"Back in the days before euphemisms, they used to call that moral evil."

[Hissyspit]

http://digbysblog.blogspot.com/2011/07/sickness-that-knows-no-name.html

Friday, July 29, 2011

A Sickness that Knows No Name
by David Atkins ("thereisnospoon")

- snip-

House conservatives who have stalled legislation to raise the national debt limit are angry that it includes $17 billion in supplemental spending for Pell Grants, which some compare to welfare.

So this is what it comes down to. Spending a few billion on giving kids the prayer of being able to afford to go to college given skyrocketing tuitions is just too much for the Tea Party brigade. Money for college is just the same as "welfare." Before you know it, those strapping young college kids will be driving Cadillacs and eating T-bone steaks, the lazy freeloaders. Far better that they stay in the menial labor workforce, as the hired help for America's "job creators," while we merrily piss away trillions of dollars on pointless wars for oil overseas.

Back in the days before euphemisms, they used to call that moral evil. Nowadays a professional psychiatrist might call it antisocial personality disorder, except that we know there aren't that many actual clinical sociopaths out there. What it is, is a culture of sociopathy, made possible by a 30-year-long echo chamber of right-wing radio, Fox News, corrupted church propaganda, and astroturf think tanks. Back in the days before the conservative echo chamber, it used to be deeply embarrassing to hold these sorts of views. Now, the more extreme your devotion to the sociopathic line, the better proof of your membership in the right-wing cult.

But it's not just that: they're deeply stupid as well. Without getting into the fact that spending on education is an investment in America's future potential, and that anyone who did what Tea Partiers claim to want and "ran government like a business" would instantly see that such investments must be made, the numbers don't add up, either.

MORE AT LINK

[The Magistrate]

1. A Dismayingly Excellent Piece, Ma'am

[Last_Stand]

2. We need more young souls for the war meat-grinder...

providing education and future opportunities to potential foot soldiers is not an option.

[Waiting For Everyman]

4. And the bank-grinder.

Less grants, more bank loans. Indentured servitude 2.0.

[BuelahWitch]

7. Silly fools, the banks still get a nice kick from college students.

The Pell barely pays for tuition, and at most schools doesn't even cover it, I'm sure. The most you can get is $5450, which has to cover both semesters. Then you have books and fees and all kinds of other things. So even if someone does qualify for Pell (which isn't that easy), most of the time students still have to take out loans.

[OldEurope]

3. You ask...

..."What's the clinical term for mass delusion combined with immorality and abject stupidity?"
Easy to answer: Fascism.

[PDJane]

5. Quite. Thank you.

[Cool Logic]

6. One might also conclude that $40,000+/yr. in tuition costs is somewhat immoral.

We never hear anything about the high costs of tuition though.

[BuelahWitch]

9. +1

[Mojorabbit]

8. This is exactly what I have been saying this past week.

I came up during the Kennedy years and the ask what you can do for your country and have seen it degenerate into what's in it for me.

[Kalidurga]

10. So he does one nice thing and the result is he gets flamed.

It looks like the Tea Party is trying to squelch every last bit of humanity out of, Boehner. I am not going to hold my breath, but perhaps this could be a wake up call to Republicans of what their party has become.