For Burnett, ignorance is bliss - letter by Kara Lapp

Reproduced here for fair use and discussion purposes. My comments in bold.

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Ms. Lapp's letter was one of many in response to Tom Burnett's letter from September 26. The Leftist outrage was predictable. What was also predictable was that the responses would 1) misrepresent what Mr. Burnett wrote, 2) accuse Mr. Burnett of being in favor of hunger, and 3) make an emotional appeal to manipulate the issue. 

Read the letters carefully, making note of the specific claims. Compare what each wrote to see if the rejoinder offered by Ms. Lapp addresses the substance of Mr. Burnett's letter.

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Tom  Burnett's letter:

In a local supermarket stood a three-sided cardboard display from Feeding America, the nationwide network of food banks. The pop-up display said:

Seventeen million children in America live in a food-insecure household.

One in six Americans does not have access to enough food.

Limited resources prevent 50 million Americans from getting enough food.

This sounded exaggerated. I pointed to the display and asked three store employees if they believed its messages. They scoffed.

A conference at MSU this week dealt with hunger. Representations of hunger are based on a USDA survey that distorts reality and serves government agencies, non-profits and major food corporations like Kraft, Nestle, Frito-Lay, PepsiCo and ConAgra. The conference fights a near-phantom.

Waistlines are expanding. Evidence for hunger is invisible while evidence for over-consumption is plentiful. Sixty-six times as many people are considered overweight or obese as are considered underweight.

Free food is everywhere. Most schools offer three or more of the following feedings: breakfast before school, breakfast in the classroom, sack breakfast in the school entryway to be eaten in the classroom if you are tardy, mid-morning snack, lunch, supper after school, weekend food backpack, the Summer Food Service Program. SNAP food stamp spending is over $78 billion each year. (One estimate puts sugary beverages at $16 billion, and snacks, chips and candy at another $16 billion of total food stamp spending.) Food banks give. Federal and state governments have multiple food programs. Aggressive outreach enrolls, or rather captures, more participants.

Hunger is common? Then why do low-income apartment managers, grocery clerks and welfare office workers dismiss that possibility? One food bank volunteer quit due to serving people he considered not very needy.

Quit trying to dupe us. Hold the exaggerations and propaganda. Don’t make of hunger more than there is.

Tom Burnett

Bozeman

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Kara Lapp's letter:

Having had a few days to digest the words of Mr. Burnett regarding hunger in the U.S., one can only be jealous of his endearing sense of bliss.

Statistics aside, does even one child deserve to go hungry? (Ms. Lapp opens with an emotional appeal, coupled with an absurdity.)

According to Mr. Burnett, hunger is a fallacy, (Pop back up and read Mr. Burnett's letter. Did he claim at any point that hunger is a fallacy or isn't real? Nope.) 

and we are rewarding children when they are tardy for school with breakfast of all things. (Again, did Mr. Burnett make this claim? Again, nope.) 

Why, if you are late to school, you should go hungry, that will teach you. How absolutely indulgent our society has become by feeding the hungry. (And the late.) (This is the typical misdirection offered by Leftists when debating issues. Mr. Burnett made no claim as to the appropriateness of school supplied meals and expressed no opposition to feeding the hungry. It is clear that Mr. Burnett is criticizing hunger advocates for EXAGGERATING the problem of hunger for the purpose of manipulating peoples' compassion and to pry more dollars out of government.)

What a crazy mixed up world this has become. Children ought to get out there and get some employment. If mom and dad won’t feed you, pull yourself up by your bootstraps kiddos and get a job. Tardy and jobless, says a thing or two about the youth of today. (Now Ms. Lapp is wandering off into irrelevant tangents, presumably an attempt to impute motives to Mr. Burnett.)

Are you saying, Mr Burnett, it’s not a child’s parent or guardian’s responsibility to provide? Children must be going hungry because of the intrinsic lack of self motivation then. Mom or dad lost their job, didn’t budget for dinner properly? Not mom or dad’s problem. Adults should be free to make whatever financial decisions they want with no regard to providing for their children ... no harm in letting the kids go hungry. I mean, there is an obesity issue in this country ... they might lose a few pounds while getting their own food on their plate. (Clearly Ms. Lapp failed to comprehend the point Mr. Burnett was making, preferring instead to create an entirely different scenario replete with leftist stereotypes about conservatives. Either that or she didn't even read Mr. Burnett's letter. Her lack of understanding betrays her inherent bias against anyone who would question the motives of "compassionate" hunger advocates.)

How refreshing to live in a day and age when children are capable of determining how an adult’s income is spent in their household, how tardy and over indulged children are stuffed with food to obesity by the local food bank, and other human beings can be so quick and short-sighted to judge another’s hardship. (Once again Ms. Lapp attempts to steer the issue to hungry children and Mr. Burnett's supposed lack of compassion. Now she has arrived at the end of her letter having never addressed the substance of Mr. Burnett's point, that is, the hucksterism of the hunger lobby.

We might also inquire, as is our wont, does Ms. Lapp ever personally feed hungry people? Perhaps she does, but if she is a typical Leftist, she leaves hunger to government to deal with. Rarely will a Leftist actually get out their own check book and make a personal difference. Mr. Burnett, however, is a personally compassionate man. He gives of his time and his money to help people in need, bypassing government "compassion" in favor of real compassion, compassion moved by the heart, compassion that costs a person something, but yields a harvest of satisfaction. This kind of compassion is something Ms. Lapp might want to try.)

Ignorance is bliss, Mr. Burnett. Ignorance is bliss.

Kara Lapp

Bozeman