Stupid, insensitive politician alert.

[lykomancer]

Lt. Gov. Andre Bauer compared government assistance for low-income families to "feeding stray animals".


“My grandmother was not a highly educated woman but she told me as a small child to quit feeding stray animals. You know why? Because they breed. You're facilitating the problem if you give an animal or a person ample food supply. They will reproduce, especially ones that don't think too much further than that. And so what you've got to do is you've got to curtail that type of behavior. They don't know any better."



Classism will be the last great -ism to come crashing down, because people are always willing to blame the poor and lower-class for their situation.

"If they just got a job..."
"If they just worked harder..."
"If they focused on getting an education..."
"If they saved some money..."
"If they weren't so lazy..."

NO.
No one deserves to live in poverty.

This isn't a lifestyle choice; this is a systematic failure.

Comments

[ronsard.livejournal.com]

Well said.

[lykomancer.livejournal.com]

Thank you.

God, the whole thing just drives me out of my fucking mind with rage.

[ronsard.livejournal.com]

The kind of people most often found opposing social reforms are of course the most privileged. They're also the first to backtrack the moment that privilege is taken away. It's like when people say that universal health care isn't necessary because they already have perfectly good private insurance - and then they lose their jobs.

[lykomancer.livejournal.com]

Ugh, I had the misfortune of listing to Rush Limbaugh this afternoon. Recently, he went to the hospital for chest pains, right? He was ranting and raving at a caller because he got top of the line care and it wasn't that expensive! It was only about half the cost of an SUV!

...so that's like, what? $15,000? $20,000?

YEAH, LIKE WE ALL HAVE THAT JUST LAYING AROUND. RIGHT. OKAY.

[ronsard.livejournal.com]

Ugh, I had the misfortune of listing to Rush Limbaugh this afternoon.

Oh God, why? You know, when it came out that Limbaugh was leaving New York, I kind of had this brief surge of jubilee - but then I realized we should have kept him and milked tax money out of his fat ass. His net worth is, what, in the millions now?

I depend on the Huffington Post for news, which seems like a safe enough option, but even that isn't sufficient to fend off enraging political bs.

[lykomancer.livejournal.com]

I was listening to one of my news podcasts, and they had the clip in to demonstrate how out of touch some of the nuttier screaming voices are. Really, at this point, I wish people in the news would stop drawing attention to Limbaugh, though; all they're doing is giving him what he wants.

My Dinos icon speaks for itself

[the-sun-is-up.livejournal.com]

Wooooooowww. o_O That's so offensive and stupid, I'm almost impressed. (Almost.) Ah, victim-blaming -- it's not just for rape victims anymore.

I love your Dinos

[lykomancer.livejournal.com]

And it's also implicitly racist, as most of the people living below the poverty line in South Carolina are black.

*SIGH*

My Dinos comforts me in a world full of fail

[the-sun-is-up.livejournal.com]

That too! And I'll take a wild stab and guess that it's sexist as well, considering that a) women on average make a lower wage than men and b) when break-ups and divorces happen, Mom usually ends up having to support and raise the kids.

So like, he really won the Offensiveness Lottery there.

[a-white-rain.livejournal.com]

People in poverty chose to be born to poor parents.

[lykomancer.livejournal.com]

It's not like I don't understand the conservative line of thought that runs through these asshole statements. Thanks to George Lakoff's book Moral Politics, I get it, I do. Success is the result of self-discipline, which is its own form of morality; that is, a person with great self-control is moral and thus successful. If you aren't successful-- and that means proof in the form of material wealth-- then obviously you aren't a moral person and you lack the ability to control yourself.

Under that framework, of COURSE a poor person deserves to be poor. They don't have the discipline to save money, or the willpower to work two jobs/extra hours. Of COURSE poor people pop out lots of kids; they don't have the self-control not to fuck like bunnies. Etc., etc., etc.

I get that this is how this shot gets excused, but really, that's all it is: an excuse. None of it is grounded in, oh, reality. Or facts.

Oh hey I'm back for round 2

[the-sun-is-up.livejournal.com]

Uh...

Bauer's remarks came during a speech in which he said government should take away assistance if those receiving help didn't pass drug tests or attend parent-teacher conferences or PTA meetings if their children were receiving free and reduced-price lunches.

Oh right, punish the kids by starving them because it's their fault that their parents are druggies. I DON'T EVEN KNOW, DUDE.

[lykomancer.livejournal.com]

Oh yeah.

Most polticians say one stupid thing and quit while they're ahead. He just kept going and going and going.

[individual.livejournal.com]

Wow, what the fuck. I can't believe he actually even said that. Does he think the majoirty of people who're in poverty actually chose that life? I don't even... it's really digusting what some people think. Especially with things like this.

[lykomancer.livejournal.com]

It's a fundamental lack of understanding about how poverty works.

One of the major problems that I see with the American system links poverty and education in an endless cycle: public school funding is drawn from property tax. The parts of town with low property value tend to be where the poor live, and because the property value/taxes are so low, the schools receive shitty funding and the kids get shitty education. Poor elementary and high school education tends to make it a) less likely that those students will go to college, b) more likely that they didn't get good sex education and might end up pregnant, c) so that those kids don't get half the opportunities and tools that kids at public schools in wealthier parts of town get.

So the poor stay poor and the middle-class looks down on them. ...what? The middle-class went to public school, too! So that's no excuse for poverty!
...except that it is, because of the huge gap between public schools in middle-class neighborhoods and working-class or poor neighborhoods.

ARGH.

[hiza-chan.livejournal.com]

Ooh, that's something. I hope he gets a lot of shit for that comment cause that is unbelievably hurtful. I don't think that someone who has had everything handed to them on a fucking PLATTER for their entire fucking life should even be ALLOWED to talk about poverty. Put 'em out on the street for a week, let them worry and panic about how they DON'T HAVE A PLACE TO LIVE and THEN and only then should they be allowed to talk about poverty. *scoffs*

God, I really hate people sometimes.