A Lesson to be Learned

Anonymous retorted in the third comment: "Your comments about putting down a person who is taking time to assist a local food shelter show how out of touch Republicans have become."

In reality, Freedomwriter’s clever little story shows exactly the opposite. But you missed it.

As a Republican, Freedomwriter is very much in touch with human need and the need for generosity. But you judged and condemned the writer precisely because the writer is a Republican and you built yourself up as if you feed the hungry. In other words, as a Democrat, you politicized the hungry poor. That’s your first mistake.

Your second one is that you missed Freedomwriter’s statement: "Hunger and human need is a bigger load than what the little red wagon will carry. Big problems need big solutions." If you contemplate that, you will know the writer is not diminishing hunger, but you are too busy politicizing hunger to notice that.

Your third mistake is your failure to understand the meaning of the sentence: "Wagon was last seen being tugged along in public parades by State Representative Kalin. . ." In other words, Freedomwriter identified your problem and you could not even recognize it. There are some key words in that sentence—parade, public, Representative. These words indicate Freedomwriter was mocking the politicizing of the hungry by a politician.

Why does a candidate for public office walk a parade route? It is to become known and gain votes. There is nothing wrong with that.

Now put a red wagon in the hand of the candidate. There is nothing wrong with the red wagon, but it is serving some function in the parade. It is a prop to accomplish a certain goal.

Now write a letter to the editor (as Kalin did) that the red wagon will be used to collect food for the hungry poor and that candidate has implicitly politicized hunger. At the parade, the absent, but implied hungry poor, are used as props to imply the candidate’s compassion toward them.

Then make sure that letter states those hungry props are children (see Freedomwriter’s ". . . he alleges children in his legislative district still have to take turns on who will eat supper tonight") so one tugs hard on the heartstrings of the caring.

All these props, along with the LTE, point to the savior of the hungry (see Freedomwriter’s ". . . unless he comes to their rescue.") All these props are designed to get votes for the candidate. In other words, the candidate, Kalin, politicized the misfortune of some to pander for votes. And he did it in front of God and everybody!

Freedomwriter rightly mocked the public pandering for votes by using the hungry as props just like a politician uses an event as a photo op. Politicians do not respect the hungry in their need; the hungry are used for the politician’s own political end. Kalin put politics before people, or more precisely in this case, people served his politics.

We Republicans believe in quietly feeding the hungry through any number of means. The hungry do not exist for our political gain. We also know we can end up being the hungry ones. And if that happens, we Republicans pray for true compassion, rather than being used as props by Democrat politicians and their crowd.