— Matt Taibbi and Molly CrabappleBecause the issue here isn’t the efficacy of the welfare state. This is about fairness. Do we treat people the same way everywhere? How does a poor person end up getting arrested for fraud, and does the state have the same playbook for rich people? The obvious answer is no, but you have to see the difference up close, at a day-to-day level, to really grasp the breadth of the gap. When you see, up close, where the awesome power of the American criminal justice space station is directed, you will begin scratching your head, no matter what you think of people on welfare.
Replicated under Fair Use from The Divide: American Injustice in the Age of the Wealth Gap by Matt Taibbi and Molly Crabapple. (Pg. 329)