Friday, March 26, 2010

How Conservatism Harms Family Relationships

Sadly, I have been told by Family Link, a program on Facebook that I have about 100 relatives that I could connect with, but I cannot because they are Christian conservatives, judgmental of people on government assistance and they value their taxes more than their blood. They've spent years telling my mother, and by extension, her children, that they are worthless people for needing government aid.

I am tempted to publicly call them out by name for the hypocrites they are by supporting anti-government and anti-health care stances while their relatives live on government programs. They have at least one family member who has been dependent on the government because of her disability for years now. ... and in the case of at least one other relative, their family now lives off the government since the accident, the tragic accident that should make them grateful people to those have fought to have such government disability programs available to them. They helped to prevent this from taking them down to indigence as they were content to see happen to their own family many years earlier. Or perhaps they need to recall that their great conservative paternal leader lived out his end of days on Social Security and Medicare... admitting to me that he ended up taking far more from the government than he ever paid in.


The saddest thing is that many people could be productive if we restructured our notions of how work has to happen. My mom has been one of the best senior companions Iowa has to offer since she joined a program they have which takes low-income people like my mother and has them work with seniors who would otherwise end up in nursing homes. They are flexible employers, because her mental illness requires flexibility in schedules. In this way, my mom is one of the most productive, money-saving members of society today, because nursing home care costs the government a ton of money that she is able to help save. Good thing we fed her thru the non-productive years. (tongue in cheek).

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