So what if up to three million people lose their jobs? It's not people that matter; it's the ideology, stupid! So what if we lose the biggest manufacturing sector in a nation that makes very few things anymore, something new will come along. Everything is so black and white to these people that they cannot even envision a creative solution where the government helps restructure the auto companies to implement green technology and make new alternative fuel cars. (Oh right, that would be the dreaded socialism.)
No, the auto companies must be allowed to fail so some new magical capitalist wonder will take their place. Oh yeah? And what exactly would that be? We've already replaced most of the manufacturing companies in this nation with financial instruments and they've already failed and demanded a bailout from Washington, which they've gotten. (Yes, the dreaded socialism.)
But this is the essence of the free market ideology so loved by conservatives. It's every business for themselves - well not every business. It's actually every business they don't like for themselves (like those businesses that are heavily unionized), while the ones they like get welfare from the government.
They apply the same priniciples to people. They hate welfare, Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid, the Chrildren's Health Insurance Program, and any other government program that provides a safety net for those who aren't born into the best families or who fall on hard times. In their view, people who require welfare are simply lazy and should get a job. People who rely on Social Security were foolish in their youth and should have saved money. People who require Medicare or Medicaid should be able to purchase their own insurance and children who rely on health insurance from the government are simply the victims of their lazy parents who should work harder to buy insurance for them. And the wealthy get tax breaks.
These people are cold blooded, hard hearted idiots who do not understand the first thing about being out of work, losing one's savings, having a life threatening illness that forces one into bankruptcy, or having to wonder every day if the three jobs one has are enough to pay the bills.
Currently, we are in fire season in California and fire fighters are fighting valiantly to save homes and prevent the spread of the fires to more communities. The arrival of the fire season is as reliable as the changing of the seasons here in California. Sometimes there are arsonists who set the fires, sometimes it is a downed power line or an accidental spark from something. The dry brush is like tinder and the Santa Ana winds whip the flames out of control. And often it is the homes in heavily forested areas that burn, places where homes should probably not be built. Other times, the fires strike what should be safe areas.
But if we are to apply the vile conservative mindset, we would say that we should just let the homes burn. Why should the taxpayers have to pay for firefighting in areas where people should not build homes? And, in reality, all of Southern California is a hazardous area that is prone to fires, so perhaps no one should live here. People who live here are not responsible. The fire should be allowed to wreak its creative destruction across the land, and people will simply have to find somewhere else to live.
Actually, this is very much what played out in New Orleans, only with water rather than fire. What was the Bush administration's part in allowing this creative destruction? First, it did not maintain the wetlands around the city, nor build strong enough levees, both of which might have stopped the total destruction. It gambled with the city, perhaps not caring about it because poor black people lived there, and then when the worst happened, it did nothing for days, allowing people to remain stranded on rooftops and in a sports stadium without food or water or working bathroom facilities. The mentality was "We told you to evacuate and you didn't, so tough!" Of course, many of those who didn't evacuate had no transportation and no place to go, some were so elderly and frail they couldn't evacuate without help from family or the authorities, and they never got that help.
I will never understand why the party that says it is "Christian," the party that wants prayer in schools, and the Ten Commandments in every public courtroom, the party that is so self-righteous and preachy, does not understand this simple command of Jesus:
"Love your neighbor as you love yourself."
I also do not understand why the party that claims to be the party of Lincoln does not remember that Lincoln said this government was "of, by and for the people" - not just some of the people, but all of the people. They make a mockery of the "of" and the "by, by disenfranchising as many of those people as they can every four years, and they simply cannot grasp the "for." "For the people" - the government is "for the people," not just for the wealthy, or the corporations that curry favor with the governement, or the corporations that are not unionized, or the people who worship at a certain church, or the people who have money, or the people who love war, or the people who wear flag pins, or the people with white skin, or the people who belong to country clubs and live in gated communities. "For the people" means for all the people.
And I will also never understand how this party that constantly demands we pay attention to the words of the Founding Fathers, keeps forgetting these:
We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalieanable rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness. That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed, That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the people to alter or abolish it, and to institute new Government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness.
Or these:
We the People of the United States, in Order to form a more perfect Union, establish Justice, insure domestic Tranquility, provide for the common defense, promote the general Welfare, and secure the Blessings of Liberty to ourselves and our Posterity, do ordain and establish this Constitution for the United States of America.
