Two conservative groups are asking a federal court to block the Biden administration’s plan to cancel $39 billion in student loans for more than 800,000 borrowers.
conservatives view social hierarchy as a necessity which must be enforced. if you’re at the bottom, you deserve to be there, and if you’re there, you suffer because you deserve it, and because you’re at the bottom, you deserve to suffer. cruelty is the point, and without it, there can’t be the joy of their success.
anything else, to them, is profane and must be fought/destroyed. anyone who tries to climb above their position must be punished.
The only thing baffling about any of this is that somehow, millions of ordinary, working/middle-class Americans believe that this system benefits them more than the alternative.
it’s not baffling at all. the American dream is literally everyone is a millionaire or will be one day. conservatives are the only ones buying into that dream still so they’re trying to live like a millionaire now so that when the money finally shows up they’ve done their part to help their new millionaire friends along the way.
The problem is they don’t understand that the likelihood of them becoming even moderately wealthy is pretty slim and they’re too blind to see that voting to hurt the poor is voting to hurt themselves in their current situation.
When I was growing up, at least the way I was taught (and I was only born in 1977), the American Dream was a steady paycheck, a house and a car. Did that change at some point or was I taught something other than what people actually believed?
As someone also born in '77 I generally heard the same things and the same sentiment. Though I think that might have more to do with family and the general class you grew up in. Because it isn’t Universal unfortunately. Nor can capitalism deliver on it.
Nah, they’re just pissed and want to believe they’ve been wronged by some “other”. Ironically, they’re 100% correct, but have identified the wrong “other”. Baffling, indeed.
But voting another way will result in my children being accosted by drag queens who will turn them gay / trans and my freedoms will be co-opted by shitty beer companies who don’t believe in Christ. Then my enemies will take my guns and my elderly parents will be shipped off to a commie gulag and murdered to make room for more whatever whatever whatever… I ran out of tropes. Hopefully, you don’t need me to punctuate that this is sarcasm.
These are the things that they think about obsessively. They aren’t thinking about how to make the world a better place. They’re thinking about the things they hate and fear.
I’m not a Christian, but no. And screw your upvoters.
Edit: Just in case you need an explanation (though if you did, you probably wouldn’t accept it anyway), a person who says they’re a Christian but doesn’t read/learn, understand, or follow any Christian principles except incidentally is not a Christian. It’s like a person saying they’re a pacifist, but they go out beating up and killing homeless people at night. That doesn’t make pacifists assholes, that makes the person a liar. Your brain cells barely need to function for you to understand this principle, so stop with the religiophobic bullshit.
I don’t need student debt relief, it won’t affect me. But I am extremely for it - it’s called wanting a better life for your fellow human being.
Compassion - it’s not a difficult concept if you’re not a narcissistic a$$hole.
And as an added bonus, the money currently going to banks would actually get better distributed to businesses (both big and small) and act as a net gain to our economy. But screw that - we don’t want some bank stocks to dip and affect some wealthy pension plans! /s
My family is financially secure and has no student debt. I, too, am for student debt relief, in part because it benefits me directly. When my neighbor has an extra $100 in his pocket to spend at the local shop, that benefits me, too. “Conservatives” (just what in the fuck do they conserve?) are too stupid to see this.
I was blessed with my parents saving a lot and saving early for my college, and I fully support student debt relief. I honestly don’t understand how it’s possible for someone to be lucky, see the vast majority of people to be unlucky, and not want all of them to be helped out.
I hadn’t ever considered it, but my desire for student debt relief also won’t affect me. I’ve been harping on this thing that I want for the last couple of years. I never stopped for a second to consider that I’m not in that group. I just want a better life for my fellow humans. Thanks for bringing that to my front of mind.
Along with the usual “the cruelty is the point” responses, I’d like to remind people that this is a direct strategy championed by Mitch McConnell, who has been championing this strategy long before Biden came along.
First, McConnell believes that the GOP should not have any policy positions on anything at all. If you have a policy position, that position is subject to criticism. Rather than champion policies that he fully admits would be unpopular with the voters, McConnell believes in simply pointing to the Democrat policies, pointing out the flaws in those policies, and just making vague promises that the GOP can do better without actually defining how. Ever seen the meme of the guy tapping his own head while saying something profoundly stupid? That’s exactly what this is. Picture McConnell doing that while saying “Can’t be criticized for your terrible ideas if you just don’t have any ideas at all!”
The other part, also championed by McConnell and others, is that no matter what it is, if it originally was a Democrat idea, then a Republican must be against it at all costs. Not only must they be against it, they must treat every Democrat policy as a threat to American society as we know it. Take a look at Romneycare in Massachusetts. A healthcare bill created by a Republican that was considered widely successful and basically the cornerstone to Obamacare. But the second a Democrat suggesting nationalizing the program, it was suddenly the worst program in the world that would collapse our healthcare system and lead to death panels.
And sad to say, but it’s been a very effective strategy for them. It’s easy for the GOP to get their voters to blame Democrats for problems because deflecting blame is easy, and people are always looking for someone to blame for whatever problems they have in life. People tend not to do their own research or critical thinking and often just prefer to be “told” what the “right” answer is, especially if what they’re told jives with their own personal worldview. If voters want to believe that Democrats are the root of all evil, and their elected leaders are saying that Democrats are the root of all evil, it’s not much of a stretch to get them to believe that anything or any ideas associated with Democrats are also evil and must be eradicated.
It’s all about maintaining political power through obstruction. Doesn’t matter how bad your own policies are just as long as you continue to make sure voters believe that the alternative is even worse.
They’ve become so focused on political “points” and afraid of the other “team” scoring a “point” that they’re willing to do anything, regardless of the optics.
Because they don’t stop and look at the bigger picture - it’s just political capital they can push around or dangle as a carrot in front of voters for future elections.
Totally cool for government to help those poor billionaires though.
Well, Elorn bought Twatter and can’t afford to pay rent (or severance, or server fees, or lawyers), so it seems right that he should get a handout. How’s the guy even gonna pay for his next lunch?!
Meanwhile, my grandmother can’t afford insulin. That removed better figure it out!
Yeah I see a lot of “cruelty is the point” comments here, which might not be entirely false, but if they sue it mostly means someone is pissed off about losing revenue.
The cruelty isn’t the only point behind every conservative position, but it’s the only point of enough of them to make me suspect it’s part of the motivation for all of them.
Really? Not for anti-trans laws, anti-immigrant laws, and laws that specifically target medically necessary abortions? Of course it’s the point. If looking at the laws they vote for isn’t good enough, all you have to do is talk to a few conservatives to figure out they’re hateful, cruel people.
You may see them as hateful and cruel people, but that’s not how they see themselves. They would have to see themselves as cruel for cruelty to be the point. The fact that you think it’s the point means that you’re unwilling or unable to actually understand their point of view.
You may disagree with it, but it’s not about “cruelty”, and pretending it is just shows your personal limitations.
If course they don’t see themselves as hateful. But they have no qualms about using cruelty to enforce their idea of the proper social order. If you want to be very literal, the cruelty is the means to an end and not an end in itself, but when they use cruelty as a first resort to enforce rules to designed to keep undesirable people in their place, I see it as a distinction without a difference.
Wilholt’s law, “Conservatism consists of exactly one proposition, to wit: There must be in-groups whom the law protects but does not bind, alongside out-groups whom the law binds but does not protect.”
“The modern conservative is engaged in one of man’s oldest exercises in moral philosophy; that is, the search for a superior moral justification for selfishness.”
They’re libertarians when it comes to them being able to do whatever they want, and they’re fascists when it comes to things they don’t want to do. Has actually nothing to do with political philosophy, it’s just naked short-term self interest. (They don’t even care if something will be bad for them in a few years.)
Simple answer I think is GOP don’t want anyone in their base to think any form of government assistance is good and will always label it as hand outs. More government assistance/social safety nets means their capitalist overlords gets to maintain and build their control over citizens and money will flow to them instead. Also “liberals bad!”
Why are these assholes so against helping people? These fuckers are nothing but greedy sociopaths.
conservatives view social hierarchy as a necessity which must be enforced. if you’re at the bottom, you deserve to be there, and if you’re there, you suffer because you deserve it, and because you’re at the bottom, you deserve to suffer. cruelty is the point, and without it, there can’t be the joy of their success.
anything else, to them, is profane and must be fought/destroyed. anyone who tries to climb above their position must be punished.
relevant videos:
The Alt-Right Playbook: Always a Bigger Fish
Endnote 3: The Origins of Conservatism
A Conservative is someone who can’t enjoy their dinner without knowing someone else is hungry
I’m stealing that.
heh
The only thing baffling about any of this is that somehow, millions of ordinary, working/middle-class Americans believe that this system benefits them more than the alternative.
it’s not baffling at all. the American dream is literally everyone is a millionaire or will be one day. conservatives are the only ones buying into that dream still so they’re trying to live like a millionaire now so that when the money finally shows up they’ve done their part to help their new millionaire friends along the way.
The problem is they don’t understand that the likelihood of them becoming even moderately wealthy is pretty slim and they’re too blind to see that voting to hurt the poor is voting to hurt themselves in their current situation.
When I was growing up, at least the way I was taught (and I was only born in 1977), the American Dream was a steady paycheck, a house and a car. Did that change at some point or was I taught something other than what people actually believed?
As someone also born in '77 I generally heard the same things and the same sentiment. Though I think that might have more to do with family and the general class you grew up in. Because it isn’t Universal unfortunately. Nor can capitalism deliver on it.
I’ve never heard of that version of The American Dream before.
Nah, they’re just pissed and want to believe they’ve been wronged by some “other”. Ironically, they’re 100% correct, but have identified the wrong “other”. Baffling, indeed.
But voting another way will result in my children being accosted by drag queens who will turn them gay / trans and my freedoms will be co-opted by shitty beer companies who don’t believe in Christ. Then my enemies will take my guns and my elderly parents will be shipped off to a commie gulag and murdered to make room for more whatever whatever whatever… I ran out of tropes. Hopefully, you don’t need me to punctuate that this is sarcasm.
These are the things that they think about obsessively. They aren’t thinking about how to make the world a better place. They’re thinking about the things they hate and fear.
Here is an alternative Piped link(s): https://piped.video/agzNANfNlTs
https://piped.video/E4CI2vk3ugk
Piped is a privacy-respecting open-source alternative frontend to YouTube.
I’m open-source, check me out at GitHub.
I’ve always regarded that episode of the playbook as especially astute.
the whole “Playbook” is pretty great, bit this one is excellent for explaining exactly why conservatives see things the way they do
Which is quite a high bar, considering the overall quality of the whole series!
Thank you for the links. They were very enlightening.
here’s the whole playlist: https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLJA_jUddXvY7v0VkYRbANnTnzkA_HMFtQ
Here is an alternative Piped link(s): https://piped.video/playlist?list=PLJA_jUddXvY7v0VkYRbANnTnzkA_HMFtQ
Piped is a privacy-respecting open-source alternative frontend to YouTube.
I’m open-source, check me out at GitHub.
Christian in name only.
That’s the No True Scotsman Fallacy.
This is just Christianity.
I’m not a Christian, but no. And screw your upvoters.
Edit: Just in case you need an explanation (though if you did, you probably wouldn’t accept it anyway), a person who says they’re a Christian but doesn’t read/learn, understand, or follow any Christian principles except incidentally is not a Christian. It’s like a person saying they’re a pacifist, but they go out beating up and killing homeless people at night. That doesn’t make pacifists assholes, that makes the person a liar. Your brain cells barely need to function for you to understand this principle, so stop with the religiophobic bullshit.
“I’m not getting debt relief, so why should they” is their only argument. They’re just greedy.
And many of them got covid bailouts and never had to pay a penny back and do not think even for a moment that their actions are hypocritical
And we literally have congress critters that lived on
welfaredebt relief programs and want to tell others to pull themselves up by the bootstraps.I don’t need student debt relief, it won’t affect me. But I am extremely for it - it’s called wanting a better life for your fellow human being.
Compassion - it’s not a difficult concept if you’re not a narcissistic a$$hole.
And as an added bonus, the money currently going to banks would actually get better distributed to businesses (both big and small) and act as a net gain to our economy. But screw that - we don’t want some bank stocks to dip and affect some wealthy pension plans! /s
My family is financially secure and has no student debt. I, too, am for student debt relief, in part because it benefits me directly. When my neighbor has an extra $100 in his pocket to spend at the local shop, that benefits me, too. “Conservatives” (just what in the fuck do they conserve?) are too stupid to see this.
I was blessed with my parents saving a lot and saving early for my college, and I fully support student debt relief. I honestly don’t understand how it’s possible for someone to be lucky, see the vast majority of people to be unlucky, and not want all of them to be helped out.
Because in their mind they are not lucky, they worked for it. And the others just didn’t work hard enough.
I hadn’t ever considered it, but my desire for student debt relief also won’t affect me. I’ve been harping on this thing that I want for the last couple of years. I never stopped for a second to consider that I’m not in that group. I just want a better life for my fellow humans. Thanks for bringing that to my front of mind.
These people are truly assholes.
If people can organize instead of work overtime…
Good point.
Along with the usual “the cruelty is the point” responses, I’d like to remind people that this is a direct strategy championed by Mitch McConnell, who has been championing this strategy long before Biden came along.
First, McConnell believes that the GOP should not have any policy positions on anything at all. If you have a policy position, that position is subject to criticism. Rather than champion policies that he fully admits would be unpopular with the voters, McConnell believes in simply pointing to the Democrat policies, pointing out the flaws in those policies, and just making vague promises that the GOP can do better without actually defining how. Ever seen the meme of the guy tapping his own head while saying something profoundly stupid? That’s exactly what this is. Picture McConnell doing that while saying “Can’t be criticized for your terrible ideas if you just don’t have any ideas at all!”
The other part, also championed by McConnell and others, is that no matter what it is, if it originally was a Democrat idea, then a Republican must be against it at all costs. Not only must they be against it, they must treat every Democrat policy as a threat to American society as we know it. Take a look at Romneycare in Massachusetts. A healthcare bill created by a Republican that was considered widely successful and basically the cornerstone to Obamacare. But the second a Democrat suggesting nationalizing the program, it was suddenly the worst program in the world that would collapse our healthcare system and lead to death panels.
And sad to say, but it’s been a very effective strategy for them. It’s easy for the GOP to get their voters to blame Democrats for problems because deflecting blame is easy, and people are always looking for someone to blame for whatever problems they have in life. People tend not to do their own research or critical thinking and often just prefer to be “told” what the “right” answer is, especially if what they’re told jives with their own personal worldview. If voters want to believe that Democrats are the root of all evil, and their elected leaders are saying that Democrats are the root of all evil, it’s not much of a stretch to get them to believe that anything or any ideas associated with Democrats are also evil and must be eradicated.
It’s all about maintaining political power through obstruction. Doesn’t matter how bad your own policies are just as long as you continue to make sure voters believe that the alternative is even worse.
This is extremely well said. Thanks for taking the time.
When you view life as a zero sum game it turns you into a real selfish cunt.
Because either they got theirs and fuck everyone else. Or, they never got theirs and fuck everyone who might get theirs.
They’ve become so focused on political “points” and afraid of the other “team” scoring a “point” that they’re willing to do anything, regardless of the optics.
Because they don’t stop and look at the bigger picture - it’s just political capital they can push around or dangle as a carrot in front of voters for future elections.
Because Ronnie RayGun said it is dangerous for government to help people. Totally cool for government to help those poor billionaires though.
Well, Elorn bought Twatter and can’t afford to pay rent (or severance, or server fees, or lawyers), so it seems right that he should get a handout. How’s the guy even gonna pay for his next lunch?!
Meanwhile, my grandmother can’t afford insulin. That removed better figure it out!
Because the corporations that own the private colleges and universities that overcharge on tuition also are the ones that hand out student loans.
They stand to lose billions of dollars in predatory profit if they can’t collect interest on student loans.
If only there were some loopholes to close and a way to take a little cash from assets that never ever get sold…
Yeah I see a lot of “cruelty is the point” comments here, which might not be entirely false, but if they sue it mostly means someone is pissed off about losing revenue.
The cruelty isn’t the only point behind every conservative position, but it’s the only point of enough of them to make me suspect it’s part of the motivation for all of them.
It’s never the point. That’s just lazy reasoning.
Really? Not for anti-trans laws, anti-immigrant laws, and laws that specifically target medically necessary abortions? Of course it’s the point. If looking at the laws they vote for isn’t good enough, all you have to do is talk to a few conservatives to figure out they’re hateful, cruel people.
You may see them as hateful and cruel people, but that’s not how they see themselves. They would have to see themselves as cruel for cruelty to be the point. The fact that you think it’s the point means that you’re unwilling or unable to actually understand their point of view.
You may disagree with it, but it’s not about “cruelty”, and pretending it is just shows your personal limitations.
If course they don’t see themselves as hateful. But they have no qualms about using cruelty to enforce their idea of the proper social order. If you want to be very literal, the cruelty is the means to an end and not an end in itself, but when they use cruelty as a first resort to enforce rules to designed to keep undesirable people in their place, I see it as a distinction without a difference.
So, you agree that cruelty isn’t the point?
Wilholt’s law, “Conservatism consists of exactly one proposition, to wit: There must be in-groups whom the law protects but does not bind, alongside out-groups whom the law binds but does not protect.”
Aka, “you’re not hurting the right people”
“The modern conservative is engaged in one of man’s oldest exercises in moral philosophy; that is, the search for a superior moral justification for selfishness.”
― John Kenneth Galbraith
Sounds like libertarianism TBH.
Two sides of the same coin these days.
Conservatives seem to mostly be libertarians that have realised they can use single-issue voter, crazy church shit to get themselves elected.
They’re libertarians when it comes to them being able to do whatever they want, and they’re fascists when it comes to things they don’t want to do. Has actually nothing to do with political philosophy, it’s just naked short-term self interest. (They don’t even care if something will be bad for them in a few years.)
*Wilhoit’s. I remember because I used to have a neighbor named Wilhoit.
Because it hurts college-educated people. Culture war.
Simple answer I think is GOP don’t want anyone in their base to think any form of government assistance is good and will always label it as hand outs. More government assistance/social safety nets means their capitalist overlords gets to maintain and build their control over citizens and money will flow to them instead. Also “liberals bad!”
They get mad about feeding starving kids too
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