Republicans Think People Aren't Entitled to Food

[Content Note: Food insecurity; dehumanization.]

Via Tara Culp-Ressler, here is the latest reprehensible entry in our neverending Republicans Think People Aren't Entitled to Food series, care of the Oklahoma Republican Party:

The Food Stamp Program, administered by the U.S. Department of Agriculture, is proud to be distributing this year the greatest amount of free Meals and Food Stamps ever, to 46 million people.

Meanwhile, the National Park Service, administered by the U.S. Department of the Interior, asks us "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."

Thus ends today's lesson in irony #OKGOP

The "Don't Feed the Animals" comparison is an old canard that's been going around conservative circles for years. Anyone among us who's got a conservative relative that compulsively forwards Republican email favorites, or posts the meme-ified versions on social media, will have seen this one at least once.

(Honestly, I'm not even sure if that Department of the Interior rationale for not feeding animals is even accurate, or if it's just apocryphal, invented by whatever asshole conceived this meme in the first place. I also seem to recall hearing, once upon a time, that some safety signs about feeding animals centered animals' self-sufficiency because people feeding animals like bears at the risk of their own deaths wouldn't stop to protect themselves but would if they thought it would protect the animals. But I digress.)

The post has since been taken down, and the Oklahoma Republican Party has non-apologized thus: "Last night, there was a post on our OKGOP Facebook page, and it was misinterpreted by many. I offer my apologies for those who were offended–that was not my intention. This post was supposed to be an analogy that compared two situations illustrating the cycle of government dependency in America, not humans as animals. However I do think that it's important to have conversations about government welfare programs since our dependency on government is at its highest level ever. Quoting President Reagan, 'We should measure welfare's success by how many people leave welfare, not by how many are added.'"

There's more, but you get the gist.

The number of people who use the social safety net that is meant to be available to all USians when we need it is not a measure of welfare's success. It's a measure of the success of economic and social policies, and whether they are functioning in a way that stands to create access to secure jobs with livable wages for as many USians as possible.

One of many, many things about which President Ronald Reagan was profoundly wrong.

In any case, I'm eminently willing to "have conversations about government welfare programs" with Republicans, in which people in need aren't dehumanized as animals. Let's start with this: Republican governance increases dependency on welfare programs. Go!