http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sQUmHqlPf5Y

There is the specific and then there is the general.

We tend to use a specific example to prove the general rule. There are obvious flaws in this approach to rhetoric. A specific example cannot prove the general rule but the example can illustrate the point being made. The specific example adds color to the canvas and blood to the stereotype.

Reagan's people used this type of approach to justify cutting people off of the welfare rolls. The repubs from the 70's through this decade came up with the Cadillac welfare recipient. To me this model for distain against a group of mostly powerless people was and is indefensible. Welfare Queens was the mantra of the racist right at the time.

The argument was that our 'welfare' system had become so unjust as to reward the slothful by giving them an amount of funds that would not only sustain them but allow them to surpass the hard working middle class in their ability to purchase goods and services.

The underlying message, of course, was that the n&^%*ers were able to purchase Cadillacs while the working middle class were forced to ignominiously move across our urban streets in old Ramblers. The message of Reagan was purely and simply racist.

The great social changes of the 1960's involved Civil Rights as well as the War on Poverty. So the repubs knew that they could achieve great victories in the Executive and Legislative branches of this country by pandering to the lowest common denominator.

Am I guilty of this rhetorical ploy from time to time? Yes I am. And I shall continue to do so. But one anecdote, one example does not prove the rule.

Now I am not saying that there are not two sides to an argument. Actually, I continue to believe that many times one issue might entail twenty 'sides' or twenty different perspectives on that issue.

Has 'welfare' contributed to the 'breakdown' of the nuclear family?

Well, for a repub the answer is simple. JUST CUT OFF ALL BENEFITS AND THE POOR WILL HAVE FAMILIES AGAIN.

I mean this position is just plain stupid and cruel as far as I am concerned.

The same repub argument goes to issues like unemployment and unemployment benefits. Cut off those benefits and people will go to work.

The Republican candidate for governor in Pennsylvania says that extended unemployment benefits discourage the jobless from looking for work.

"The jobs are there, but if we keep extending unemployment, people are just going to sit there," Pennsylvania attorney general Tom Corbett told radio reporter Scott Detrow last week. "I've literally had construction companies tell me, 'I can't get people to come back to work until -- they say, 'We'll come back when unemployment runs out.'"

This week Corbett said he "didn't mean it to be insensitive"

Yes they do mean to be insensitive, cruel and inhumane. Corbett is lying just by denying this attitude.

Back in March, when Senator Bunning first shut the Senate door on considering extending existing benefits to some of the unemployed, he was spurned by some and rated as a hero by others:

On his radio show today, Rush Limbaugh jumped in to defend Sen. Jim Bunning's blocking of an extension of unemployment benefits to 1.1 million jobless Americans. Limbaugh referred to Bunning as, "a hero to people here."   http://www.politicususa.com/en/limbaugh-bunning

Four months later, Senator Bunning is adored by his entire party for blocking any chance of extending those benefits.  http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2010/07/14/jim-bunning-once-a-pariah_n_645624.html

 Krugman has pointed out that for every job opening there are five applicants. I cited this before but Krugman may be off by a factor of two: http://www.bearishnews.com/post/2372

How can the repubs justify this while at the same time pushing for more tax cuts for the rich and abolishing an Estate Tax that affects 5500 estates in this country?

Because the repubs say there is not enough money to continue programs like unemployment insurance or any other social program.

When Laurie-Ellen Shumaker, 59, was laid off from her job as a lawyer for a shopping center in January of 2009, she assumed she would be hired again in no time. In addition to her impressive resume, which includes a degree from a top-tier law school and 23 years of legal experience, she has always been actively recruited for positions.

But in the past year-and-a-half, Shumaker says she has applied to over a thousand jobs -- everything from secretary to file clerk to daycare worker -- and she has yet to be called for an interview.

"It's frightening," she told HuffPost. "Interviews are like seeking unicorns. I've even gotten a status update on two different jobs saying I'm the best qualified, but then I never hear anything after that. It's hard not to rake through one's brain trying to figure out why. Is it my age or my gender holding me back?"

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2010/07/13/frustrated-unemployed-wom_n_644834.html

I cannot help but direct your attention to Michele Bachmann today.

Michele Bachmann spoke in Colorado at the Western Conservative Conference over the weekend, and in Bachmann-like fashion, dropped a few claims that just made me shudder. This one, in particular:

"'We are determined to live free or not at all. And we are resolved that posterity shall never reproach us with having brought slaves into the world,'" Bachmann read from founding father John Jay , ending her reading with the statement, "We will talk a little bit about what has transpired in the last 18 months and would we count what has transpired into turning our country into a nation of slaves."

http://crooksandliars.com/

WHAT IN THE FUCK IS WRONG WITH HER? WHAT IN THE FUCK IS WRONG WITH THE PEOPLE WHO FOLLOW THIS WOMAN?