Hey GOP, We Know How You Feel About the American Worker

When people want to feel superior, they must first look for someone inferior. It's a familiar pattern. Bullying originates in this dynamic: Find someone to dominate, and you gain dominion. Then have fun, regardless how perverse. Individuals do this, as do entities such as countries, even packs of countries.

As it is with politics, so it is with business. In fact, it's what's perverse about capitalism, that unbounded the capitalist finds dominion at the expense of someone who then has less capital. When classes of people are involved, some classes win while others lose.

Those who win this game are firmly in its thrall. Those who lose, not so much. When politics divides along these lines, you have the hardhearted Republicans and the more empathetic Democrats. If you doubt this, you haven't been listening to Paul Ryan lately, or Rick Santorum recently, or Mitt Romney in his famous 47-percent speech. So-called up-and-comers Marco Rubio and Rand Paul have chimed in, as well. Let's go to the video:

When you cite Charles Murray when you talk about "this tailspin in our inner cities" and "But, I mean, a boy has to see a man working, doesn't he?" "Absolutely," and "generations of men not even thinking about working," a rational man might think Paul Ryan is as good as stating that blacks, generations of blacks, are lazy and shiftless, wouldn't he? I sure draw that conclusion.

There's nothing to misunderstand in Rick Santorum's views on this.

 

Mitt Romney made a boo-boo when he said that out loud. But it was what's in his heart.

Now, Marco Rubio's first initiative is to give ALL of the federal anti-poverty dollars to the states to spend in "innovative" ways, by which he means any way they like. Yay, that'll be efficient, with 50 bureaucracies instead of one. And his other initiative is to cancel the earned income tax credit and replace it with wage subsidies, so that those making crap wages will have their income raised with federal dollars. Anybody notice the slight of hand here? Instead of raising the minimum wage, the cost of which corporations would have to absorb, Rubio wants to use taxpayer dollars now used to subsidize the working poor to give the working poor raises, so that corporations don't have to. Freaking brilliant.

The first initiative is welfare for the states, and the second is welfare for the corporations, paid for by federal dollars previously reserved for the poor. How is this not standing still? How is this not institutionalizing permanent low wages?

By "these workers" he means the long-term unemployed. Giving them help does them a disservice. Making them find jobs they haven't been able to find or dumpster dive in order to eat, well, that just makes sense to Rand Paul.

As for the Democratic stance, without a doubt their calls for extending unemployment benefits, raising the minimum wage, and fighting to stop massive food-stamp cuts, while falling for now on deaf ears, at least prove on which side of the debate they stand. The Dems don't wish to throw the poor off the cliff. Time and again, the Republicans want to or already have.

There are observers out there who think these Republican proposals -- mostly in the form of "don't do anything" regardless of how they look like proposals to "do" something -- are "ideas." In fact, for fun, read this article in The Week that maintains the Republicans are becoming the Party of Ideas again. Holy crap.

Here's an example of a new Republican with new ideas:

I leave you, without comment, to contemplate the wisdom and insights of Ted Cruz.