As an outsider, who seems to be blessed by constant exposure to nothing but conservatives and/or Republicans..let me explain why their party is currently so confused...
Conservatives and Republican aren't the same thing--but they think they are. (very funny)
The easiest way to categorize these folks would be to split them in half: Urban Republicans and Rural Republicans.
Urban Republicans like less government, big money, hard liquor, and tend to be socially tolerant. They have no problem with working wives, day care, "government schools" and college. In their opinion, poor people get what they deserve, as they are just lazy. Urban Republicans are secretly quite suspicious of church, home schooling and vegetables.
Rural Republicans, really like the word "conservative". They care more about social issues than making big money. University educations don't really make sense to them, except that they may do more harm than good as they encourage things like "choosing to be a homosexual"...Rural Republicans actually care about the poor, but want to help them without government spending.
The only thing I see these two sides actually having in common is mutual distrust of government. I believe less government makes more sense in the world of the Rural Republicans, as their churches actually perform many government type services on a smaller scale. Urban Republicans simply want to be rich oligarchs--and they know that Government is just standing in their way of world domination..
I would say that's it in a nutshell. It's quite ridiculous, as the Republican party has no idea how to deal with these pretty much opposing view points. Currently they have candidates that represent both sides (Gingrich is an Urban Rep., Santorum Rural Rep.). Interestingly enough, this only helps awaken their voters to the inconvenient problem of two types of Conservatives trying to squeeze under the same hat--and it just doesn't fit.
Showing posts with label politics. Show all posts
Showing posts with label politics. Show all posts
Thursday, March 1, 2012
Monday, April 11, 2011
Reading the Red Rags
I somehow stumbled upon some sort of right wing red state website today. It called itself "red" something which I know symbolizes the red conservative states, but I secretly find funny, as the "reds" historically means communists....but I regress.
I read through the conservative drivel mostly out of curiosity, as to their reasons for wanting to eliminate the Department of Education, Health and Human Services, Agriculture and what have you. Basically all government officials that don't use guns. As we know, only people with guns have any real purpose.
But anyway, what I was most awe struck by, was the last part of this red-writing that stated the Democrats and their liberal social programs are meant to keep people in poverty. In other words, as long as Democrats keep poor people on the public cow of food stamps and "welfare" then the Democrats will continue to have a liberal voting base.
Whoever writes this stuff really needs to meet some of these so called "welfare recipients". In my opinion, real welfare ended in the Clinton era. Having worked with this population, I remember not too long ago in the state of Alaska, a grown man was eligible for $12 per month in food stamps. And a mother with a baby got like $200 a month (but I can't remember exactly). Do Conservatives really feel those small amounts of money change people's view of anything at all?? Quite frankly, many of the impoverished people I met were completely apolitical. It just didn't interest them. And to say something like food stamps or a housing voucher perpetuate the cycle of poverty cracks me up.
People on food stamps are quite aware their situation sucks. They aren't going around bragging and driving fancy cars. Quite possibly there was more of this problem in the 80's, but it's not like that anymore. The impoverished (rural) populations I worked with usually had crappy circumstances such as emotional issues, anger problems, lack of clean laundry, no reliable transportation, lack of plumbing, or missing teeth. None of these problems get solved by taking away food stamps and housing vouchers. The conservatives would never even hire these people, nor would they necessarily make dependable employees even if they did. You would simply be killing people off by taking away their last remaining social safety nets. And I don't understand why that's ok by the party that claims to always be pro-life.
I read through the conservative drivel mostly out of curiosity, as to their reasons for wanting to eliminate the Department of Education, Health and Human Services, Agriculture and what have you. Basically all government officials that don't use guns. As we know, only people with guns have any real purpose.
But anyway, what I was most awe struck by, was the last part of this red-writing that stated the Democrats and their liberal social programs are meant to keep people in poverty. In other words, as long as Democrats keep poor people on the public cow of food stamps and "welfare" then the Democrats will continue to have a liberal voting base.
Whoever writes this stuff really needs to meet some of these so called "welfare recipients". In my opinion, real welfare ended in the Clinton era. Having worked with this population, I remember not too long ago in the state of Alaska, a grown man was eligible for $12 per month in food stamps. And a mother with a baby got like $200 a month (but I can't remember exactly). Do Conservatives really feel those small amounts of money change people's view of anything at all?? Quite frankly, many of the impoverished people I met were completely apolitical. It just didn't interest them. And to say something like food stamps or a housing voucher perpetuate the cycle of poverty cracks me up.
People on food stamps are quite aware their situation sucks. They aren't going around bragging and driving fancy cars. Quite possibly there was more of this problem in the 80's, but it's not like that anymore. The impoverished (rural) populations I worked with usually had crappy circumstances such as emotional issues, anger problems, lack of clean laundry, no reliable transportation, lack of plumbing, or missing teeth. None of these problems get solved by taking away food stamps and housing vouchers. The conservatives would never even hire these people, nor would they necessarily make dependable employees even if they did. You would simply be killing people off by taking away their last remaining social safety nets. And I don't understand why that's ok by the party that claims to always be pro-life.
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