Conservatives, Poverty, and the Disadvantaged

“In contemporary America, poverty is not so much a material condition as a spiritual one, often characterized by drug abuse, alcoholism, mental illness, and illegitimacy.” (Source: http://www.powerlineblog.com/archives/2011/07/poverty-american-style.php)

Or as Herman Cain famously put it in no uncertain terms: “. . . if you don’t have a job and you’re not rich, blame yourself.”

Liberals “. . . contend, polemically, that even though most poor families may have a house full of modern conveniences, the average poor family still suffers from substantial deprivation in basic needs, such as food and housing. In reality, this is just not true.” And “. . . the average poor person had sufficient funds to meet all essential needs and to obtain medical care for family members throughout the year whenever needed.” (Source: Heritage Foundation, 2011; see online:

http://www.heritage.org/research/reports/2011/09/understanding-poverty-in-the-united-states-surprising-facts-about-americas-poor)

From the above quotes, which represent a miniscule sample of hundreds of similar sentiments found on conservative web sites that are readily available on the internet, it should be evident conservatives would like all Americans to realize that poor people are either undeserving because of their reprehensible behavior (which is the essence of the sources of the first and second quotes) or nonexistent since they aren't really poor in comparison to genuinely poor people in developing countries (which is the essence of the source of the third quote).

In other words, for many if not most conservatives poverty is a behavioral, not an economic, issue. And since behavior is a result of individual, personal choices, the problem of poverty is a direct product of individual behavior. Therefore, people who live in poverty do so because of the poor personal choices they have freely made and are therefore responsible for their condition. It also follows from that line of reasoning that many people who are unemployed today are so simply because they do not want to work, that Native Americans are poor and suffer from the worst health conditions in the U.S. because of their piss-poor behavior and lousy individual choices, and that the majority of black Americans haven’t worked their way out of poverty not because of 200 years of the combined effects of slavery, de jure segregation, and systemic oppression by the white majority but because they are shiftless, slothful, and irresponsible drug addicts and drunks who would rather lie on their lazy asses than put in a hard day’s work. Most conservatives believe that if you pay people to not work, meaning by giving them food stamps and unemployment benefits, they will refuse to work simply because they are lazy and irresponsible.

Conservatives love to talk about removing the barriers to upward mobility and allowing people to advance as far as they can on a merit basis. Of course, when the middle, upper-middle, and upper income families send their kids to educationally superior, well-financed public schools or, if they choose, to even better private schools, while less-advantaged children receive educations that are far worse by every standard and every measure, you have to ask how that emphasis on merit actually works in the real world. Then you shouldn’t forget the elected conservative politicians in Washington who are working hard right now to cut or eliminate federal programs like Head Start, the Women’s, Infants, and Children Program — which provides healthcare and nutrition for low-income pregnant women, breastfeeding women, and infants and children under the age of five — and Pell Grants for low-income college students, as well as to end unemployment benefits they regard as part of the welfare state.

In the harsh light of reality progressives-liberals need to acknowledge the importance of all work in the alleviation of poverty instead of belittling jobs they classify as “dead end” or "low-wage" and therefore undesirable for anyone. Conservatives, for their part, need to consider the many barriers to moving from unemployment to the world of work. Those barriers can include lack of marketable skills, education, transportation, appropriate work habits, and even the risk of giving up medical benefits for dependents that taking a low-wage job can entail.

But in today’s poisoned atmosphere of entrenched politics that admit no compromise and insist on ideological purity, such open-mindedness and willingness to bend is impossible. So, the reality of the day is that if you vote for conservative candidates what you will get are more politicians in Washington who are determined to destroy programs that focus on helping the poor and disadvantaged in terms of upward mobility or even basic socioeconomic stability. The result will be a heartless country with no institutionalized safety net, no support for the truly disadvantaged or for the unemployed.

If that’s the kind of country you want America to become, I STRONGLY encourage you to vote for conservative candidates at every level of government.