The Sunshine Empire

Before President Barack Obama nominated now Justice Sonya Sotomayor to the Supreme Court earlier this year he stated that he was looking for a judge that had empathy. This suggestion was roundly mocked by conservatives. They mocked not only the idea that a judge should have empathy, but empathy in general. There is a strain in conservatism that is growing louder that seems to say to the American people, if you have issues you are on your own. The idea of a social obligation to help those in need in the conservative mind is nothing more than unadulterated communism.

How the conservative movement came to loathe so much the founding ideal of E pluribus unum I couldn’t tell you. The attitude from most conservatives amounts to “you’re on your own bitch.” Part of it is the mode of thinking that says they have to be against anything Obama is for. But it sets out the fundamental differences between the great sides of our American political spectrum. Where in our past legislation was passed with varying groups and coalitions across party lines, the politics of the country have replaced that with slews of party line votes. But I’m at a loss as to how the ideal that we are all in this together has lost all nuance with Republicans and is now some sort of coming Soviet revolution.

When the majority of the nation decides that it is in the national interest to use our resources to help the least able among us it is called some kind of forced income redistribution. It’s no more that than the gutting of financial safeguards in the market that allow the Bernie Madoffs and Ken Lays of the world to fleece the middle class and rob them of their savings is gross income redistribution on a colossal scale. Conservatives call efforts to reform health care nothing more than an effort to buy votes. Well it may not be buying them but in November the candidate that was proposing comprehensive health care reform got 10 million more votes and he is simply fulfilling his promises. But empathy is feared because it loses Republicans votes, and it’s driven by nothing more than Obama derangement syndrome. In the fall election the Republican candidate used the slogan “Country First.” The GOP mantra now is screw the country if it brings down Obama. You have to feel for how cold an existence that must be, but that would be too much empathy.

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4. Bipartisanship Takes Two To Tango
5. Conservatives Gleefully Proclaim Ft. Hood Terrorism As The Nation Mourns