Food Deserts, Liberalism, and Vicious Cycles

   By Donna Cole


 The New York Times' has this "Opinionater" piece, "Conquering food deserts with green carts" by David Bornstein. In this, Bornstein discusses "food deserts", one of our First Lady's pet projects, this idea that low income folks, mainly inner city minorities, do not have access to healthy food. So, they eat junk food and get fat. This is typical liberal thought, the person is not responsible for their actions, so their actions must have been caused by something else. Of course, then the government must find some way to "fix" this something else.



 Bornstein goes on to describe a program set up in New York City, to sell licences to folks so they can sell healthy "green" food from push carts in low income neighborhoods. He thinks these type programs should be expanded around the nation. Let's leave aside whether this program works or not, which Bornstein claims it does. I think the jury is still out on that, and I predict a hung jury on it. But, I defer to Bornstein on this for now, at least in sense of it may not be a bad thing. As long as it is not costing the taxpayers anything, and it does give low income people a chance to start a small business.



 WonkBlog has the following post, "Do food deserts matter ? Do they even exist ?".  They cite a report on two studies that make two main points. First, food deserts are a myth, meaning they are not real. Low income people have plenty of access to healthy food. The second point is that grocery stores can sell healthy food and junk food, but it is the person's responsibility of which to buy. If the person chooses to buy junk food, they probably will get fat.



 Looking from the liberal point of view, you can see where this is going. The food desert thing is a red herring, but this how liberals do things. It is part of building a foundation for future programs, and taxes to fund those programs. Create the myth of a problem and get it into the public's mind that it is real. In the future, this public will be more accepting of further change. Ahem ! Global warming.



 Which leads us to Obamacare, and more liberal social control. If Obamacare comes to be, and it will be far too costly, they will look for a bogeyman. That will be fat people overburdening the system, opening the door for a fat tax, a tax on junk food. Thus making these foods more expensive and forcing people to buy the cheaper healthy foods.



 Liberals always love to claim that taxes do not influence human behavior. Such as higher corporate tax rates do not drive those companies off shore or raising taxes on the rich will not change how they spend or invest their money. We know both of these liberal ideas are untrue.



 They know it too, the difference being, liberals don't care. They just want the money to spend on all their hare brained programs that are all designed in the end to limit people's freedom and control them. This is at the core of liberalism, control. Micromanaging folks lives because they think they know better than you how you should live your life, and liberals need more and more of your money to accomplish this.



 The whole idea of this control stems from another core liberal belief, people are not responsible for their actions. This can be demonstrated by abortion, lenient liberal judges, government dependency, affirmative action, and now fat people. An example of when liberals do hold people responsible is global warming, but this too has nothing to do with actually fixing a real problem. It is also about control and the justification for more taxes.



 So, liberals claim taxes do not influence human behavior, until they need to claim it does in order to justify a tax. This is typical liberal hypocrisy. In reality, they don't care if people change their eating habits because of a fat tax, just like they don't care if people quit smoking due to cigarette taxes, if some do, great, but they really just want the money.



 I would note, Bornstein published his piece on these "green carts" before the report that the food deserts are myth came out. He has added an update addressing this where he basically blows off these studies, and says he is using Department of Agriculture numbers which claim over 8% of Americans live in food deserts. Bornstein does say upon reviewing these other studies more in depth he will address them. Knowing his bias on this subject, I think it's fair to say we have a good idea of what his results will be.



 Speaking for myself, I dismiss these Department of Agriculture numbers when I look at the source. That would be President Obama's Department of Agriculture, who is actively promoting the idea of food deserts and what should be done about them. As I previously stated, this is classic liberalism. Create a mythical problem, and then "fix" it with some costly new government program.



 Now, forget about fat folks and food deserts. Stand back and look at all these liberal ideas and policies as a whole. They all end up in the same place, the individual loses Liberty, and more of that person's money ends up in the hand's of a liberal government. This government will in turn spend this money as a way to further limit that individual's Liberty.



 As you can see, it becomes a vicious cycle. Check that, it already is a vicious cycle.