People Who Don't Care About the Poor, the Ill, the Elderly

[MaryH]

I guess they must be abundant in this country. Must believe in the old "it's their bed, they made it, they can lie in it" thing. Or "I worked hard for my money. I deserve it."

It always catches me off guard when I hear this argument.

So now we have lowered the taxes for the very wealthy. And in order to take care of that deficit (along with the war) we will cut the federal benefits to the most needy.

Christ must be so proud.

[H2O Man]

1. Jesus hated poor people.

He used to spit on sick people, too. There is not a single quote attributed to Jesus that mentions insurance coverage for poor people. It's the socialists that take up that cry. They forget about how Jesus liked to trip cripples, and play cruel pranks on senile old people.

[bryant69]

2. It is an interesting argument

I talked to my friend about it--about how it's not enough to make the argument that we shouldn't force people to help the poor. They've also got to demonize the poor as lazy and unproductive and deserving of their fate. He commented that some of them do deserve their fate, but also commented that most people who use our welfare programs use them as intended to help get through the tough times.

It's also interesting in the last couple of years how we've seen a larger assault on the working poor--Reagan, as bad as he was, wouldn't have gone this far. But now the working poor are lucky duckies who don't have to pay taxes and swallow up government survices.

Bryant
Check it out --> http://politicalcomment.blogspot.com

[indigobusiness]

3. Who has time for compassion?

Good Americans don't have time for that sort of nonsense. Too busy trying to have everything and be good American consumers.

Values like compassion and charitable spirit are for campaign slogans and sunday sermons. No time to worry with that sort of thing in our mad rush. Charity? Just tell me where to send the check and let me get on with my life, my shopping. There's so much to do.

[sam sarrha]

4. The Nazi's called them "Worthless Eaters".The Bu$hies treat them like that

[selmo7]

5. That attitude is EXACTLY true

and very SADLY so. :-( There is a feeling that those who are poor should further be punished or don't deserve to be taken care of. This same idea I have also heard expressed about those who get pregnant from premarital sex. "They (of course Women!) made a mistake, so now they must "pay" for it." That is, we will FORCE them to bring an unwanted pregnancy to term and further let them suffer since we won't provide them healthcare or financial support. ("Barefoot and pregnant in the kitchen"...moreover out in the streets and isn't this how it is in Mexico? - women with their children begging for scraps in the streets?) They don't seem to understand the concept of blessing and their thinking is rooted in the belief system that people are sinful, bad, and deserve punitive treatement.

George Lakoff in his book "Don't Think Like an Elephant" expounds on the belief system of the "strict punishing father model" that instructs the actions of the conservative right and how progressives can counteract this with expressions of belief system around the nurturing parent model (this all ties in to my mind with core belief systems about an ALL MALE god and the worship of patriarchy, so evidenced by the B*co administration and the rise of corporatism and the overbloated righteously punitive judgemental belief systems. If people truly believed and embraced that the Divine Energy was both male AND female, the whole world would change).

Lakoff excerpts (well worth the read) here:

http://www.apolloalliance.org/docUploads/fullexcerpt%2Epdf

or in html:

http://64.233.161.104/search?q=cache:k2Bh0tmuLcAJ:www.apolloalliance.org/document.cfm%3FdocumentID%3D51+%22George+Lakoff%22+elephant&hl=en

on edit: typo

[BlueEyedSon]

6. It's that whole "Punitive God" thing.

Glad I'm an atheist....

[LibDemAlways]

7. I have a friend whose parents were

very well off. Upon their death she and her brothers inherited big bucks - enough so that they could live comfortably without ever having to work again. To her this is normal, and she simply doesn't "get" that this isn't the case for everybody. When my father-in-law passed away she was all about warning us about "the death tax." It never even occurred to her that my husband's dad left very little and the inheritance tax didn't apply.

I think some wealthy people are simply blind to the situation of others.

It's repukes who are not well off and who vote against their self-interest that I find most disturbing. My mom has a 78 year old sister who struggles to get by on Social Security. Yet she's a wingnut to the core and is constantly condemming "lazy welfare queens" - repuke codespeak for minorities. Rush has her convinced that every needy person (except elderly white people) deserves nothing.

[catmandu57]

8. We are children of a lesser god

we, the poor, and crippled, the elderly. The reptiles have a newer, more powereful god, they are just using the same name until they rewrite the bible, the constitution, and the history books.

[Justitia]

9. Dean summed up Bush perfectly on this....

he said:

"George Bush believes if you are rich, you deserve it, and if you are poor, you deserve it."

I don't think there are many alive anymore who remember what it is like to have the elderly poor living on the streets. And before Soc Sec, the elderly were the vast majority of the poor and homeless (the statistic escapes me, but it was a stunning percentage).

I believe firmly in "a rising tide lifts all boats", so that as individuals live in better circumstances, we ALL collectively live in better circumstances (concrete results via crime, disease, etc).

Besides, I believe that as a supposedly "enlightened" society, we don't allow our citizens to die in the streets for whatever reason.

Here's the funny thing - the people who make the callous stmts about not helping the poor, elderly or ill, tend NOT to be the most wealthy. Paradoxically, it is those who PERCEIVE themselves to be above such circumstances, when in reality they may only be a paycheck or two away from financial disaster.

I think it goes to the meanness of those who want to THINK they are wealthy and secure - one notch above the "have nots". I know wealthy, self-made people, and the majority of them are legitimately concerned with the well being of others and contribute to society (quietly) in a myriad of ways. Go figure.

[MaryH]

10. My parents came out of the depression and they both were

really bad about giving things away - they didn't.

And I think that was their philosophy. You made your bed and now you can sleep in it. It was not a compassionate kind of thinking.

[Justitia]

12. In one way, I understand...

they must have been reluctant to give anything away, as they were afraid they might need "it" later. My grandfather who lived thru the Great Depression within a family of 12 (!) is like this, and you can understand why.

However, you would think they would be more charitable in attitude as surely they must have seen people become destitute through no fault of their own (as my grandfather saw all around him). You think they would have at least sympathy for those caught up in horrible circumstance.

Sometimes there is just no figuring people out, and it is a waste of time to try.

[MaryH]

13. I think a lot of people managed to get over it

but my parents were not the kind who changed much. Their rigidness was a constant through their lives. Maybe I am being too unkind. But they just didn't seem to get the idea of being charitable - other than making donations to the church. Dad always thought that people gave to the church so they could take it on their income tax.

[ckramer]

11. Where has the compassionate conservative gone?

[zanana]

14. They think it's a "choice".

I know some well-off conservatives who rationalize their wealthy state by saying that if you're poor or sick, it's because you made the wrong "choices" in life. Therefore, it's all your fault, and they shouldn't have to give their hard-earned money in taxes to welfare programs.

[cap]

15. we need to stop talking about the "Poor" the "Ill", the Elderly

and start talking about family values and how far along those family values really extend: Nuclear family or Extended Family. We need to talk about what obligations family members owe each other. Are we obligated to spend thousands of dollars a month to support a child, a parent, an in-law, an uncle/aunt, or cousin who isnt making it financially whether through poverty, unemployment, illness or old age? Or are our family values such that if they dont have put it aside for emergencies and their old age that they are to live in pain and degradation. You know, vets are allowed to put animals asleep when they are in too much pain. We cant do that with people. So what are we going to do? Just ignore the needs of our family or do we start to take on a burden that we as individuals are unequipped to handle (don't know about you but I cant fork over thousands of dollars per month to meet a relative's needs). I am emotionally unequipped to handle skimping on my kids education, my own retirement in order to meet the financial needs of a relative and I just cant walk out on these relatives and say "tough" or "gee, I'm really sorry."

If our grandparents were the "Greatest Generation", we certainly are the "Most Selfish Generation". Our grandparents got to be the Greatest Generation because of their compassion for others less fortunate than themselves.

[AirAmFan]

18. Good principle, but economic apartheid makes that argument hard to sell

Wealth and poverty tend to stay in families, because families tend to cluster in economically-segregated communities.

If you grow up in a prosperous suburb and go to excellent public schools, no matter how stupid or lazy you are it's hard for you to fall very far from living in the manner to which your parents accustomed you. Parents, aunts, uncles, teachers, and neighbors are tied into rich networks of people who can GIVE you good jobs whenever you need them. Excellent health insurance and preventative care go along with living a comfortable middle-class or better existence. And it's easy to vote, because your community can afford accurate and plentiful equipment on election day.

But if you grow up in a poor community, not only is it hard to get a good education and well-paid employment, it's EASY to fall prey to rampaging zero-tolerance policing, to be branded a criminal, and to have your life prospects severly limited at a young age. ALMOST HALF of young men in Minneapolis are arrested and booked by the police EVERY YEAR. 20 percent of these young men cannot vote because they are currenty caught up in criminal cases on Election Day. And the rest of the poor community throughout the country has trouble voting because they have little flexibility at work and their cities can only afford a few pieces of used and often broken voting equipment for their precincts.

Unfortunately, the poor and the sick tend not to be "US" but rather "THEM", as long as most voters' consciousnesses are limited by their comfortable middle-class surroundings.

[Bridget Burke]

16. Earthly prosperity proves you are one of the "Elect"

There's a lot of cockeyed Calvinism in the Dominionist/Christian Reconstructionist movement that's driving the Religious Right.

The poor are hated by God, according to these anti-Christians who pretend to follow the teachings of Jesus.

[Feathered Fish]

17. That's the nightmare of capitalism - everyone for themselves

Americans are taught that way of thinking from very early on. The function of this 'philosophy' is to make people work hard so they can reap the great rewards later in life, and those that have little obviously didn't work hard enough. The problem with this is that unless there are policies in place to properly fund social services and health care, people wont have the tools to secure their future, therefore leading them to be bigger burdens on the system.
Whenever I hear people trashing 'tax and spend' liberal ideals, I wonder if they realize that the alternative is 'cut and save', or at least 'cut and spend on things that will never help the YOU out'. I am sure some of them do but don't care, which is troubling.

On edit: This issue has nothing to do with Christ even though the Repubs will never let you believe that. Jerks.