So, I have been reading the blog of and conversing with an individual of self-avowed conservative affiliation, and he keeps making harsh, demeaning statements about the poor. He believes that, as a group, the poor are lazy and apathetic, and that the only reason they are poor is because they won't look for work. I infer that these are also the reasons he dislikes the poor so much, given his general scathing treatment of them as a group.

I'm...irked. Ok, I'm pissed off. Royally pissed off. I couldn't be more offended if this guy were spouting racial epithets and proclaiming how negroes are morally inferior to good white men. Why? Because both beliefs are based on false presumptions.

This is also unfortunately a pretty standard conservative viewpoint of the poor -- that the poor are only poor because they are lazy; that poverty is nearly always the person's own fault -- and it annoys me to no end because the whole thing is built on premises that are provably, factually untrue [1]. But nevermind the ignorance, it angers me because it is an inhuman, uncaring, and arrogant stance to take.

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