Pay Attention, Conservatives

Last Friday, Vermont Senator Bernie Sanders made the following statement in the Senate Budget Committee:

“This country does in fact have a serious deficit problem. But the reality is that the deficit was caused by two wars—unpaid for. It was caused by huge tax breaks for the wealthiest people in this country. It was caused by a recession as result of the greed, recklessness, and illegal behavior on Wall Street. And if those are the causes of the deficit, I will be damned if we’re going to balance the budget on the backs of the elderly, the sick, the children, and the poor. That’s wrong.”

Sanders isn’t just right; he’s Right.

Something else to consider, seen after Occupy Wall Street was evicted from Zuccotti Park:

“If they enforced bank regulation like they do park rules, we wouldn’t be in this mess in the first place.”

And the head shot, seen periodically on the Internet:

“Remember when teachers, public employees, Planned Parenthood, NPR, and PBS crashed the stock market, wiped out half of our 401ks, took trillions in taxpayer-funded bailouts, spilled oil in the Gulf of Mexico, gave themselves billions in bonuses, and paid no taxes?

Yeah, me neither…”

Yet those are the people—along with the previously mentioned elderly, children, sick, and poor—who are expected to make it right.

Lest Christian conservatives think their alleged moral high ground gives them special dispensation, here’s a quote attributed to Stephen Colbert, though its accuracy renders moot its source:

“If this is going to be a Christian nation that doesn’t help the poor, either we have to pretend that Jesus was just as selfish as we are, or we’ve got to acknowledge that He commanded us to love the poor and serve the needy without condition and then admit that we just don’t want to do it.”

It’s way past time to pull your heads out of your asses, conservatives. Your mother was right: do it for too long and it will grow that way.