The rubes always fall for this stuff because I see it repeated on the board regularly.
The rich know that warnings about making people 'dependent on government' are a scam
“When you give people something for nothing, they don’t value it and it just makes them lazy.”
In other words, if you think you’re helping people by providing them with food stamps or subsidized housing or free healthcare, you’re actually hurting them.
For things or life’s circumstances to be meaningful, this belief says, they must have been acquired through struggle. And by depriving people of the struggle, we’re depriving them of an opportunity to learn to “stand on their own two feet.”
Destructive cultural myths like this always start with a grain of truth; it’s what propels them to seeming credibility and then on to cliché status. We’ve all had the experience of treasuring something we worked really hard to get, so it just makes sense that things that come more easily aren’t considered as valuable.
But while that general rule of thumb often applies to discretionary things — hobbies, toys, and the like — nobody is thinking of valuing or not-valuing necessities like food, housing, or medical care. They’re always valued, regardless of how they’re acquired, because they’re essential to life itself.
Bizarrely, they even use religion to justify this worldview.
While Jesus had told his followers that when people are hungry, thirsty, or homeless we should provide them with food, water, and shelter — without trying to make a profit from it, but for the sheer joy of giving — Republicans who sanctimoniously call themselves Christians reject that advice, saying that if somebody is in need, that very desperation will become their motivation to do great things.
I still remember hearing Rush Limbaugh tell the crude Republican joke:
“What do you do when somebody’s down? Kick them! Otherwise, they’ll never get up!”
This idea that society helping its individual members to reach their highest potential is actually hurting them is one of the most pernicious lies conservative politicians and philosophers have spread in the past few centuries.
The rich know that warnings about making people 'dependent on government' are a scam
“When you give people something for nothing, they don’t value it and it just makes them lazy.”
In other words, if you think you’re helping people by providing them with food stamps or subsidized housing or free healthcare, you’re actually hurting them.
For things or life’s circumstances to be meaningful, this belief says, they must have been acquired through struggle. And by depriving people of the struggle, we’re depriving them of an opportunity to learn to “stand on their own two feet.”
Destructive cultural myths like this always start with a grain of truth; it’s what propels them to seeming credibility and then on to cliché status. We’ve all had the experience of treasuring something we worked really hard to get, so it just makes sense that things that come more easily aren’t considered as valuable.
But while that general rule of thumb often applies to discretionary things — hobbies, toys, and the like — nobody is thinking of valuing or not-valuing necessities like food, housing, or medical care. They’re always valued, regardless of how they’re acquired, because they’re essential to life itself.
Bizarrely, they even use religion to justify this worldview.
While Jesus had told his followers that when people are hungry, thirsty, or homeless we should provide them with food, water, and shelter — without trying to make a profit from it, but for the sheer joy of giving — Republicans who sanctimoniously call themselves Christians reject that advice, saying that if somebody is in need, that very desperation will become their motivation to do great things.
I still remember hearing Rush Limbaugh tell the crude Republican joke:
“What do you do when somebody’s down? Kick them! Otherwise, they’ll never get up!”
This idea that society helping its individual members to reach their highest potential is actually hurting them is one of the most pernicious lies conservative politicians and philosophers have spread in the past few centuries.