Conservative Bloggers, Communists for TennCare, & A Song I've Heard Before

Conservative bloggers in TN are having a good ole time with the Communists for TennCare blog. Hardly a day goes by without a conservative blogger citing it with glee. It's anybody's guess which one of them is behind it. The blog is one part jargon, one part jab and one part link. It has about as much substance as conservatives have compassion.

For a view of conservative compassion, check out Blogging for Bryant's lyrical rant on the subject of cuts to TennCare. The rant has no name, but might well be called "Poor People are the Lazy Scum of the Earth and Don't Need No Healthcare." This little exercise in conservative compassion brands poor, sick and disabled Tennesseans as lazy scum. Thirty years ago, it was common to hear stereotypical rants like this, but in those days they were aimed at African Americans.

Some days I try to understand conservativism as something other than a political ideology meant to rationalize and justify selfishness, but bloggers like this one don't give me anything to work with. It's even more mystifying when selfishness bills itself as Christian, as it so often does these days.

Disability Law talks about how the proposed cuts to TennCare threaten large numbers of disabled Tennesseans. I don't have a link handy, but there's been plenty of press about Tennessee's already very high infant mortality rate; a rate that will only increase with the kind of cuts Bredesen has in mind. But such things don't seem to bother conservatives.

Blogging for Bryant's smug little jab at the poor is his response to the song contest initiated by Citizens to Save TennCare. He learned of the contest from his friends at Communists for TennCare.

On the project of trying to find something in conservativism other than selfishness, I discovered Newshounds today. They watch Fox so we don't have to.