At a town hall meeting on Friday, the Republican - you knew that, right? - lieutenant governor, Andre Bauer, delivered himself of these compassionate remarks about why poor kids should be denied school lunches if their parents don't attend parent-teacher conferences:
Among other South Carolinians who responded with outrage to Bauer's remarks, Democratic candidate Mullins McLeod said: "It amazes me how some Republican politicians claim a monopoly on Christianity and then go out and say and do some of the most un-Christian things imaginable.""My grandmother was not a highly educated woman, but she told me as a small child to quit feeding stray animals. You know why? Because they breed," Bauer said, according to the Greenville [S. C.] News. "You're facilitating the problem if you give an animal or a person ample food supply. They will reproduce, especially ones that don't think too much further than that. And so what you've got to do is you've got to curtail that type of behavior. They don't know any better."
Yeah well, no shit buddy. The Republicans aren't about being Christian. They're all about power.
And screwing over all the poor bastards who don't have any.
P.S. - Bauer is rumored to be gay, which of course he firmly denies; google it up if you're interested.
Honk to Pam's House Blend
Update: Rachel has the sound clip, and some trenchant remarks on this pompous ass, too:
9 comments:
I read that earlier and was appalled. Where is the outrage from real Christians, Moderates, Liberals and even other Republicans over a statement like that?
I'm like you Dave - where is the voice of the moderate, sensible, intelligent Christians in this day and time? Where are they hiding? Why don't they ever seem to speak up?
Every day becomes more and more unbelievable. Have we entered some alternative universe?
I do wonder that myself sometimes, Frank, when I consider the bizarre happenings around us. We're sure not in Kansas anymore, are we?
The answer to your question is obvious. Real Christians, average humans and common sense thinking people everywhere know the content of his idea is true. His grandmother was talking about responsibility. If you don't get that you simply don't want to. Liberal regressive folks like to think they can feed the world but they have no viable plan for doing so. What his grandmother and this governor espouse is a policy wherein you don't make people prisoners of poverty. If you take one moment to go one sentence beyond the edited conversation implied by any newscast or snipped of any interview to understand the motive behind the methodology you would conservative thinkers are just as likely to feed the poor as any else. We also want that poor person to have a job, earn his or her own living regardless of how menial it might be and then have them take responsibility for the mouths they procreate. It is just that simple. If your regressive ideology prevents them from having a job even at entry level, how are you helping to lesson the impact poverty makes on this country? I ask you how. His comment is not about deprivation. It is about responsibility. Open your eyes and think with your brain.
Girlfriend, don't start with me. I hasten to assure you that I am indeed thinking with my brain, and my eyes and ears too.
Bauer's let-them-eat-cake remarks are not about able-bodied young men and women in the prime of health. He was talking about denying school lunches to poor kids, for God's sake: punishing the children for the misdeeds of the parents. And to justify that, he brings in the idea of starving stray animals to death? Now honey, who really is *not* thinking with their brain there?
I myself, as I've blogged about before, lived through years and years of grinding, inescapable poverty - inescapable except through the long, terribly hard slog of getting a college education, going to school and work through the winter months with holes in my shoes because after food and rent, there simply was not an extra ten bucks left over to buy new ones with.
And on top of that, for twenty years being the sole and unrelieved support of an elderly, increasingly invalid parent with no savings or pension, just a couple hundred dollars of social security a month to live on.
And you know what help the government provided? They would send a social worker out every now and then to deliver one cheap little blanket, which nobody needed or asked for. Or another time, an egg timer. That was a big help, all right.
I KNOW what I'm talking about, sister - I lived it. Have you?
But I cowboyed up, persevered and finally after a long, hard haul got my degrees. Then, among other things, I worked for a state legislature, in the very corridors of power. I know how the conservative politicians talk and act when they think "the public" isn't listening. Because I was there, right at their elbow, so to speak.
And then another time I worked for more than a decade in social services, and I can tell you stories that will make you weep, of poverty and misery, abuse and neglect, that the high and mighty conservatives and oh-so-holy Christianists did not give a damn about and would not lift a finger to help or prevent.
And furthermore, sweet cheeks, I can tell you personal stories of little old people I've helped and looked after with what little aid I could give. Like the 70-something little black lady with a permanently crippled leg whose tiny pittance of social security was just one dollar too much for her to get full Medicaid - the result being that every month, she had to choose between her pain medicine and her heart medicine. And all such as that.
So darlin', before you start slinging those ad hominem accusations from behind the shelter of anonymity, believe me, my brain is fully operational, and I know from firsthand experience, up close and personal, what I'm talking about.
Just wanted to let you know, Antoinette. Thanks for stopping by - bring cake next time, I'll make tea.
Your response was very well put Russ. Much kinder than I would have been should I chose to respond or even publish such drivel. Amazing what some are willing to call sommon sense and compassion or Christian values.
Amen, Russ. I moved in with my grandmother when I was 13. I know what you went through. Even though my parents were still accessible, her and I made due with what she got from Social Security. The elderly and working in this country are treated like second class citizans and this GOP ass just proved it.
I don't have any wish to start a pissing war, but this is exactly why I turned away from Christianity and all forms of monotheism at the age of 12. I was raised by fundamentalist Christian grandparents - the REAL kind, the ones who actually read their bibles with intelligence and discernment - and I took the lessons they taught me about hypocrisy and applied them to the monotheistic religions in general. None could pass the test, so I took the bible's advice and "separated" myself from the hypocrites. It took another 5 years of studying many other religious faiths before finding myself on the Druidic path. Perhaps one of the key things that convinced me is that I found it to be as much philosophy as faith, and when I discovered that the Druithin had warned the people of the evils that would come from monotheism nearly 3,000 years ago I saw my true path before me. This ignorant jackass is living proof that there is no compassion, charity, nor "christian love" in the majority of those who claim to follow the teachings of the Christ. Don't feed the poor and the homeless? Then what the hell was the point of the Sermon on the Mount!
Here are a couple of thoughts for y'all - they come from the Druidic philosophy I have followed for the past 32 years...
"Religion and ethics are not always - or even frequently - mutually compatible. Religious absolutism, fundamentalism, or fanatical relativism reflect the worst aspects of contemporary culture and prejudice - rather than a system in which both gods and man could live within with any sense of real justice."
Something to think about in our current political situation...
"The primary lesson in the Politics of the Mob: never underestimate the tactics of Desperation."
And no, Mr. Bauer, you are no christian - nor was your grandmother. "And the King shall answer and say unto them, Verily I say unto you, Inasmuch as ye have done it unto one of the least of these my brethren, ye have done it unto me." - Matthew 25:40 So you would let your Christ starve and go homeless... nice. Even a Pagan priest such as myself sees the evil in that - and in you.
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