Today is my first diary. I am just going to publish a conversation I had with someone regarding an article about what Rick Perry has done in Texas - http://rhrealitycheck.org/...
What made me decide to publish it was looking at a KOS blog published today, "Right-wing myths about merit, money and morality" - http://www.dailykos.com/...
What I have realized is that every governmental policy decision goes back to these myths for many people. They cannot seem to disconnect their thinking from reflexively leaning on and defending these myths regardless of the issue. It is extremely rigid thinking, and it prevents any real communication about or deconstruction of the issue. It prevents rational solutions, because every societal issue we face is boiled down to the same point. You must pull yourself up by your bootstraps, and if anything adverse happens to you, it is always your fault. It is always that YOU were not responsible, YOU did not take charge, YOU made mistakes. It is completely without compassion, and dismisses the fact that real hardship can enter a person's life at any time, through no fault of their own. It justifies policies that set up people to fail, and then blames them for that failure.
To me it appears to be a psychological denial, a fear to face that such bad things can happen to you. That you are in control of things, whether you really are or not. It is astonishing to me, that after our banking and mortgage collapse in this country, in which millions of people suffered through no fault of their own, that people who espouse these particular views still want to blame the victim, not the perpetrator. It is the GOVERNMENT'S fault for bailing out the banks, not the banks for failing out of short-sightedness and rampant greed. Of course the conservative politicians and media elites have said nothing but this since it happened, but that does not make it true.
In the last few years I have seen how effectively propaganda works, and also how QUICKLY it does. It really is genius how they manage to coordinate their talking points across all media. But even more astonishing to me is how impervious these ideas become to any challenge or competing ideas. You all know exactly what I am taking about here. The Teflon people. The people who display hostility and anger to anyone that even tries to discuss their viewpoints. Because to do so would be to admit that the world is a scary place where terrible things happen, and that so much of it is not in our control. These people cannot face their fears, cannot admit the unpredictable nature of life, because that is a safe place to them. Thus anyone else's hardships must be the result of personal choices or failure.
Here is the conversation. This person was thoughtful and respectful in this conversation. She did not attack me, or berate me. She was willing to engage in a dialogue, which is better than many. She did not express personal hostility or anger toward me. But it my belief that her mindset, at it's root, is one of blame, judgment, and anger at people who do not conform or display, in her mind, "personal responsibility:"
Cindy • 3 days ago
Can't afford to have a baby? Can't afford contraception? The answer is simple- dont have sex. We shouldn't have to provide free contraception...and abortions shouldn't be an option. It's called personal responsibility......the choice is made when you willingly have sex
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nettwench14 Cindy • a day ago
So married people shouldn't have sex? Are you anti-abortion? Free contraception prevents abortion. And the people of Texas aren't paying for it anyway. All the money they get is from taxpayers in blue states. Penny wise and pound foolish. What do you think the medical bills are like? I just read that it costs $30,000 to have a hospital delivery, and $50,000 for a c-section. Sounds to me like personal responsibility would not be having a baby you can't afford, and the more you help them not have those babies all of those outrageous medical costs will not end up at the doorstep of the taxpayers because the mother cannot afford those medical bills. That's the choice you have. Let the GOVERNMENT allocate resources to pay for contraception, or you will foot the bill for the medical costs.And the costs of sending that child to public schools and paying when their mother has to take their sick kid to the emergency room because she can't afford a doctor.Being short-sighted doesn't change that. People are not going to stop having sex - get a grip!
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Cindy nettwench14 • a day ago
You're right. People will continue to be irresponsible because that's the American way. Instead of making smart choices ( like paying for their own contraception) they will continue to suck every penny out of the government and hard working people who pay their own way. It's sad that the only argument to this is that I can't expect people to make responsible choices in their life. Yes, married couples can abstain from sex, if for some reason my husband and I could not afford birth control and our only option would be abortion of I got pregnant you bet we would decide not to have sex until we could either 1) afford our own contraception or 2) afford the financial responsibility of a child. All it takes is adults making adult decisions, but you're right, that's asking too much
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nettwench14 Cindy • 19 hours ago
People without health insurance have a difficult time paying for contraception. What if they can't take the pill and need an iud? These things involve doctor visits and follow up. What you are saying is that people who are poor cannot have sex if they can't afford it, even if they are married. You completely ignored what I said about the costs. It is either or. You can't control other people's behavior - that will never happen. You are whining about hard-working taxpayers footing the bill for stuff, and I just told you it will be a lot higher if we don't make things accessible and affordable for people. You can live in your Ayn Rand dream world where everyone has the resources to take care of themselves, or face up to the facts that you are either paying for contraception, or more extremely expensive social services.That is the way it is. Not the way I say it is, but the way it is.
Republicans used to understand this. They used to provide help for contraception without JUDGEMENT, but many Republicans today have stopped being rational about many things. Government is supposed to make society better for ALL people. It is an investment. If you want a dog-eat-dog world, that's what you will get, and frankly I tell you you will not like it very much. More children growing up in poverty, unwanted or unhappy, means we spend more on social services because they are not gong to be productive citizens, when their parents are overwhelmed and these kids have no guidance. Jail is also a lot more expensive than contraception. We have to deal with the way the world IS, not the way we want it to be. Husbands used to turn to prostitutes when they wanted sex but their wife did not want more children, before contraception was available.That is the way humans behave, and I think we want better than that.
And when people turn out to be criminals, you have no choice to remove them from society. The taxpayers will pay for the jails, and the fuller those jails are, the more you will pay. There is no alternative to that. There is no deciding oh, lets save money and not pay for jails. No one will tolerate a lawless society.
TV pundits are constantly filling people up with wishful information these days, pat slogans that sound good but are not solutions to the problem. It might sound good "taxpayers don't want to pay for sex" but these issues have already been figured out by people a long time ago. In the 60's and 70's were when these policies were first developed, and nobody had a problem with them until the Christian Right started their war on sex. It's the same wishful thinking as abstinence education - which has been proven to get MORE teenagers pregnant than just regular sex education. You have to look at the actual RESULTS of these policies. You're not, you are just parroting what you hear on television and blogs.
I can look up at the sky all day long and say I don't want it to rain, but guess what - it will rain!
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Cindy nettwench14 • 18 hours ago
I'm not blind to the way the world is, but instead of just saying, 'oh well, let's just pay for everyone to do whatever they want'- i still hope parents will educate children on the concept of personal responsibility- and not expecting everyone else to take care of you. That's how i was raised- you work your life to pay for everything you need, and if you don't have the money for something you don't get it. Your whole argument is people can't be expected to make the right, responsible choices In their own lives so its up to everyone else to pay for their bad choices. Accept that if you want- embrace that people aren't capable of running their own lives- and continue to defend the country lowering our standards to meet the lowest common denominator - I choose to push for something better
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nettwench14 Cindy • 10 minutes ago −
Cindy, I was raised the same way. I was raised to have personal responsibility and to take care of myself, just the way you were. I am not advocating encouraging people to not make responsible choices. I am advocating HELPING them to make responsible choices. Not all children are raised by encouraging and loving parents who teach them good values. But you are saying it is ok to turn your back on these people and not to teach them any better, but just to shout moral platitudes at them. Some people never learned better. Do you think it helps our whole society to ignore it?
And making services available to people who legitimately have no access to them is not "paying for other people's bad choices." Many people work very hard in this society but are still in poverty. Did you know that people who work full-time at Wal-Mart have to go to the government for food stamps to get enough to eat? And Wal-Mart encourages that, so they can have the government and the taxpayers foot the bill, instead of paying decent wages. And the owners of Wal-Mart are each personally worth BILLIONS of dollars. Oh, and they don't get health insurance either. These people are not deadbeats, they are working. You can say, well they should just get a better job, but you and I both know that is not so easy in today's economy. Many many good paying jobs have gone overseas, while the businesses pay no taxes, and expect you and me, middle class taxpayers, to foot the bill for the deficit and everything else in this country. That is why you are angry and feel like you are being squeezed, rightfully so. But you think the poor in this country are the ones squeezing you, and it is actually the businesses who are paying no taxes yet at the same time getting government subsidies and tax breaks.
Helping the working poor in this country not fall completely through the cracks is really for our own benefit. Helping them when they are TRYING to be responsible, like wanting to have access to contraception, instead of just making it unavailable, will help them not have babies they cannot afford to take care of. Before contraception was available, that is what happened to families. They had 12 or 13 kids and became mired in worse poverty than they already were.. This has been true since the beginning of time.
Not everyone has a good start in life. Bad things happen to good people every day in this country, like losing their job and their health insurance. Or families that have two incomes lose one, and can't make it. Most people use government help for these things temporarily, when they are young and just starting out with no health insurance, or lose their jobs. I am standing up for those people. Not the lowest common-denominator. Throwing everyone in that basket is not fair and hurts our country. We should try to help people who WANT to help themselves, not kick them when they are down. I believe that you and I both want to push for something better, and I truly respect that.
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If this conversation continues, I will be updating it.
