“You know,” Delay said, “there is an argument to be made that these extensions, the unemployment benefits keeps people from going and finding jobs. In fact there are some studies that have been done that show people stay on unemployment compensation and they don’t look for a job until two or three weeks before they know the benefits are going to run out….well, it is the truth. and people in the real world know it. And they have friends and they know it. Sure, we ought to be helping people that are unemployed find a job, but we also have budget considerations that are incredibly important, especially now that Obama is spending monies that we don’t have.
I can understand perhaps wondering about the philosophical and fiscal soundness behind unemployment insurance, but when you’re a Republican with a reputation for being mean-spirited and compassion-deficient… You’d think that any decent human being would not want to be seen as mean and devoid of even the barest shred of humanity. Yeah, well…if you think that any of the matters to Tom DeLay, you clearly haven’t been paying attention. Unfortunately, DeLay was my Congressman for the 10 years I lived in Texas, and that fact was a constant source of embarrassment. That Texas’ CD-22 was populated by a knuckle-dragging, overwhelmingly self-righteous, uber-Christian majority that thought DeLay hung the moon was no fun, either. You try being surrounded by an overwhelmingly Jesus-y majority and see how you feel….
In a very real sense, though, we should be grateful to DeLay, and Jim Bunning, for tearing the veil off the far RIght’s hatred of the poor and downtrodden. Never mind that the GOP is largely responsible for setting the stage for the collapse of the global economy. To DeLay’s way of thinking, we live in a meritocracy. Those who deserve, get. Those who don’t can damn well fend for themselves.
After watching the self-absorbed arrogance of DeLay in action up close for ten years, I recognize that this sort of verbal diarrhea is totally in character. DeLay honestly believes that the poor deserve what they have because they’ve brought it on themselves by being insufficiently Christian and not voting Republican. Public assistance of any sort only serves as a crutch, a way to keep the poor and downtrodden from helping themselves. That DeLay hardly has to worry about where his next Big Mac is coming from is no impediment to his self-anointed authority on this subject. If you look in the Republican Dictionary, the definition of “Compassionate Conservatism” seems to have been written with DeLay in mind:
A redundant term needed to remind the American public that conservatism is, of course, compassionate, despite how their lives might have actually been affected by conservative government policies.
Yes, Conservative greed, self-interest, and incompetence may have gotten all y’all into the bind you find yourself in. Here’s the beautiful thing about America, though: you’re free to pull yourself out of the mess created by eight years of corrupt mismanagement…because accountability is a bottom-up proposition. Besides, Conservatives look after their own, so even if they’re responsible for the mess they created they won’t have to suffer the consequences.
Yes, Virginia, the road to Hell really IS paved with Republicans….
