I’m confused. If you’ve lost your job, then you aren’t paying any taxes. If the government spends other people’s tax dollars to try to create some jobs, why would you complain about it?
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BooMan
Martin Longman a contributing editor at the Washington Monthly. He is also the founder of Booman Tribune and Progress Pond. He has a degree in philosophy from Western Michigan University.
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There are those who are “worthy” of government help and those who are not. Conveniently, most of these “worthy people” happen to be of a certain ilk. Mainly white,over 50 and until recently, probably middle class.
Then there are the “others”. Those whose full time job is leeching off the government, looking for and expecting someone else to carry them through the world.
That is the world as seen through the eyes of much of the Tea Party. It is a convenient world construct that fits very nicely with the “for us or against us” mentality that was promoted by the Bush administration and the GOP in general for many, many years. These people see no irony in the fact that for many of them, Social Security and Medicare has largely kept them from going bankrupt. I can name a number of people I know personally who are Tea Partiers and fall into that category. My parents would be one example.
It is very, very simple for them. I’ve already got mine, so “Fuck You”. I “deserve” what I have. I’ve worked for it. You, on the other hand, are just looking for a free handout.
These people see no irony in the fact that for many of them, Social Security and Medicare has largely kept them from going bankrupt.
Why would they? According to the mindset you describe, there is no irony. They deserve it & no one else does. Government of the people, by the people, for ME seems to be the ideal. The same one held by a nursing infant.
From the linked article: “I just don’t trust this government,” Ms. Reimer said.
I added the emphasis but I’m almost certain it was there in her inflection.
To address your confusion: First, many people collecting Medicare or Unemployment do still pay taxes, depending on the income of their spouses and/or the amount of their benefits. Second, they did pay taxes so their money is still stirred up in the government cauldron and they are quite sure job creation will not benefit them because they are white and formerly middle-class. Really, BooMan, we all know the new jobs will go to poor black people…
The woman profiled owned her home for 19 years yet borrowed more than it was worth. (Even in a 30 year mortgage you pay off $40K worth of it in two decades.) I’m looking forward to the Megan McArdle analysis of how irresponsible the Tea Party leaders are.
It’s always lols watching white folks pretend to not understand. I guess pretending is the best way to let it continue.
It’s very simple; the lady is trying to parlay her activism into a job paid for by Tea Party organizations. If she succeeds in doing that, it will beat working in retail.
It’s the same reason there are so many storefront churches.
Who says American entrepreneurship is dead?
I think the race angle that previous commenters have touched upon definitely accounts, consciously and subconsciously, for some of the anger at the expansion (existence even) of some government services. But then there are all the people on the right who are not racist, how to account for them?
It comes down, like so many issues, to the rational circuit versus emotional circuit problem. Many who oppose a given system are doing so for emotional reasons, and therefore are not processing the factors that give way to their opposition rationally. They are almost impervious to rational arguments. I’m sure you can think of a variety of issues for which this is the case.
The previous comment about “otherness” factors heavily into the emotional circuit processing, but this “otherness” isn’t simply a matter of race. Most people in this country have picked a team, left or right. Regardless of what that team actually does, regardless of their actual record, regardless of the integrity of the players or the team as a whole, once that choice is made by an individual it is rarely reversed. Think sports. Think about Red Sox fans and their rage and anger at Yankees fans, and vice versa.
Once a person or group has been classified as “other” they can be ignored, derided, oppressed, and even slaughtered. Hitler masterfully developed a perception of “otherness” towards non-Germans, especially Jews, which allowed him to do as he pleased with that particular population. The Japanese in WWII also played upon a thick streak of cultural particularity, which helped shore up support for the expansion of their empire. And obviously many nations, including our own, have employed this tactic.
The common humanity that binds us all is obscured by the illusion of otherness, which is cynically exploited by shrewd people of many political orientations and from many lands, to horrific effect.
These people are convinced that the Democratic Party and the federal government have marginalized white, non-hispanic older people and especially white men over 50. They should be progressives, but one of the tolls taken by Affirmative Action was this push of white working people to the Right. Another big toll was the belittling of black achievement by fostering the belief that they could not compete fairly on their own merits.
I guess they can’t figure out why the world they inhabit looks so different than the one on TV.
I’m guessing you know nothing about their world.
I don’t think the current situation can be blamed on affirmative action. But maybe I’m misinterpreting your point?
Perhaps. My point was that Affirmative Action, while necessary, had two unintended consequences. One that white people, particularly white males, got the idea that the government was discriminating against them, which it was. I know the discrimination was to counterbalance past discrimination, but it was not taken well by white working men. That is a fact. I’m not making a value judgment, just stating a fact.
The second consequence was that black achievement was devalued to “he just got that because of his skin color”. Again, I’m not saying white men never got jobs because of skin color, just stating what happened.
Any imbalance causes resentment, so we shouldn’t be surprised that people bore resentments that were fanned and amplified by the Republican noise machine.
WAIT, is the Voice in the Wilderness really Bill Cosby???
Wish I was! He’s richer than God!