re: Is Childhood Hunger in America Really A Problem?

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You're punishing the kids.

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You still aren't understanding what I'm saying.

To punish has a very specific meaning. The responsibility to feed a child is solely on the parents. When that child is not fed sufficiently, the parents are to blame. Not me, not you, not the school system.

Don't come to me and say "if you don't agree to pay more taxes you're punishing the children!" bullshite. I am not responsible for what a parent does or does not do to their child. And I'm going to tune you out for spewing emotional drivel.

However if you come to me and say "the right and moral thing to do is to pay additional taxes to make sure children who have shitty parents are fed", while I may disagree, I'll at least consider your argument.

And I'm not the only one that will have the same reaction.

The only thing I'm trying to do is to help you frame your argument without the appeal to emotion. That type of shite immediately puts me off.

No, when you insist that not feeding children at school is punishing them, you are putting the blame on the schools and taxpayers.

Again, I am not responsible for the action or inaction of shitty parents. And when you insinuate I am by saying I'm punishing their children, I'm going to ignore your argument.

The two statements you made in your previous post may have different tone and different words but they literally translate to the same action. I’m not responsible for you being put off by one choice of tone

Private and public sources can only do so much though.

It's not penalizing the kid if all can be done is done or offered and the parents still frick it all away.

Commercials about hunger is drama to pull at your heart strings. That's all.

Because in reality kids are like cats. Once they find someone that feeds em be it a relative, the old nice couple down the street, or a friend's mom or dad, they'll be around all the time. And that's ok because the kid is getting help.

So at what point do we draw the line of responsibility when a parent fricks away everything for their kid? How is this campaign helping with dramatized portrayals instead of what's really happening, the occasional pill popper fricking up or the food deserts created by shitty culture?

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Maybe the word punish led you to believe I meant something I wasn’t at all saying?

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You may believe you weren't saying it, but you were. Not to be an arse, but words have specific meanings. And when you use the wrong ones, it kills your message.

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I just meant kids are affected. Not that WE the taxpayers are hurting them.

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You may have meant it, but by using the specific word "punish" it completely changed the meaning of what you were saying.

When you say "we're punishing children if we don't feed them" you are saying I, as a taxpayer, am hurting the children. You are ascribing to me an action that I am in no way performing. You may not have meant it that way, but by using that specific word, that became the meaning.

You're correct, it is a semantics issue. But in this case using a specific word went from you making an argument for action as the right thing to do, to making an argument that if I don't take I action, I am the one harming (punishing) the children.

I don’t know where my next meal is coming from either. I may cook, it may be Popeyes. Who knows?

Ok, kids “ARE BEING” punished. Punish still works. I can use it in passive tense. Just that we aren’t the ones directly doing it. Their parents are.

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Pancake mix

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Off topic but this is the most random grocery staple I’ve ever seen Couldnt you use the bread for toast and buy something else?

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Ok, kids ARE punished.

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Correct. By their parents. Not you or I.

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Punish still works. I can use it in passive tense.

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No, it doesn't. To "punish" is a verb. It ascribes an action to an individual or group. In the case of how you are using it, to the taxpayer.

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However, if we refuse to feed them in schools, they are being punished indirectly.

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No, they're not. The only punishment involved is from the parents. Period.

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So at what point do we draw the line of responsibility when a parent fricks away everything for their kid? How is this campaign helping with dramatized portrayals instead of what's really happening, the occasional pill popper fricking up or the food deserts created by shitty culture?

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Not to derail the conversation, but I think the understanding of what feedingamerica.org does might be a little off.

I just poked around their site and in addition to being an advocate for government food assistance programs, they also support food recovery initiatives to reduce waste, education about nutritional food choices and getting those options to poor communities and insuring food safety.

They take donations but they also ask for support with policy advocacy and volunteer work.

Just wanted to point that out because it seems like lots of people here think that they just want to get their hand in your pocket and blame you for hungry children. I don’t think that’s the case.