All they can see is the "i" in "team".
The GOP flacks are beating up on Melissa Harris-Perry because she basically said, "It takes a village." Booman walks through the whole bullshit at the above link.
The fact is that the GOP is ultimately the party of selfishness. Rob Portman supports gay marriage now, because his son is gay. Sherrod Brown is also from Ohio and he supports gay marriage because he's empathetic enough to understand that LGBT couples simply want to be treated as well as everyone else. It has nothing to do with Brown, but Portman has a self-centered interest in his son's happiness.
The extreme anti-tax rhetoric is less about what the top marginal rate should be, than on the very idea of taxation at all. Why should MY money go to "X"?
Attacks on Obamacare? Medicare and Social Security? Hey, I have insurance and a nice 401K, screw everyone else.
Guns? Screw the police, I need an AR-15 to protect my wife's Hummel figurines!
This also, frankly, explains why the GOP is becoming increasingly male and white. Women and minorities are more dependent on community. We has a psychiatrist talk to the faculty once and he said, "A man walks into a crowded room and wonders who he can physically best and who can best him. A woman walks into the same room and wonders who can she trust and who she can't trust." Women's little alliances may not be as stable as male friendships, because the dynamics involved are so myriad and shifting, but they are much more important to women.
And minorities have lived their lives feeling their separateness from the "whole" and the need to retain strong bonds within their group.
This might help explain why Asians - a presumed natural demographic for the GOP because of their general entrepreneurial aspirations - are voting for the Democrats.
Call it selfishness, call it lack of empathy, this defines the GOP. And it defines over 40% of Americans. In the right context, it defines all of us; we are capable of selfishness. But I have a good friend who was a Republican all his life and served in the Arizona state legislature as a Republican. And he left both because his daughter was a special needs student. What began as selfishness, became an understanding of the needs of all the other kids in that special needs class.
Being a parent to a special needs kid myself, I have to say that we need all the help we can get. And we're getting it. From family, doctors, therapists and, yes, the state - through the school district.
I don't know how my son will turn out in the end. Predictions are hard, especially about the future. But I know if it wasn't for our "village" his future would be a lot more cloudy.
And so, Sarah Palin, Glenn Beck and Rush Limbaugh: Fuck you. From the bottom of my heart and with all my soul and feeling: die in a fire, you selfish sociopaths.
UPDATE: As always, we are thankful for tbogg:
http://tbogg.firedoglake.com/2013/04/09/it-takes-an-idiot-to-raze-a-village-budget/
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