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I was less than clear in an important aspect
It's not that I think "moocher" is just about color, it's not; it's more subtle than that.
It's about, "other". The Tea Party has been all about, "other". It's really effective (and terribly devisive). Very few people think of themselves as getting a free ride; just look at Romney. His father was able to lend him money... enough to buy a house. If he had been making that loan in the past decade, it would have been $500,000 (the median home price in Boston).
But Mitt, and Ann, see that, not as a huge leg up (recall they sold the house for about twice what they paid for it... so they made a cool half a million dollars on the deal), but just as the "normal" sort of help a parent gives a kid when they are starting out.
America is a terribly class-ridden society. We hide it, but we have those divisions. Worse, we attach a moralistic value to them, not a social one. The idea that, "the Lord helps those who help themselves" is a canker in the American Dream. It lets the wealthy (no matter how they got it) pretend they deserve it. The flip side of that is even worse.
It says those who aren't rich aren't as deserving. It justifies exploiting people. Getting rich is proof of moral worth, and there isn't any such thing as being too moral. It kills a shared sense of purpose.
If the wealthy are moral, and the poor suffer from their personal failings, then trying to level the playing field isn't as important. All the poor need to do is stop "mooching" off the rich. Having a strong social safety net is, actually, somewhat suspect. It makes charity, not community, the driving force in aid to the people on the margins.
And that's a recipe for disaster. In the first place, it's not enough. In the second, it's cruel. Charity makes the giver feel better. It makes the needy feel worse. It builds resentment, because it's an inherently unequal system.
Romney tithes. He can honestly say he's being charitable. But he's not actually helping everyone. He's helping the people whom the Mormon Church deems worthy of aid. It's not a given that the money he donates actually goes to helping poor people. It might be going to missions; it might be spent on political campaigns.
It's not evenly distributed. Charity means the poor have to beg.
Getting gov't aid is no picnic. It's got it's own levels of demeaning crap, and it's not a given that one will qualify. But the qualifications, no matter how arcane, aren't based on what the gov't thinks of your life choices; not at root, though asshole politicians; encouraged by asshole voters do manage to insert some of that. If you meet the threshold of need, you get the aid.
Romney's, "freeloaders" is a moral statement. He's couching it in moral terms. He's implying the, "47 percent" are stealing from the other half of the country. It's an appeal the Republicans have been trying to sell for a long time. It's clever, and I'm afraid it has longer legs than it looks right now. Because it's amorphous. This country has damned little int he way of "free money". I was stone broke, no job, looking for work, waiting for the GI Bill to get itself sorted out (it took two months from when I was told I qualified for the first check to arrive). I was enrolled in school.
Once the GI Bill started to send me the money I was entitled to, I was going to be able to manage (not great, but I had friends, and with the GI Bill's stipend I knew I could squeak it out until I got a job). In the meantime I needed to eat.
So I applied for food stamps. I was denied. To get food stamps I either needed to quit school (and lose the 1,100 a month I would get while I was in classes... When summer came I was on my own, including my book allowance I was getting $10,500 a year, out of which I had to pay 1/3rd my tution, and whatever the $600 didn't cover for books/fees, but I digress) or have a job.
That's right, I needed to have a job, if I was going to collect food stamps, and be a student. If I wasn't a student, I'd have been fine. $300 a month in free food. But as a student I wasn't eligible; because I wasn't available to work a 40 hour a week job.
That's the poverty trap. That's what makes people dependent on the gov't. The rules make it impossible to get out from under.
Romney's rhetoric about, "The 47 percent who don't contribute", makes it harder for them to get out from under. We've had lots of people try to remind us of this, John Donne "No man is an island, entire of itself, and Hillel, "If I am not for myself, who will be for me? If I am not for others, what am I? And if not now, when?"
Those, "gov't handouts" the Republicans are raging against are the means of priming the pump.
If you want a more rollicking version of the idea, that we are all in this together, and that we need to treat the least among us with the same respect as we treat the wealthy, that we need to give, to get, and that we can't wait on the tide to lift us, but that we have to reach out our hands to each other (because that's what they're there for) here ya' go.
It's about, "other". The Tea Party has been all about, "other". It's really effective (and terribly devisive). Very few people think of themselves as getting a free ride; just look at Romney. His father was able to lend him money... enough to buy a house. If he had been making that loan in the past decade, it would have been $500,000 (the median home price in Boston).
But Mitt, and Ann, see that, not as a huge leg up (recall they sold the house for about twice what they paid for it... so they made a cool half a million dollars on the deal), but just as the "normal" sort of help a parent gives a kid when they are starting out.
America is a terribly class-ridden society. We hide it, but we have those divisions. Worse, we attach a moralistic value to them, not a social one. The idea that, "the Lord helps those who help themselves" is a canker in the American Dream. It lets the wealthy (no matter how they got it) pretend they deserve it. The flip side of that is even worse.
It says those who aren't rich aren't as deserving. It justifies exploiting people. Getting rich is proof of moral worth, and there isn't any such thing as being too moral. It kills a shared sense of purpose.
If the wealthy are moral, and the poor suffer from their personal failings, then trying to level the playing field isn't as important. All the poor need to do is stop "mooching" off the rich. Having a strong social safety net is, actually, somewhat suspect. It makes charity, not community, the driving force in aid to the people on the margins.
And that's a recipe for disaster. In the first place, it's not enough. In the second, it's cruel. Charity makes the giver feel better. It makes the needy feel worse. It builds resentment, because it's an inherently unequal system.
Romney tithes. He can honestly say he's being charitable. But he's not actually helping everyone. He's helping the people whom the Mormon Church deems worthy of aid. It's not a given that the money he donates actually goes to helping poor people. It might be going to missions; it might be spent on political campaigns.
It's not evenly distributed. Charity means the poor have to beg.
Getting gov't aid is no picnic. It's got it's own levels of demeaning crap, and it's not a given that one will qualify. But the qualifications, no matter how arcane, aren't based on what the gov't thinks of your life choices; not at root, though asshole politicians; encouraged by asshole voters do manage to insert some of that. If you meet the threshold of need, you get the aid.
Romney's, "freeloaders" is a moral statement. He's couching it in moral terms. He's implying the, "47 percent" are stealing from the other half of the country. It's an appeal the Republicans have been trying to sell for a long time. It's clever, and I'm afraid it has longer legs than it looks right now. Because it's amorphous. This country has damned little int he way of "free money". I was stone broke, no job, looking for work, waiting for the GI Bill to get itself sorted out (it took two months from when I was told I qualified for the first check to arrive). I was enrolled in school.
Once the GI Bill started to send me the money I was entitled to, I was going to be able to manage (not great, but I had friends, and with the GI Bill's stipend I knew I could squeak it out until I got a job). In the meantime I needed to eat.
So I applied for food stamps. I was denied. To get food stamps I either needed to quit school (and lose the 1,100 a month I would get while I was in classes... When summer came I was on my own, including my book allowance I was getting $10,500 a year, out of which I had to pay 1/3rd my tution, and whatever the $600 didn't cover for books/fees, but I digress) or have a job.
That's right, I needed to have a job, if I was going to collect food stamps, and be a student. If I wasn't a student, I'd have been fine. $300 a month in free food. But as a student I wasn't eligible; because I wasn't available to work a 40 hour a week job.
That's the poverty trap. That's what makes people dependent on the gov't. The rules make it impossible to get out from under.
Romney's rhetoric about, "The 47 percent who don't contribute", makes it harder for them to get out from under. We've had lots of people try to remind us of this, John Donne "No man is an island, entire of itself, and Hillel, "If I am not for myself, who will be for me? If I am not for others, what am I? And if not now, when?"
Those, "gov't handouts" the Republicans are raging against are the means of priming the pump.
If you want a more rollicking version of the idea, that we are all in this together, and that we need to treat the least among us with the same respect as we treat the wealthy, that we need to give, to get, and that we can't wait on the tide to lift us, but that we have to reach out our hands to each other (because that's what they're there for) here ya' go.