In Principle Michael Ryan Agrees--Welfare Recipients=Stray Animals

Re: "Murphy Brown Gives Birth Again," from the January 26th edition of the Augusta Chronicle editorial page.

Michael Ryan writes that S.C. Lt. Governor, Andre Bauer, in principle is right--welfare recipients are the equivalent of stray animals. Mr. Ryan only laments Mr. Bauer's wording of the issue. I don't know how many diplomatic ways there are to say that poor people=stray dogs and cats, but the truth came out and that's what conservatives think of less fortunate human beings.

If there is any issue which clearly demonstrates the lack of logic in conservative thought, this is it. Conservatives falsely believe welfare causes a cycle of dependency. How can this be? There is a 5 year lifetime limit on federal welfare. It's therefore impossible for a woman to live on welfare her entire life as many conservatives believe. Moreover, men without children are not even eligible for federal welfare. There is no evidence that children of welfare mothers are more likely to turn to welfare themselves when they grow up. The mother of Sarah Jessica Parker, the actress from Sex and the City, was on welfare. Yet, her daughter became a successful actress.

What do conservatives think? That poor women get pregnant out of wedlock on purpose so they can collect welfare and food stamps and live in public housing. Those aren't exactly get rich schemes. Conservatives must think poor women say, "Oh yeah, I'm going to get knocked up so I can barely scrape by on welfare."

Conservatives are stooges because they think people want to be poor on purpose so they can live off the government. Nobody wants to be poor.

The reality is this: If you are going to have a free market, capitalist society, there are going to be poor people. You can be humane and have a government that takes care of the have-nots, or you can have armed revolution when poor people get fed up with starvation. I vote for the former and lots of it--we should have greater welfare benefits (including generous job training and education) than we have now.

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Re: "A gaping blindspot," from the January 23rd edition of the Augusta Chronicle editorial page.

This one is laughable. Mr. Ryan claims the media turns a blind eye to the Tea Party movement and the John Edwards' scandal. If so, how do we even know about it. His claim just doesn't make sense. If the media ignored it, as he claims, we wouldn't know about these things.

Re: "Running out of options," from the same edition.

Mr. Ryan is correct when he notes polls show people are overwhelmingly against the health care plan. But I was listening to NPR the other day and the radio announcer cited a poll (I don't know which one) that showed the health care plan with just 40% support compared to 51% opposition. But when people were told what was actually in the plan, support jumped up to 73%.

This demonstrates that much of the opposition to the plan is based on ignorance.

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Re: "A seismic correction from the January 21st edition of the Augusta Chronicle editorial page.

Conservative pundits and panicky democrats are making far too much out of Scott Brown's victory in the Massachusetts senatorial election. He was a handsome man who looked like a Kennedy, and he ran a clever advertisement comparing himself to J.F.K. He satisfied the Kennedy fetish that Massachusetts voters seem to have. (Remember they re-elected Ted after Chappaquidick, an event that would have wiped out any other politician's career.)

I know this is cynical, and there are many people who do vote based on ideology, but just as many vote on looks and personality, and that's the main reason why Brown won. I can't think of a single good looking candidate who ever lost to a non-incumbent ugly candidate in any race. I know there are some. Maybe somebody can give some examples in response to this blog, but I just can't think of any.

This does hurt the democrats. Though they still have big majorities in both houses of congress, they act as if they're in the minority. What a bunch of wimps. They should simply do away with that silly antiquated filibuster rule, but this would require guts--something democrats have absolutely none of.

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In the above mentioned edition we have crazy nut of the week letter from Paul Rosenthal who states that Obama wants the economy to fail on purpose so he can install a Marxist system. Someone forgot to give this guy his thorazine.

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Re: "Nancy Antoinette," from the January 18th edition of the Augusta Chronicle editorial page.

It's really galling when conservatives such as Mr. Ryan claim the republicans are the party of the common man. This criticism of Nancy Pelosi is not fair. Congressmen have the right to go on junkets to obtain information about the world. Mr. Ryan criticizes her for not revealing how much her trip cost. She probably doesn't know. Some secretary handles it. Mr. Ryan cites Jack Cafferty who also criticizes Ms. Pelosi for this. Jack Cafferty is a stupid populist ass who wants to get people fired up about nothing.

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Note: I again submitted a letter to the Augusta Chronicle. It was about an issue I discussed in my last blog--Mr. Ryan's plagiarism of an article written by Ms. Lopez in which she misquoted Martha Coakley and came up with the dubious conclusion that Ms. Coakley stated catholics were unfit to work in emergency rooms. In my letter I didn't use the word plagiarism. I simply wrote it was an astonishing coincidence that he came up with the same misquote and same dubious conclusion.

Nevertheless, they didn't publish my letter (after 8 days, so I assume they won't). This proves that they're aware of Mr. Ryan's plagiarisms and evidentally approve of them.