Conservative Evangelical Republicans apparently believe that the right to life begins at the moment of conception and ends at the moment of birth.
Their fight against "welfare" generally affects Aid to Dependent Children. The hodgepdge of regulations (and subsequent administraial expense) comes from their horror at the thought that governmental aid might end up in the pocket of someone, somewhere who's sleeping on the sofa and watching soap operas while eating bon-bons.
In decidedly un-conservative fashion, they demand all sorts of governmental oversight over funds directed to children whose only sin against the people is that they've picked the wrong parents.
When you look at the actual benefits available to the lower classes of citizens (i.e., food stamps, MedicAid, rent subsidies, et al) the typical recipient gets about $15,000 annually. But, because of the imposed beauracracy imposed by legislators...just to be sure there aren't any welfare "cheats," the cost to the taxpayers is more than $30,000 per case. After all, those social workers and auditors and administrators (and legislators and governors and attorneys general, et al) need to be paid for their qualifications.
You could fire all those welfare administrators, all those Social Workers, all those MedicAid claims analysts, administrative assistants, case workers and supervisors... and cut a one-time-only check for $100,000.00 to each eligible "welfare" recipient, and probably solve the problem once and for all for a lot less taxpayers' money.
Because what matters in America isn't the ability to get by, but a chunk of capital. Most welfare recipients could take a $100,000.00 nest egg to any bank in town and use it to leverage it into a restaraunt, a store, a service, an enterprise that would contribute to the community. But, thanks to Conservatives, "welfare" is parsed out at barely subsistance levels, month by month, with incredibly expensive administrative costs (to the taxpayer) built into the system.
For reasons that constantly escape me, "Conservatives" in America exist for no reason other than to delay the inevitable.
Research shows that most people under the age of 25 simply don't understand their parents' generation's opposition to same-gender marriage; they think a woman should be given the choice of terminating a pregnancy or carrying the fetus to full term; they know the difference between an in vitro zygote and a walking, talking human being; they believe in God (or not) and still recognize that evolution is the rational explanation of how we got where we are and how we're getting to where we're going (even if it might be God's Plan).
One of the lessons of history is that conservatives have always -- consistantly, predictably, and perpetually -- been wrong.
Blacks are equal to Whites, women are equal to men, unions are just as legitmate as corporations, Baptists are entitled to the same rights as Catholics, Methodists, Presbyterians, Mormons, and Muslims. Conservatives have always opposed such thoughts.
And conservatives have always been wrong.
There will be stem-cell research.
There will be legal abortion.
There will be gender-specific equality.
There will be religious freedom for all beliefs. (Even non-belief.)
There will be equal benefits (and "marriage penalties") for long-term committments between two consenting adults, regardless of how they get their jollies in the bedroom.
The only thing standing between those inevitable circumstances is "conservatism," and it's nothing more than a delaying tactic; a ploy to win elections now, based on the prejudices du jour, bregardless of long-term complications and (as in the case of global warming) potential catastrophe.
Conservatives, as they always have been, are wrong.
http://kcbuzzblog.typepad.com/kcbuzzblog/2007/01/missouri_right_.html#comment-27414507
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