GOP House candidate defends 'wither and die' comment about poor

[steve2470]

http://politics.suntimes.com/article/washington/gop-house-candidate-defends-wither-and-die-comment-about-poor/wed-07232014-1021pm

A Republican candidate is facing questions about a Facebook comment where, in a discussion about the poor, he stated, “No one has the guts to just let them wither and die.”

Valparaiso resident John Johnston, who is challenging State Rep. Chuck Moseley, D-10th, said Tuesday that he was speaking in hyperbole, and he later clarified that no thoughtful society would let people go hungry.

“I was not trying to hurt anybody’s feelings,” Johnston said. “I saw the opportunity to say something. I think a lot of the poor have no way out, and there’s no motivation to improve your position. It’s like training a child, either you enable them or force them out at some point.”

The discussion thread appeared on the Mad Mac page, which pokes fun at Northwest Indiana politics.


What a lying POS. He was speaking his true feelings.

eta: We need to put this on Twitter and Facebook, make it go viral !

[Aristus]

1. Lucky for him we're not a thoughtful country.

n/t

[KamaAina]

2. I picked it off of someone's FB page

Quite a bit of stuff I post here comes from the FB page of one of my many, many progressive friends.

[steve2470]

3. That story is the ONLY one about it on Google News

So, you did the progressive cause a big favor by putting it here. Now we can make it go wider on the net.

[KatyMan]

4. "It’s like training a child, either you enable them or force them out at some point.”

Because poor people are nothing more than children....
We have the term mansplain in our language, but this is more like "richsplain"--see you don't understand anything because you're poor, so you are obviously stupid and you need nice trust fund folks like me to train you...

[noiretextatique]

5. why do anti-government types seek government jobs?

at the very least, they should refuse to accept pay and do their dirty work without the burden of accepting government money