Piracy, Larceny, and Insecurity

Even the most seemingly innocent language updates can have far-reaching tentacles. And it’s nothing new or surprising that we can be manipulated into using words incorrectly, saying things we don’t mean, or simply do not know the meaning of the things we puke. I’m not cracking the DaVinci Code here. A lot of language manipulation has just made it into the ‘murican lexicon and remains there, unquestioned. A lot of it is harmless and some of it even entertaining. Vo doh dee oh doh. Cool. Groovy. Asshat. Stuff like that.

But there has been a distinct sanitizing of longstanding terms and deliberate omissions that, on the surface, seem designed to be cute or clever or even de-stigmatize some situation or other. But in practice, the new words are so clean, so generic, that they’re self-defeating.

With the around-the-clock ubiquity of Amazon and UPS and FedEx and DoorDash, the more industrious opportunists among us have taken to viewing the nation’s doorsteps and stoops adorned with boxed deliveries as retail buffets. See a package, pick it up. In a sane world, we would call that what it is. Illegal. Theft. Larceny. You know…CRIME. But the idiotically creative among us have decided that it would be clever to apply some alliterative verbal antiseptic and re-name the thieving dirtbags porch pirates.

I'm willing to bet that a lot of these thefts are inside jobs; a driver recognizes the latest iPhone packaging and tells an accomplice where and when it was delivered — with photographic evidence and abdication — to set up a swift swoop before the homeowner gets home. Add a conspiracy charge.

Porch Pirates. Ain’t that great? Rolls right off the tongue. Conjures up images of fantastic voyages on the high seas; heroic adventures. The dimwit newreader reads the Prompter and even cracks a little smile as he does. If he were an emoji, he’d be just shrugging his shoulders at the adorable sounding monicker. It sounds like a game. Porch pirates aren’t scumbag dirtbag criminals stealing and re-selling high-end electronics at the expense of honest, hard-working homeowners. Nah. They’re just guys and girls in plateless, probably stolen sedans, trolling the ‘burbs, and participating in a modern-day scavenger hunt.

Infuriating.

Thankfully, the practice has given us a lot of hilarious YouTube content of fed-up folks creating bait packages that are left on the porch for the “pirate” and equipped with cameras and exploding packs of glue and glitter. Explain that when you get home. Some are outfit with electric shock. Others are multiple boxes, nested like Russian dolls, all empty, the last one with a simple note telling the thief what to go do with himself.

********************************

Still, the nutless newreaders are not done. Look to the nation’s malls for the newest fun-filled group activity, the smash-and-grab. Let’s report on a violent crime as if it’s a fucking carnival game.

“Six masked youths entered the jeweler’s posing as customers and as one distracted the salesgirl behind the counter, the others took hammers and crowbars to the display cases, making off with an estimated $360,000 in inventory. This is the latest in a string of smash-and-grab incidents at the mall.”

Sounds almost charming.

Consider what is not being said. Nothing about the horror felt by the 19-year-old counter girl who’s working her way honestly through college while her masked contemporaries shatter her sense of safety and security like so many glass display cases. She was also threatened during the violent robbery so talking to the police would not be smart. They made it clear they know where she parked today. Nice 2010 Civic you have.

Nothing is reported about the business losses aside from the merchandise amount. “Besides,” the bleeding hearts will say, “They have insurance, who cares?" They explain that people only smash and grab or shoplift because they have to.” No. They're not desperate and broke like Jean Valjean. These organized, roving bands of scum are making more fencing hot electronics and designer clothes than I ever will writing a stupid blog. A lot more. And it’s a straight line from acceptance of larceny to violent robbery to well-funded mostly peaceful protests that destroy entire city blocks, torch police stations and churches, and cost dozens of lives and thousands of livelihoods. By sanitizing the reporting, we celebrate the criminals and diminish the victims. And we wonder why it doesn't stop.

********************************

Another phenomenon bequeathed unto us by academics trying to de-stigmatize the stigmatic is helping the food-insecure. That dipped-in-Clorox descriptor undermines and undersells the urgency of its meaning. People have no fucking food. People do not have enough to eat. Adults cannot feed their children. Understand? Our neighbors in need are forced to choose between medication or McDonald’s. But hunger and hungry have become the scarlet letter H and must not be uttered.

“Food-insecurity” sanitizes the situation. Are you potentially allergic to an ingredient and feeling nervous about eating lunch? Yeah, a severe shellfish allergy would make me feel quite food-insecure even if I ordered a burger at the clam bar. Pass the EpiPen.

Problem is, in a virtuous search for benign meaning, “food insecurity” is meaningless. Beyond that, it's destructive. If I see someone speaking to camera telling me tens of thousands of my Long Island neighbors are hungry, I am far more likely to contribute, volunteer, or cook and do whatever it takes to help eliminate that hunger than I am to even understand there’s a problem in “food insecurity”.

In 1970s grade school around Thanksgiving, we always held canned food drives. We were implored to ask our parents if we could snag a few pantry items and bring them to school to help feed the hungry — the needy, the poor. Not that we were so much better off, but those words had balls, and we filled those boxes for the hungry to overflowing.

With the advent of “food insecurity,” sure, you remove the supposed stigma of hunger. If your goal is to remove the stigma, mission accomplished. Gold star. If you goal, however, is to end the existence of hunger, a bigger, badder issue remains along with the hunger: The people and their policies that perpetuate the problem. See, the folks who suffer the most under the folks who legislate the worst, they need those representatives — Democrat, Republican, Independent — to remain in place. I can’t say I blame the recipients. If you’re hungry and living on Long Island — one of the most expensive 'burbs in the nation — you do what you have to do. Even if that means keeping people in positions of power and influence who have proven themselves powerless to influence anything. Rinse and repeat.

Maybe the nitwit social scientists and media who so benevolently de-stigmatized the hungry and the needy by calling them food-insecure should look outward. Maybe look to their benefactors in state houses, county seats, and village halls who write checks and walk off. Maybe ask hard questions about what's driving the generational hunger problem. Maybe work to out and oust the representatives under whose lack of leadership we’ve seen “food insecurity” exponentially grow along with costs. Sure, take the check and deposit it and keep working. Keep the warehouses stocked up and the trucks rolling out. But what are we really doing to really address hunger?