Comments on: Rep. Meadows tells federal employees who won’t get paid during shutdown: “You signed up for this” https://www.habitablezone.com/2018/12/21/rep-meadows-tells-federal-employees-who-wont-get-paid-during-shutdown-you-signed-up-for-this/ Fri, 03 Apr 2026 22:41:18 -0700 hourly 1 http://wordpress.org/?v=3.3.1 By: RL https://www.habitablezone.com/2018/12/21/rep-meadows-tells-federal-employees-who-wont-get-paid-during-shutdown-you-signed-up-for-this/#comment-42668 RL Sat, 22 Dec 2018 14:57:25 +0000 https://habitablezone.com/?p=74973#comment-42668 They even have their own language- 'MEbonics' They even have their own language- ‘MEbonics’

]]> By: ER https://www.habitablezone.com/2018/12/21/rep-meadows-tells-federal-employees-who-wont-get-paid-during-shutdown-you-signed-up-for-this/#comment-42666 ER Sat, 22 Dec 2018 14:10:04 +0000 https://habitablezone.com/?p=74973#comment-42666 For hard-core Righties, people who work for other people (or worse, for the public sector), do so because they're too timid or lazy or stupid to own their own businesses. You can't expect a philosophy that prizes and honors entrepreneurial activity above all else to view mere employees with anything but sheer contempt. If a government shutdown (or a layoff or a business closure) puts a man out of work then that man has no one to blame but himself. Now I don't know if Congressman Meadows has ever actually owned or even managed a business enterprise, but that's not the point. Like all other hard-core Conservatives, he feels he is a member of that class by right because he has embraced its ethos and therefore he is entitled to its privileges. Maybe he read Ayn Rand as an adolescent. Or maybe he was just born with a silver spoon up his ass. Those who merely toil, and who are content with their lot as wage slaves, should be grateful for their job and keep their mouth shut. Its a holdover from the olden times. Only people who owned land were considered full citizens. Everyone else was just a parasite that had to be tolerated, or at best, cared for like some helpless but unruly child. We've evolved since then, the new aristocracy doesn't have to own land, just property, or its liquid essence, Capital. And <em>noblesse oblige</em> is just soooo twentieth century. For hard-core Righties, people who work for other people (or worse, for the public sector), do so because they’re too timid or lazy or stupid to own their own businesses. You can’t expect a philosophy that prizes and honors entrepreneurial activity above all else to view mere employees with anything but sheer contempt. If a government shutdown (or a layoff or a business closure) puts a man out of work then that man has no one to blame but himself.

Now I don’t know if Congressman Meadows has ever actually owned or even managed a business enterprise, but that’s not the point. Like all other hard-core Conservatives, he feels he is a member of that class by right because he has embraced its ethos and therefore he is entitled to its privileges.
Maybe he read Ayn Rand as an adolescent. Or maybe he was just born with a silver spoon up his ass. Those who merely toil, and who are content with their lot as wage slaves, should be grateful for their job and keep their mouth shut.

Its a holdover from the olden times. Only people who owned land were considered full citizens. Everyone else was just a parasite that had to be tolerated, or at best, cared for like some helpless but unruly child. We’ve evolved since then, the new aristocracy doesn’t have to own land, just property, or its liquid essence, Capital. And noblesse oblige is just soooo twentieth century.

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