Why do some conservatives oppose social programs...?

Question

...such as welfare and affirmative action when they themselves have benefited from it. Clarence Thomas got into Yale because of affirmative action. He was picked by Poppy Bush to replace a retiring black Supreme Court Justice because he was a black conservative, even though he was not qualified. But he is now a virulent opponent of affirmative action.

I read a number of years ago that there are some conservative pundits who once were on welfare but now oppose it for other poor families. Sadly, I no longer have the source.

Is this selfishness or do they think they could have gotten by without these programs?

p-l, according to The Washington Post, he did indeed get into one of the slots Yale set aside for minority students: http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/10/01/AR2007100101332.html

and

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/09/28/AR2007092801634_2.html?sid=ST2007092900506

Answer 1

They want to abolish the middle class. Helping the poor prevents them from getting poorer. Social programs means that they would have to take money away from people who have so much money they dunno what to do with it.


That being said, there needs to be strict limits on welfare and affirmative action needs to go away, it's just legal racism.

Answer 2

Myth: Welfare traps people in poverty.

Fact: Welfare helps people get back on their feet more quickly.



No study has ever proven that welfare traps people in poverty. However, studies do exist that show that nations with more generous welfare benefits allow their poor greater escape rates from poverty.

Single-year poverty / Persistent poverty / Poverty escape
-----------------------------------------------------
Finland 3% / n/a / 47%
Sweden 3 / n/a / 45
France (Lorraine) 4 / 2% / 32
Luxembourg 4 / 1 / 29
West Germany 8 / 2 / 24
Canada 17 / 12 / 23
Netherlands 3 / 1 / 23
Ireland 11 / n/a / 22
United States 20 / 14 / 22
U.S. blacks 49 / 42 / 15

They all talk crap about reponsibility but apparently they have no responsibility to society. They have no plan at all if the social programs were to be cut. Their plan is some sort of utopia were millions in welfare out of the sudden will find a job. When in reality they are forcing millions to find another way of survival like stealing and killing to survive. Their way of thinking is totaly unrealistic, and anti social.

Answer 3

Conservatives believe that people need to rise and fall on their merit. Clarence Thomas, who was and is imminently qualified for the Supreme Court, was put into an Affirmative Action slot, but would have gotten in without it. They used him to fill the slot because they could.

Social programs such as welfare keep people enslaved to government and don't help them rise above their situation. Conservatives don't actually oppose these programs, but believe they need to be transformed so they help people for a short time to rise to self sufficiency. Current programs don't do this by in large.

Affirmative Action is plain and simple racism. Correcting racism with racism is just plain ridiculous and wrong. If you look at any of the conservative blacks you will find they did not need Affirmative Action even if it helped them. There is also a difference between a President picking a person based on race because they are trying to maintain a representative balance because they want to do it and government requiring them to do so. Bush was not forced to pick a black man, but he chose to do so.

While there may be a conservative pundit or two that have been helped by these programs, you will not find a source to show that many were helped by these programs. I know many conservatives who would qualify, but refuse to apply because they see it as theft.

Selfishness is believing government owes you these benefits. The selfish policy is those of liberals.

Answer 4

Welfare without requiring work is just throwing away money you do not learn to be responsible for your money if you do not earn it. If a person working full time still needs help to get by they should get the welfare money.

Affirmative action is discrimination. It is Racist. Any policy that bases its decisions on nothing but race can be nothing but racist.

This past Sunday on 60 minutes Clarence Thomas himself said that while he was attending Yale he found out that his files were kept separate from the majority of the other students. This was later found out to be Affirmative action.

If you do not earn it it is not yours. Money(welfare) or Position(Affirmative action)

Answer 5

My father is the perfect example of how hard word will NOT make you prosperous in this right-wing society we live in. He has been busting his *** managing and stocking shelves at the same supermarket since he was 18, he is now 53 and 36k in debt due to medical bills. The biggest one is the surgery he had to get on his lumbar for a work related injury. Hard work will not get you anything in this country. Some people are just dealt better cards and we need the government to lend a helping hand for those who weren't dealt such a strong hand. By the way Conservatives, if you hate socialism so much, put out your own fires, teach your own kids, build your own roads, fund your own damn precious military, and when you get old you had betterkeep your hands off of medicare. Don't vote while you're at it, that's a form of collective socialism.

Answer 6

Do some research....

Clarence Thomas did not fill an affirmative action slot.... In fact Yale law school has historically NOT filled slots based on affirmative action quotas.

Justice Thomas' opinion has never changed in regards to affirmative action.

You "read somewhere" but cite no reference or quote no source.

As a conservative I can only answer for myself, I have never supported nor sought hand outs from any social programs.

When will liberals understand that social programs NEVER produce anything other than more people with their hands out asking for more.

{edit} The article you cite is an Op-Ed piece.... an opinion not necessarily supported by by fact. Opinions are not research unless you are arguing to support or refute that opinion.

Again, do some research.

Answer 7

Welfare

I oppose it because there is too much fraud. I have to work and so should you.

Affirmative action

Clarence Thomas did not get into Yale because of affirmative action. It did not exist back then. What affirmative action does is give preferences because of race. What should happen is those who do not qualify should learn the skills needed to get the job. Simply giving it to them violates the constitution.

You clearly do not understand conservatism so I cannot be any clearer than this.

Answer 8

Clarence Thomas is against affirmative action because it assumes black people are inferior, and the people who use it are extremely biased. He actually said that the KKK members that were around when he was a kind were better than the liberals who degraded him and treated him different because he was black.
Maybe you should try to put yourself in his shoes, actually being told he was getting something because he was inferior and needed the help. If thats not racist, then what is?

Answer 9

Are some conservatives against social programs. Yes and it is more than some. The first programs that are cut are those programs that help people. In my state, California, the Republicans in the Assembly and the Senate held the budget hostage until the cuts in social programs were cut to the bone. It was over 54 days before the budget was past.

Answer 10

True conservatives oppose OPEN-ENDED social programs, which then become "entitlements"...and I say that NO ONE is entitled to MY money that I worked for! If limits, and self-correcting actions could be incorporated into these programs, then I might agree to them. Here's a proposal for welfare :

- If a person agrees to take welfare payments, they MUST be available 8 hours a day to whomever wants to use them for anything, from private citizen to a business. You could make them available to companys as free labor, and then they get free training for jobs, as Government ( ie, citizens ) are paying for the welfare check anyway, so why not get them to do some work for it? A company would get free labor, and not owe a dime. If the person refused to work, or did it badly, or sabotaged it, they could have a mark against them. If you build up enough bad marks, you lose your welfare check, for up to 1 year before you can re-apply. I think with this set-up, you can get people "Hired" by businesses, as they'd owe nothing, get free labor whether helpful or not, and the individual welfare recipient would get free training or at the very least, made to earn their check. But , unfortunately, Liberals will think that that is "punishment", and that the welfare recipient should not be "forced" to do anything for it. Sorry, you accept funds, you should earn them. I think both society and the welfare system as a whole would benefit. Those too lazy to work would get tossed off or find their own way of supporting themselves that doesn't require them to be forced to do any kind of work they don't want to, and the fit and willing would get trained in some kind of job, maybe not what they like, but hey, beggars can't be chosers! Go find a job yourself, at least you'll be making money, and getting some kind of job experience out of it.

I have never used Welfare, don't know how it works. I know the stupid Unemployment benefits are tied ( in Virginia ) to a very STUPID and lopsided job listings system, which doesn't work for high-tech workers, it is so insanely crazy, that I refused to use it last year, when I lost my job. THey won't allow you to use job listings in newspapers, it had to be thru the GOVERNMENT system, which has virtually no high-tech listings in it, in Virgina. So I was screwed. What's the point? Bad system, set up badly, only works for some people. Just like mass transit / public transportation, if it doesn't take you where you want to go, WHEN you want to go, it's useless to you.
I'm all for programs that are limited, have oversight, a time limit and have to be re-upped, and aren't just open purses for bums to help themselves to. If done properly, I'd agree to them, but Democrats hand out the social candy to earn votes, and won't make the program tough enough to be useful long-term, they just want to buy voters with it. Sorry, no will vote for. Make the program practical and useful, and I'll vote for it.
- The Gremlin Guy -

Answer 11

It's not opposition to the actual programs. It is what they have turned into - preferential treatment. Some people feel that the government "owes" them preferential treatment, so by golly, they're going to keep having babies so they can stay on welfare. I don't particularly like paying their wages to sit on their fat a$$e$ and refuse to work. Yeah, I am into welfare reform.

Just this week Justice Thomas was interviewed by a few of the talk show hosts (Hannity and Boortz). I suggest you glue your snotty little ears to an audio of one of these interviews and see how self centered wrong you are about his qualifications as a high court decision maker.