Why are the Repigs so determined to hurt the poor?

[madashelltoo]

Now they want to cut food stamps. Why don't they just open the interment camps and call it fucking day? This shit is ridiculous. They need not go to another foreign country to say anything about how they treat their citizens. We're in the every man for himself firestorm fight for our lives here. Don't trip. Don't get sick. Don't lose your job. And, for God's sake, don't misplace your citizenship papers, birth certificates, or social security cards. If you do, go to the camp and fight for the bread they throw through the bars.

http://www.dailykos.com/story/2012/07/05/1106550/-House-Republicans-pushing-16-billion-in-food-stamp-cuts

[DJ13]

1. They are desperate to avoid raising taxes (on the 1%)

And the poor, the elderly, and the handicapped have few resources to fight back, making them easy targets.

[southernyankeebelle]

2. oBecause they think the poor has gotten all the breaks and now they want their piece of the

pie. Funny how these teavangelicas don't want women in low incomes to have abortions yet they won't help these women when they need it.

[The Velveteen Ocelot]

4. My theory, for what it's worth:

There have been studies suggesting that conservatives are more fearful than liberals - more accurately, people who are innately fearful tend to be conservative, because it is a political philosophy based to a large extent on fear - fear of that which is new, different, foreign, risky, unusual, etc. One thing people in general tend to do is try to separate themselves, either physically or psychologically, from things that frighten them. Being poor is frightening. Losing a job or getting sick is frightening. If you are a fundamentally frightened person you will try to distance yourself from people who are poor, unemployed or sick because the concept of those conditions scares you. So you will do whatever you can to prove to yourself and others that I AM NOT LIKE THOSE PEOPLE: I AM NOT AND WILL NOT BE POOR OR UNEMPLOYED. I WILL NOT BE SICK. I WILL NEVER NEED GOVERNMENT ASSISTANCE (like minority people, who also frighten me) BECAUSE I AM NOT LIKE THEM. And even if I did need help I would deserve it because I AM NOT LIKE THEM.

They don't want to be like "those people" whose condition scares them so they do their best to put as much psychological and ideological distance between themselves and the poor and the sick. They do this by claiming and believing that "those people" are not only different but undeserving. This keeps the scary people and their scary neediness as far away as possible from the frightened mind of the conservative.

[Jackpine Radical]

7. I think you're pretty much on track.

I would add that rage is a close neuropsychological relative of fear--as in the Fight or Flight response.

One way to transmute chronic fear into something more tolerable is to convert it into rage.

[The Velveteen Ocelot]

10. Yes. I've always thought the rage expressed by many GOPers

toward the stereotyped "undeserving" poor (you know, the overweight black woman who buys steak with her food stamps and drives home in her Cadillac to her Section 8 apartment and her 5 kids, each with a different, absent (in jail) father, where they sit and watch their flat-screen HDTV and talk on their iPhones) is based essentially on fear. I AM NOT LIKE THAT WOMAN. I AM AFRAID OF HER AND BECOMING LIKE HER AND I DON'T WANT PEOPLE TO THINK I AM ANYTHING LIKE HER. To prove that I will treat her as badly as possible and make up and/or believe lies about her to support my mistreatment of her.

[nobodyspecial]

9. Very good theory

and clearly stated.

[soccer1]

18. Well said......

I also get the impression that many people who live on the financial edge but have never received govt subsidies (food stamps, low cost housing, medicare, etc) feel a need to draw a contrast between themselves and those who do receive those subsidies. Already in a precarious financial position, they make themselves feel better by knowing they have not "taken" any "handouts" from the govt. They bolster their sense of self by putting down those who do need assistance. In other words, they have a need to feel "superior" to someone, since they feel "inferior" to those who are financially stable. A sense of "pride", I guess.
And some of those who are financially stable have no compassion for those who are in need. The attitude, "I made it with no help, through hard work and determination, so why should I pay for those who won't do the same?" I sense resentment in these people. No room for empathy and they aren't able to see beyond their own life circumstances. Not facts here, just some thoughts.

[turtlerescue1]

5. Ever read Vonnegut's "Welcome to the Monkey House"?

My favorite is still "Harrison Bergeron".

I've no dreams left, nothing to chase or pursue, plus I have to give credit where its due,
and it gave me plenty of cause to be angry. Had never been so absolutely afraid in my life, but this is where those "minor Miracles" I often post about took place. SO- I live to be a pain the butt to whose who "have done me wrong". To vote against everything that I know to be wrong. To speak against those who mangle words and ideas with their eye on riches and power.

Gives me a reason to get up in the morning. I made not beat 'um, but can refuse to join!
Until there is a strong scent of flowers, soft organ music and a winged being standing at the foot of my bed!

[kestrel91316]

6. Internment camps are far too costly. It's much cheaper to just yank all assistance from

the poor, eliminate minimum wage standards, and ship all the living-wage jobs overseas. They'll die on their own soon enough.

[wandy]

12. +1 I do think you have figured it out. n/t

[madashelltoo]

15. That's just it . . . No, they won't.

They will fight before they give up and die. Believe that. I would not want a hungry, desperate man as my enemy.

[nanabugg]

8. Because most Republicans are white and most of the poor are not? Just guessing. nt

[Mnemosyne]

16. No, whites are largest number in poverty. Link:

http://statehealthfacts.org/profileind.jsp?rgn=1&cat=1&ind=14

[SDjack]

11. It's a money making cycle

The rich make most of their money by big changes in forces driving national economics. Its not about skin color or hatred of the poor. It's about making money. They sold our jobs to Asia, and they pocketed huge profits. Next, the yo-yo changes direction. The American worker are being forced to accept lower compensation to out-compete with Asia and Europe, so the rich can get another big harvest. They no longer can use whips to make us work for nothing, so they will use the laws and enforcement systems. I believe that the 1% will allow us to work and slowly rebuild the middle-class, so they can sell us off again in about 3 generations.

[Zalatix]

13. Culling the herd. Social Darwinism.

It's their own version of population control.

[NNN0LHI]

14. They wouldn't be doing if if they thought there wasn't an audience for it

They know there are still tons of Reaganites out there who eat this up.

Some of them even call themselves liberal independents and Democrats and say President Obama is too conservative for them on anonymous political websites.

Don

[Honeycombe8]

17. Slave labor. Plus it leaves more for them, which is all they care about. nt