Republicans trying to position themselves as champions of women in general and stay-at-home mothers in particular hits a few snags. Chris Hayes, filling in for Rachel Maddow, does a wonderful job of deconstructing the fake outrage. From Romney's own book, No Apology, p. 251:
Welfare without work erodes the spirit and the sense of self-worth of the recipient. And it conditions the children of nonworking parents to an indolent and unproductive life. Hardworking parents raise hardworking kids; we should recognize that the opposite is also true.
And then there's this delightful clip of Romney on the campaign trail:
… even if you have a child, 2 years of age, you need to go to work. and people said, "well, that's heartless." And I said, no no, I'm willing to spend more providing day care to allow those parent to go back to work. It will cost the state more providing that day care, but I want the individuals to have the dignity work.The entire segment is worth viewing. You can see a parade of this year's Republican Presidential candidates saying much the same verbiage about the dignity of working for a paycheck. If you're not rich, the work of raising children is just not good enough.
I will nitpick on only one point in this interview: it was not Connie Schultz's mother who first made the observation that how we treat people we do not have to treat well says a lot about us. I do like the aphorism that you should not marry anyone until you see how s/he treats the waitress. But credit where it's due - Dostoevsky : "The degree of civilization in a society can be judged by entering its prisons."
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