We already know that Republicans hate government by the people. According to them, if you are not rich you are a "loser" who deserves nothing because you are not "contributing" to the corporate economy.
After New Orleans it was pretty clear that they also just hated the people. Recently McCain economic adviser Phil Gramm said the country's problems with the economy are a "mental recession," and said of people losing their homes, jobs, pensions and health care: "We have sort of become a nation of whiners." Well, here is another example. Open Left found this. Here is Republican Senator Chuck Grassley, talking about the thousands who drowned in New Orleans:
So I don't want anybody telling me that we have to offset a disaster relief package for the Midwest where people are hurting, when we didn't do it for New Orleans. Why the double standard? Is it because people aren't on rooftops complaining for helicopters to rescue them, and you see it on television too much? We aren't doing that in Iowa. We are trying to help ourselves in Iowa. We have a can-do attitude. It doesn't show up on television like it did in New Orleans for 2 months.
People trapped in rising water, downing, were whiners "on rooftops complaining for helicopters to rescue them."
Conservatives say that the poor are "losers" who "made bad decisions" and shouldn't be "rewarded." Here is a typical example, at the Republican TownHall website,
Liberals feel an irresistible instinct to take sides with the less fortunate.
While the right wants to reward beneficial choices and discourage destructive directions, the left seeks to eliminate or reduce the impact of the disadvantages that result from bad decisions. In place of the conservative emphasis on accountability, the left proffers a gospel of indiscriminate compassion.
This leads directly, and inevitably, to the liberal passion to sanctify victimhood.
"Enlightened" lefties long to embrace and exalt all those who claim to have suffered from hard luck or oppression: the homeless, single mothers, "people of color," homosexuals, AIDS patients, feminists, convicted criminals, Native Americans, atheists, immigrants and many more.
[. . .] In fact, the recent hearings about the shabby treatment of wounded veterans at Walter Reade Medical Center represented a concerted effort to transform America's military into a victims group worthy of liberal sympathy.
. . . Moreover, raising taxes on high earners in order to provide more give-aways to the unproductive clearly punishes success while rewarding failure.
. . . Leftists feel virtuous and unselfish for invariably embracing the losers, but with this persistent preference it's society itself that loses most.
This is beyond nasty. This is hateful. Unfortunately it is just typical of what you find when you read conservative opinion these days. This is hatred of humanity.
People drowning in a flood are "complaining." The poor are "losers."
It is time to restore humanity to our discourse. It is time to reject these conservatives and their nasty, hateful excuses for their own greed and fear.
Click through to Seeing the Forest.