Occasionally, something will happen that shows a latent tendency of dishonesty in people regardless of class or station. Once the lights go off or security is suspended, there is an explosion of thefts or some riot. I remember one Christmas seeing what looked like lawyers or businessmen trying to use umbrellas to unhook fur decorations on the Christmas tree in the Daley Plaza that were part of a Canadian holiday display. One was actually on the other one’s shoulders. I am not sure why I am always surprised. However, this weekend, the food stamp computer system in Louisiana experienced a glitch where it would not show the limit on cards. Most stores stopped purchases with the EBT cards. However, Walmart stores in Springhill and Mansfield, Louisiana decided to continue to make sales. The word quickly spread and the stores were mobbed with shoppers who took virtually every item off the shelves. Then the EBT cards came back online with the limits on the cards . . .
Suddenly, hundreds of people fled the store after it was announced that the card were showing the limits again. Dozens of over-stuffed carts were left in lines and all of the shelves were stripped clean. Given the low level of food support on such cards, it raises a moral dilemma in the interpretation of laws on theft. Should such laws include a Jean Val Jean exception in the prosecution of people overcharging food stamp cards? Are such act justified on a relative scale given poverty issues? After posting this blog early this morning, many have insisted that it is and even objected to taking note of the story. Yet it raises an interesting question of the relativity of crime. ABC News reported the story as a “shopping spree” as opposed to theft.
Police were called before the system came back on line because people were fighting to get their hands on any item.
One woman was detained because she rang up a bill of $700.00 and only had .49 on her card when the system came back. However, she was released when Walmart decided not to prosecute. Walmart said it did not want to prosecute anyone.
What is left is another breakdown of basic notions of honesty and responsibility. It is particularly disturbing to hear of children being enlisted to strip the shelves and then fleeing with their parents when the system came back online. I do feel there is the mitigating circumstance due to the fact that these are poor individuals and the level of support is low. I am less troubled by such scenes as I am more affluent forms of theft like banking fraud and government perjury that goes unpunished. However, this still constitutes a form of theft.
What is interesting about the single woman being detained is that she committed theft. Those in line had not committed any crime if they abandoned their carts before using their cards. She was not prosecuted. Many others succeeded in the effort to circumvent limits.
There is also the question of liability. Xerox is being blamed for the glitch in 14 states. Yet, Walmart made the decision to honor cards without limits. That would seem a superseding intervening act.
We have had a number of people say that such actions are justified due to the poverty of the individuals. What do you think?
Source: KSLA
RTC, We simply and fundamentally disagree.
There are people in society, through no fault of their own, who are incapable of providing for themselves and their families, if they have one. They should not have to be in a position of prostituting themselves or selling their children. Neither should they be left to starve. Bob Dole’s family received welfare during the dust Bowl..He will quite candidly tell you that if it weren’t for that assistance, his family would have perished. The food stamp program takes up something like one tenth of one percent of the federal budget. Yet, ironically, it’s more closely supervised than the Wall St. and the banks.
Food stamps probably reduce crime. I don’t have statistics to back that up, but the Freakonomics boys probably do. Of all those people grabbing as much food as they could, a quarter of them would likely be knocking someone over the head for their wallet if they weren’t collecting food stamps.
I don’t know if you’re one of them, but some folks think that food stamps encourages laziness. They use the same argument against Obamacare. There have always been people in society who won’t work, no matter what. It probably costs society more to deal with the problems of starvation, homelessness, and disease, in strict economic terms, than it does to feed them the surplus food produced by our bountiful agribusinesses.
Then there are those who simply aren’t suited for participation in society. I don’t know about you, but I’ve been stuck in traffic behind some people I would gladly shell out tax dollars to keep at home. And off the roads.
The black market is nowhere near as widespread as you imagine. Neither do those on welfare, such as it is, enjoy anything lavish or easy.
Entitlement or desperation? “…the “lower class” of which you speak.” You don’t think there’s not a lower class in this country?
RTC, Government programs, unsupervised, CREATE a black market of criminality. They do in big military contracts and social welfare programs.
Whoops, the confusion’s all mine, Nick. Sorry about that.
RTC, I think this is not about “lower class” it is about the sense of entitlement. The wealthy can have a sense of entitlement as easily as the “lower class” of which you speak.
DavidM,
This is one example of criminal behavior limited in size and locality, not widespread systemic abuse. The benefits of the food stamp program far outweigh the abuses that take place within it. A good, decent Christian, like yourself ought to be able to see that. You need to stop hatin’, dude.
RTC, I am speaking of the people in the SNAP thread who actually believe there is only 1% fraud in a government program. Sorry for the confusion w/ the “other 1%,” mea culpa.
Nick,
Where do you get the notion that anyone is saying that these people are part of the 1%? There is a saying amongst the religious, ‘As above, so below”. These people were taking Wall St. as their example, but they weren’t doing it out of greed, necessarily, they were acting out of desperation.
Events like this tend to get played up big on the Drudge report because it reinforces the views the upperclass has of the lower class as common criminals who turn into animals at the flick of a switch.
David,
There is abuse in almost every corner of the world. But why go after the low-income families? Do you know how poor you have to be in order to obtain food stamps? Have you ever been in the waiting area to sign up for the program? A few years ago, I went to see how ‘easy’it is to obtain food stamps (they call it EBT Cash/Food benefits in Missouri); It is horrible. They make you take a number, wait in line (sitting in chairs) for hours, if you don’t get there early, amongst people who (and I hate to say this) are at the very bottom in our society. Children crying and screaming. A few people smelled like they haven’t had a bath in days. The whole scene depressed me.
If they want to abuse $250-$800 a month, while living off of $8.25 an hour, whille trying to take care of a family of 4 or 6, then let them have it.
If we are not going to go after the ones who are destroying our economy (Wall Street, Congress, President, Supreme Court via their decisions of supporting the other two branches of government, etc. ), then it is fair game to let the poor continue to ‘abuse’ (or stay in their poor/low-income status) the system.
According to the “elevated” thinkers here, EVERYONE in this is part of the “1%.” It must have been a 1% Convention.
If it was any other store or company, then I would have sympathy. Not Walmart. Over the past 10-15 years Walmart has enjoyed not only tremendous growth, with revenue of over half a trillion, but also paying their employees low wages and miserable benefits while their owners and major shareholders rake in billions.
I think it was Elaine, Bettykath, or SWM who found the article that the 9 members of Walton/Walmart Family have more wealth than 147 million people in this country?
Thank you, Cade DeBois.
Funny stuff, sadly. These same food crooks have seen the bankster crowd rob the country of trillions$ by being thieves. Bank and financial co. CEOs are rewarded handsomely by Boards for committing fraud and lying. Corporations are given huge subsidies and powerful allies in Congress for shipping jobs overseas. What do you expect. People have been shafted by the Trickle Down, Reagan Revolution for the past 30 years (by both parties, but especially the GOP) and have become numb to the abuse and they take advantage of these ‘golden’ opportunities.
While these food muggers may have been dishonest, they in no way have been as dishonest as the government that runs these programs and the corporations that earn huge profits from these programs. Walmart loves being able to cash SNAP, since it’s government guaranteed cash that allows them to also pay workers low wages so their employees have to use SNAP.
The poor aren’t to blame for America’s dwindling honesty problem. It starts at the top and when the little people see that stealing is rewarded, they are bound to follow the lead.
Lloyd Blankfein and Vikram Pandit pushed their shopping carts through the Federal Reserve and Treasury filling them with billions$ in taxpayer dollars and those money and ‘get out of jail free’ cards are still being used..
Jamie Dimon wrote: “The poor aren’t to blame for America’s dwindling honesty problem. It starts at the top and when the little people see that stealing is rewarded, they are bound to follow the lead.”
You make a good point, that people learn dishonesty from those who lead them in society. But if a poor person is dishonest, we should hold them in the same contempt as we do a rich person. Dishonesty is wrong whether you are rich or whether you are poor. Being poor is not an excuse to be dishonest.
The causes of poverty are multifaceted, but one leading cause is dishonesty. Giving food to the poor is one way to help, and correcting a moral defect like dishonesty is another way. They get fired from jobs for dishonesty. They cannot develop a good work ethic when they are dishonest. Their relationships with their boyfriends or girlfriends, or with their spouses and children are destroyed by dishonesty. Dishonesty breeds poverty.
So when the poor are honest, they are to be praised, and when they exhibit dishonesty, they are to be blamed, shamed, and held in contempt by society. Telling them that it is not their fault that they had to steal is among the worst things we can do.
if they pay taxes, good on them to get some of it back. Its not theft when its your money being used to pay the bill.
Wow, contempt for the poor much? Do you have any idea how savagely this country treats the poor? There’s your latent criminality. It’s not like they were trying to steal flatscreens and Xboxes. They were trying to get food, in a time when food insecurity is extremely high, food prices rising and, hey look, our government is shut down! I personally don’t qualify for food stamps here in Texas–I’m just not quite poor enough–but I have less than $200 for the rest of this month to feed my elderly mom (who has to be a special diet), my disabled brother and myself (also disabled, working irregular part-time, low wage job as a sub teacher, because that’s all a degreed, middle-aged disabled woman around here can get). Trips to the grocery store are a nightmare. I don’t know if I would have done what those people did, but I understand why. People need to eat. It’s a basic neccesary for, you know, being alive. When you don’t have enough food, it causes stress and anxiety–stress and anxiety that can lead to you making choices you wouldn’t in better circumstances. In other words: it’s easy to be “moral” when your belly’s full and your fridge and pantry aren’t bare. It’s also apprently easier to sneer at desperate people when you haven’t a clue what it’s like to live with food insecurity in a country that has nothing but contempt for those who do.
Don’t worry. There is very little fraud with food stamps. Everybody knows this to be true because our government tells us so.
Those food stamp recipients have it so good to begin with, Professor? That when their huge government that hands out cash by the billions elsewhere forgets to lock the food safe they should have the good manners to stay home for and enjoy their $1.68 dinner. Why the nerve.
Did a football game breakout too?