live in an era where everything has become acceptable and it doesn't necessarily mean it's healthy for society.
00:32:41.000Costume is one thing, but identifying that way and everyone around having to be like, yeah, let's just treat this like it's my friend Doug is not really a good thing.
00:32:49.000I mean, I don't identify as this idea of whenever I wear it.
00:33:55.000Well, no, no, but if they do it in private, but then they're dressed as a furry in public, people are going, oh, well, that's one of those people because they've made their identity being a furry, and that also is part and parcel of their sexual identity.
00:34:05.000Yeah, I don't see that that's part of, that's where that misconception of everybody does it because it's a sexual thing comes from.
00:34:12.000Like, for example, whenever I was at a convention in Dallas, I did a presentation on how to find your own crystals.
00:34:19.000I had about 80 or so people show up and had about 100 crystals on display.
00:34:33.000I got to talk about what I was passionate about for an entire hour to a group of people that had no idea what that was beforehand.
00:34:42.000And there is a huge side of that that just largely goes unnoticed.
00:34:50.000So it's kind of more of like a Rocky Horror Picture Show thing for you where it's like you're into this and you think it's a reflection of art and it's just something you do.
00:35:18.000So you don't like wear this into class and expect everyone to act like, yeah, yeah, just normal.
00:35:22.000And you would agree that like that would be weird and rude and people weren't accepting of like, you can't just come in in this fur helmet in the middle of class.
00:35:39.000Let me ask, what do you get out of this that you wouldn't get out of like, could you say it's art, like that you don't get out of like say a painting or like, you know, making a movie or a poem?
00:35:52.000For one, I don't consider myself to be creative at all.
00:35:56.000I cannot draw, I cannot paint, I can't, I have a very hard.
00:36:00.000I mean, I've even tried like music composition, which I can't, even though I play instruments.
00:36:08.000I just don't see myself as creative enough to be able to do okay.
00:36:12.000So it's a reflection of art without the creative element?
00:36:19.000The creative aspect comes from being able to like design it yourself.
00:36:44.000And actually, I will say, I wouldn't quite say you're changing my mind, but you've clarified some things.
00:36:50.000I've had furries, by the way, on the show who they were there to distance themselves from some of the, you know, a lot of, a lot of, funny enough, not funny enough, but coincidentally enough, not a lot of death threats and radicalism comes from the furry community on the left.
00:37:03.000And I know Charlie Kirk had to deal with that too.
00:37:05.000But it sounds like you're saying this is a separate component, like people who might have a hobby.
00:37:11.000It sounds like you'd find a sense of community.
00:37:13.000The sense of community is supposed to ultimately enable you to function more effectively and be less lonely in society at large.
00:37:21.000If you had a son and he said he wanted to become a furry and he was a young guy, would you be concerned because of the less tasteful components of the community?
00:37:33.000Or would you say like, hey, it's great.
00:39:25.000So as long as you understand that, you know, I don't want furries going around blaming, having dogs euthanized because they acted, they're like, hey, this is weird.
00:39:32.000I've never seen any kind of event like that.
00:41:04.000Please stay tuned for the next installments of Change My Mind and let me know what kinds of conversations, what topics you would like to see.