If rehabilitation is the point of our justice system, government agencies shouldn’t punish people who’ve paid their debt, and who are trying to do the right thing.

Altimont owns Carmen’s Corner Store in Hagerstown, Maryland, a community where around 20 percent of people rely on the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) to buy their groceries. But a federal agency decided that Altimont can never accept SNAP as a form of payment at Carmen’s.

That decision isn’t because Altimont has done anything wrong as a business owner, but rather because of unrelated crimes from 2004, for which he’s already served his time.

The United States Department of Agriculture (USDA) permanently bans anyone with drug, alcohol, tobacco, or firearms convictions from participating in the SNAP program—a harsher punishment than the agency dishes out to those who have actually defrauded the program. That’s not just irrational, it’s also unconstitutional, which is why Altimont teamed up with our organization, the Institute for Justice (IJ), to file a federal lawsuit against the agency on Tuesday.

    • ANGRY_MAPLE
      2·
      1 year ago

      You could start off with a normal day tomorrow, and someone completely unrelated to you could crash in to you and leave you permanently disabled.

      You could have a stroke and lose most of your cognitive abilities.

      You can’t be that happy with your current set up if you’re “waaaaa”-ing random people on lemmy. Tell me, what part of that behaviour says “happy and fulfilled person”?

      Why would anyone take life advice from an outwardly unhappy person?