A Willingness to Descend

The news is full of behaviors to make one despondent, to be sure. For the most part, I try to let examples pass by so as not to become overwhelmed with despair; I am well aware that news outlets tend to play upon those emotions for ratings. But there has been one episode unfolding out of the Twin Cities that has caught my attention in a way that most misconduct has not. It might be the scope of the allegations, or maybe it’s the fact that the reports keep expanding the degree of involvement by so many people. Whatever the cause, it has set me to wondering about where people find their motivations for egregious behaviors.

The director of the Feeding Our Future nonprofit and (now 60) other people were charged last September in what federal prosecutors say was a “massive scheme” to defraud the government of more than $250 million meant to feed needy children during the pandemic. U.S. Attorney Andrew Luger observed, “These defendants engaged in a brazen scheme of staggering proportions. Their goal was to make as much money for themselves as they could while falsely claiming to feed children during the pandemic.” In fairness, the allegations against most of these scheme participants have not been tried in a court of law. Also out of fairness, it’s important to note that at least six of those charged have admitted to the scheme and pled guilty There is no question about whether malfeasance occurred at the expense of little people.

Stealing food from kids. The notion of such an act is so indecent that it almost sounds fabricated. After all, these were not adults who were facing their own destitution and took food for their own survival. (Not that such a scenario would make their actions any more acceptable; taking candy from a baby is reprehensible under any circumstances.) No, these folks methodically and carefully planned their way to a completely unjust enrichment at the expense of children. Instead of food, the stolen funds bought, among other luxuries, high-end Tesla and Infiniti cars, an aircraft, and scores of luxury properties. Of course, much of the scam resulted in pocketed cash. How can a sleazy idea like this ever gain traction in the first place, let alone become acceptable in the minds of 60 people?

In every scheme to circumvent the law or any good thing, there exists the idea of getting something for nothing, to be rewarded without working, to become enriched without earning. Human creatures are perhaps hard-wired for survival, but that possibility doesn’t play well in court. We are free-will beings and unless someone has held a gun to our heads, we are accountable for our choices. We love it when we find a $20 bill on the sidewalk with no identifiable owner in sight. But that is not at all like what these people have done. They simply felt that they deserved gain at the expense of kids, and society in general.

Second, the corrupt actors may have felt that such deceit was somehow less immoral since the fraud was leveraged against the Federal government. After all, there were billions of dollars in relief being made available during the pandemic and surely officials suspected that at least some of that funding would be siphoned off, right? The news was already full of reports about scams against pandemic relief. But safety in numbers is a non-existent defense; the notion of “well, he did it too,” doesn’t even work in playground altercations among kids. Akin to this misnomer is the mistaken notion that it’s easier to hide among a group of felons than on one’s own. If there is belief in this nonsense, it must be ironic to discover that the smell of transgression is amplified by the number of miscreants.

Third, for many there is a false sense of security in the belief that they will not be found out. They are wrong from the outset. From the moment each jackass decided to forfeit honesty for money, he/she was found out. The self knows what the self can’t hide, and the burden of guilt, for most, foments a sickness in the soul. It may not always be recognized as such, but an act such as stealing food from kids creates a toxic response physiologically that eats away at a person’s well-being. Of course, there’s also the great likelihood that eventually the law catches up with conductors of atrocious acts; the law works extra hard on behalf of hungry children and needful parents.

I suppose that I have satisfied myself on the question of how anyone could undertake an act such as this one. I have some of the intellectual reasons in hand, as expressed above. What I have yet to understand is the absence of the heart, that most elemental of qualities which makes us human, and worthy of the name….

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