Harold's Left:
Ahh... the classic conservative mantra that people are only poor or unemployed because of their personal failures and laziness. It's nothing new in the strategy of a movement that has been defined by exclusion, denial, and outright ineptitude.
Sen. Jim Bunning (R-KY), has held up crucial legislation in the Senate that would allow the government to continue allocating unemployment benefits to the millions of Americans who have lost their jobs in the last couple of years. But, of course, only all of the lazy stupid people lost their jobs. Furthermore, unemployment benefits only give incentive for the unemployed to stay unemployed... right? Wrong.
This notion that anyone who receives government benefits is somehow a lackluster citizen that is living off the system is silly. However, it's part of what drives not only the Republican debate on unemployment benefits, but health care reform as well. Republicans have this sentiment that "I don't want to pay for anyone else", even if many of us were forced to pay for an Iraq War that was hardly justifiable. This sentiment is rooted in racial prejudice and managerial bias.
Why racial prejudice? Because since the 1960's the Republican Party has made it point, both implicitly and explicitly, to lead white voters in the South to believe that any social program that is designed to help the unfortunate is really a program designed to help blacks. Instead of whites from Appalachia voting for programs (like health care reform and unemployment) that would help them, they end up loathing programs because they believe they are going to help "someone else".
The only good news for the Democrats on this is that it highlights to the rest of America some of the underpinnings of why conservative ideology is bad for the average American.
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