Up with Chris Hayes, this morning....

[ssurgul]

WTF??

There's Rev. Samuel Rodriguez on there, President of the National Hispanic Christian Leadership Conference, representing over 34K churches. He says that the conservative stance of needing to shrink the Fed. Government (namely the 10th Amendment bullshit that Retardicans have recently fallen head over heels in devoted adoration with) is good because "as the Fed. Government grows (and has already become too big), two things can't occupy the same space. The more the Fed. Gov't. grows, the family is decreasing." He also attributes 'some' as thinking that "somehow the bigger the government grows, some of our 'rights' are sacrificed on the Altar of Big Government." And then he goes on to blame 'uber-subsidization' as a reason why the family itself loses all semblance of mobility and personal responsibility. "The question is when is Government too big that it jeopardizes the vertical mobility of that family."

Because, you know, people LOVE and prefer to live in poverty and filth rather than try and lift themselves out. But hey! Now that everyone continues to slash and burn education funding, I'm sure that those kids that might possibly have been able to work hard for a good education, and actually try and move up even a bit will now be so grateful to read at a 3rd grade level and do math at a 4th grade, that they'll be thrilled to sit at home on their asses.

The inherent contradiction for this bullshit is never, ever apparent to these fucks, even when spelled out to them.

Comments

[ihuitl.livejournal.com]

He is posing a false dichotomy of course. Confucianism (and arguably, other traditions) place the family and the state as microcosm and macrocosm, wherein both make each other stronger and for former is the foundation of the latter.

Perhaps what he really means instead of 'family' is 'church'. Because as the government takes over more and more functions of what used to be the exclusive domain of religion, and becomes more accommodating to other religions or none at all, the temporal power of his religion (and of course, his own) over the masses wanes. He's not concerned about "big government" crushing families...he is just jealous of the competition that is beating him out.

[ssurgul.livejournal.com]

Actually, no. He really did mean family. And one of the things he pointed to is something I had no direct nor indirect experience with, but which a black panelist on the show agreed with. The Welfare reforms of the 90's were done in an ostensible effort to undo some of the abuses and bad-reinforcements from the 80's. Apparently, there was a strong subsidy for a family to be fatherless and without 'actual' income there.

Now, the truly detestable thing was that he then earlier and later drew parallels to how 'bad' it was and is to compare old policy and decisions to current, while still espousing that the family was in danger from too much government. Based on the example listed above. An old policy that had long since been reformed.

[ihuitl.livejournal.com]

The notion that welfare encourages bad behavior is used as a brush to tar all government programs with, even when the problem is fixed, as you point out. That's why the right wing constantly harps on Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac as the cause of the financial meltdown (even though they were only involved in 14% of the bad loans), and laws that encouraged lending to lower income groups (even though only one of the top ten mortgage banks that failed were subject to its clauses) - because it fits with their narrative of the government screwing things up when it tries to assist the poor.

I was being cynical mainly about their main issue being competition from the government. But I think there is reason to believe this is one of their motives. After all, the right wing constantly talks about how welfare should be replaced with charity - which plays right into the arms of the Jesus cult who can then try to convert them.