When conservatives watch "A Christmas Carol" do they root for Scrooge?

[Mountainman]

Fist, Happy Holidays to all DUuers and lurkers.

I have always wondered what conservatives do when Scrooge asks "are there no prisons, are there no workhouses?"

Also do those who support the Iraq war sing, "Pease on earth, good will towards men"?

[ailsagirl]

1. Good question!! Yes, I would think Scrooge is their hero

(before he changed, certainly not after!)

[jimshoes]

2. And Mr. Potter

in "It's A Wonderful Life".

[SharonAnn]

4. Funny, I just finished watching "It's a Wonderful LIfe" and was

thinking the same thing.

It's a show that demonstrates the difference between liberal capitalism, wehre everybody is better off, and conservative capitalism where Mr. Potter steals everything and impoverishes everyone else.

[orpupilofnature57]

6. Liberal capitalism!! merry Christmas- conservative=k-marts open x-mas**

They alway find the rational, to pinch a penny.

[Warpy]

5. Why else do you think Cheney is so popular among them?

Give him a wicker wheelchair, and he's a dead ringer for Potter.

[Applan]

15. You are correct!

That is so true

[nightwish_chick]

29. lol

[Cha]

3. LOL! How Funny! I never thought of that!

They would have to or they wouldn't be real fascists..I don't think of them as "conservatives" anymore ..only fascists.

[UTUSN]

7. Funniest Concept n/t

[sonicx]

8. hmm..did they boo when Jesus gave bread to a thousand people in the bible?

[GRLMGC]

11. You know they did n/t

[tsuki]

9. Best post this season. LOL.

[Octafish]

10. They root for Marley!

"Where the old money is."

[zann725]

12. Speaking of 'greed,' is that an Enron pin on his lapel?

Sure looks like it!

[Eugene]

13. "Ebenezer Scrooge suffered from bad press in his time..."

- Ed Meese, AG during the Regan administration.

That lump of coal he gave to Bob Cratchit
was a generous and useful gift.

[bunkerbuster1]

18. Scrooge empowered his employees.

He believed in an "ownership society."

[liberalhistorian]

28. OMFG!

PLEASE PLEASE PLEASE tell me he didn't actually say that!!!!! That's too much even from Meese, who didn't think Miranda laws were necessary because "if you're arrested, you're probably already guilty of the crime, more or less, so we don't need them."

Obviously, those wingnuts who are Christians need to reread the story, because it absolutely blasts people like them and puts them right where they belong! And I've always believed the novel was divinely inspired, just like Dickens himself did, to teach us something we desperately needed to learn. It sickens me that there even are such a thing as conservative Christians, and it's even more sickening that they identify more with Scrooge and his ilk, the exact opposite of what Christ taught.

[George W. Hayduke]

14. self delete

[Name removed]

16. Deleted message

Message removed by moderator. Click here to review the message board rules.

[tabasco]

17. Why beware of them?

They are pathetic.

I pity those so bored that they have to visit that site to see what the nuts are "thinking."

[onager]

19. This passage must make them choke on the plum pudding...

"This boy is Ignorance. This girl is Want. Beware them both, and all of their degree, but most of all beware this boy, for on his brow I see that written which is Doom, unless the writing be erased."

[yorkiemommie1]

21. every time this scene plays i wonder how many bushies

will 'get' it. i bet it passes right over their heads.

[onecitizen]

20. Gawd! I needed that!!!

Thanx for brightening my day MM! hahahahahaha

[bleedingheart]

22. Actually they are upset the Scrooge is even taxed to pay for workhouses

because in their world it would be better if the poor just died outright.

[onager]

23. Here's a right-wing "expert" on the subject:

All the poor need is more morality! I've ranted on this in another thread, but WTF. Some of you may not have seen it.

The Morality Cure comes from a right-wing Ivory-Tower academic: Gertrude Himmelfarb, wife of Irving Kristol and mother of William.

Himmelfarb has apparently convinced people she's an expert purely on the weight and volume of her Coulterish screeds on the subject. She's written 12 or so books about Victorian England, always comparing it unfavorably to post-Sixties America.

Now other experts have pointed out one sticky fact Himmelfarb seems to ignore: for the poor, Victorian England provided very few recreational outlets, and the main outlet was sex. That meant LOTS of extremely poor children were running around Victorian England.

Anyway, here's Himmelfarb bloviating on the subject in a lecture:

"It is this reluctance to speak the language of morality, and to apply moral ideas to social policies, that separates us from the Victorians.

In Victorian England, moral principles were as much a part of public discourse as of private discourse, and as much a part of social policy as of personal life. Every measure of poor relief, for example, had to justify itself by showing that it would promote the moral as well as the material well-being of the poor--and not only of the pauper receiving relief but of the independent laboring poor as well.

In recent times we have so completely rejected any kind of moral principle that we have deliberately, systematically divorced poor relief from moral sanctions and incentives...BLA-BLA-BLA..."

(On-topic: Charles Dickens himself was opposed to that forced moral instruction. He supported London's "Ragged Schools" for poor children, which mixed a very basic education with lots of religious propaganda. According to what I've read, Dickens thought those schools should concentrate more on education and less on moralizing.)

Now here's Charles Taylor of Salon.com, reviewing one of Himmelfarb's "books:"

"The intellect on display here is about the caliber of the village biddy who sticks her blue nose into everyone else's business, offering opinions nobody asked for about how everybody else should live.

Like ‘99 Bottles of Beer,’ the tune Himmelfarb sings throughout "One Nation, Two Cultures" is repetitive and seemingly endless, and you always know exactly what's coming next. It's that golden oldie, top of the pops on the conservative hit parade for the umpteenth era in a row, baby! – ‘America Is Going to Hell in a Handbasket (And It's All the Fault of the '60s).’"

[Spirochete]

24. Up till the last part

then they call him a flip-flopper, and change the channel to Fox news.

[UTUSN]

25. This Thread Has Been Nominated for Best n/t

[Silverhair]

26. Bob Cratchett (sp?) was a wimp.

Scrooge was definately in need of a new heart, but Bob should have had the courage to get a better job. If other businessmen had better working conditions, and paid better, why didn't he secure one of those jobs?

There are only two answers:

1. He didn't try.

or

2. He couldn't because his skills were bottom of the barrel. In which case he should have worked to improve his skills, then go for a better paying job.

I was raised by a father who worked for minimum wage all the time I was growing up. At the time I tought it was unfair of Mr. L not to pay Dad better. Now I blame Dad, not Mr. L. When Dad would get in from work, he would flop down and do nothing. He could have tried to learn a better skill set. Instead he did nothing and we stayed in poverty. So Cratchett needed not sympathy, but a kick in the butt.

[Dream of the Flood]

27. I often wonder if they would root for the Empire as well

I've said for a while that with their undying loyalty to Bush, you'd wonder if they actually root for the Empire while watching Star Wars. But somehow, their perspective has been warped. Somehow, their beloved big mouths (Rush, Coulter, O'Reilly, Hannity etc.) have successfully played to them so they believe they are victims of some fictitious liberal elite. So, in effect, they really don't recognize that their beloved GOP is akin to the Empire. They identify more with the rebel alliance fighting the oppressors.

I can speak for this personally, because a very long time ago, back in '92 or so, I lived by the word of Rush Limbaugh. "Think for yourself" was his mantra, but really, all he was doing was giving you half assed reasons to feel okay about being a bigot. In other words, if you already indulged in your worst side, people like Rush were there to give you the ammunition to defend your fucked up world view. I saw the error of my ways and have become a die hard liberal in the mean time.

[ThoughtCriminal]

30. Potter and Cheney - side-by-side

The neck tie is clearly different.

[daleo]

31. They like the part where Scrooge looks at his gravestone

Death fascinates them. They just can't get enough of it.