Rick Santorum says Americans should "suffer"

By Michael J.W. Stickings

Santorum is an also-ran in the 2012 GOP presidential race, but it's worth paying some attention to him because he still speaks for a significant Republican constituency, specifically the theocratic evangelical Christianist right, and because he often says explicitly what passes for dogma in the GOP but what many other Republicans realize is politically dangerous to say.

For example:

During a town hall meeting in Ottumwa, Iowa Friday afternoon, Rick Santorum argued that Americans receive too many government benefits and ought to "suffer" in the Christian tradition. If "you're lower income, you can qualify for Medicaid, you can qualify for food stamps, you can qualify for housing assistance," Santorum complained, before adding, "suffering is part of life and it's not a bad thing, it is an essential thing in life."

Generally, what we hear from Republicans at this time of economic difficulty -- when they're not just attacking Obama and grossly misrepresenting his views -- is that taxes should be lowered (especially for the wealthy "job creators"), that government spending needs to be cut drastically (specifically spending on entitlement programs or other social programs that Republicans object to ideologically, not spending on the military or other things they like), and that the unregulated free market (with the likes of Paul Ryan channeling Ayn Rand) is the key to eternal prosperity.

Behind all this is a sense that Republicans actually want the economy to tank for partisan reasons and are sabotaging recovery efforts, not to mention a sense that Republicans really don't care about the poor at all, or even the middle class, and are focused mostly on expanding the wealth of the super-wealthy, individual and corporate alike -- but of course Republicans rarely admit any of this openly.

Enter Rick Santorum, who welcomes suffering because, apparently, it's Christian to suffer at the hands of an economic and political system that rewards the wealthy and punishes everyone else.

Feel better, all you people having difficulty putting food on the table, paying your bills, and taking care of your children? Just keep suffering. Santorum and the GOP won't be there to help you one bit.

Credit Santorum for being honest, I suppose. This is what many Republicans believe, based on their "Christian" faith. But of course he's just giving explicit voice to the assholish, don't-give-a-shit conservatism that dominates the Party of Cruelty and Brutality that is today's GOP.