Screw the unemployed, says Tom DeLay

By Michael J.W. Stickings

According to Tom DeLay, an indicted felon, "[p]eople are unemployed because they want to be." That was the question asked by CNN's Candy Crowley yesterday, and DeLay unleashed the view that is common on the right and among Republicans generally (but that many are reluctant to voice publicly):

Well, it is the truth. and people in the real world know it. And they have friends and they know it. Sure, we ought to be helping people that are unemployed find a job, but we also have budget considerations that are incredibly important, especially now that Obama is spending monies that we don't have.

So, basically, screw 'em. The unemployed want to be unemployed, the poor want to be poor, we all get what we deserve, and that's just the way it is.

The way it is to smug, self-satisfied Republicans like DeLay, those without a trace of compassion. Digby:

I would guess that this is going to catch on among the dittoheads. The right is reasoning that they can appeal to a good number of the majority who are employed and make them question why they should subsidize all those losers who are not. It worked with health care.

Empathy for your fellow man, or even a selfish sense that you might personally need some assistance someday, is being attacked by the right wing head on. And I would guess that there are more than a few people who secretly have thought these things but didn't have the social support necessary to say it out loud. Now they do.

This isn't a widely accepted point of view. Yet. But its infecting the body politic.

I think she undersells the point: This is a widely accepted point of view on the right, and it's already caught on among those who worship at the altar of Dear Leader Rush and the Republican Party of Teabaggers, which is pretty much the state of the GOP in 2010.