Americans are so fat they should be starved
The obesity crisis hounds have finally showed their hand via Megan McArdle who stated that the stimulus package should not include food stamps because:
The poor don’t need more food. Obesity is a problem for the poor in America; except for people who are too screwed up to get food stamps (because they don’t have an address), food insufficiency is not.
The average person on food stamp gets about $3 a day for food. One doesn’t have to be a genius to figure out that Ramen noodles (3 for $1 in my area) cost less than a bag of oranges ($4.79 IIRC).
If these nutballs weren’t nutballs they’d be bitching about that. They’d be writing about how it’s a crying shame that people are expected to survive on $3 dollars a day in “America of all places”. They’d be bitching about how the price of healthy food puts it well out of the reach of a lot of people, especially when there’s an economic downturn.
They’d be demanding that the poor be given enough money to buy decent food and that such foods were available in the areas they live in – not just the “good” side of town.
But no. If we’re going to give money to the poor, we should just give them cash because even if they spend it on drugs, it’s better than having them get all fat on us (Megan’s final reason the stimulus package shouldn’t include food stamp increases). Nice bit of classism, don’t you think?
I’ve been on the “wrong” end of the economic scale in my life, often enough that I never really forget certain slights. I also sit on a civil rights board in my town for people with disabliities, many of which are also not on the “right” end of the scale.
McArdle has committed one such slight; she p-sses me off. Why?
Why is it, that we can put the hate on “welfare queens” but not, say, Ken Lay or Jeffrey Skilling or any of the ethically challenged people in the administration?
We get on our high-horse and insist our poor are irresponsible, fat, stupid, lazy, etc., just because we can.
We ask things of them we would never ask of ourselves. Do We really think we can treat welfare recipients like children–and then have them go into the workplace fully functional like adults?
McArdle’s playing to a crowd of which there is no shortage of supporters. That’s going to be nasty later on when we’re in a recession or a depression and the former middle class try with all their might not to have to admit they’re in the same boat with “those” people.