Lakoff on why ultra-conservatives like the sequester

Here's why he thinks so, mixed with my take. They actually believe the Ayn Rand bullshit that succeeding is a rat race and the best (white) man (not woman) wins in some Darwinian jungle of the fittest. It is their moral belief that this is right and true, that everyone is responsible for themselves and if they have trouble well then damn it it's their own damned fault. So don't help them out; let the suffer and pull themselves up by their bootstraps. If they don't then they should die to make room for those fit enough for survival.


That was true enough back when we were living in the jungle in loose tribes warring with each other over a horse or a loaf of bread. We were savages then and that's exactly to what regressives want to return. That is exactly the law of the capitalist jungle, hence the rich get richer and the rest of us get poorer, since it's our own fault for not being rich too. Compare and contrast with the more evolved view of progressives and Lakoff lays it out:

"Progressives tend to believe that democracy is based on citizens caring for their fellow citizens through what the government provides for all citizens -- public infrastructure, public safety, public education, public health, publicly-sponsored research, public forms of recreation and culture, publicly-guaranteed safety nets for those who need them, and so on. In short, progressives believe that the private depends on the public, that without those public provisions Americans cannot be free to live reasonable lives and to thrive in private business. They believe that those who make more from public provisions should pay more to maintain them."

This is religious anathema to regressives, seeing it literally as some form of communism.But fuck them, they are literally cave people. And we need to fight them tooth and nail, the only language they understand, and defeat them lest we go back to cave dwelling. We're already well on our way there and if we don't want to go all the way everyone better get busy and engage the enemy on this. If we don't only you will bear the responsibility for this back slide into the Plistocene. Turning the notion of personal responsibility around,  each of us must take responsibility for all of us in this fight or we all lose. At least 99% of us, which likely means YOU.