Why are RW'ers so spiteful of people on welfare?

[ck4829]

Have you seen some of them?

"They should be sterilized!"
"Send 'em to the front lines in Iraq!"

That won't solve our nation's problems, but I know something that might...

Any time a person inherits more than $500,000, it should be brought before a court (with a jury and everything) to find out whether or not the person inheriting the money will wisely use the money, after all the money that they are inheriting are usually the fruits of YOUR labor and MY labor. So, I think it's fair to use this so that no Paris Hiltons or whatever will be inheriting huge sums of money or use the money to buy off politicians, or try to launch a coup against America, or get even richer while tearing down Social Justice for the rest of us, etc.

[NewJeffCT]

1. sheer cruelty

It's easier to kick a person when they are down than it is to challenge those in power.

[ourbluenation]

2. Remind them that most people receiving assistance are children. That usually shuts them up.

[AnnInLa]

3. reasons?

1. They honestly believe that it is not the role of government to be involved in Entitlement Programs....that it is the role of churches, private charities and individuals to take care of the disadvantaged in our society. I wonder how many of them would support any Aids charities, or would Aids patients be dying in the streets?

2. People should have the fortitude to "pull themselves up by their bootstraps" like they themselves did.....even if they are severely disabled, elderly or saddled with 7 kids.

3. People should refrain from risky behavior that eventually leads them to depend on the tax payers for their support. Sex, drugs and rock & roll, I guess.

(according to my RW brother....who, BTW, is an otherwise great guy who practices what he preaches)

[Clark2008]

12. And, they never once consider that many of these women

didn't have all these children to get more money out of the system. Heck, you don't get more money after - what is it? Three kids? - anymore.

They don't consider that maybe the Mom was a stay-at-home Mom who let her marketable skills lapse and then had a husband who either died or was abusive to the family and they HAD to leave.

What's so funny is that the same people who complain about a single woman having children the taxpayers need to help support also would take away these women's rights to abortion and birth control. Stupid, idiotic people who just want to punish women for having sex - even DURING marriage.

[liberal N proud]

4. Right Wingers have a need to feel superior to some one

They think that they are better than those who need assistance.
Combine that with lack of compassion and bingo, you have the cruel feelings and actions against those less fortunate then they are.

[jody]

5. IYO do RW'ers differentiate between those on welfare who can't work versus those who won't work? n/t

[ck4829]

7. I think so

I have sensed an attitude from them that those who can't work are horrible people or they actually can (Pull yourself up mentality), while those who won't work (Or don't need to earn a living basically) have somehow earned it (By being born into the right family?).

[jody]

17. Interesting, the few RW'ers I've met are sympathetic to those who can't work, e.g. medical problems,

but completely unsympathetic to those who won't work, i.e. let them starve.

IMO RW'ers set a very high standard to enter the "can't work" category.

[bowens43]

6. Conservatives hate and fear everyone and everything. nt

[phylny]

8. Money.

That's what the last six years have shown me. It's money. They don't want other people taking and using their money. "You don't work? You don't get my money. You make too little to feed your kids? You don't get my money."

Of course, if if's a corporation like Halliburton taking their money, that's okay. Boggles the mind.

[madrchsod]

9. welfare for them is just fine

welfare for others means there is less for them

[Clark2008]

10. Reagan.

The Reagan Administration, along with the help of the corporate media, picked up a gauntlet about "welfare Moms" back in the 1980s and drove that perception that they're somehow all lazy, good-for-nothings who live off the backs of taxpayers (like $200 in food stamps a month is breaking the country or something, while $200 million in kickbacks and contracts for corporate subsidies is A-OK).

Nevermind all the corporate welfare, which bilks the taxpayers for far more than any single Mom with two or three kids - even 100 of them - could ever do.

[Robbien]

11. For over 20 years think tanks had programs making sure little GOPers vent their anger

on the poor.

Hate those less fortunate while you dream the American Dream.

[Cobalt Violet]

13. They are sociopaths, psychopaths or have antisocial personality disorder.

List of Antisocial Personality Disorder Traits:

Sense of entitlement; Unremorseful; Apathetic to others; Unconscionable behavior; Blameful of others; Manipulative and conning; Affectively cold; Disparate understanding; Socially irresponsible; Disregardful of obligations; Nonconforming to norms; Irresponsible

Clinical Symptoms for an Antisocial Personality Disorder Diagnosis (must have 3)

1. Failure to conform to social norms; 2. Deceitfulness, manipulativeness; 3. Impulsivity, failure to plan ahead; 4. Irritability, aggressiveness; 5. Reckless disregard for the safety of self or others; 6. Consistent irresponsibility; 7. Lack of remorse after having hurt, mistreated, or stolen from another person


http://faculty.ncwc.edu/toconnor/428/428lect16.htm

[William Bloode]

16. Wow! That sound just like me!

1. Failure to conform to social norms; 2. Deceitfulness, manipulativeness; 3. Impulsivity, failure to plan ahead; 4. Irritability, aggressiveness; 5. Reckless disregard for the safety of self or others; 6. Consistent irresponsibility; 7. Lack of remorse after having hurt, mistreated, or stolen from another person

Right on the button! Yet i am still a Liberal. :blush:

[Cobalt Violet]

23. Even # 7?

That's hard to believe.

[moondust]

14. Poor individuals are easy for cowards to beat up on.

While corporations collecting welfare are organized and have well-paid lawyers.

[Lerkfish]

15. by hating the disadvantaged, they superstitiously think it vaccinates them from hardship

just like hating homosexuals vaccinates them from becoming homosexual.

Its paranoic and illogical, but there ya go.

[bleedingheart]

18. Let me fill you in on a secret...A LOT of RWers are poor

my nephew told me about a few guys at high school who were receiving free lunches because of low family income...and yet they were freepers.

A lot of lower income folks are the onces who resent the folks on welfare...the Rich folks are the ones who stoke that fire.

You see if the peasantry fights amongst themselves...they won't notice who is really screwing them.

Visit the poor sections of Westmoreland County PA...and you will find mostly right wingers instead of socialists...and we all know socialism would help them a whole lot more...

[BuelahWitch]

20. "If the peasantry fights among themselves.." BINGO

That's why the RW leaders use people like Limbaugh to promote hate. It's the fault of the poor, the illegal aliens, or anyone else on their hate list, that the country is in the mess that it's in. Of course, it's really the corporations and the politicians they have in their pockets who have done the damage, but most people don't have the ability to grasp that fact.

[zanne]

19. They resent having to make a living. Period. nt

[LeftishBrit]

21. Because that's almost the definition of being truly right-wing...

that you feel that the system should reward 'strength' and 'success' and penalize 'weakness' and 'failure'; or at least that the 'strong' don't have any duty to help those in a weaker positition. As Maggie said, 'there is no such thing as society'. The details of the resulting right-wing positions will vary with time and place: the 'weaker' who are perceived as deserving no help may be the physically weaker; those with disabilities; members of racial or religious minorities; dissidents against a dominant regime; those who act in ways that don't conform to something that's been set as a social norm; people who don't belong by birth to upper-class families; etc.; etc. However, economic poverty is one of the defining characteristic of 'failure' to right-wingers in most societies.

Therefore, government benefits to poorer people are seen as an example of 'rewarding mediocrity instead of success' (according to an RW acquaintance of mine); and encouraging people to depend on others instead of pulling themselves up by their bootstraps. Poverty is seen at best as 'your tough luck, and why should I have any obligation to help you when I'm all right, Jack?" and at worst as a merited punishment for incompetence, laziness or moral decadence.

[SemperEadem]

22. I think it's their abject fear that

they could find themselves in that very same position very easily. All it takes is a catastrophic illness. Remember, many of those who abhor welfare are not the super wealthy--they couldn't care more if it was a tax break invovled. It's those who are mortgaged up to their eyeballs putting on the veneer of being successful who are scared shitless about losing everything and living out of their cars.

If any of them saying those things had any kind of honor about themselves, they would be signing up their own children to serve the country which has brought them the opportunities they've taken advantage of--after all, they have more for which they must do their duty--it stands to reason that they make the sacrifice.

[fed-up]

24. it reduces the CORPORATE WELFARE pot that they collect from n/t

[sinkingfeeling]

25. Part of it is the 'gospel of prosperity' that is being ingrained in the RW Christo-fascists.

If you're an 'unsaved' sinner, you deserve what you get.

[MedleyMisty]

26. not being able to think

I've seen the same attitude from Democrats too, even on DU.

People who are like that seem to think that everyone else is just like them, that everyone else comes from a rich family and really could just go to college and use their parents' connections to get a job that pays six figures if they really wanted to, and that if they got sick they should have an estate worth millions to pay for everything.

Or even if they realize that some people are born into poverty, they still seem to think that college is free and that the degree guarantees you a six figure job.

I don't think these people actually live in the real world.

I am sure that some of the people who think that way are poor themselves, but I've never seen it in my life. I used to work at Arby's, until my husband told me to quit because it was literally driving me insane. And yes, I have an associate's degree. Still couldn't get hired anywhere except Arby's.

I eventually got promoted to crew leader. Another one of our managers (manager, mind you) lived in a hotel. One of our younger guys ended up in the same hotel. One of my best friends there (who was quite intelligent) had lived in cheap hotels all his life with his drug addict mother until he turned 18 and moved in with friends.

I never heard anyone there go on about the evils of welfare. And they didn't make bad choices. As if expecting total perfection from every human at all times makes any sense, anyway. They all made the best choices that they could given the situation that they were in.

I think it's an attitude that comes from extreme ignorance and fear and, I'll admit, stupidity. Well, duh, isn't that the basis for most conservative attitudes?

[mmonk]

27. Welfare recipients are part of the scape-goating necessary

to implement their ideology. This ideology requires a lack of humanity and conscience and domestic enemies.

[skipos]

28. One third of all male homeless are veterans

Maybe Repubs hate our troops?

[ikojo]

29. I believe the Republican and Democratic

opposition to those on welfare stems from the calvinist heritage of the US. The Calvinists, and many in the US today, hold that if one is poor it is due to sins one has committed and is punishment from god. One is no longer in god's favor. Whereas the wealthy are seen to be in god's favor.

http://www.publiceye.org/magazine/v18n3/berlet_calvinism.html

Calvinists also believe that "God's divine providence selected, elected, and predestined certain people to restore humanity and reconcile it with its Creator."7 These "Elect" were originally thought to be the only people going to Heaven. To the Calvinists, material success and wealth was a sign that you were one of the Elect, and thus were favored by God. Who better to shepherd a society populated by God's wayward children? The poor, the weak, the infirm? God was punishing them for their sins. This theology was spreading at a time when the rise of industrial capitalism tore the fabric of European society, shifting the nature of work and the patterns of family life of large numbers of people. There were large numbers of angry, alienated people who the new elites needed to keep in line to avoid labor unrest and to protect production and profits.

[MyshkinCommaPrince]

30. "Rewarding weakness"

As far as I can tell, many of them seem to feel that helping someone in need is a way of rewarding weakness. When weakness is rewarded, the reasoning seems to continue, strength is being punished. It doesn't seem like a great jump from this basic thought to the idea that the poor don't deserve any money or aid because they need it, but it's okay to give it to those who don't need it - wealthy tax breaks, corporate welfare. The strong are deserving. The weak are not, because they are weak. I suppose this is a restatement of the Calvinist idea, isn't it? Hmm.