Greetings all!
Tonight, I address a topic I've been meaning to write
about ever since the very beginning. I have recently been reminded of just how
widespread the problem of basic hunger is in the United States, and so I've decided to enumerate my thoughts around said problem. This week’s quote comes
from Clement Attlee, a British Prime Minister whom I hold in fairly high regard
given his contributions to the United Kingdom. He certainly did enough to
warrant a state funeral, in my opinion.
Moving on, my attention to hunger needs has largely
always been determined by how frequently news outlets I trust cover the issue.
For the most part, this means my anger and idealism surrounding hunger comes to
a boil every few weeks, unless a momentous event occurs. My interest peaked
this morning, as I read an article about hungry
children in Tennessee from the Washington Post. As always, this
piece struck deep chords within me. I simply cannot be silent about this any
longer.
The most demoralizing part of all this is just how
important food is to humanity, and yet so many go very hungry very often. Food
is the second most urgent need humans must fulfill; only water is more
important to our survival, and only because we die more quickly without water
than without food. It is incredibly frustrating to know that in the world’s richest
country, over 50
million Americans are food insecure. That’s one in every six
people. It may be hard to comprehend, so settle with the knowledge that there
are more people hungry in America than your mind can envision realistically.
Knowing this, our public policy towards feeding citizens
should be well thought-out, regulated correctly and efficiently, and should be
barred from funding cuts no matter what. There should be no question that
keeping everyone food secure is a good idea and a worthwhile investment.
Starving people make poor workers and will rarely contribute to society unless
they are fed; this should be inherent fact.
And yet, our food stamp benefits for Americans are planned to be cut in
November. On top of this, other cuts to our food welfare system (like this one) are
frequently put on the line in the name of saving governmental money. But why?
What fathomable reasons could there be for chipping away at the food security
of our most vulnerable people?
The myth of the welfare queen is one of the biggest
reasons, in one form or another. In a sound byte which outlived its speaker,
President Ronald Reagan created a story of a woman whom committed
welfare fraud and thereby abused government money for her own benefit. Not
only did this woman, by his description, never exist in the first place, but it
would not even matter if she did. Even if one woman took advantage of the help
offered to her, that does not make the case for stripping social security and
other welfare benefits. The actual woman in question in Reagan’s tale, Linda
Taylor, was caught
and punished for her crimes, none of which were quite as large as Reagan
made them out to be.
This one woman performed criminal acts to get more money.
And now, 30 years later, we've still got millions of angry Americans shouting
with red faces and tight fists about how so many people abuse welfare.
The issue with planning policy based on one instance of
fraud is that law is not based on circumstance. All law is based on trends. For
example, it is generally accepted that murder should be illegal because many
people would commit murder if it was not. This is based on the fact that people
kill people if given the opportunity. If you've ever wondered why lots of
murders occur during political unrest, this is why; without clear legal
guidelines and rules, some people lose control. This is why soldiers frequently
commit atrocities during wars; wars are not governed by laws of peace in their
minds. For the most part, the majority of soldiers will not do this. But enough
do it that it is generally accepted as wrong, and is considered illegal by the
Geneva Conventions.
As such, laws concerning food security are also based on
trends. Specifically, it can be observed that with a complete lack of food
assistance, people will starve and die. For example, I direct you to think back
to 2011, during which a drought
occurred in Somalia. Hundreds of thousands died during the event, suffering
without the most basic of needs. Some blame can be placed on Al-Shabab, which
prevented relief efforts in areas it controlled at the time. However, there’s a
reason why international agencies had to rush to assist in efforts to give food
and water to the Somalis. At the time Somalia had no real government and
therefore no publicly-provided food security of any kind. As a result, Somalis
in danger of starving had to depend entirely on outside help for survival. This
is proof enough that some patchwork of food assistance for the neediest people
is necessary in society.
We can expect some fraud of food assistance programs like
SNAP (the modern day food stamps). However, abuse of public systems is endemic
and incurable. There has always been and will always be abuse of our legal system,
our healthcare system, etc. In every group of good people, we can assume at
least one of them is the exact kind of awful person who would do such a thing. Because
of this trend, we should and do have laws in place for dealing with abuse. We
penalize criminals whom would and do commit fraud. This is logical.
At the same time, we cannot tear these programs and
systems apart simply because some people use them improperly. True, some judges
in America are pure
evil. This does not mean we should completely rework our legal system or
destroy it entirely. It means we should have checks and balances in place to
ensure ourselves that our system is as safe as we can make it.
The same goes for our food security system. Some people
will always do reprehensible things with the tools afforded them. But because
the majority of
those using SNAP and other welfare programs are not breaking the law, we should
keep and strengthen our system within reason. We should be ready and able to
keep all Americans food secure, even if that means some money lost on abuse
every now and again. Food security is a worthwhile investment despite the risk,
and this is economic fact.
That is all for this week, and as always, your feedback
is encouraged. Comment here, send me an email at zerospintop@live.com, or contact me
through Facebook, Google+, Twitter, Steam, DeviantArt, Tumblr, Reddit, or
Youtube. Good night, and this is KnoFear, signing off.
No comments:
Post a Comment