The Conservatives’ Core Philosophy In 300 Words

They Don’t Actually Believe What You May Think They Do

By David Grace (www.DavidGraceAuthor.com)

A bunch of reporters accosted a Republican congressman in a Capital hallway a few days ago and asked for his opinion on the Republican leadership’s new health-care proposal. His somewhat angry response was:

“It’s still a giveaway!”

That comment perfectly captures the Conservatives’ core societal belief.

In Italics Below Are The Principles At The Heart Of The Conservatives’ Social Philosophy

You should have been born smart enough and clever enough to figure out on your own how to be successful without needing a family to support you and train you to perform a living-wage job.

But, if you weren’t born really smart and clever then you should have been born into a family that was willing and able to support you and train you to perform a living-wage job.

And if you weren’t born really, really smart and clever and also if you weren’t born into a family that was willing and able to support you and train you to perform a living-wage job, then you should have the energy and the determination to find and keep two full-time food-stamp-wage jobs that would give you enough money to pay your own way.

On those two days each week when you weren’t working sixteen hours and sleeping the remaining eight hours, then, on those two days, less, of course, the time you spent on things like shopping, cooking, washing and cleaning, you could watch some TV.

Yes, I know that leaves you with really no time to actually have any kind of a life, but that’s OK because since you’re dumb and unskilled and low class and from a crappy family, you don’t really deserve to have a decent life anyway.

In conclusion, for those of you who weren’t born really, really smart and clever, and weren’t born into a family that was willing and able to support you and train you for a living-wage job and who don’t have the energy and determination to work eighty hours a week on two food-stamp-wage jobs, then you and your kids deserve to have horrible, crappy lives where you don’t have access to decent housing, earn enough to feed yourselves, or have access to medical care. That’s your problem, not mine.

I’m sure your shitty life won’t have any bad consequences for me or my family nor have any negative effects on my life.

That’s the core conservative political philosophy in a nutshell.

It Doesn’t Meet The Basic Reasonableness Test

I would say that the only time it’s reasonable to tell people that they have to pay their own way and that if they can’t feed themselves or afford medical care that they should just “do without” is when

• There are jobs available that they’re qualified and able to perform that will pay them a living wage including medical insurance, or
• You’re willing to pay their training costs so that they can get a living-wage job where they can earn enough to pay their own way.

Put differently: If there are no living wage jobs they’re qualified to do and if you’re not willing to pay to train them for the living-wage jobs that are available, how do you expect them to actually pay their own way? Magic?

There Are Only Four Choices

• Make the available jobs they can already perform pay a living wage (including medical insurance), or
• Train them so that they’re qualified to perform the available living wage jobs, or
• Subsidize their food, housing and medical care, or
• Have a society where at least twenty percent of the population can’t feed itself, house itself, or have access to medical care.

The Conservatives Pick Door Number Four

The Conservatives’ solution is option number four, tell twenty percent (or more) of the adult population:

“It doesn’t matter that you’re willing to work. It doesn’t matter that you want to work. Sorry, but you’ve lost life’s lottery and your destiny is to be part of the underclass. No skin of my nose. Suck it.”

It Will Only End Badly

I suggest that choice number four is a blueprint for an unsustainable, crime-ridden, volatile, unlivable society.

It won’t work.

It isn’t working.

There Is Another Way — As Much As Possible Keep The Government & The Taxpayers Out Of It

My position is:

• Everyone who is willing to work should be guaranteed++ a living-wage job where the pay includes medical insurance.
• That rather than shifting the cost of feeding, housing, and providing medical care to the government and ultimately to the taxpayers, employers, not taxpayers, should pay the costs of feeding, housing and providing medical care to America’s workers via living wage jobs for everyone++.
• Like every other business expense, employers factor the cost of labor into the price of their products, which means that their customers would directly pay the costs of providing for workers’ food, housing and medical care instead of taxpayers indirectly paying those costs through tax-supported public assistance programs.
• Keep public assistance programs for those who truly cannot work.

Everybody who wants to work, can work, and everybody who does work earns enough to have a decent life.

–David Grace (www.DavidGraceAuthor.com)

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+Where will these guaranteed jobs come from, you ask? I offer my answer here: A Guaranteed Minimum Income Is The Wrong Answer To The Right Question. The Solution To The Shortage Of Living-Wage, Low-Skilled Jobs Is Publicly-Funded, Non-Profit Corporations That Will Pay A Living Wage