Blue Bay store owners are stealing from the starving and poor by only giving them half the value of what food stamps are worth. One wonders either how desperate or low these store owners have to be to do such things. “You can judge a society by how they treat their weak,” the philosopher, Voltaire famously quipped, and it seems that in the county of Blue Bay this is exactly what they are doing.

“Customer care” seems to be ignored when the poor and vulnerable are taken advantage of. The Liberal state of Massachusetts is one of the very few states that don’t penalize people for selling food stamps. Because local authorities don’t persecute food stamp traffickers, state officials don’t know how prevalent this theft and exploitation is.

Because there is no penalty for store owners not giving the full value of food stamps, they can steal and nothing with happen to them (well, legally anyway).

One wonders what people’s thoughts are on this. Is this type of theft bad because theft is always bad and the fact that in this case there is no retribution seems like law makers don’t care? Is not giving the full value of food stamps bad because the people who are being exploited are poor? Would the person reading this be just as fumed at this abhorrence irrespective of whom this happens too or are tears only reserved for the poor?

When reading this article, I couldn’t help thinking of Robin Hood, who I never admired. Stealing is bad, irrespective of how much and who the victim is. Stealing from the rich and giving from the poor doesn’t justify the act of theft. Feeling this way I was always a bit peeved that Robin Hood was viewed as a hero. I understand that stealing from the poor is worse since they have more to lose (ok, well of course not tangibly), but why does the result of charity justify the means of stealing? I would love to hear your responses on this. What do you think about the case and my tangent? Do you find stealing from the rich justified if it goes to the poor? Does the stealing of food stamps bother you and make you angry, while sympathetic to the poor? Would your feelings be the same if an article was written about how real estate owners are taking advantage of millionaires by giving them only half the value of their palatial home while the government sits by and does nothing to prosecute these people?