Can I Call You a Neighbor If You Laugh When My House Burns Down?

I was put into this world to be bristly.

I engage with people, and I hope I’m thoughtful, and make people stop and think. I’m pretty self-aware and I know I’ve never been everyone’s cup of tea.

But tonight, I am thinking about a lot of things I don’t understand (and here’s where I get bristly.)

I don’t understand how, when someone respectfully says, “Please call your representative and ask them to oppose this bill,” the reaction is to label them a clown, a Karen, or act like they deserve to be burned at the stake. Really, name calling?

Can I call you a neighbor if you laugh when my house burns down? Because this is what it feels like in today’s administration.

I know there are kind and moderate conservatives. I know my party has its own issues, and I promise I’ll acknowledge the factual problems in a post soon. But tonight, I’m here holding a mirror.

I don’t understand how people can support locking up migrants in “detention camps,” which, by the pictures, look disturbingly close to concentration camps, and then laugh about naming those facilities “Alligator Alcatraz.”

Being undocumented is a misdemeanor in most cases. Becoming a citizen legally is difficult, expensive, and exhausting. People still deserve due process, no matter where they were born.

Remember “innocent until proven guilty”? You have to prove they are here illegally first. That principle is part of what defines us as a free society.

It’s really easy to say, “don’t commit the crime when you can’t do the time,” but have you ever driven over the speedlimit? Let your car registration or driver’s license expire? Those are all misdemeanor, civil crimes. Just like being undocumented. No one is perfect a hundred percent of the time, and no one deserves to have their humanity stripped from them or to be treated as less than a prisoner. When the U.S. Supreme Court refused to hear cases challenging the constitutional due process rights of immigrants facing deportation in 2025, they were upholding their previous ruling on this matter.

I don’t understand how, if you have ever had a family member who needed SNAP or Medicaid, you can turn around and cheer for policies that cut them off. Every one of us is one medical crisis or job loss away from needing help. You are blessed if you aren’t, but honestly, most Americans are definitely not in that scenario. Now, imagine finding out you have a terminal illness and becoming bedridden, only to be told, “Well, we’re all going to die.”

We are human. All of us.

I don’t understand, in the wealthiest country in the world, how the selfishness I see is staggering.

I don’t understand how so much of it comes from people who claim to be Christians. I’m going to be very honest: this is not what faith looks like. The hate and contempt that radiate from so many political arguments today are not the example Jesus set out for you to follow. If you think He would stand by silently or praise billionaires while people were hungry and sick, you have not read your own scriptures closely. He would be flipping your tables and calling you out.

I want to get really personal for a second. You know who needed SNAP and CHIP? My mom, my two brothers, and me.

My mom worked extremely hard. My dad withheld his presence and child support, and we suffered. We didn’t ask for that. We needed help, and it made the difference between surviving and not. It was a hand up, not a handout.

Today, I am a small business owner. My oldest brother is a pediatric oncologist, and was the first person in our entire family history to graduate college. My youngest brother served in the U.S. Navy and also in the Navy’s Ceremonial Guard. That is what public assistance helps create. When you dismiss families like mine and say a few bad apples are reason enough to gut these programs, you are justifying harm to people who did everything right.

I know someone reading this is stuck thinking, “But what about the people who take advantage?”

I understand. Truly, I do. But these are children. Let them have the snack cake. Let them feel like their house is “normal.” It’s really easy to project an entire story onto someone you don’t know in a grocery store. But those kids don’t deserve more harm coming their way. I can assure you, they already have enough obstacles to overcome without food scarcity being one of them.

I don’t understand how anyone in Southeast Texas can oppose FEMA when I know you know people here who desperately needed help after Rita, Ike, and Harvey. I still remember the outrage over not getting enough support. We’re in hurricane season again, and these storms are only getting stronger. We need federal programs like these, especially in the event of a disaster, guys.

I don’t understand how anyone can oppose Medicaid. Do you know who needs Medicaid? Extremely poor people who still deserve medical care. For a household of three, the poverty level is about $25,000. In states that expanded Medicaid, families making up to $35,600 can qualify. Do you know who hasn’t expanded Medicaid? Texas. You can barely survive on that amount as a single person, let alone when you have children. And if you feel like the poverty line should be higher—yes, it should be.

I don’t understand how, right now, more than a million veterans and their families rely on SNAP and Medicaid to get by. Many of them could lose help because of this bill. Disabled people, including those who were working until the day they suddenly could not, will be expected to somehow keep working or lose their insurance. That goes far beyond simply cutting out “waste and fraud.”

I don’t understand. None of this makes sense, and none of it actually solves the problems people pretend it does. The problem isn’t the marginalized communities in this country. The problem is that we don’t talk to each other anymore like we’re people. We don’t take care of each other like we’re people either.

I can’t stay quiet about it. It’s wrong.

I am glad when my tax dollars help feed children. I am glad when they support education, because we all benefit when our communities are healthier and smarter. I am glad when someone receives healthcare and doesn’t end up seriously ill or dead. I’m not mad at people who get the help they deserve and I don’t try to take it away from them either. If you’ve been upset that you needed help and didn’t get it, quit supporting legislation that cuts it just for a billionaire to make more money. They don’t need more money. You know who does? The working families of this country. Poor people are not the ones causing your problems. Blaming the person in the same boat you’re in isn’t going to get you to shore any faster.

I could go on and on about why these issues matter to me, and why they should matter to all of us.

But really, I just want to ask:

What are we doing here, people?

Why are we cheering for cruelty instead of solutions?

Why are we pretending this is normal?

It isn’t.

We cannot sit here in tacit compliance while it actively happens.

If you read this and said, “Well, I’m not like this…” I’m going to need you to be louder, because the hate is deafening—and so is the silence.