re: #159 Backwoods_Sleuth

hmmmm…

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Expanding on the ‘poorshaming’, the downside of the way that Free Market Fundamentalism provides the believer with justification of his own worth is that it provides justification for shitting on the poor, and making them feel that they deserve their unhappy lot.

So much of what the Right seems to want revolves around punishing people for perceived failures or misdeeds. Thus we get the push to ban not only abortion, but also contraception, and the insistence that employers not have to ‘pay for’ contraception if they don’t ‘agree with it’. Thus also the Right doesn’t believe in Welfare, or Medicaid, or Food Stamps, and insist that those in need should go to charities. But we know how well that works - “Are there no prisons? Are there no workhouses?”

Further, there seems to be an obsession with ensuring that not one single undeserving person gets any help, going far beyond any possible savings to the program. This seems to me to be related to their obsession with destroying the power of unions - the belief that by organizing, workers are getting ‘more than their due’.

At the same time, there is an unhealthy near-worship of the rich, and the belief that, no matter how much a rich person has, he must be worth it (unless it’s a ball player), and the insistence on reducing their taxes to the point where they pay a lower percentage of their income than most middle class people - and simultaneously demanding that people who don’t make enough to pay Federal Income Tax should pay more, to ‘have some skin in the game.’

It’s not just selfishness, but rather seems to reflect a view of humanity that I just don’t get.