Americans hate poor people.

[AZ Progressive]

69. You can't talk about America's hatred of the poor without talking about its protestant work ethic

http://www.nytimes.com/2012/08/05/opinion/sunday/are-americans-still-puritan.html?_r=0

"Not all of the legacy of Puritanism suggests moral uprightness. Studies since the ’70s have also found that Americans who score high on a Protestant Ethic Scale (emphasizing self-reliance and self-discipline) or similar metric show marked prejudice against racial minorities and the poor; hostility toward social welfare efforts; and, among obese women, self-denigration.

"Why the persistence of Puritanism in American life? “New England exercised a disproportionate influence on American ideals,” the historian John Coffey says, “thanks to a powerful intellectual tradition disseminated through its universities, its dynamic print culture and the writings of its famous clergy.” He also notes the power of Evangelicalism as a carrier of Puritan values and America’s resistance, compared with other largely Protestant nations, to secularization."




Max Weber argued a century ago that America's success was due to its protestantism, that the protestant work ethic (first brought by the Puritans) is why America became great. In particular, this work ethic first started with Calvinism and predestination, that everyone was already chosen by God whether they will have salvation or damnation, and one would be able to see if they were chosen for salvation by their levels of prosperity. Thus everyone had an incentive to prove that they have salvation by working hard and being prosperous. If someone is poor and in need, they were damned and that was God's will. In short, it's part of America's culture to reward prosperity and denigrate the poor. It wasn't always like this, as the Democratic Party has fought this through history, but it seems like it has roots in America, and primarily when the Republicans and other assholes of this country get power and promote their worldviews.