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http://krugman.blogs.nytimes.com/
We’re getting reports about Paul Ryan’s
performance at CPAC, the big conservative gathering — and they’re
actually kind of awesome, in the worst way.
I mean, the caricature of Ryan and people
like him is that they treat the hardships of poverty as if they were
merely psychological, that they talk big about dignity while ignoring
the difficulty of getting essentials like food and health care. Well,
it’s not a caricature: Ryan says never mind having enough to eat, it’s about spirituality:
“The left is making a big mistake,” Ryan predicted. “What they’re offering people is a full stomach and an empty soul. People don’t just want a life of comfort. They want a life of dignity, they want a life of self determination.”
Um, yes, but how dignified can you be on an empty stomach? How much self-determination do you have?
And who is supposed to value dignity over having enough to eat? Children. Ryan tells an anecdote about one sad child:
“He told Eloise he didn’t want a free lunch. He wanted his own lunch, one in a brown-paper bag just like the other kids,” he continued. “He wanted one, he said, because he knew a kid with a brown-paper bag had someone who cared for him. This is what the left does not understand.”
And if the child’s mother can’t provide that lunch in a brown paper bag, then what?
The total failure to accept that the poor
face real physical hardship, that affluent politicians have no business
lecturing people having trouble buying food or having trouble paying for
health care about dignity, is just stunning.
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