Why Republicans Sometimes Have A Heart

[napkinz]

by Red Stewart

Hypocrisy is a recurring theme with neo-conservatives, whether it is about their heroes or support of small businesses. The one thing that always ticks me off though is the empathy gap. To give credit where it’s due, I was never able to identify the right term till Dan Savage coined it on an episode of Real Time with Bill Maher.

The empathy gap

The empathy gap is just that: a “gap” in one’s train of thought where they change their thinking. This is slightly different from the psychological phenomenon called cognitive dissonance as it is most often from within one’s family. Let me list a few examples of positions conservatives have become liberal on because of their empathy gap:

Nancy Reagan - For stem cell research because her husband died from Alzheimer’s.
Megyn Kelly - Paternity leave after she had a child while her season still lasted.
Rush Limbaugh - Post incarceration drug treatment after he got addicted to oxycontin.
Dick Cheney - Gay rights because his daughter came out as a lesbian.

And there are plenty of others that could fill countless pages. What I’m trying to ask is why is it that such a close relationship is needed to make these people see common sense? Either way, these neo-cons do realize that it doesn’t matter what one issue they change their minds on. The whole GOP party has to be in line with the Tea Party demands. “You can’t be for abortion in any case; marriage is between a man and a woman; the poor got that way because they were lazy”. I always get a good chuckle out of Republicans who say they support gay marriage, because I then ask them who they supported in the 2012 Presidential Election (aka, who ran on an anti-gay marriage amendment to the Constitution).

I know many of you have conservative friends with an empathy gap, and while it may make them more tolerable in your view, it doesn’t matter in the grand scheme of things. They’ll always be hypocrites so long as they support the GOP.

http://youngprogressivevoices.net/empathy-republicans/

[napkinz]

1. Speaking of the HEARTLESS ...

https://www.facebook.com/Republicansareidiots1

[napkinz]

2. Unemployed Republican: "I just want someone to have a freaking heart."

Unemployed Americans Increasingly Frustrated With Congressional Inaction

February 12, 2014

WASHINGTON -- When Senate Democrats fell just one vote short of advancing a bill to restore long-term unemployment insurance last Thursday, Russ Holton wept.

"Imagine that, a 44-year-old man crying while watching TV," he said. He had watched the vote on C-SPAN 2. A day later, his cable provider cut him off because he hadn't paid the bill.

Holton is one of the 1.7 million long-term unemployed people missing out on federal benefits because Congress stopped providing them in December. Six years ago, he was making $85,000 per year at his job in tech sales. Today, the seams of his life are fraying.

He applied for food stamps and broke his contract with Verizon to get a cheaper, pay-as-you-go phone. His electrical company nearly cut him off before a friend helped him make the minimum payment. His Internet remains connected, but that's the next to go. Filling up his gas tank would be impossible if not for the gift certificates he's gotten from friends. He's borrowed money from his parents to stay afloat, but he shudders at how dire his financial situation may eventually get. "It is probably an inevitability that I will have to file for bankruptcy just to get out of it all," he said.

A registered Republican who says he votes "libertarian," Holton has found the experience "maddening." After being laid off in June 2013, Holton, who lives in Mason, Ohio, exhausted his six months' worth of state unemployment benefits, and only received a few weeks of federal insurance before it expired on Dec. 28.

"I just want someone to have a freaking heart," he said, referring to members of Congress. "They are going home to a house where all the utilities are paid for, and we are here struggling."

read more: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2014/02/12/unemployment-benefits_n_4769558.html

[Orsino]

3. It all comes down to: who is your neighbor?

For whom do you admit responsibility? For whom do you care?

The more widely you cast that net, the more liberal you are.

[Mika]

4. Limpballs never rehabbed. Checked himself out after 3 days. eom

[napkinz]

5. I also don't think Rush belonged on that list

His experience didn't make him "become liberal" on the position. He's shown no compassion for other drug addicts.