Almost ALL people will use a piece of the social safety net at many points in their life.

[Union Yes]

What part of that is so hard to understand for the Teabag 'movement'? Many of those Teabag hypocrites are using the safety net as we speak. Perhaps unemployment benefits, VA disability, SSDI etc.

Almost every single one of us will use the social safety net repeatedly at different points in our lives.

Even Teabaggers.

[Berry Cool]

1. They honestly think they will never have to, if only they do the right things.

They believe in total and complete self-sufficiency, and that there is nothing that can happen to them that they cannot cope with themselves (or, at worst, through the charitable help of their friends). They believe it is every person's job to make individual, personal plans for potential catastrophe, and if you haven't and something bad happens, too bad for you; you deserve to suffer for your lack of virtuous preplanning.

They grew up on the tale of the ant and the grasshopper, in which the ant, which has spent many long hours preparing and storing up food, is never in want, while the lazy grasshopper who whiles his days away in the sun relaxing and playing is left with nothing when winter comes. It is unfathomable to them that there is any reason a person might not be able to make private provision for his own future needs, with no government aid, for any reason other than sheer laziness (not wanting to take the time or effort to plan) or greed (choosing to fritter away the money on something pleasurable but unnecessary). They do not believe there is any such thing as people who need a social safety net because it is simply not possible for them to be self-sufficient or because sheer bad luck happened to them that destroyed even their plans for self-sufficient care. They see these people as parasites trying to live off the wealth of responsible people, and they refuse to help support the irresponsible because they are too busy and strained taking care of their own needs. They also see no basic social good in helping others unless they personally choose to do so. They do not want their government forcing them to do it in the form of taxes.

The reason they believe this is simple. As long as they believe it, they can continue to believe that they will never be one of the people whose personal self-sufficiency system fails. It simply won't happen to them.