I just read something that, I think, explains a lot about conservatives and people on the right generally... those who are against social programs, against helping out the bottom of the economic heap, those who feel it's "every one for themselves", and "screw you, I've got mine". Here it is:

"To look into the eyes of a vulnerable person is to see yourself as you might be. It’s a more harrowing experience than one might readily admit. There is a version of yourself made powerless, status diminished, reliant upon the goodwill of others. One response is empathy: to shore up your reserves of charity and trust, in hopes that others will do the same. Another is denial: If you refuse to believe you could ever be in such a position — perhaps by blaming the frail for their frailty or ascribing their vulnerability to moral failure — then you never have to face such an uncomfortable episode of imagination. You come away disgusted with the weak, but content in the certainty you aren’t among them.

Or they make you feel helpless, just by dint of how little you can do to stop what’s being done to them. The temptation in that case is to look away, let it all be someone else’s problem, or deny that there’s a problem in need of resolution in the first place."

This was from a piece about a rape victim... and yet the situation can be disturbingly similar. Someone who is victimized by losing their job, losing their health, losing their home, having no power over their own lives, is in a similar situation. And it's easy for those who aren't in that position to say "It'll never happen to me. I'm smarter and tougher and better than that. They'll have to take care of themselves." It's so easy to deny the concept of a community.

One of my closest associates is, and I say this as a friend, an idiot. He complains regularly about how undervalued he is as an employee, how our raises haven't kept up with inflation for the entire 15 years we've worked together, the way our employer (in his eyes anyway) looks to screw us at every opportunity- and yet he shops at Wal-Mart, where the employees make 1/5 our wage, have NO benefits, don't even work a full 40-hour workweek, and often have to work a second job to make ends meet. And he doesn't see the connection between patronizing an employer which gives a royal fucking over to their workers, versus his own feelings of being undervalued. He just goes on enabling the Walton family, because he won't pay an extra 40 cents for a ramen noodle bowl, or 20 cents for a bottled water. "Screw them, I've got mine. If they want a better job, they should go get one. There are so many jobs out there." So many jobs that require college degrees or technical education. So many jobs that you can't get. Just try working your way through college at Wal Mart.

And he can't seem to imagine, what if he were in that position?

Everyone who's well off- it wasn't just initiative and smarts and drive that got them there. It was luck and connections and being in the right place at the right time. It was a ton of intangibles. If wanting to succeed were enough, we would all be a success.

I'm doing okay. I can't complain. What offends me is the wealthy complaining that they're not wealthy enough, that those undeserving poor people have the temerity to need social programs and health care and unemployment. Because they can't picture being in that position themselves.

(Quotation from [washingtonpost.com]