Griper Blade: Hating the Poor for Their Poverty

One of the many reasons that I'm not a Republican is because of their totally irrational attitude toward poverty and the poor. An example that always pops into my mind is one you've probably never heard of. It was a while ago and pretty damned local, so there's no reason why you should know it. In 1998, Republican Nancy Mistele was running for Wisconsin State Senate against Democrat Jon Erpenbach. She slipped up and said something that didn't really fly and I suppose the only reason I always think of it is that it seemed to me that it would've flown pretty much anywhere else.

Capital Times, September 10, 1998:

Rich people work harder and, therefore, deserve a bigger tax cut, Republican state Senate candidate Nancy Mistele declared today.

''If you put time into it, and you put the effort forth, you can earn a decent living,'' Mistele said during a Capitol press conference.

''And to the extent that government can come in and then... distribute my money to people who choose not to work as hard, and choose not to run a couple of companies, who choose an 8 to 5 (workday) when I do a 7 to 11, I think it's absolutely wrong'' to give them any tax cut advantage, she said.

Of course, it didn't take long for dockworkers and hard-hats, firefighters and police, farmers and ranchers to point out that they had doubts that white-collar Nancy worked harder than they did. I guess it sticks in my head because it doesn't seem to be all that controversial a statement -- at least, not if it were expressed on the national stage. But here, it was immediately recognized as a deeply flawed argument and Nancy lost. The idea that wealthy people work harder than the working poor is ridiculous on its face. Yet, in many other districts, this statement would've been greeted by wild applause -- even from the working poor in the audience. It's Sarah Palin's argument, it's Newt Gingrich's argument, it's George W. Bush's argument; plenty of people out there just love it, as obviously untrue as it is. For them, rich people are automatically good and poor people are automatically bad. It's simple logic; if the wealthy deserve their wealth, then it stands to reason that the poor deserve their poverty. Capitalism creates winners and losers, one can't exist without the other, yet the losers in this crap shoot are to blame for their losses... [CLICK TO READ FULL POST]