Friday, June 05, 2015

Mean people.

Image result for mean heartless republican images     With the mean and heartless comments by Ted Cruz about Joe Biden ---after the death of his son--- still fresh in my mind, I thought that I might share an article that I recently found with you.

"I grew up and did my early work in politics in Nebraska, and my wife is a farmer's daughter from rural Missouri. I spent about 10 years organizing and door-knocking for campaigns in rural Iowa. So I know a lot about the kind of Bob Dole conservatism that used to be the dominant political culture of those places. Since I became a progressive Democrat, I didn't agree with those conservatives on many things, but I mostly liked and respected them. Wary of the unintended consequences of change, suspicious of big government, fiscally conservative, traditionalist in many ways, they were generally decent folks with much to admire in them, and very worthy political opponents.

To my great sadness, though, I feel like the modern conservative movement (and the Republican Party, which has been completely captured by this movement) has devolved into something quite different. It's not necessarily more conservative (in some ways it is, in other ways not), mostly just a whole lot meaner.

At conservative conferences and Republican gatherings over the last decade, we have seen the crowds turn ugly. Remember the Republican presidential debates four years ago, with audiences cheering for torture and people dying because they had no health insurance, and booing soldiers, decorated for their heroism, because they were gay? Remember the McCain/Palin rallies of 2008 where the audiences were openly racist and called Obama a Muslim terrorist? Here's another example that still chills me: Glenn Beck giving a speech to CPAC a few years back, talking about how there should be no safety net because "in nature, the lions eat the weak." The audience burst into applause and laughter, and these are the same folks preaching Christian values.

It is important to note, though, that there are two different kinds of meanness that animate the modern conservative movement, and they are very different from each other. Two recent videos illustrate that difference.

The first is of the kind mentioned above: that nasty, racist meanness that animates so many conservatives. The woman speaker from the audience is the mother of David Bossie, one of the leading figures in the conservative movement and the head of Citizens United. Listen to her compare immigrants to rats and roaches while the audience goes crazy, cheering her on:

Note that the moderator of the session, famed GOP pollster Frank Luntz, not only doesn't push back but praises her and asks the crowd if they would support her for president. This kind of undiluted racism takes my breath away.

However, there is another kind of meanness that is even more central to modern conservatism. If you are looking for a philosophical forebear to this kind of philosophy, read some Ayn Rand, who proclaimed that selfishness is good and that government help for poor people, or even charity, is bad because it encourages the leeches of society. This kind of meanness is a lot smoother and more sophisticated than the rats-and-roaches kind of meanness, but it is just as nasty. Check out this truly sobering interview by my colleague Lauren Windsor with this senior Cato Institute staffer, George Selgin. He says bank runs are good because they will make the economy stronger and bank customers more savvy :

Now, remember how influential Cato is: It is the Koch brothers' leading think tank, pushing their philosophy, and it advises Republican presidential candidates and members of Congress. At the conference where this interview took place, leading Republican appointees to financial regulatory agencies were the keynote speakers. And their banking policy guy, Selgin, argued that the Federal Reserve, FDIC deposit insurance, and almost any regulation of financial markets should be eliminated. Because that worked out so well during the Great Depression!

Selgin actually thinks that the onus should be on consumers to evaluate the safety of a bank by researching their balance sheets. Given that the nature of banking is to lend out or invest the money that they get from depositors, and given the complexity of modern finance -- the "best CEO on Wall Street" couldn't figure out that the London Whale was going to lose billions overnight for JPMorgan Chase -- this is a pretty incredible philosophy. And at its heart it is meanness in its most distilled form: It doesn't matter if millions of people lose their life savings, their homes, and their jobs in a financial collapse, because, hey, they deserve it if they didn't know better in the first place. And in the meantime, if financial charlatans and speculators become billionaires for setting up these market failures and getting out just before the crash, so be it.

This is not the kind of conservatism I grew up around. This is devil-take-the-hindmost conservatism: Every man for himself, and let the unlucky ones starve if it works out that way. These two kinds of meanness together -- the Ayn Rand kind and the nasty, racist kind -- paint a very ugly picture of modern conservatism." [Source]

I never thought that I would miss the likes of Bob Dole and Jack Kemp on the American political scene, but I do.



39 comments:

Wesley R said...

Rafael Cruz Jr. is trying to pass for white. This fake Gringo could care less about other Latinos or anyone else who isn't writing him a check.
Field, it's funny how 'the liberal media' hasn't reported on things like this. Are they'liberal', or are they doing the bidding for the elite so that everyone came be kept in their 'place'?

dinthebeast said...

It does seem as if they are getting worse, doesn't it? And I know what you mean about Dole and Kemp; I would jump over a whole gang of Karl Roves to get to one Bebe Rebozo...

-Doug in Oakland

Come on, man said...

Conservatives aren't any 'meaner' than a generation ago, it is just that the liberal opinions of conservatives as generated by a rabidly liberal media have become ever more stereotyped and cartoonish.

You don't even know any conservatives in real life, and your information on conservative ideals come not from conservatives, but through the liberal filter.

The media describes conservatives using only a few templates - mean, greedy, dumb, evil.

Half the people in the country can't be that awful, but liberals believe that because that is what they are told.

Grow up. Nobody wants you to go hungry, or be made slaves, or die in the street. Nobody is working to take your right to vote away.

Conservatives just want the country that has made more people's lives better than any country in history not to be ruined and pissed away. Nothing would make the average conservative happier than black people and immigrants wanting to be a part of America. Not a fundamentally changed, debased and bankrupt America, but the America that can still exist if we can stop trashing it.

Anonymous said...

"Mean, nasty and racist"... that is exactly what America and its Conservatives/GOP are. They are totally heartless.

It was the GOP that caused America to lose its triple A status.

It was the GOP who shut down the government, causing a lot of hurt to millions of Americans.

It was the GOP who said their only goal was to make sure Obama was a one term President.

It was a GOP who yelled out during a Obama's Presidential speech "You lie!".

I could go on, but I just don't have the time.

In any case, most will agree, that the Conservative GOP is NOT a kind, compassionate fair political party. It is a MEAN, NASTY RACIST PARTY for Wall Streeters, injustices and taking votes from Blacks.

Mr Field, thank you for this post. It needed to be said about who Conservatives truly are: Mean, Nasty and Racist.

JOSH and Kinky are two classic examples of meanness, nastiness, and racist.

Anonymous said...

So, Obama didnt lie? Ha!

Sader said...

I believe Michael Jordan said it best: "Republicans buy sneakers too."

Fact Jack said...

It was the GOP that caused America to lose its triple A status.
No, that was the result of Obama running trillion dollar deficits without getting a budget passed for several years.

It was the GOP who shut down the government, causing a lot of hurt to millions of Americans.
The government shutdown hurt no one, and propelled the Republicans to an electoral landslide victory in 2014.

It was the GOP who said their only goal was to make sure Obama was a one term President.
No, that was Rush Limbaugh who said that. BTW, did the Democrats not do everything they could to try to make G. W. Bush a one-term President?

It was a GOP who yelled out during a Obama's Presidential speech "You lie!".
True, GOP congressman Joe Wilson said "You Lie!" after Obama said in his state of the union address "“The (Obamacare) reforms I am proposing would not apply to those what are here illegally”. But as the Obama administration immediately extended those benefits to illegal aliens, Joe Wilson was right, Obama did lie.

Obamanomics said...

The Wall Street Journal conducted an analysis of 400 metropolitan areas in the United States, looking for cities with an unemployment rate “roughly at or below its 2005-07 average” and “total nonfarm payrolls” above their rate in December 2007—the beginning of the recession.

According to these criteria, only 33 American cities have recovered from the recession.

24 of these (73%) are in conservative red states. 11 of these 24 are in Texas.

Of the 9 cities in liberal blue states, 2/3 (6) are in Minnesota, 2 are in Michigan, and one is in Vermont.

So, outside of Minnesota, there has been very little recovery in Democrat states.

http://dailysignal.com/2015/06/04/wage-growth-in-many-cities-still-lingers-at-pre-recession-levels/

Limpbaugh said...

In reply to Wesley R.s comment, the liberal media does protect the elite. How many times have you heard them call the Iraq War a mistake? As if lying us in to war on purpose was a mistake. We are allowed to choose whether we want to serve the elite by letting consumers have more money to spend on the elite's products, or by letting the elite pay workers less. We can vote for things like whether or not we think gays should be able to get married. If you want to vote for candidates who want to arrest Dick Cheney, good luck finding them. Some of the people who aren't in office anymore after asking too many questions about 9/11 are Tom Daschle, Cynthia McKinney, Max Cleland, and Anthony Weiner. A straightforward example of how the media controls us is how they got rid of Howard Dean after he said he wanted to break up big media. They showed the scream over and over with the sound edited out.

Some people say the CEO of Goldman Sachs said either Hillary or Jeb would be acceptable. That's how democratic fascism works. They give you the illusion of having a choice.

Just an ordinary guy said...

"How many times have you heard them call the Iraq War a mistake?"

Oh, about a million, give or take a few thousand.

Anonymous said...

"Rafael Cruz Jr. is trying to pass for white. This fake Gringo could care less about other Latinos or anyone else who isn't writing him a check.
Field, it's funny how 'the liberal media' hasn't reported on things like this. Are they 'liberal', or are they doing the bidding for the elite so that everyone came be kept in their 'place'?"


It depends how you want to look at it.

Here in the U.S., Latino is often treated as a race, because Latinos have a certain amount of culture in common that is different from whites whose ancestors emigrated directly to the U.S., and from that of African-Americans.

But in truth, Latino is not a race. Latinos are of many different races. Most of the ones in the U.S. are racially mestizo (a mixture of white and Native American). But there are Latinos who are black, white, and other kinds of mixed backgrounds.

In the case of Cuban immigrants to the U.S., they are almost all racially white. (They are also almost all conservative, because most came from the wealthy class that fled after the communist revolution when Fidel seized their assets.)

From the perspective of race, Ted Cruz isn't passing for white. He IS white, and so is Marco Rubio.

Anonymous said...

Just a woodchuck eating an ice cream cone, that's all:

https://youtu.be/WRu5pQU38K4

WHAT THE FUCK!!!!!!!!

Dick Cheney's dick said...

Limpbaugh said...
If you want to vote for candidates who want to arrest Dick Cheney, good luck finding them.
---

That's right, bitch. Just keep walkin'

Anonymous said...

"It was the GOP that caused America to lose its triple A status.
No, that was the result of Obama running trillion dollar deficits without getting a budget passed for several years."


Ah, you mean that by Democrats not agreeing to their absurd demand to defund Obamacare, Republicans were "forced" to act like childish assholes and defund the operations of most of the government?

This is pretty much the same logic as that of the domestic abuser:

Your honor, the beer my wife brung me was warm, so I was "forced" to put her head through the wall. She made me do it, the dumb bitch.

"The government shutdown hurt no one, and propelled the Republicans to an electoral landslide victory in 2014."

The shutdown hurt no one because it only lasted approximately five minutes. It lasted about five minutes because the Republican Party's collective approval rating immediately went into a nosedive, whereupon GOP leaders crapped their pants in panic and quickly passed a budget. The whole thing was a farcical stunt created by Ted Cruz that accomplished nothing.

It definitely didn't help Republicans gain any seats in 2014. Those electoral gains were secured by a sophisticated maneuver known as "lying their asses off." They told lots of very scary lies.

Remember what the summer of 2014 was like? Let me refresh your memory:

OMG WETBACKS WETBACKS WETBACKS WETBACKS WETBACKS!!! LITTLE BROWN CHILDREN ARE INVADING AND OBAMA IS GIVING THEM IMMEDIATE CITIZENSHIP!!!

OMG ISIS ISIS ISIS ISIS ISIS ISIS!!! OBAMA'S GONNA LET JIHADIS KILL US ALL!!!

OMG EBOLA EBOLA EBOLA EBOLA EBOLA EBOLA!!! OBAMA'S GONNA LET AFRICANS KILL US ALL!!!


(Actual number of U.S. Ebola infections: 4; Actual number of U.S. Ebola deaths: 1)

"True, GOP congressman Joe Wilson said "You Lie!" after Obama said in his state of the union address 'The (Obamacare) reforms I am proposing would not apply to those what are here illegally'. But as the Obama administration immediately extended those benefits to illegal aliens, Joe Wilson was right, Obama did lie."

Nope. Sorry, still not true. Obamacare eligibility still does not apply to undocumented residents.

Anonymous said...

This article is an accurate description of what has happened to the GOP, what with their ever-increasing attempts to demonize poor people, their attitudes seem to be headed back to promoting Dickensian workhouses, and tolerating people's deaths by malnutrition and curable diseases. This is completely vile.

There seems to be no recognition of what the "pure capitalism" they fantasize about actually looks like. Apparently none of them have ever cracked a history book, and so they hold purely romantic beliefs about what happened in the 19th century, before labor unions and proper regulation of industry and the creation of the welfare state.

The bigotry is NOT new at all, but it does seem to have become slightly more obvious in recent years, what with all the legal attacks on voting rights and the like.

One thing I do have a quibble with, though, is this passage in the article:

"Note that the moderator of the session, famed GOP pollster Frank Luntz, not only doesn't push back but praises her and asks the crowd if they would support her for president. This kind of undiluted racism takes my breath away."

I saw video of that event, and Luntz wasn't approving of her hateful "immigrants are rats and roaches" tirade. In fact, he tried to rip her microphone away to stop her hate speech, because she was revealing exactly what a big chunk of the Republican Party believes, and that was unacceptable. Mind you, the GOP doesn't care about being racist; they just don't want to seem racist.

Anonymous said...

Anonymous, 12:51 A.M. Exactly. Ted Cruz is white. White Hispanic, with some Irish and Italian. And oh so sexy. The haters aren't fit to taste his toejam!

PilotX said...

Good post, being from Illinois I know about the old school Republicans. To wit, we had plenty of Republican governors who worked with the Democrats in the state legislature to get things done but now we have a "new" Republican governor with no legislative experience only as a businessman and he will not compromise or work together. This is the new conservatism I guess.

@Limpbaugh, as much as I like Howard Dean, he was the only candidate to come to the southside of Chicago, his "Dean scream" was contrived and I lost a bit of respect for him. At the time he was getting heat for being boring and just like that the next rally he was acting like the Tasmanian devil. I mean there's nothing wrong with being a smart, thoughtful and quiet person but the media made him try to become something he wasn't. He should have stuck to his guns.

McFred said...

Hey Yisheng, you know how Bill uses his "ding ding" line with that retard Purple Cow? Well...

ding ding, Yisheng

SFNorCal said...

So many ignorant fucks on this blog. Blacks are too accepting of mediocrity. We cultured, intelligent folk in the Bay Area would never stoop to your level.

Anonymous said...

"We cultured, intelligent folk in the Bay Area would never stoop to your level."

8:38 AM
---------------
Of course you wouldn't. Isn't that the point of your low-level intelligent stooping comment? What's happening with your 'high level' racist SF police departmentSF?

What's happening with your white corrupt justice system?

CA history indicates that there was a proposal to split the state in two. It seems that the Whites in Southern CA can't stand the wretchedly evil Whites in the Bay Area. They feel you folks DO, in fact, stoop to low levels that is even too low for dogs.

What happened in the Oscar Grant murder? Is the cop still in jail, or is he free enjoying his "white status" in SF?

Yep, Whites in SFNorCal really clean people with clean minds and hearts. BTW, there is an exodus of white people leaving the Bay Area. It seems they can't stand the white people there....must be an awful lot of people like yourself there.

BTW, the present Governor of Oregon has reiterated what previous Oregon Governors have said: "We don't mind Californians visiting Oregon, but please don't stay here."

That pretty much sums it all up about who you 'really' are...UNWANTED...so you pick on Blacks on FN to assuage your low self-esteem and grief?

How's that working out for you?

The Purple Cow said...

"Anonymous McFred said...
Hey Yisheng, you know how Bill uses his "ding ding" line with that retard Purple Cow? Well...

ding ding, Yisheng"


Yes McFred, but the infantile 'ding ding' is code for "I've lost another argument and I've no fucking clue what to say next"

Try explaining it tonight to your mates in your Trailer Park moonshine tub.

" Yuhsee, I was having an argument with this guy on the internets today, and then suddenly I says- get this, this is genius, I says - wait for it - I says "Ding Ding". Just like that I wrote it on the computer screen - "Ding Ding" - just like that."

Let me know what Cletus and the other slack-jawed yokels think. I'm guessing they are going to be somewhat nonplussed*.

*Look it up.

Anonymous said...

"Nope. Sorry, still not true. Obamacare eligibility still does not apply to undocumented residents."

Since Obama requires no documentation of citizenship status for Obamacare, it does in fact cover millions of illegal aliens.

Bill & Josh molest little boys said...

It takes a special kind of retard to believe what the neocons say.

Anonymous said...

"It was the GOP that caused America to lose its triple A status.
No, that was the result of Obama running trillion dollar deficits without getting a budget passed for several years."

Ah, you mean that by Democrats not agreeing to their absurd demand to defund Obamacare, Republicans were "forced" to act like childish assholes and defund the operations of most of the government?
---

You are confusing the reason for the USA losing it's AAA credit status - Obama's insane deficit spending and his failure to get a budget through the Democrat-controlled Senate - with the Republican's efforts to rein in that insane spending and restore the USA's good credit.

That is probably due to the fact you get all of your news through Democrat-aligned media. Try broadening your sources beyond CNN, MSNBC, the NYT and the broadcast networks.

field negro said...

I do know some conservatives. Not bad people, actually.
My issue is with the puppet masters in Washington -and other places-who control the movement.

Bill said...


The Purple Cow said...
'ding ding' is code for "I've lost another argument and I've no fucking clue what to say next"


Actually it's a tribute to Pavlov.

I have explained to you many times that you have been conditioned to respond whenever I want you to. Just like Pavlov trained his dogs.

Funny you are in such denial over who is pulling your strings.


Ding Ding PurpleCow.

Bill said...


McFred said...
you know how Bill uses his "ding ding" line with that retard Purple Cow?


Hey McFred, ding ding even works for you.

Purplecow has been trained to respond to "ding ding."

Your post and PurpleCow responding once again proves my point.

anotherbozo said...

Bravo, Field. When you're not exposing recism and other idiocies on your own you're turning the mike over to some really savvy voices I woulda missed otherwise. I came here for the usual caption party but this is far better.

PoopAvenger said...

Wow, the white race really is the devil.

Go Pack Go said...

Hey blacks in America, ever heard of such things as working and earning instead of stealing and whiny race-card playing? How's the wallowing in victimization working out for you?

field negro said...

Go Pack, I am sure that most blacks here are doing just fine. Maybe u should find a cross burning party to crash.

The Purple Cow said...

Bill, get a grip man. How do you get it into your stupid fucking little pea-brain that saying "ding ding" like an educational subnormal three year old wins you any prizes?

Now kindly fuck off and die, you witless, charmless, brainless, talentless little cunt.

(And when I say die, I don't mean quickly like in a suicide. The sort of death you deserve should be exquisitely painful, lengthy and above all - degrading. Ideally I would like to see metastases eating their way through your spinal cord so that every movement is agony, and you end up dying alone in a pool of your own piss and shit. Just like Ronald Reagan did.)

Yisheng said...

Black achievemet/success = Whooteemoo whinning.

Dong dong whooteemoooooooooooooooos!

m____ said...

^^^^^NOT the face of black success^^^^^

Bill said...


The Purple Cow said...
Bill, get a grip man. How do you get it into your stupid fucking little pea-brain that saying "ding ding" like an educational subnormal three year old wins you any prizes?


I NEVER said anything about prizes. Caught you lying again PurpleCow.

Link to me saying I was going to win prizes.

Should you fail to provide a link backing up your words once again, I will refer to you as LyingPurplpeCow from now on.

Don't let some "witless, charmless, brainless, talentless little cunt" call you out for lying again and get away with it simply because, well, I caught you lying.

Prove yourself PurpleCow.


DING DING DING

Anonymous said...

Man, Bill sure has Purple Cow on a string.

Anonymous said...

Bill, why are so unmerciful toward Purple Cow? Are religious at all? If you are, God would not want you taking advantage of PC using the Pavlov method.

Can't you see he can only call you names and lie on you hoping you will unconsciously accept his lies about you.

Give the Purple man a break. He is from UK and isn't nearly as savvy and educated as you or other Americans for that matter. But he is doing the best he can, just like Yisheng is also. They both are losers. Everyone can see that.

Anonymous said...

It takes a racist to beat up PC the way Bill does.

Anonymous said...

Remember when Purple Cow was called Purple Peter Puffer?