Why I'm a pinko commie leftist

Social security is a feminist issue.
Social security is a race issue.
Social security is a class issue.

Because, as brownfemipower puts it: "It’s amazing how much freedom to resist that you have when you don’t have to worry about feeding your kids or losing your house or otherwise becoming destitute."

Thanks to our unions and our dole and our entire support system for those (temporarily or permanently) in need, I could quit a job where the boss was constantly hitting on me.

Thanks to those, I could quit a job in which I was expected to lie to customers.

Thanks to those, I could try becoming an entrepreneur without fear of not having food on the table.

Thanks to those and to our student loans, I could study enough to get the kind of job I really wanted.

Thanks to those and to our childcare system, single parents are able to work at all.

Thanks to those and to our socialised single-payer health care system, I have never had to choose between my (very expensive) endometriosis medication and food on the table, even when I've been between jobs.

Thanks to those and to our socialised single-payer health care system, I get the medications and the pain killers I need to be able to work full-time and to go horse riding and basically do anything other than lie on the sofa with a heating pad.

Thanks to those, my friend who's in so much pain that she can't work more than 50 % of full time still has enough money to live on.

I keep hearing our right-wing (for Sweden, that is - for the US they're pretty far on the left) politicians wanting to reduce benefits so that "it should pay better to work". Yeah, you should get better wages for working than the benefits you get when not working. But no one person in a civilized country should ever need to fear not having enough money for food and rent. No one person should need to stay in a job where they're abused. No one person should need to go without medication and health care.

No one.

Ever.