… on health care and everything else.
Edward Kennedy wanted all Americans to have access to the kind of health care he had and to make sure everyone had a safety net in place that allowed them to take the kind of risks necessary to become a millionaire if that’s what they wanted to do. His conservative enemies, on the other hand, want to keep Americans enslaved by the wealthy, in jobs they loathe, scared to make any moves for fear that they will lose everything, including their lives, if they do. It’s the essence of the difference between liberals and conservatives regardless of their personal place in the class structure.
– digby
Because I have relatives who are conservatives who vote Republican, and some of them are compassionate on a personal basis, they are generous to family and friends and when suffering is directly before them they would give or do most anything — they just vote the complete opposite, and mouth what they hear on Fox because that’s all they hear, because of that, I make a third category in my overall thinking about the character of conservatives.
- heartless (lobbyists, activists and media)
- corrupt (all those in elected office)
- brainwashed and deluded by media and religion (the victims, viewers and voters of 1 and 2)
Yes, there is some overlap.
You could go on for volumes trying to understand their nature, and many have. But in this current political environment, it really is this simple. Why pretend otherwise. Digby again in a later post discussing the horrific scene at a health care reform town hall in California where Rep. Wally Herger, a voluntary member of the federal government who has put his hand on a Bible, presumably, and taken an oath to the Constitution, cheers on a self-described “right wing terrorist” and his cheering neighbors, who seemingly hate the U.S. government as much as Timothy McVeigh or Mohammad Atta did:
I am not the type of person to wish that someone would get sick and lose everything they have, but if I were, these are people I would wish it on. It’s a hateful thing to say, but these are hateful people and I’m not going to pretend they aren’t just to be politically correct. Watch the fevered looks on their faces, high fiving and stimulated to near hysteria at the notion that they are completely self-sufficient and need not care for their fellow man. It’s quite clear that they have no empathy at all and therefore must personally experience things in order to understand them. I certainly can’t see much hope of rationally explaining why they themselves are likely to suffer under their own philosophy and I wouldn’t even bother trying to appeal to them on grounds of being a decent human being.
I guess they think they are immortal. Clearly they believe they are superior. But contrary to this self-destructive, unenlightened worldview, many of them are going to be disabled or stricken with illness and if they are lucky they will get old and infirm. And I hate to break it to them, but every last one of these people, good or bad, fat or thin, rich or poor, is going to die someday. Being a selfish jackass won’t save any of them from that fate.
I guess they think they are immortal. Clearly they believe they are superior. But contrary to this self-destructive, unenlightened worldview, many of them are going to be disabled or stricken with illness and if they are lucky they will get old and infirm. And I hate to break it to them, but every last one of these people, good or bad, fat or thin, rich or poor, is going to die someday. Being a selfish jackass won’t save any of them from that fate.
