Does the right really want a country that is everyone for themselves....

[WCGreen]

Do the people really want a country where it is everyone for themselves and fuck everyone else.

I don't know about you, but I really think we have to open up some kind of dialog about what is really happening to our social network, and I don't mean the Facey Book.

If we dismantle the government to the point of it waging war and little or nothing else, what do people expect if all social safety nets are torn.

I don't know.

Be careful for what you wish, my friends to the right, you just might get what you wish for...



On Edit

I added a few touches because I wrote this in anger and bewilderment.

[CaliforniaPeggy]

1. Your points are well taken.

Not only do we need to decide what we want, then we need to get our government to agree and to implement.

We need our social safety nets.

Recommended.

[nadinbrzezinski]

2. The Facey Book

might have it's uses, and not quite the way... the right thinks.

[aquart]

3. You mean, Somalia?

[wtmusic]

4. The right always derides the left for its supposed sense of entitlement

when the right's unwillingness to pay taxes is the ultimate in conceit.

Apparently they think America's societal infrastructure just popped into existence for them to enjoy, exploit, and ultimately run into the ground.

[Mojeoux]

5. They don't care, they've got "Rapture" fever!!!!

They look droolinly forward to standing on the ramparts of Heaven looking down on us liberal sinners suffering the wrath of You Know Who!
Volcanoes?! Crisis? Riots? Floods? "Oh Boy."

[andym]

6. They really do. Believe it.

The 19th century is their goal. Good old American values such as that that informed the Donner party.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Donner_Party

[Ozymanithrax]

7. In their world view they call it taking personal responsibility...

I know a lot of conservatives, and they do not see it as everyone out for themselves as if they were clones of Gordon Gecko. They see it as each person taking responsibility for his or her own self.

We really do see the world very differently than those on the right.

[gtar100]

13. That's exactly right. That's how they explain it to themselves.

But then they completely ignore the irrefutable consequences of that belief system. They refuse to question it or see how the "winners" rig the system and make mockery of their belief in a free market system.

I don't know of one liberal who doesn't believe in personal responsibility either. The difference is we don't stop there and when we see the needs of the world around us, we respond to them.

Honestly, what are the conservative plans to get us out of poverty or to raise up the standards of education or to make our environment clean and beautiful for this and all future generations? Answer - they don't have any ideas. Only knee-jerk reactions to the problems. Their answer to unemployment is to tell people to go get a job. Their answer to poverty is to tell people to stop being lazy, their answer to health care is to not care at all, their answer to education is, well... not on their dime. They are short-sighted and ignorant. They may have eloquent speech, great confidence, a great deal of knowledge about their job, and can be cunning and quick-witted. But they are ignorant fools when it comes to working on real-world issues that cross borders and class boundaries. They do not consider that we all have to drink the same water, breath the same air, eat food out of the same ground, walk and drive the same streets, and live our lives among one another.

They may be afraid of the ones who are dirty and have old clothes, but the real dangerous people are the ones who wear nice suits and dresses, drive fancy cars, wear expensive jewelery and don't produce a damn thing for all the money they got in the bank. They are leeches on our backs and have disrespected us to no end by stealing from our life savings and the value of our hard day's work.

[raccoon]

20. Great post! nt

[Kablooie]

8. The average conservative probably doesn't but the fat cat leaders do.

They know that without government intervention they will be free to grab more of the country's wealth for themselves.
They have conned the weak minded right into thinking (thinking-ha!) that it is in their best interest.
The same people that are conned by evangelical preachers are the ones that fall for this scam.

[Johonny]

11. I disagree somewhat

they want the government wealth for themselves. Conservatives in general when in power, cut spending on domestic programs but do not decrease overall spending. They send it to their friends instead. The fat cats don't give a * about the average Joe. But they very much see the government as their personal cash cow. They place more and more of the tax burden on the other classes, but take the majority of the tax money for themselves. They very much want government intervention, just not liberal government intervention.

[ladjf]

18. Good post! You said a lot in a very few words. nt

[dkf]

9. What happens when you feel like you can't take care of your own future let alone

Everyone else's wellbeing? Do you fully support using your funds to provide for others knowing this will leave you in dire need in your old age? How can you count on others to support you years from now when you understand how burdened everyone will be just as you hit the age when it will be physically difficult to work?

Is it selfish to save money for your retirement? Is it wrong to think the Government cannot support it's debts and will leave all those who rely on it high and dry?

[BzaDem]

14. "Do you fully support using your funds to provide for others"

Do you not support a social safety net?

[eShirl]

17. We're ALL in this world TOGETHER, like it or not

whether we admit it or not

[ladjf]

19. Some people see the "connections". Others don't. The question

I ask myself is how is it possible to not see the "connections"?

[barbtries]

10. i think most of them

are so brainwashed by the authoritarian right that they believe that's just the way it is and cannot change. ever notice how they manufacture specious motivations for the left? there's like a wall in their brain...our country is sick. sick.

eta for a crucial change of word.

[Raine]

12. They *think* they do but

I don't believe they have really thought about exactly how it will effect them. I wonder if they really understand how it is to live in a society like that even when you're wealthy. How anyone who has anything would literally have to be on guard continually to keep what you have. To keep the "rabble" (most likely their opinion of anyone who isn't like them) that is hungery and homeless and desperate. I don't want to live in a place where onemight have to literally physically fight for things. Is that what teabaggers want, are they up to living that way ... I doubt it.

[deutsey]

25. I think you might be right in some ways

A lot of people love the ideology of the Right in the purely absract realm. But when you start taking the ideology and apply to the real world, not so much.

I used to argue with a rightwing friend of mine about this. When I would ask, ok, well, are you prepared to be the one responsible for the upkeep of the road in front of your house, the one to put out the fire if your house is burning down, the one to give medical attention to a seriously injured loved one before rushing them to the hospital or driving them miles and miles away to a shock trauma unit if they needed it, etc.? All the goods, in other words, that taxes help to pay for.

He would always just look at me when I brought up stuff like that and return to his rationale that he wanted to be rich one day(he wasn't and still isn't) and so he wanted to help build a society that wouldn't punish him for it when he got there.

[XanaDUer]

28. It's the old "be careful what you wish for" syndrome

notice...no republican will say they're going to cut super popular "entitlement" programs. How many Teapartiers are on some type of entitlement? Lots

[Ichingcarpenter]

15. Reptilian Brain

In the book and TV series Cosmos, Carl Sagan warns against politicians appealing to the "reptilian" portions of our brain and inciting aggression, territoriality and fear of strangers. His concern at the time was the nuclear arms race but the same concerns apply now, on many levels that he hadn't thought of.

The triune brain consists of the reptilian complex, the paleomammalian complex (limbic system), and the neomammalian complex (neocortex), viewed as structures sequentially added to the forebrain in the course of evolution.

[Lorien]

16. Yes, they do, because they've got theirs

and their foolish foot soldiers in the middle and working classes are *sure* that they'll win the lotto some day!

[dkofos]

21. The right are sheep. Facts be damned, they only know to follow.

[eShirl]

22. perhaps they see it as a hands-off, "let nature take its course" kind of eugenics

[Cleita]

23. I don't think the majority do want what will result if their

principles become the law of the land. Right wing economic policies are ruining this country already but they aren't connecting the dots yet. They have drank the Kool-Aid that right wing propaganda media have fed them. Most of the righties I know actually do care about what happens to their neighbors and their children. The owner of the building I work in is a very nice millionaire Republican and active in charitable activities, yet he stubbornly believes that government and regulation of the private sector are bad among other right wing BS. The few who are running those think tanks, like the Heritage Foundation, etc., that all this gibberish is coming out of, are sociopaths IMHO. The rest of them are just sheep following them.

[deutsey]

24. I think the Right sees everything in terms of hierarchy

Those at the top are supposed to be there, either by divine right or a "survival of the fittest" ethos or eugenics or whatever...they get the lion's share of everything; there are those who serve and defend the interests of those at the top and get varying degrees of reward and comfort for their servility; and there are the rest of us among the poor huddled masses fighting each other for what few resources remain.

To the Right, imo, that's the natural order and all us do-gooders on the Left keep tinkering with that natural order to try to make life more fair and equitable for everyone. That, in their minds, encourages laziness among the lower ranks because they don't have to fight for what they need anymore; it breeds a sense of "entitlement" and even leads some of the peons to stand up straight and get all uppity, thinking somehow they deserve what is really only reserved for those at the top and those whom our social betters deign fitting for reward.

[WCGreen]

26. Interesting....

[blindpig]

27. Fits Capitalism to a 'T'

That why they make such a big deal about 'individualism'. All of that 'freedom' bullshit is window dressing for the one freedom that really counts, the freedom to exploit humanity without limit.

[bigmonkey]

29. They think that "every man for himself" is natural.

Hence, it's unnatural to lift a finger to help anyone ever. It's also unnatural to feel compassion, for government to work, to condemn greed, to constrain your actions with a long view in mind, etc.

It's the piss-poor "philosophical" characterization of human existence promulgated in the first week of Economics 101 courses turned into a faith. Only the religious and economists contend that they know human nature.

[Mike 03]

30. Please explore this in more detail.

I think I understand what you are getting at, but I'm not sure.

Thanks for all that you write. Your posts are one of my favorites here at DU.

Take care.

[WCGreen]

31. From what I gather...

The right only wants the federal government to only be in the business of minting currency and protecting our national interests, ie projecting a large military and having Embassies in all the countries.

That's it.

A true believer, such as Ron Paul, firmly believes that market solutions work.

This is what the people on the right profess to want.

But if they were forced to live in a country that was dependant on the states to provide everything else, they would, I believe, be very disappointed.