Every fancy must one day run amok.

If you know any conservatives, you've likely come across this "witticism" recently:

The Food Stamp Program, administered by the U.S. Department of Agriculture, is proud to be distributing the greatest amount of free meals and food stamps ever.

Meanwhile, the National Park Service, administered by the U.S. Department of the Interior, asks us to 'Please Do Not Feed the Animals.'

Their stated reason for the policy is because the animals will grow dependent on handouts and will not learn to take care of themselves.

This ends today’s lesson.

It originated, as best as I can tell, as a letter sent by Billy Fleming to the Miller County Liberal on 13 June 2012, but in the three weeks since it's been shared over 29,000 times and extensively cited with praise by conservative bloggers. I'm not going to link to the sites individually because the appeal of Bill Fleming's logic is obvious: it validates the belief that people who find it difficult to feed themselves during one of the worst economic downturns in American history are no better than wild animals. If poor people are like wild animals, this argument insists, they deserve none of the sympathy reserved for the suffering of human beings, nor do they deserve succor from the taxed income of upstanding citizens like Bill Fleming.

So instead of thinking along the lines of the Biblical injunction to be stewards of the planet, upstanding citizens like Bill Fleming conclude that the poor, like wild animals, should learn to fend for themselves. Moreover, they should do so just like wild animals do, under the auspices of the National Parks system, which is funded by the taxed income of upstanding citizens like Bill Fleming.

But unless upstanding citizens like Bill Fleming are able to transform their analogical dehumanization of the poor into a legal reality, the poor inhabiting the National Parks will not be wild animals playing parts in the Darwinian daydreams of upstanding citizens like Bill Fleming. They will be displaced citizens with the right to petition the government for temporary housing and access to potable water and edible food.

Instead of being minimally dependent on the federal government for meager food subsidies, the displaced poor would be maximally dependent on the federal government for all the necessities of life. Schools would have to be built. Police departments would have to be formed. Sanitation departments would have to be funded. Roads and bridges would have to be improved. The entire infrastructure of modern American society would have to be recreated in what had been the wilds of the National Parks.

This means that the tax burden the poor place on upstanding citizens like Bill Fleming would actually increase if upstanding citizens like Bill Fleming had their druthers. The only way to prevent this from occuring would be declare that poor people are not like wild animals, but that they are wild animals.

In which case, upstanding citizens like Bill Fleming are simply terrible people who barely merit membership in the very category they would bar the poor entry.

Comments

[Querulous Squirrel]

Besides the obvious differences between humanity and animals, animals who are fed snack foods in parks have alternative and healthier food choices. They would survive unfed. Poor people given food stamps do not have alternative food sources. They would starve to death. I'm sure the conservatives would have no problem with this. The thinking is, if bad things happen to you, it's because you yourself are intrinsically bad and deserve it. That's how they rationalize all the good things (wealth) that happens to them. They deserve it. The poor don't.

[Leatherneck]

Thanks for sharing this. My two bits: The USDA really should get out of the business of handouts to needy citizens and devote itself solely to its real job: handouts to corporations, aka "farm subsidies." Because that creates jobs! For Mexicans. And makes sure executives, lobbyists, and lawyers can stay rich enough to keep buying the politicians and elections who ensure they will continue to get those handouts.
Real question is: when will the American "conservative" wake up to realize that each time he fills up his pristine F150 with the "I Support The Troops" sticker on the back for his daily 40-mile commute, he's consuming more taxpayer handouts than the guy in the grocery line? American gas is cheap at the pump because taxpayers paid TRILLIONS for it through the military-industrial complex that buys the politicians to drive us in to the wars needed to keep the oil pipeline open. He supports the troops alright. He also has their blood on his hands. If he really wants to honor them, maybe driving a Prius would be more apt than the sticker.