First of all, it isn’t like Steve Bannon and Sebastian Gorka aren’t exactly the sorts of guys you’d expect to be invited to speak at an allegedly Christian ‘values voters’ summit in the first place. And they didn’t disappoint:
Steve Bannon: “Then you have Obamacare, not gonna make the CSR payments, gonna blow that thing up, gonna blow those Exchanges up, right?” (cheers, applause)
Sebastian Gorka: “The left has no idea how much more damage we can do to them as private citizens.”
I hope nobody’s still under the impression that white evangelicalism has anything to do with Christ.
The subject of Trump’s comments about gutting the ACA being met with cheers came up at a coffee-shop session with my district’s state legislators yesterday (the context being one person’s fears that her disabled son wouldn’t be able to get medical care).
My immediate response — which I didn’t get a chance to express — is that to many of these “Christians,” having a disabled child is a Sign that God hates both you and your demon-possessed offspring. Since all of you are going to burn in Hell anyway, why burden the Righteous with the cost of taking care of any of you?
It was mentioned in another thread that this sort of attitude has its roots in Calvinism. I can’t buy that literally, but it does seem that if you heat the idea of predestination in a sufficiently hot furnace and warp it hard enough, it can be used to justify prit’ near any kind of discrimination. And if that discrimination happens to be of financial benefit to the discriminator, well, can’t go against God’s will.
Wrong title: it should be “Stick it to your relatives. Stick it to your friends. Stick it to your neighbors…” as Obamacare is much more important in terms of its coverage to the white working class than it is to the liberal elite.
Right. As a liberal with a professional degree I feel I can speak for all of my friends and family (who are also mostly liberal 2 income households with 2 college educated professionals) that if Obamacare gets scrapped we will all be OK. If anything our taxes will be lowered and we may be better off as none of us have ever let our insurance lapse, all of us have a significant amount of money saved, and we are all much healthier than the median mostly due to our wealth and education. I think those guys are sticking it to the country, but they are not sticking it to me and mine.
You are still the Left, and they want to do damage to you as a private citizen. Maybe not thru health insurance, but they’re gonna try whatever they can. You may think you’ve upheld the best traditions of democracy, but to them, all you’ve been doing is going against God’s will.
I am unsure about whether hell exists, and do believe in some sort of judgment. It doesn’t make it any easier to stand these people on Earth. They are harming people NOW. The harm doesn’t go away if they get punished, or those who suffer later rewarded.
Occasionally, I hear social conservatives wonder why their opponents never seem to want to negotiate with them in good faith. This kind of stuff is why.
In retrospect, we were foolhardy. We thought we were going to rush in, attack Christmas with overwhelming force, and be home in time for Soros Day. A classic tactical blunder.
The recent EO is particularly going to stick it to self-employed middle- and upper-class Americans (that is, any individual earning over $48,240 a year), who are overall a right-leaning bunch - they’ll be earning too much for subsidies, but too little to keep up with the rapid rises in premiums.
Of course, the GOP will just say it’s all Obama’s fault, and the people involved will believe them…
Of course most of the liberal elite enrich themselves off of government. From the healthcare elite who profit from skyrocketing healthcare costs to the bureaucratic elite who would be worthless in a free market. You also have your academic elite who have expropriated millions in government subsidies to education. Never forget the banking elite who’s government-backed get-rich-quick schemes are well documented. Perhaps the most hated, the media elite, trade their obedience for government scoops, and slavishly recite any propaganda they can get their hands on.
Happy to cash in on occupational licensure requirements, the legal elite do their best to expropriate any poor sap who runs afoul of the legal code even if no harm has been committed.
Yeah I don’t think you want to play that game, bud.
That’s certainly part of it. I think it can also be a shortcut way of saying “anti-secular” or “anti-Democrat”, but also “anti-Evolution”, “pro prayer in school”, and the list can go on.
Pro keep the masses pig ignorant while making them feel singularly savvy and righteous so they’re as malleable as silly putty.
The Holy Bible is empirical fact and not at all an ancient ink blot test you can project your feelings on, however hateful and toxic they may be. Uh-huh yup.