Ah, Arizona! You do seem to produce some outstanding examples of defective humanity.
The recalled Arizona senate president who proposed the state’s controversial anti-immigration law said he could fix public assistance programs by forcibly sterilizing women who receive aid and by requiring drug tests for all recipients.
“You put me in charge of Medicaid, the first thing I’d do is get Norplant, birth-control implants, or tubal ligations,” said Russell Pearce on his weekly talk radio program. Then we’ll test recipients for drugs and alcohol, and if you want to [reproduce] or use drugs or alcohol, then get a job.”
He suggested drastic cuts to food assistance for needy families, reported Phoenix New Times, and he urged strict limits to items that could be purchased with what little help was available.
“No cash for Ding Dongs and Ho Hos, you’d only get money for 15-pound bags of rice and beans, blocks of cheese and powdered milk – all the powdered milk you can haul away,” Pearce said. “If you want a steak or frozen pizza, then you’d have to get a job.”
Speaking of ding-dongs, this particular one evidently believes that unemployment is a choice– that jobs are plentiful and folks without them simply don’t want one. There is ample evidence to the contrary (most unemployed and underemployed people are desperate for work–and their incidence of drug use is lower than among the population at large), but I get the distinct impression that evidence is a foreign concept to this repellent excuse for a human being.
Punishing people for being poor seems to be the flavor of the day among the clueless and cruel political demographic.
Pearce’s delusions evidently aren’t restricted to the job prospects and drug habits of poor folks: Pearce, who served as first vice-chair of the Arizona Republican Party until the furor over these remarks prompted his resignation, and who lost a 2011 recall election over ethics concerns and his sponsorship of the controversial anti-immigration law, claimed on his most recent job application that he attended graduate school at the University of Arizona. Arizona begged to differ; the school had no record of him attending. He also claimed to have “attended graduate school” at Harvard University’s John F. Kennedy School of Government. I guess you could consider that technically true; Harvard reported that he once attended a three-week seminar there. And then there was this:
Pearce accepted but didn’t report nearly $40,000 in paid junkets and college football tickets from Fiesta Bowl officials while helping them receive state subsidies.
Maybe instead of sterilizing and starving poor people, we should sterilize and starve the unethical and soulless influence-peddlers living off the political fat of the land.
Wait a second—is this guy saying drugs should be legalized? Throw out the rest of the manure he spews forth. In the midst of that steaming heap of bigotry and ignorance, did he screw up and deposit a kernel of possible hope? He says if someone wants to reproduce and use drugs and consume alcohol, that person should get a job. Let us look at the statement. Consumption of drugs and/or alcohol during pregnancy, by a female, can be harmful to the fetus. Consumption of alcohol and/or drugs by a male (or female if the pregnancy is surrogate or some variation thereof) who is the pregnant woman’s partner or spouse is totally insensitive. So the notion is silly on that level. But if people have to be employed to consume alcohol and/or drugs—then legalize all drugs. Our penal corporation system is ridiculous. The “war on drugs” has been an absurd nightmare.
How can anyone intelligently respond to this man and his idiotic thought process? If it weren’t so important to respond to, it would be too stupid to dignify with a reply. But; who is there to repond to his verbiage with any positive results except the voters who can vote him out – but will they?
Realizing I goofed again and that Pearce is out, I need to amend my comment by stating I hope he is not in a position to advise those who are in office. I need to wake up before using my keyboard:)
Dr. Paul Craig Roberts was Assistant Secretary of the Treasury for Economic Policy under President Reagan and associate editor of the Wall Street Journal. He was columnist for Business Week, Scripps Howard News Service, and Creators Syndicate. His credentials are not those of some far out extremist.
He had this to say recently in a column – No Economy For Americans.
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The jobs of the New Economy are in lowly paid, nontradable domestic services–the jobs that characterize a Third World Economy. The American economy is an Aristocratic Economy that works for the government-privileged few, but not for anyone else. The time has passed when American corporations had a sense of social responsibility.
Historically in the US, corporations had responsibilities to their customers, employees, communities, and owners. In recent years this has been changed. Today corporations only have responsibilities to their shareholders. If profits go up, executives receive performance bonuses for serving shareholders. Manufacturing and professional tradable services such as software engineering, have been moved offshore and given to foreigners.
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I mention the above from Mr. Roberts because the fact is our Politicians both Republican and Democrat have betrayed the American People. Every stitch of clothing I am wearing was made “Off Shore.” My Computer was Made in China, my Printer was Made in China.
We now see the results of this off shoring, jobs here in the USA that do not pay a “Living Wage.” The result is to exist Government Assistance is a must. By the way we have plenty of Money when it comes to the AmeriKan War Machine.
Pearce is a Limbaugh knock-off. They say whatever they want, with few consequences to polarize their mesmerized listeners. They are full of opinions, few facts and they have no responsibility for what happens as a result of their remarks. Their original complaint was against the “liberal press” and its bias; instead of providing a factual commentary, with less bias, they created a conservative press intent on dividing the country and controlling voters through their inflammatory remarks (often out-and-out lies). I have ceased to be surprised by anything anyone says about anything. There is no civil discourse and there are no rules. Anybody can get a radio talk show.
Russell Pearce’s eugenics arguments align perfectly with those advocated by Margaret Sanger, the founder of Planned Parenthood.
Yes Gary, except that Planned Parenthood is providing counseling/services at the recipient’s request not as a mandate.
Gary; your comment, “Russell Pearce’s eugenics arguments align perfectly with those advocated by Margaret Sanger, the founder of Planned Parenthood.” is not correct.
Margaret Sanger founded the American Birth Control League in 1921; she promoted all women’s right to birth control and safe abortions vs. unsafe “back alley” abortions. The American Birth Control League evolved into Planned Parenthood Federation of America; neither sanctioned forceable forms of birth control on women. So; if Pearce wanted to force women on public assistance to use birth control, why has the GOP fought so hard to deny forms of birth control to many women? Only the poor would qualify for this medical assistance?
This guy is trying to be another FL Governor Rick Scott who went through with the drug testing of welfare recipients to the tune of millions from tax payers. Check out his wife’s company to see why he did this and then you’ll see how the positive drug results were less than 2% for welfare recipients. If you’re poor, you can’t afford drugs. And if I’m not mistaken, there is a 5 yr limit on welfare and that was something that Clinton signed into law.
Mr. Pearce is running into a head-on collision with Hobby Lobby and Rick Santorum who don’t believe in birth control at all.
We have to remember that the period from 1945 to date is an anomaly. The natural state of mankind is prince and pauper. Things are simply settling themselves out. Insolong as people are stupid and easily divided, things will be the same. i.e.: Things will be the same.
Earl – the “natural state”? Really? Is this a rule of physics? Historically this may be a reflection of the historical state of mankind, but so are plagues, malnutrition and a shorter life span.
Perhaps that’s why I was always drawn to Bobby Kennedy’s paraphrase of GB Shaw: “Some men see things as they are and say why? I dream things that never were and say why not?” (Yes, I do know the origins of the original quote and its context).
Another quote I like is relevant here: “It is not upon you to finish the work, but neither are you free to desist from it” from the Mishnah (Jewish religious literature).
If we sit back and say “thus it has always been, therefore it is the “natural state” we will never have progress. Would you prefer that we eliminate the “anomalies” of women’s suffrage, voting for African-Americans, voting for non-landholding, non-Christian whites – voting at all – and return to the “natural state’?
If we don’t push back against people like Pearce, we are, at least to my mind, desisting from the work of improving the universe we live in. My parents wanted a better life and a better world for me to live in than they had. I wish the same for future generations.
So if Pearce is advocating sterilization, I think he should be first in line to try it out and see how his idea works out. He obviously doesn’t have a brain, so that might serve to even things out.
People like Russell Pearce are misled and mislead because they choose to define all of the poor as equivalent to the relatively few of the poor who are welfare cheats. Their culture of hate knows no bounds so they pick out the worst examples of the groups that they’ve been taught to hate and think of them as ubiquitous within the group. Thus all blank are blank. Stupid.
When I encounter that in discussions I usually ask, “what do you think can be done, that isn’t being done, to reduce welfare fraud?” I’ve never received a sensible answer. I look forward to the day when someone has an answer.
I’ve always looked at welfare cheats as criminals and I have always been against crime. We spend much of our treasure fighting crime of all kinds and we’re pretty good at it. Just not perfect. I hold out no hope for perfection at anything.
So we continue to fight the consequences of perhaps too much freedom in many ways that don’t and won’t compromise our freedom and additional crime is one of the prices that we pay.
For those who choose to not tar and feather whole groups based on the behavior of a few of them, the cost of crime is worth the benefit of maintaining our freedom. For those who are stupid enough to believe that all blanks are blank, freedom is given though not earned. We carry them. Just like we carry criminals that our freedom inadvertently protects.
I couldn’t agree more with you Len. Maybe I’m just tainted by wisdom and experience.☺
Since Mr. Pearce is currently unemployed, I presume he’s drawing unemployment. As a taxpayer who’s supporting this deadbeat, I want to see the results of his drug test and have public proof of his personal sterilization.