June 6, 2012
Let’s just get the obvious out of the way: The GOP runs on hate. Their entire political platform consists of opposing things they can’t stand. They don’t stand for anything; they stand against. They don’t stand for family values; they stand against alternate lifestyles. They don’t stand for freedom; they stand against the rights of others. It permeates every word they speak and every law they pass (or filibuster). But there are some people they hate more than others and, oh boy, does it show!
Just for fun, when you’re finished, post how many of these groups you fall into. I actually only fall into 2. I’m so lucky! The GOP only hates me a little!
10. The Sick – The GOP doesn’t hate the sick so much as it loves the medical insurance industry. Unfortunately, sick people steal money from the bottom line of insurance companies and the GOP just hates that! Why else would they oppose Obamacare so strongly? All it does it take away the insurance companies’ power to cancel a policy when a person gets sick, allow parents to keep their children on their policy until they’re 26 (when presumably they’re old enough to finish advanced college and get their own), prevent people with pre-existing conditions from being refused insurance and forces insurance companies to spend at least 80% of the money they collect from customers on actual medical care instead of CEO bonuses. By the way, any extra money not spent on care isrefunded to the customer. That’s billions of dollars that won’t go to the bottom line of the insurance industry! Unthinkable! The GOP has sworn a blood oath to repeal Obamacare. The tens of thousands of people that will die every year without it is inconsequential. Who told them to get sick in the first place?
9. The Military - You’d think that for all the festishising of the armed forces by the GOP they would be the first in line to do right by them. Here’s an important lesson on Republican politics: words are free, action costs money. A Republican administration happily sent our troops to war in Iraq based on lies, and allowed the country to collapse into chaos. This has cost us the lives of thousands of United States soldiers, and left tens of thousands more maimed or psychologically scarred. Remember when our ‘heroic’ troops were sent into combat without body armor? How about the Walter Reed scandal where our “revered” troops were left to suffer in squalor? How about when the White House couldn’t be bothered armoring troop transports against IEDs? Yup, the GOP sure does love the troops! For campaigning, for photo ops, for scoring cheap political points…
Do they love them when it comes time to treat them like people instead of propaganda? Not so much.
8. The Elderly – Before Social Security, more than 50% of men were still working after the age of 65. Remember, the average life expectancy was only 58.1 in 1930 so people literally worked until the day they died. Almost half of the elderly were forced to rely on their families for support. In an economic downturn, this would easily become an intolerable burden. And that’s not even including sickness or disease.
Before Medicare, old age was a time bomb waiting to go off. A broken hip would bankrupt a family, or wipe out the life savings of the elderly. They would be forced to choose between paying the utilities or buying life saving medicine. This is still a serious and widespread problem, but before Medicare it was far more common. Think about that; as bad as it is now, it was far worse back then.
And what does the GOP plan for both of these vital government programs? Get rid of them, of course, by any means necessary. Lie about Social Security being ‘broke,’ find ways to sabotage Medicare, it doesn’t matter that the end result is the suffering of millions of senior citizens. Let them eat cat food.
7. The Poor - The problem with the poor is that they take money away from the rich. They need food stamps and all kinds of government assistance! They’re nothing but greedy leeches on the true heroes of America: the rich that refuse to pay the poor a living wage in the first place. Besides, everyone knows that the more money the rich have the better off everyone is, so why not just cut all social services to pay for tax cuts for the rich? The GOP has been doing that for thirty years, and look how well off the rich are! Yeah, sure, it hasn’t ‘trickled down’ yet and there’s no indication that it ever will but so what? If the poor really want to better themselves they should just work hard and rely on a massive inheritance like Mitt Romney and the Koch brothers and Paris Hilton and, well you get the idea…
6. Black People - Problem number one: They’re not white. Problem number two: See problem number one. Seriously, there is nothing more adorable than a right-winger claiming that he GOP doesn’t hate black people. Here’s a short list: Birtherism, Obama as a monkey, Obama as a witch doctor, “Don’t Renig,” “Skinny ghetto crackhead,” “Welfare queens,” Southern Republicans worshiping the deeply racist Confederate flag, the Southern Strategy, rewriting history to claim that slavery wasn’t so bad.
I’m not going to provide links to verify any of this for doubters. You know why? Because if you don’t know what every single item on this very short list is, who said it and why than you have no business claiming the GOP is not deeply racist. You are too ignorant to have this conversation and you should move along.
5. Muslims - Sharia law! Eeeeeek! Nothing scares the GOP more than
Not a Muslim among the bunch. Let me guess, ISOLATED INCIDENTS?
Someday, someone is going to have to explain to me how there has been more terrorism committed on American soil by “Christian” right wingers than evil, scary Muslims but we should be more worried about Sharia law than the GOP trying to bring about a theocracy, based on a deeply twisted version of Christianity.
4. The LGBT Community - Everyone knows about the Gay Agenda to turn all of our children gay by molesting them. Gays demand extra-super-special rights that are suspiciously similar to the ones enjoyed by heterosexuals. They want to destroy the institution of marriage and annihilate the family. Everyone knows this! Republicans have worked extra hard to put the Gay in its place. It was so important to punish LGBT people for being born that way that they’ve taken time from creating
3. Hispanics - While it may seem that only the southern states really hate Hispanics, the truth is the entire GOP despises them. The reason is simple: after decades of vilifying them for ‘stealing’ the jobs no other American would take, at a wage no other American would accept, the Hispanic population has exploded to the point where it has become an existential threat to the GOP base. One would almost be tempted to crow about the chickens coming home to roost, but that would be mixing bird metaphors. A less insane political party would adopt a conciliatory tone, and distance itself from its previous rhetoric of hate. The GOP, however, has doubled down on immigrant bashing. From demanding English be the official language of the country, to making racial profiling the law of the land, to chasing immigrants out of the state regardless of the massive economic damage incurred, Republicans are making sure their rapidly shrinking white base knows who’s on their side against the evil “browning of America.”
2. Women – I don’t understand how a single woman can vote for the GOP. Honestly, theyoppose equal pay for equal work, they embrace the idea that women should be homemakers and nothing else, they really resent women that ignore cultural stereotypes, a made up insult against a conservative woman is sexist but totally fair game if it’s a liberal and the very idea of a woman having consequence-free sex is vile.
To this last point, the GOP assault on contraception has nothing to do with protecting life’ since the pill prevents fertilization from even occurring. Rather, it has to do with a woman having the kind of control over her life that a man has. With that control, women have been slowly making headway against the ‘boy’s club’ of the conservative world. Recently, women passed men in earning college degrees. Can you think of any deeper threat to the unearned privilege of being a man in America than having women on a equal or even superior footing? Liberals don’t have a problem with this but conservatives and Republicans invest a great deal of time into being “manly.” Women scare the hell out these little boys. Any opportunity to ‘put them in their place’ is seized upon. That’ll show’em them skirts who’s boss!
And the number one group the GOP hates the very, very most:
1. Actual Americans - I was taught that America was the land of opportunity where it didn’t matter who you were or where you came from. All you needed to do is work hard and you could succeed. Your religion, skin color or gender where irrelevant; anyone could make it. I was taught that we arethe Great American Melting Pot. One nation, indivisible.
Does that sound like the story of the GOP to you? This entire list is a compilation of some, but by no means all, of the people that the GOP despises, and actively legislates against. Theirs is the politics of divisiveness. Republicans talk about the “real” America as if anyone that is not white, straight and Christian are inferior. To them, we are. That’s not the America I know. Are you familiar with it?
America is also a country where we all pitch in our fair share, to benefit the whole. We build schools for the children, even if we do not have any children of our own. We build roads together. We build mass transit for all. We build dams and hospitals and police stations and sewage systems and colleges for the benefit of all. We do this by paying taxes. Businesses and corporations pay taxes because they reap the benefit of all that has gone before. Taxes are the price we pay for the privilege of living and in America.
The GOP views taxes as a burden and punishment on ‘success.’ They protect loopholes that allow corporations and the rich to dodge their fair share. They demand that taxes be lowered, especially for the rich, and are more than happy to take food from the mouths of children to do it. America’s bridges and roads are crumbling but why should the rich pay for any of it? Does that sound like the America you grew up with?
America is a democratic system where the common man can cast his vote and make his voice heard. That is the entire point of having the right to vote. It’s “WE, the people.” Granted, the Founders thought that “We” only meant white, male landowners but they also thought leaches could cure disease so we can forgive them their backwards ways on some issues. The GOP, on the other hand, cannot be forgiven for their concerted effort to steal that most precious of rights from us. Their “voter ID” laws are thinly veiled attempts to suppress the vote of minorities, the young and the elderly, all which tend to vote against conservative orthodoxy. Republican governors cheerfully purge tens of thousands of names from the voting rolls to prevent “widespread voter fraud” but can never seem to name more than a few isolated incidents. Sometimes, “voter ID” advocates can’t even name one.
All of this adds up to a blinding hatred of modern-day America. Republicans despise it on a cellular level. They forever speak of “taking their country back” and “back in my day.” They claim that they love America in one breath and demand we erase 60 years of history in the next. The GOP longs for the days when “America was great” but refuse to go back to the higher taxes and domestic manufacturing that made it that way because it would cost their corporate masters money. America is a country that strives for equality and fairness and it’s been slowly moving in that direction for generations, yet the GOP hates it. Liberals and Democrats are “traitors” and “un-American” but Republicans have spent three years sabotaging our economy just so they can recapture the White House. Maybe they think they’re the true patriots and they’re “saving” the country. Maybe they realize that history is passing them by and they can’t stop it. Maybe they’re just corporate whores and all of this is a cynical ploy to fool easily manipulated conservatives.
In the end, all that matters is that the GOP doesn’t stand for a better America. It stands against the success of the rest of us even if it hurts themselves. And that’s the very definition of hate.
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