Intelligent Quote of The Day

I think another thing a lot of conservatives don’t consider is that being poor is scary.

It’s scary when your car is running badly and you don’t have the money to get it fixed…and you also know if it breaks down, you’ll have no way to get to work and your boss will fire you if you don’t show up. It’s scary when you don’t even have a car to get to and from that desperately needed job, and have to rely on the whims of public transportation. It’s scary when you don’t get paid until next week but they’re going to turn your heat off tomorrow. It’s scary when you have an illness that keeps you in constant pain, and you don’t have the money to visit the doctor or afford pain medication. It’s scary to know that your paycheck might not be able to cover your next meal, or your children’s meals. That’s assuming you aren’t living on the streets, which is a whole other level of scary.

And when people are scared and trying to survive, hell yes they get selfish. They think about “me, me, me” because they know that no one else cares. No one is watching out for them. No one is going to rescue them if things get really bad.

They don’t want to get off food stamps, because even though subsisting on them is miserable, at least they know they have *some* food coming in, which is far better than the uncertainty of *not* having food. They blow money on liquor because they’re not sure they could face whatever pain or issue they have without it, and goodness knows they can’t afford to actually get the problem fixed. They don’t want to do job training because what if they fail? Or what if they manage to get a job and then get fired 3 months later because the economy is crap? Now they’re back on the streets with no assistance whatsoever. No, better to keep what little I have rather than risk losing it all, because society won’t give two shits if I fail and then I’ll have nothing.

People will fight tooth and nail to keep a sense of security, even if it is crappy security, but out of fear, not necessarily laziness or selfishness. Forever threatening to chuck someone in the deep end while making it clear you don’t really care if they drown and complaining that their parents should have taught them to swim is a really good way to ensure that people never want to leave the shallow end. Because, you know, FEAR OF DROWNING.

---Amaranth commenting  and rightfully condemning on the Confessions of A Former Conservative blog the incredible lack of empathy and sensitivity among the poor and disenfranchised of society among certain political conservatives.