What Republican says, "you're on your own" to the poor or sick anywhere? The values of self-reliance and personal altruism do not equal "you're on your own" unless you mistake the Great Society for personal responsibility or government egalitarianism with "Love thy neighbor." Which, judging from the applause for last week's speakers, many Americans sadly now do.
Clearly people are getting that idea that's their attitude from
somewhere. If we're not rich, it's been insinuated that we're "lazy", or "just not working hard enough". It couldn't possibly be that we're working as hard as we possibly can but we're not seeing any benefits from our hard work while the people at the top, the "job creators", take all the money and throw tantrums at the mere thought of giving any of it back ('cause that's redistributing the wealth, and that's bad!).
Wanting universal health care is akin to a commie socialist takeover in some people's eyes, for cripes' sake ("Get your government hands off my Medicare!", remember that infamous phrase?). As I said earlier, I can't afford healthcare. My job doesn't provide it for me. So I would likely need to turn to a government healthcare program of some kind to get my needs, and your party is the one who wants to cut a lot of funding to that, if not scrape it altogether. Wasn't there stories from a couple years ago of people who were in wheelchairs or whatnot at town hall meetings and such showing support for universal healthcare getting nastily attacked by those who opposed it? And remember the infamous video from a Republican debate where the question was asked of the candidates if people should be allowed to die if they don't have health insurance, and people in the crowd actually CHEERED at that?
So by those actions either candidates or their supporters are essentially implying that, yeah, you're on your own here. If I can't afford health insurance, well, that's my problem to deal with, I guess. Dare suggest there be a government program to help people like me and suddenly people are up in arms and getting nasty about it.
And for someone who's getting all upset about being painted with such a mindset, you're doing that in your own post. I for one DO value personal responsiblity and personal charity. I think both are very valuable and necessary to a society, and I try to utilize both in my everyday life as much as I can.
But I also believe, and I know you would agree, that as a society it's important to help each other when needed as well. Sometimes the government can do it. Sometimes they can't, and individuals and private sectors can. Each side steps in when possible and necessary. But to make it an either/or scenario, the way some people out there tend to do, or to dare suggest that having social programs is akin to some evil socialist commie takeover of some kind, is beyond frustrating and does nothing to actually tackle such an issue at hand.
No, not every Republican thinks that way. But obviously there's quite a few that DO, enough to the point where the Democrats had to make comments about it this past week. And if that's not the message the Republicans intend to send, then they need to figure out how to better articulate what their actual message is, 'cause right now, too many are feeling alienated.