talkpolitics | Ka-CHING!

The Daily Caller is, as far as I know, not a humor site along the lines of The Onion. According to Wikipedia – I looked to make absolutely sure – it’s an ostensibly neutral site with right wing leanings and contributors that include Arianna Huffington and Newt Gingrich. So the Brion McClanahan piece, “Damn, I Just Want some Jam” is apparently meant to be taken seriously. It's possible, as Media Matters has speculated, that the author is writing what he imagines to be satire, but if that’s the case, it’s someone who doesn’t have a clear idea of exactly what satire is.

It opens with a rather rambling reference to a rap song about an EBT card the author heard a few months ago, touches on the singer’s leather jacket, shifts to Jesse Jackson, President Obama and food stamps, then announces in the next paragraph, “These are fine examples of what many Americans witness on a regular basis.” We then read the following anecdote about an adventure he and his wife had in the checkout line at Walmart. Stop me if you’ve heard this one…

I noticed that the woman checking out in front of us was texting on her $200 cell phone (which probably costs at least $100 a month in service fees and may have been paid for by the government as well) and holding what my wife says was a $100 designer purse, with a stack of junk food, beer and cigarettes on the belt behind a line of subsistence products like milk, cheese, cereal and meat.

I looked for the punchline, (which I’ve been reading and hearing since the 1980s) about the woman paying with food stamps/flashing her EBT card, but it never came. Apparently, what upset Mr. McClanahan and his wife was the woman’s separation of items – it’s not even clear whether or not she was using one of those long rubber Supermarket thingies – which, I guess, is supposed to mean she was paying with an EBT because “People pay for ‘necessary’ items with their EBT government debit cards and then use cash for their smokes, beer and munchies.”

So, Brion McClanahan and his wife were in Walmart where they saw a woman carrying what might have been an expensive designer purse, and texting on what might have been an expensive cell phone (which might have been paid for by the government) and they noticed the organization of her items on the counter (which might have meant she was paying with an EBT.) This incensed them to the point where he asks, at the end of the paragraph, “Why is the average taxpayer both screwed by the system and forced to watch his tax dollars being wasted on people who abuse the system?”

Let’s leave aside for a moment what this little story reveals about this couple’s outlook, which apparently involves pricing items carried or worn by strangers they encounter in public. One imagines a series of faint, cash register “ka-chings” as the McClanahans note someone’s shirt, purse, sunglasses, cellphone, and the order in which the person puts items on a check-out counter, their antennae aquiver for evidence of of a poor person violating their personal sumptuary laws. The true descent into almost murderous class hostility, is what McClanahan proposes to prevent other well-off couples from enduring the trauma he and is wife suffered at Walmart.

First, the federal government would create a government ‘brand’ of essential food items such as milk, cheese, meat, cereal, vegetables, bread, peanut butter, beans, juice, soup, baby formula, diapers, etc., and would package the items with simple black-and-white labels and basic descriptions. The word “Government” would be stamped across the top in bold letters so everyone would know it was a welfare item….taste and quality, with the exception of the baby formula and baby food, would not be a top priority…

Apparently, Mr. McClanahan and his wife were just not as sure as he pretends to be about that woman in Walmart. It would have been so much easier for them if they could have seen items on the counter plainly labeled “Government Food. Commence Pointing and Laughing” so they could sneer at her in front of everybody. And God forbid that those plainly wrapped items actually taste good, or bother too much about nutritional value once the recipient is past the toddler stage.

Which would raise another problem. Standing next to someone, especially a school age kid, who’s been subsisting for a long time on a diet like this would be such a downer. The skin that lacks a certain color and elasticity, the hair that lacks a certain gloss, the eyes that lack a certain brightness … Who wants to see that? And besides, while he and his wife were distracted, feverishly toting up and pricing the clothing, accessories and purchases of the person next to them, one of those poor people in line behind them might pick their pockets.

Mr. McClanahan is on the case. People relying on government assistance, he explains, would not be allowed to shop in privately owned stores. They would be consigned to government stores in poor neighborhoods. (“The number of store locations would be chosen based on the size of the area and its number of food stamp recipients”) so people like the McClanahans wouldn’t have to look at poor people’s ugly – and no doubt, as time went on, dully resentful – faces.

But wait, there’s more! Not only would poor people be pushed out of sight as consumers, not only would they be subjected to the regular humiliation of drug and tobacco tests, they would be legally recognized as UNcitizens. “They are slaves to the government and should be reminded of that fact.”

And as slaves, they must not be allowed the opportunity to vote against policies Mr. McClanahan supports. “People on government aid would also lose the privilege of voting. That way they couldn’t vote for greater benefits or easier terms.”

So, to sum up, Brion McClanahan thinks it would be great aid to freedom in this country if we create a permanent, non-voting underclass locked into poverty by segregation, strategically bad nutrition, and disenfranchisement. It’s easy to see why this would appeal to many of the Ayn Rand free market types. A work force that that sick, that miserable, and that insecure would, after all be relatively easy to control. Of course, you wouldn’t want to make them too hopeless, hence the willingness to allow for high quality baby formula. Can’t allow the infant mortality rate to get so high that there’s a cheap labor shortage. Get them past the toddler stage, and then ensure a cheap, high starch, low protein diet with all the attendant long-term cognitive problems likely to result.

Okay, to be honest, I don’t think Mr. McClanahan has thought that far ahead. The true motivation behind this piece is apparently much more petty than that, and is revealed in the final paragraph.

…tax producers would no longer have to knowingly be face to face with people at the check-out who are on government assistance but have nicer cell phones and accessories than they do.

Kaching, KaCHING…

Crossposted from Thought Crimes

Personally, I think disenfranchising everyone on public assistance and institutionalizing contempt for them through segregation and humiliation is a really, really BAD idea.

I do see how it would facilitate voter suppression. No more troublesome caging of voters -- just knock someone of the economic ladder and they no longer have a say in anything. And you can bet just the threat of this would be enough to make many employees button their lips about their politics. Ahhhh, Ayn Rand's version of "freedom."

What do you think?