Cravings are Different Than Hunger

Asheville Citizen-Times Editorial 72 – Hunger – April 1, 2012

The biggest beneficiaries of America’s hunger programs are government and non-profit  organizations busily creating a need for their services.  There’s no faster path to personal advantage than making people dependent.  Just ask OPEC.

The deceptive term “food insecurity” is used to justify food banks because real hunger is rare in a much blessed and much spoiled America.   The broader roots of food insecurity – more realistically food anxiety as a form of withdrawal – are found in addiction or eating badly versus not enough. 

Ironically, the ones most familiar with the insincerity of our trumped up hunger problem are the same ones handing out the food.   The obesity of many of the recipients, visible four-dollar-a-pack cigarettes, and a greater interest in Twinkies than pintos reliably separates the social predators from the needy. 

We make the same mistake with hungry people we make with homeless people.  Homelessness can originate from bad luck, bad choices, mental illness, addiction, non-conformity, unemployment, predatory dedications, or a combination.  It’s just easier to hand out group victim badges.  That’s a great plan for employing social workers – not so good when it comes to matching nuts to bolts.   

There’s a difference in a safety net and a hammock.  Thanks to Obama and his party of merry socialists, we now have forty-five million Americans on food stamps.  Some need and deserve the help.  Others use the opportunity to dodge personal accountabilities. 

Free food and food stamps are not free.  They’re paid for by the sweat of those who chose to live in a responsible, productive, and rationale manner.  Politicians and enablers know that robbing Peter to pay Paul secures the loyalties of a very quickly addicted Paul. 

For proof positive that a real “hunger game” is being played on America, flip this coin.  Hunger doesn’t remotely touch the harms, numbers, and obesity associated with too much food. 

The best deceivers con themselves first.  Hunger statistics come out of loaded questions like, “Have there been times in the past year when you did not have enough money to buy the food your family needed?”  Heck, I triggered a “yes” on that one last week when I went into a Burnsville fast food restaurant with two bucks to my name.

Those seeking to really do good separate helping hands from handouts.  There’s no morality, love, or nourishment found in enabling.  Vanity, free stuff, and dependency, like salt, sugar, and fat, are remarkably addictive… 

Click here for the temporary Asheville Citizen-Times link-