Why are Republicans so cruel to the poor?

[cawacko]

What, if anything, should the Fed have done to fight the economic recession?

They can keep rates low for a period of time but they did for an excessively long period which has put us back in bubble territory. And as a result savers get f'd. So for those who back the Fed and claim we had to do it can't really say others are hurting those on fixed incomes because they know their policies hurt those people.

[FUCK THE POLICE]

They want to watch Americans die, that's their only goal in life.

[Cypress]

That's right wacky dude, a person belonging to the political ideology responsible for Medicaid, food stamps, Medicare, unemployment insurance, Pell Grants, and Obamacare needs to explain why they are so cruel to poor people and seniors.

[cawacko]

That's right wacky dude, a person belonging to the political ideology responsible for Medicaid, food stamps, Medicare, unemployment insurance, Pell Grants, and Obamacare needs to explain why they are so cruel to poor people and seniors.

Judgement of who "cares more" about the poor isn't just the person who says I think the gov't should give them a bunch of things. Setting up systems that create marginal taxes rates of over 100% isn't compassionate. incentivizing people to stay in their current situation is not empathy.

So someone saying they "care" because they vote Democratic is a load of crap.

[cawacko]

And Cypress look how "compassionate" we are in California to poor people as we have the highest poverty rate in the country. We refuse to build housing and large numbers of poor people are leaving the state. I've posted the Sac Bee article on it a couple of times. So rich liberals here claim to care so much yet this is what they do

[cawacko]

And Cypress you weren't posting here at the time but we can go look at past threads and see if you can find one liberal complaing about the Feds easy money policy hurting the poor and those on fixed incomes. We'd think at least one compassionate caring person would point it out wouldn't we?

[Cypress]

I know virtually nothing about Fed policy and don't pretend to. I also do not think I am going to come to an obscure political message forum for scholarly opinion about fed policy, so I am afraid I can't accept the premise of any assertions without documentation to verifiable, legitimate, nonpartisan opinion from learned experts.

I also see no need to accept any assertions by republicans that liberals are cruel and uncaring towards the poor. If there's one thing a century of liberal, progressive policy has left has traces of on the broad arc of human history, it is - on balance - some level of interest and effective efforts in balancing the playing field for the poor, labor, and seniors.

Cons cannot claim that.

Conservatives have their own strengths, which I am willing to admit. The seem to have great respect for tradition, authority, and hierarchy. That's fine. And they appear to love torturing prisoners, cowboy diplomacy, and invading countries that don't threaten us.

Here's a great quote from FDR, and articulates my view on the inclination of some message boarders to draw false equivalency between diametrically opposed ideologies and philosophies.

"The immortal Dante tells us that Divine justice weighs the sins of the cold-blooded and the sins of the warm-hearted on different scales." -- FDR, 1936

[PostmodernProphet]

If there's one thing a century of liberal, progressive policy has left has traces of on the broad arc of human history, it is - on balance - some level of interest and effective efforts in balancing the playing field for the poor, labor, and seniors.

you have been succeeding at this for a hundred years and there are still just as many poor people, if not more.......some folks would have tried something new by now.......

[cawacko]

I know virtually nothing about Fed policy and don't pretend to. I also do not think I am going to come to an obscure political message forum for scholarly opinion about fed policy, so I am afraid I can't accept the premise of any assertions without documentation to verifiable, legitimate, nonpartisan opinion from learned experts.

I also see no need to accept any assertions by republicans that liberals are cruel and uncaring towards the poor. If there's one thing a century of liberal, progressive policy has left has traces of on the broad arc of human history, it is - on balance - some level of interest and effective efforts in balancing the playing field for the poor, labor, and seniors.

Cons cannot claim that.

Conservatives have their own strengths, which I am willing to admit. The seem to have great respect for tradition, authority, and hierarchy. That's fine. And they appear to love torturing prisoners, cowboy diplomacy, and invading countries that don't threaten us.

Here's a great quote from FDR, and articulates my view on the inclination of some message boarders to draw false equivalency between diametrically opposed ideologies and philosophies.

I in ZERO way even begin to pretend what I'm offering is scholarly Fed policy, nor is anything I say on here scholarly. But if it's an appeal to authority then I graduated from a top 25 University in this country studying finance and have an old man with a PhD in finance who earned tenure as a University professor and has put out scholarly work so I'm not just speaking from my ass. It's basic economics that low rates hurt savers. It also makes people chase yield (higher returns) which is how bubbles get started (look where we are now).

For my quote I'll offer the adage "give a man a fish you feed him for the day, teach a man to fish you feed him for a lifetime". If we're being ideologues here your ideology supports the first and mine the latter.

[iolo]

Why are Republicans so cruel to the poor?

What's the point of wasting away your life getting rich if you can't spite somebody?

[cawacko]

Bumping for fun

[Bill]

Why are Republicans so cruel to the poor? Paul Ryan’s profound hypocrisy stands for a deeper problem

Paul Ryan has dreamed of slashing Medicaid since his keg-party days — and that blithe hostility is widespread

Republican Paul Ryan, like most other members of the United States Congress, is a millionaire.


Christa Patton is 68 years old. She is frail and no longer able to leave her home. She lives on a fixed income. that she would not be able to eat without the Meals on Wheels program.

Paul Ryan is the speaker of the United States House of Representatives. By his own account, in college he used to hang out with his friends and drink beer while sharing his dreams of cutting Medicaid. When Ryan was 15 years old, his father died from a heart attack caused by alcoholism.

Ryan and his family then received his father’s Social Security survivor’s benefits. Ryan used that money to attend college. This was not the only money that Paul Ryan received from federal government. His family built its wealth from receiving government contracts.

Like his idol Ayn Rand (who argued against the very idea of government and the commons yet received social security and Medicare). Paul Ryan has combined meanness, cruelty and callousness towards the weak and the vulnerable with gross and unapologetic hypocrisy.

Republicans like Ryan — along with the millionaires and billionaires who comprise Donald Trump’s Cabinet and inner circle — literally want to take food, shelter and health care away from poor people like Christa Patton. Today’s Republicans view these Americans as useless eaters to be disposed of by means both passive and active.

It is normal to feel aghast at and disgusted by the Republican Party’s war on the poor. The more challenging and perhaps even more disturbing task is to ask why today’s conservatives feel such antipathy, disregard and hostility towards poor and other vulnerable Americans. Certainly greed and a slavish devotion to a revanchist right-wing ideology are part of the answer. But they may not be sufficient.

Conservatives are more likely to exhibit social dominance and bullying behavior. This is a function of their authoritarian tendencies. The election of Donald Trump exemplifies this phenomenon.

American political elites often use language that robs poor and other marginalized people of their individuality, humanity and dignity. This language also creates a type of social distance between “middle class” or “normal” Americans and the economically disadvantaged.
Conservatism is a type of motivated social cognition that by its very nature is hostile to those groups located on the lower rungs of the social hierarchy.

Conservatives are more likely than liberals or progressives to believe in what is known as the “just world fallacy,” where people who suffer misfortune are viewed as somehow deserving their fates. Conservatives are also more likely than liberals or progressives not to use systems-level thinking as a means of understanding that individuals do not exist separate and apart from society. Conservatives are also more likely to defend social inequality as “fair and legitimate.”
Social psychologists have shown that, in effect, poor people are invisible to the rich and upper classes.

The psychological dynamic known as the “diffusion of responsibility,” in which individuals tend to ignore people who are in crisis — especially if they are perceived to be a member of a different social group, race, ethnicity or class — also encourages a lack of empathy and concern. It undercuts policies meant to offer direct assistance to vulnerable and marginalized individuals and communities. A perverse corollary to the “diffusion of responsibility” can also be used to legitimate punitive policies that target specific individuals and groups.

The myth of meritocracy and its cousin the myth of individualism exert a powerful hold over many Americans. This is especially true among conservatives. Social scientists and others have repeatedly demonstrated that American society is not a true meritocracy. Other research has shown that intergenerational income and class mobility are also relatively uncommon in the United States.

Likewise, the concept of the self-made person whose success is a function of “rugged individualism” is also a fantasy better suited to its dime-store origins than as a serious way of understanding American society. Nevertheless, these cultural mythologies do the practical political and social work of legitimizing the Republican war on the poor.

By Chauncey DeVega

The sad thing, in a kinda funny way, is the poor uneducated bums that cheered for him will/would be losing their care/bennies etc......

They will have jobs now, replacing the undocumented in the fields, in the restaurants, in roofing etc etc etc..........

[Ass Man]

The sad thing, in a kinda funny way, is the poor uneducated bums that cheered for him will/would be losing their care/bennies etc......

They will have jobs now, replacing the undocumented in the fields, in the restaurants, in roofing etc etc etc..........

That hilarious bill considering 70 percent of the left base is the poor, that is why democrats keep them poor

[PostmodernProphet]

The sad thing, in a kinda funny way, is the poor uneducated bums that cheered for him will/would be losing their care/bennies etc......

They will have jobs now, replacing the undocumented in the fields, in the restaurants, in roofing etc etc etc..........

you seem to imply that having a job is a bad thing.......

[Rune]

i dont even think trump is cutting meals on wheels it looks like thats a state initiative.

Citation required.