The key line from Ryan on Thurs will be a scathing synopsis of the Democrats' pitch, saying they offer “a full stomach — and an empty soul.”
— Robert Costa (@costareports) March 6, 2014
Let them eat aether.
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Warren Terra
Whatever happened to the separation of church and state? It’s now the Government’s job to provide for your soul?
Murph
Spoken like the well-fed charlatan that he is.
Omnes Omnibus
Takes one to know one?
ETA: It may be empty but it hasn’t been sold? Just trying things out.
Eric
Bipartisan solution: free soul food!!
Mudge
What exactly is an empty soul? Never knew it was a vessel…the fact that he alludes to its fullness (of what constituent, I have no idea..soulness?) implies a soul exists in nourished poor people just the same.
And what is the Republican plan to fill the soul while keeping the belly empty? Do nothing. Or maybe lecture.
Belafon
“I’m saving your soul by sending you to heaven before you can sin.”
“If you can’t dazzle them with brilliance, baffle them with bullshit.” – W.C. Fields
ETA: I’m glad the old Testament never said anything about taking care of the poor, other than all the times it said to (leave the corners of your fields unpicked and all that).
Tommy
As an Athiest it isn’t easy for me to speak of a soul nor church, but it would seem to me a full stomach might be helpful for those that would like to worship.
rikyrah
so, they don’t want people to have a full stomach…
which is why they’re taking away food stamps
dedc79
Yeah, cause having a full soul and empty stomach is way better. Well, for the first few hours anyway.
Elizabelle
@Tommy:
Or learn. In our publicly-funded schools. While still we have them.
21st century Satanic mills, to Mr. Ryan.
Suffern ACE
Yeah. But Ryan doesn’t really care about their souls either.
Elizabelle
Paul Ryan and his fellow conservatives can say what they want.
When people who are not wingnuts look at Barack Obama, America’s #1 Democrat, they do not see an empty soul.
Yeah, some of them see Mom jeans.
The “empty soul” is pure projection. Weapons grade.
Butch
Journalist or PR hack? You decide.
Tommy
@rikyrah: My parents were over the first of the month. They went to get breakfast and stopped in Wal-Mart at like 6 AM. They were stunned the place was packed. I pulled up a local news story on this, that noted how the first of the month, when SNAP (what food stamps are called in my state) benefits hit, the store has a full staff cause they are flooded with business. Maybe Ryan ought to head to one the first of the month and ask these folks if they need aid.
Tommy
@Elizabelle: I don’t think it is asking that much that we feed our fellow citizens. Heck at least our kids.
Chyron HR
The key line from Democrats on Friday will be, “Oh, wait, you were serious, let me laugh even harder.”
Bob
@Murph: and this, http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2011/07/08/paul-ryan-wine-medicare-cuts_n_893457.html
Zam
More of this “value of work” character building bullshit. As if everyone who receives benefits doesn’t work, has never worked and will never work again. They take some caricature of the welfare recipient built by a bunch of angry racists out of second and third hand stories, likely with little truth to them, and built an entire ideology around this.
Baud
47% of people think they are entitled to full souls.
Stacy
Sounds like a mantra for someone with an eating disorder. I think Ryan is confusing his P90X workout with policy.
El Cid
The GOP should propose a Prayer Stamp program, and then figure out how to use that to shovel billions of dollars to their preferred contractors, funders, and peers.
Amir Khalid
A full stomach is what gives one time and energy to pursue the fulfillment of one’s soul. Too many must work so hard for the former that they never have the freedom to attend to the latter.
Hawes
I remember when McKinley ran on “the full dinner pail.”
Wow, I’m old.
Tommy
@Bob: Glad you found that article for me. I was too lazy to go looking for it, but the first thing I thought of when I read the above Tweet. I am something of a foodie. I love to cook and eat. I don’t eat steak for every meal. Heck I don’t eat meat that often. A little frugal in how I buy groceries. But I look at the amount of food stamps people get and I got no idea how you can live on that.
IowaOldLady
So now it’s the function of the US government to look after my soul? Jesus wept.
gratuitous
So very odd. Republicans whine and complain about so many problems, many of which they had a direct hand in causing, and when solutions are proffered, it’s time for the mockery, ridicule and whining and complaining about government overreach.
Just one example is childhood obesity, a cause the First Lady adopted. Childhood obesity numbers for kids under 5 have gone down recently. Too soon, really, to tell if this is a blip or a real trend, too soon to know if the First Lady’s efforts have contributed to it or its just coincidental. But the Republican reaction, embodied by their First Lady Wannabe Sarah Palin has been to say, “Let’s make s’mores, kids; we’ll show that Michelle Obama!” And their nincompoop fans yell “Fuck yeah” and write another check.
The Dude
So now we’re going to justify starving the poor on spiritual grounds? Anything to keep that bottom rail where it belongs, I guess.
Omnes Omnibus
@Amir Khalid: Bingo.
Suffern ACE
: the old “don’t bother to buy a pot, as there will be no chickens” slogan. I’m not certain that that is a winner, no matter how much optimism one can pretend to wrap it in.
JGabriel
Ryan: Their bellies will be empty, but their souls will be filled with the suffering of Jesus’ forty days and nights in the desert! If it was good enough for Jesus, it’s good enough for Americans!
Good Samaritan: You know, Jesus couldn’t even walk after that. It took a miraculous intervention from God to nurse him back to health.
Ryan: Right. They’ll still have nursing. So, we’ll, uh … We’ll repeal Obamacare! And let God sort’em out!
Good Samaritan: (facepalm)
Belafon
@Amir Khalid: Very true. But we know the Republican goal is not saving souls. It’s making money.
Frankensteinbeck
I do not think this word means what you think it means.
@gratuitous:
Party of Spite.
Seriously, folks, how the Hell does Ryan think that line will play with anyone who isn’t a seething mass of hate? If he’d phrased it differently, sure, but ‘a full belly’ is a phrase with very positive, friendly connotations, and ‘an empty soul’ is a phrase with no emotional punch for anyone but the super-religious. If that line gets air time, he’s going to be convincing a lot of people who were on the fence that ‘welfare’ must be a pretty good thing.
Tommy
@gratuitous: If I had a billion dollars there are a lot of causes I could get behind and give money to. Childhood obesity might be at the top of the list. That Michelle gets attacked for this is beyond words for me. I mean heaven forbid they grow a garden at the White House or suggest having some cucumbers instead of a cookie or a bag of chips is a good thing.
How you eat what you eat is a learned experience in my opinion. I love my parents to death, but they taught me very bad eating habits that I had to relearn as an adult. A 5’4 male that used to weight 100 pounds more than I do now. When I see a young child that is obese it pains me in a way I can’t really explain.
beltane
Paul Ryan is making the argument that the rich must be stripped of all their wealth and be made to perform hard labor in exchange for a bread and water diet so that they may find a soul.
Okay.
Comrade Dread
I’ll let St. James answer that nonsense:
Omnes Omnibus
@Comrade Dread: No fair quoting the bible at a alleged Christian.
dmsilev
@El Cid:
Please. Prayer *vouchers*.
beltane
@Frankensteinbeck: Paul Ryan is advocating the benefits of starvation, malnutrition, disease, and the ubiquitous presence of skeletal, pot-bellied children with limbs deformed by rickets. If this is how a country achieves union with God then North Korea must be a tue piece of heaven on earth,
It would be sweet if Pope Francis tore him a new one.
Tommy
@Frankensteinbeck: Our talking points related to “full bellies” write themself. I mean is Ryan coming out against eating? To be honest the policies of the GOP say yes they are. And we need to kick them in the teeth for thinking and doing this.
Matt
Shorter Ryan: “Government assistance will leave you with a full stomach but an empty soul. I mean, look at ME for fuck’s sake: I’ve been dependent on government programs / jobs / wingnut welfare my entire life and look at what a soulless assclown *I* turned out to be!”
Citizen_X
…and Lord Cthulhu demands your full soul.
Citizen_X
…and Lord Cthulhu demands your full soul.
dmsilev
@gratuitous:
It’s been proposed many times before, but it’s worth repeating: If the Obamas announce and promote their new “Don’t drink bleach or lick live power outlets” program, we’d solve the wingnut problem overnight.
Citizen_X
@Citizen_X: Twice, even!
Kay
This made me laugh, it’s so short and sweet:
PublicPolicyPolling @ppppolls 18h
Key finding on the second part of our Arizona poll, out tomorrow- John McCain has the worst approval numbers of any Senator in the country
You won’t hear THAT on the Sunday shows! :)
elmo
How is this not an instant campaign commercial for the Democrats in the midterms? “Republican leaders think it’s better for people to starve.” “Republicans believe that full stomachs are bad.” “Republicans believe Americans should go hungry. Just ask Paul Ryan.”
C’mon, people!
Citizen_X
Next is where Marie Antionette comes out and does her noble-peasant act, right?
tokyo expat
Yeah, well, a belly full today is worth a lot more than an empty soul tomorrow.
Seriously, I wonder if this guy runs to confession after every time he opens his mouth. He should because his soul is a sieve that will never hold a blessed thing, and a thousand Hail Marys won’t plug up those holes.
“Good” Catholics like him are one more reason why I’ve left the church.
Cervantes
@Omnes Omnibus:
His “full stomach”/”empty soul” rhetoric is Bible-based, too. For example, recall Jacob and Esau (e.g., Genesis 25:29-34).
It’s easy for Ryan to preach against full stomachs, of course, while’s he’s being fêted by lobbyists morning, noon, and night.
Trinity
Spoken like someone that has never had to worry about a meal. What a disturbingly callous thing to say!
They really are just terrible awful people. Ugh.
piratedan
Ryan may want to look at his own soul first before he starts claiming that the poohrs need theirs filled.
Fester Addams
You will eat, bye and bye,
In that glorious land above the sky;
Work and pray, live on hay,
You’ll get pie in the sky when you die.
(Joe Hill, c. 1911)
Kay
I don’t think it’s that bad a strategy. The only populists on the Right are their religious segment. Or, if you like, their religious segment are (more) populist than the plutocrat and libertarian-leaners BECAUSE their religious base are mostly lower income or middle class. That’s just true in my experience. Mike Huckabee and Santorum use this approach. They know they need white lower and middle to come out, so that’s the plan. Makes sense to me. Worth a try! :)
Omnes Omnibus
@Cervantes:
-Ned Flanders
Tommy
@elmo: I don’t disagree with you. But we have a problem. Lies and mistruths. My brother married into this Republican family. Birthers. They literally think people are using food stamps at strip clubs. They are smart. Educated. No really they are but they believe all the BS that Fox Noise puts out. I don’t know how we combat that. I try to use facts but it doesn’t work. I mean if they say the world is 6,000 years old and I present fact after fact this isn’t true, and they won’t listen, what can I do?
mai naem
People he’s talking about empty sole. Empty sole. Ryan’s a republican which means he can’t spell because he doesn’t believe in educamation! Sometimes, you folks are such dolts. Ryan wants poor people to resole their shoes so they can walk 40 miles in the snow to their awesome minimum wage job, just like he did with the shoes his mom bought him with his dead father’s social security survivors’ benefits.
Omnes Omnibus
@mai naem: Aha! The shoes are empty because the people haven’t put them on so they just need to pull themselves up by their bootstraps?
Belafon
@Tommy: I’m still waiting for my chance to try Last Thursdayism on someone like that.
mai naem
I wish we could somehow shame these GOPrs into doing a LIfeSwap with some poor people. I would love to see Paul Ryan try and make it on $250/week with no assistance. I mean pay for rent, food,insurance, sundries, kids’ clothes, transportation and healthcare. To see Paul Ryan and Marsha Blackburn rummaging through a Goodwill clearance rack for kids’ clothes would be awesome.
aimai
@Kay: But wouldn’t you like to see the Dems run adds with big eyed white kids looking (soulfully) at the camera:
“My mom/dad works two jobs and my sister is special needs. Without food stamps and Medicaid I don’t know how we would survive. Just as soon as I’m old enough I’m going to get a job but until then: thanks President Obama and the Democratic party!”
DTOzone
No one who has a full stomach has an empty soul
PurpleGirl
Congressman Ryan claims to be a religious man, a committed Roman Catholic. I wish that Cardinal Joseph Bernardin were still alive.
Cardinal Bernardin espoused a view of Catholicism with a consistent ethic of life and a focus on the poor and vulnerable in society. He also expressed it as a “seamless garment of life”, which while it was anti-abortion was also anti-death penalty. Cardinal Bernardin would probably have publicly scolded Congressman Ryan.
Poopyman
@Kay: Wasn’t that his ranking at the Naval Academy too? At least he’s consistent.
Omnes Omnibus
@aimai: And the Republicans would use that argument to support repealing child labor laws. I am not saying that your idea wouldn’t strike the right note in sane people though.
Rob in CT
Christ, what an asshole.
LanceThruster
Let me sleep all night in your soul kitchen…
Cervantes
@Kay: Another Bible verse for you, here.
PurpleGirl
@Tommy: Wal-Mart complained that cutting food stamps would be cutting into their revenue/profit because they make so much from people shopping for food.
Ruckus
@piratedan:
Ryan has no soul to look at. None of these assholes do. As is typical it’s projection about what they think they need. They have food but what is most important to them is what they are missing, any morals at all. They are totally mistaken that religion has anything to do with morals, they think it’s something you can purchase. Because they are sociopaths,their little pea brains don’t let them see that all their issues come from the rot inside their heads.
Tommy
@Belafon: I might try that. If for no other reason then it would be fun.
To be honest I’ve stopped engaging them. Over Christmas and the other day, my nieces birthday, before I even got my coat off they were in to me on Obamacare. It hurts my head. They have the same plan. Don’t pay any more. Same doctors. I can’t even figure out what they are mad about, but they are mad!
I tried to explain to them I work for myself and the ACA (I hate the phrase Obamacare BTW) got me a better plan for $87 less a month. A much better plan. They went on to explain to me …. well I don’t how what they explained cause it didn’t make any darn sense.
Elizabelle
@elmo:
Elmo: OT: condolences on your wonderful pup. Who had a very good last day in a too short life.
Thinking of you.
Cervantes
@Ruckus: The eighty-four words Ryan most needs to understand.
Send them to him.
Ruckus
@Belafon:
That goes along with the one I heard that there really are only about 10,000 people on the earth and they keep changing their appearance and clothes to appear like there are more. I was stunned when I heard this and asked how does it work when I go to a ball game and there are 50,000 people in the stadium? I got a completely perplexed look and not one word back.
Higgs Boson's Mate
Here’s a LINK to Costa’s WaPo piece containing a few more steaming nuggets from Ryan’s incipient verbal bowel movement.
Another sample:
The way I see it, let the other side be the party of personalities. We’ll be the party of ideas.
The jokes, they write themselves.
Omnes Omnibus
@Ruckus: Mirrors. They use mirrors.
Tommy
@PurpleGirl: The local news station has done a couple reports on this. It seems to have freaked out a lot of folks. I think there is this stereotype that only black and brown people get food stamps. Well those were not the folks in that store waiting for the clock to hit midnight.
The people were embarrassed. They were your kids teacher. A cop. The person that makes you lunch. It was hard to watch.
piratedan
@Ruckus: agreed, which is what is truly bothersome about how these guys use faith to sell their snake oil. I don’t like to use the broadbrush to label folks as a whole because there are a whole lotta folks of faith that are busy with local charities, building houses with habitat for humanity and the like but an awful lot of old testament types sure do gravitate to folks like Ryan. It’s as if the New Testament (and even parts of the Old Testament) don’t exist and they can’t feel righteous enough unless somebody somewhere is getting smited.
Ruckus
@Cervantes:
He wouldn’t understand it. If he understood it he wouldn’t believe it. Hell if he understood it there wouldn’t be an issue.
Tis ever the problem.
Ruckus
@Omnes Omnibus:
I thought vampires couldn’t be seen in mirrors.
Tommy
@piratedan: I am an Athiest but read the Bible. My take away from it isn’t the smite these folks. It is don’t lie, don’t steal, love and care for your fellow man (or women). And to me that last part is key. Maybe I misread the book, but seemed there was a focus on caring for each other. But what do I know ……
Matt McIrvin
@PurpleGirl: Also, without food stamps half of their employees would be showing up to work hungry, which can’t be good for their energy level.
Ruckus
@piratedan:
Yes there are religious folk who are not assholes and there are many who do great work for others. Just like there are good/great cops.
These guys we are talking about are not among them. That’s the line about them purchasing a soul. They utterly fail to understand morals can’t be purchased or given to them in church, they come from inside. They are the people that go to church every Sunday, but the other six days are fucking over everyone, expecting that Sunday to save them.
Petorado
… Therefore church groups should run social assistance programs like food banks and soup kitchens to fulfill both needs. According to Ryan, the gov’t can then get out of the social safety net biz since it will be done free of charge by religious charity groups, though with some federal money kicked their way of course. Won’t go to their church service? “No soup for you!”
Omnes Omnibus
@Ruckus: Maybe magnets were involved.
aimai
@Omnes Omnibus: I’m not worried about that. Despite the Maine Governor’s argument no one wants to see cute kids going back to work–I’m not saying the image should be of a teenager, btw, for just that reason. But people are not ready to put five year olds back to the looms and the mines.
bemused
@Tommy:
They desperately want to believe all this garbage so they deliberately go looking for affirmation. I read all the studies and so on this irrational denialism but I still can’t fathom how people can rub out normal skepticism. It’s like Stockholm Syndrome.
Are your brother and spouse birthers too?
Tommy
@bemused:
Nope. Brother is maybe a moderate Democrat. Wife moderate Republican. Honestly they just hate politics.
My brother has asked me not to engage them, so I don’t. But they engage me all the time. I just kind of say “oh that sucks” or ask an open ended question. I’ve found you can’t talk to them much less change their minds. So I tend to find my niece and play dress up. I’d rather be a dude in a princess outfit then debate them :).
bemused
@Tommy:
It sounds like they were counting the seconds until you arrived to bombard you with Fox “facts”, lol. Your different views seem to have gotten under their skin.
BGK
@beltane:
The Georgetown Jesuits did rhetorically conk him on the head already. Now that we have a Jesuit Pontiff…
I went to Ash Wednesday Mass with my mother last night, and we discussed the Granny Starver. We both agreed that Francesco’s first visit to the U.S., presumably with all these “deeply” Catholic Republicans lining up for VIP seats, is going to be very interesting.
Bobby Thomson
@Tommy:
I know it’s tough to see when they’re family, but they aren’t smart. No, really.
Cervantes
@aimai:
Yes, although this soul-filling suggestion was offered last Christmas:
That was Rep. Jack Kingston, who wants to be Georgia’s next Senator.
Once he discovers that Georgia receives billions more in federal spending each year than it sends to DC in taxes, I am sure he will do everything in his power — including sweeping floors — to rectify the immorality of it all.
catclub
@Comrade Dread: I thought of Jesus’ words to Peter; “If you love me, feed my sheep.”
Not preach to them.
bemused
@Tommy:
Nope, no hope of igniting any critical thinking when they are that far down the rabbit hole. Any doubt sneaking in would mean they would have to question everything they believe, too damn scary.
Tommy
Literally the last two times I didn’t even get my coat off. Now things don’t get heated. I don’t raise my voice. But my brother asked me not to engage them and I love my brother and respect that he asked me not to do this. It would take me like 5,000 words to explain their issue with the ACA and I still don’t understand what they are upset about. They are wealthy. Retired. They have a lot of health related issues and they don’t pay a single penny out of pocket. They have the plan they had before. Same doctors. No change.
But they are unhappy.
Best I can tell, and I wanted to say they were lieing or being mislead (but didn’t) is their CPA had to call their health provider to verify income numbers. My response was at least you have a CPA!
FlipYrWhig
Guys, “full stomach” means “fat.” He’s doing the “welfare makes you fat because no one is starving” thing.
Forked Tongue
You lot who preach restraint and watch your waists as well
Should learn for once, the way the world is run.
However much you twist or whatever lies that you tell
Food is the first thing, morals follow on.
ksmiami
my response – @therightisnuts
@costareports You know hungry people don’t think about their souls – they think about getting food. WTF is wrong with Paul Ryan/sociopath
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Tommy
@Cervantes: That pisses me off to no end. Next to hate of somebody that isn’t like you, close to the top of the list for me is how much money I funnel to deep red states, that then tell me we have to cut the budget. Last numbers I saw is IL pays a $1.37 for every dollar we get back. I want my money back.
Rich (In Name Only) in Reno
Come, everybody sing!
You will eat, bye and bye
In that Glorious land above the sky
Work and pray, live on hay
You’ll get pie in the sky when you die.
(Joe Hill, 1911)
RaflW
We could use another good slap-down of conservative punishment-of-the-poor framing from that commie Pope about now.
RaflW
It’s time to start referring to Ryan as the proposer of the Republican pious starvation plan for the poor.
“Deprivation can build character, once we get those enabling welfare queen liberals out of the way” Paul Ryan more or less said to CPAC today.
C.V. Danes
Yeah, well, a full stomach is better than a boot to the face, Mr. Ryan, which is all you’ve been offering.
C.V. Danes
@Tommy:
Seriously! Stop the red state welfare.
Linnaeus
What an asshole.
Kay
@aimai:
Right, but all I’m saying is that as a political approach it’s not bad. Republicans don’t have the same electorate as Democrats do. What they want to do in 2014 is bring out their voters, and a big part of their working and middle class base are “religious” (broadly).
Paul Ryan has nothing to offer them economically, so it doesn’t surprise me at all that he’s switching to “compassionate conservatism”. Kasich is also doing it in Ohio. It’s about THEIR base, not ours. I know I repeat myself on this, but I don’t think Democrats should respond to Republican appeals to the GOP base. It doesn’t make any sense to me. GOP base voters do one of two things: they vote for Republicans or they stay home. Why waste a lot of time rebutting Paul Ryan’s message to his base? We’re not even in this. It’s intra-GOP.
Tommy
@C.V. Danes: I don’t mind aid. I don’t mind paying taxes. I just don’t want some state leaders, that suck at my tit, telling me government is bad. Taxes are bad.
badpoetry
“Most men worry about their own bellies, and other people’s souls, when we all ought to be worried about our own souls, and other people’s bellies.”
― Rabbi Israel Salanter
I wish Republicans would worry about their own souls. They have cause to.
Cervantes
@Tommy:
As of 2012 that ratio was more like $1.80 for Illinois (and $2.00 for Delaware, and $2.85 for Minnesota).
Elizabelle
@Kay:
@Kay:
Excellent advice Kay.
It can be hard to stick to, because it’s so tempting to refute the lies and misrepresentations BUT energy is better used searching out and motivating our own voters.
It’s hard enough to get the Democratic base to the polls without trying to convert those with ideological blinders on.
Our base is bigger, theirs votes more reliably. There’s the rub.
PS: from what I’ve seen lately, I wish 15 year olds could vote! Met two young guys the other day, in the living room of a rightwing neighbor, who admire Obama and were brave enough to say so in front of him.
And the rightwinger (nice guy, otherwise — he’s mostly bluster) then admitted that both his daughters voted for Obama too. Probably his wife as well, but he wouldn’t cop to that.
Good on them!
MikeS
I always want to ask people like Paul Ryan why, in his opinion, inherited money doesn’t have the same corrosive effect on people*.
I think inherting money maybe equally bad (see affluenza, diagnosis of) and therefore we need a steep inheritance tax.
*I don’t want to ask about souls because I don’t see evidence of the existence of such a thing and I don’t take things on faith.
Senyordave
@badpoetry: It’s rare that the winner on the thread is plain wisdom.
patrick II
Someone should introduce Ryan to Maslow’s hierarchy of needs.
elmo
@Elizabelle:
Thank you so much. He really was a wonderful boy. I had a bit of a thing this morning, because I heard back from the crematorium that his ashes are ready. Dammit.
Tommy
@MikeS: My parents have more money then they can spend in a lifetime. They helped me, like paid for college and such, but they believe it isn’t in my best interest for me to have said money. That I have to make my own way in the world. Earn for myself.
I’ve had benefits many may not, but I don’t doubt for a second how just inheriting millions wouldn’t be in my best interest. In fact working with my dad to figure out how to give away almost all the money. We’ve set up a trust fund to pay for my nieces education, but outside that, hope to give most of it away.
Tommy
@MikeS: My last comment might not have made sense. I could rant on this topic for hours. I just don’t think most folks understand how the deck is stacked against them. You hear the “rich” talk about the inheritance tax. Total BS. My parents have what we joke is the last to die insurance policy. The last of them die and the policy kicks in and I don’t pay a penny in direct taxes. People worth billions are not paying any taxes.
Jeffro
Listen to me, understand
A hungry man’s an angry man
Chris
@tokyo expat:
Hell, yes.
“Look at me! I’m a GOOD Catholic! I’m a true believing practitioner of every aspect of the Catholic faith, from the moment I get up in the morning… until the moment it looks like it might make my taxes go up.”
Kay
@Elizabelle:
It’s interesting, politically, given the context. They had some kind of planning session a little while ago where Cantor said “most people work for someone else, so we have to stop talking about job creators”. To me, that’s a recognition that they feel they are losing on a very specific appeal, a practical “platform”, if you will.
But they aren’t really going in that direction. Instead they’re going 30,000 feet up again, to this lofty language on “values”. I think it’s a bit of a retreat, a recognition that they don’t have anything to offer, specifically. It’s almost a return to 2004, so to me it means they don’t want to compete on the field Democrats have laid out. My inclination would be NOT to follow them on their own preferred narrative terms. Just don’t follow them. Make your own case.
Chris
@Tommy:
I hate that.
I learned long ago that nothing’s ever going to get through the heads of wingnut relatives and friends, and if they grow up it’s going to be because they changed themselves. So I’m happy to kick back and talk about the weather, sports (what few of them I watch), movies, TV, how everyone’s doing, etc. Anything but politics. But for some reason most of them insist on getting into that shit. I’m like, really, what’s the point?
Tommy
Exactly. I try to not engage but they seem unable to understand. I mean what I think is pretty clear. Not something I hide. I am proud I am a far left liberal. Anybody that wants to ask I will tell them about it for a few hours :). I have come to think they do live in a bubble. That they don’t interact with anybody that doesn’t think as they do. That I am something of a sideshow that they gawk at and make fun of.
Elizabelle
@Kay:
You’ve called it correctly. I hope Democratic campaigns are thinking along these lines.
The media pundits we can do nothing about. They would follow an argument into an obvious Venus Flytrap if it bought them some facetime or a byline. Win the moment! No one gets ever discredited for being wrong.
Barney
So, Ryan is saying Democrats help “life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness” by keeping people alive, while Republicans ignore that, but do their best to trash the First Amendment?
Kay
@Elizabelle:
Maybe it’s me, but isn’t that pretty clearly a distraction?
Democrats say: “EITC, health care law and minimum wage”. Republicans respond with “you have no soul!” What?
I guess Democrats could say “we do TOO have a soul!” but I don’t know why they would :)
Matt McIrvin
@Petorado: I think you’ve got it. This is an appeal to people who believe that poor people who need assistance should be forced to beg at a church.
I’m sorry to say it, but this is a fairly popular point of view. It’ll appeal to the Republican base, at the very least.
bemused
@Tommy:
They don’t want to interact, that implies a two party conversation. They just want you to admit to the error of your ways after they have unloaded a “fair and balanced” word salad lecture on you.
Seanly
@Warren Terra:
Yeah, that was my thought. And we’re not offering a full belly – maybe at best a belly not eating itself…
I don’t want the government in the soul business. There’s more than enough assholes running around telling us how to have the soul they think we should.
matt
Isn’t that what Mr. Beadle said in Oliver Twist?
EthylEster
So I guess when young Ryan was receiving SS benefits (due to his father’s demise) he also suffered an empty soul…..but kept the benefits anyway..because he was hungry. What a guy!
Ben Cisco
A belly full, but them hungry;
A hungry mob is a angry mob.
A rain a-fall, but the dirt it tough;
A pot a-cook, but d’ food* no ‘nough.
NorthLeft12
@tokyo expat: Ditto. The absolute disconnect between what I was taught and understood about Jesus and his teachings has driven my wife and I [and our two adult daughters] out of the church. I just found I could no longer put up with the hypocrisy, backwardness, and bigotry.
The new pope seems to understand what has happened to the church and more importantly, why it has happened. I wish him well and pray for his success.
SRW1
Is that progress from ‘Let them eat cake”? I just can’t figure it out.
Grung_e_Gene
By the way, Costa totally stole this from Star Trek: The Next Generation.
Republicans love to rip off intellectual property of others.
Briefly, Picard is being tortured by the Cardassians, during one scene Picard replies to his captor by telling them their hyper-Militarization cost them, “Her belly may be full but her spirit will be empty.”
cckids
@Tommy:
This x 1000. My spouse does estate planning, and he always says that the estate tax might as well be voluntary, there are so many ways to get out of it. Drives me nuts to hear people bitching about it, but, like so many other Fox lies, you just cannot talk to these people with facts.
Elizabelle
@tokyo expat:
@NorthLeft12:
Hello from another lapsed Catholic. Like Pope Francis very much, but it’s still the dysfunctional 19th century church with — about time — a good pope out front.
Paul in KY
@Murph: I would say they extensively focus grouped to get that line. It doesn’t sound like something he would come up with on his own.
Paul in KY
@Frankensteinbeck: I think it sells to people who already vote Republican.
boatboy_srq
@rikyrah: They’re just following their Modern New Permanent Majority Bible™ which contains the story of how the Samaritan found the traveler beaten by robbers on the road to Jericho and preached to him of the blessings of salvation and what wasteful Soshulism binding his wounds would be as he lay dying on the roadside… Oh, wait…
Visceral
@Comrade Dread: The problem is that St. James was only talking about helping out fellow Christians; that’s what “brother or sister” means in that context. Early Christians referred to each other as brother and sister. The idea that they would have preached charity to people not of their community is nonsense; nobody at that time helped strangers.
Contemporary Christians have maintained this belief: that one’s only duty is to God and His people.
David Koch
What a joke. Ryan embodies the 7 deadly sins: wrath, greed, sloth, pride, lust, envy, and gluttony.
He talk about soul, but votes to bomb civilians in Iraq, in order to steal their oil, and then he attacks Pope Francis.
Frankie should bitch slap this loser