Selfish

I’ll make you a bet. Think back on your school days. Remember any selfish kids? I'll bet you do and I'll also bet you don't remember them fondly. Selfishness is not a quality most of us admire. 

Consider GOP presidential hopeful Sen Marco Rubio. Rubio is hard line on immigration and distances himself from his own immigrant heritage by falsely claiming his parents were political exiles fleeing Castro.

They weren't. Rubio's parents immigrated to the United States in 1956; three years before Castro took power in Cuba. Oddly, Rubio now works to shut down the immigrant dreams of others; even kids who were brought here as small children and have known no other home.

Consider also Ben Carson, a prominent neurosurgeon turned GOP presidential candidate, who grew up eating meals courtesy of the food stamp program and wearing glasses provided through a tax-payer supported initiative.

Food and vision care provided by government programs for a child who now says, "Obamacare is the worst thing that has happened in this nation since slavery. In a way, it is slavery, because it is making all of us subservient to the government."

Want more? Consider recent vice presidential candidate Paul Ryan whose dad died young. Ryan, who received Social Security benefits until he was eighteen, now does all he can to privatize and destroy Social Security; derisively referring to those who need help as, Takers.

Many conservatives fail to understand that Social Security was never intended to be just a retirement account. We pay into it with the knowledge there will be money for us in our later years, but also with the understanding we are contributing to the well-being of millions of Americans we will never even meet; people like a sixteen year old kid named Paul Ryan. 

Public assistance is a truly noble idea and goes to the heart of the fundamental American belief that we are in this together; that we contribute to a common cause; that we work to create a supportive, compassionate society.

In short most of us aren't self absorbed ... and most of us aren't going to support politicians who ask us to be that way.