The right's poverty plan: shame poor kids and the vaginas that birthed them
http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2014/mar/12/conservative-poverty-plan-birth-control-food-stamps
So many of lifes problems could be solved, according to conservative provocateur Ann Coulter, if the poor could just learn to keep their knees together until they got married and if their wealthy and educated counterparts just werent afraid to shame them into doing so. These pearls of wisdom, particularly the shaming is good part, were greeted with loud applause over the weekend at the Conservative Political Action Conference.
Tempting as it might be to dismiss Coulters remarks as the usual crowd-pleasing nonsense, they fit a little too neatly into the Rights narrative to morally demonize poverty, even as Republicans in Washington pretend to care about poverty by the numbers. Indeed, this shame-the-poor narrative is now being used to justify policies that take needed resources away from the poor, and while its a self-defeating prophecy for conservatives that doesnt add up, theyre still the ones who should be shamed.
Blaming poverty on the moral failings of the poor and criticizing their sex habits and eating habits has always been a favorite conservative sport, dating back to Victorian times. But it has been alternately sickening and fascinating to watch the current crop of American conservatives, particularly those who claim to be devotees of the original social justice champion Jesus Christ jump through hoops to try to find new ways to vilify the poor just so they can feel less bad (or at least appear less bad to their followers) when they do nothing to help them.
Whether theyre trying to cut benefits to the long-term unemployed or take food from the hungry or restrict womens access to birth control, the standard Republican refrain is that theyre just trying to save the poor from themselves. If you believe that, then Ive got a bridge to sell you and its got some traffic problems.