You’ve seen it all over the internet, patriots. The US government, under the direction of Joe Biden, is forgiving student loans using taxpayer money. Kids are getting free gender studies degrees while homeless veterans get nothing. It’s horrible and it should stop.

Unfortunately, that’s where the story ends on the internet, and rather than delving in a bit, potatoes find it easier to just take dumb memes at face value and share them. Here’s the reality, for the record:

Student loan forgiveness has some pretty strict rules, patriots. First, you can’t make over $50K per year. So the thought that celebrities and politicians you don’t like getting tens of thousands of dollars wiped out is preposterous. We made it all up. Second, you have to have been paying on the loans for more than two decades. Two. Decades. So these “kids” were in school right around 9/11, when “gender studies,” which is a course taken by people looking to be doctors, nurses, psychiatrists, and therapists, wasn’t on anyone’s radar as a bad thing.

Student loan relief is helping your friends and neighbors. These people are middle class folks living their best lives and paying their bills responsibly. They’ve already paid those loans two or three times over. The program cancels interest. It doesn’t take taxpayer money and shift it to banks. The banks have made their money and will be just fine.

Homeless veterans have a ton of resources available. There are some places that deal with it well, and others that don’t. Homelessness is a complex issue that is rarely a matter of “I lost everything and I live here now.”

In other words, patriots. Learn things. Help where you can with the homeless because more than anything they need to be included in society. Whether they’re veterans or not. Stop blaming kids in college for a program they’re not benefiting from. And for Christ’s sake, stop telling stories about how you paid yours off. You went to college for the price of a Ford Pinto a hundred years ago, if you went at all. Most of those commenters list their high school or the ever-present “School of Hard Knocks” they’re so proud to have dropped out of