Goalposts ... moving

Froggy hits it on the head:

I haven't said anything about S-CHIP yet, though I support passage of that legislation, but here's what I find interesting about it. For years and years I've been listening to conservatives say, "Well, all these programs are there to help the poor, but what about me? I'm middle class. Why aren't there any programs to help the middle class? After all, we pay for all of these other programs." Okay, so along comes this S-CHIP bill and it will help middle class children, only now we hear, "Well, look at those Frosts. They aren't poor and destitute and starving in the street and they got help from this program. It's wrong, I tell you. These programs, they're for the really, really poor."

...

You know why? Because it's not about getting what others have (the poor getting free health care at the expense of the middle class), it's about denying people what little they do get. The Rethugs don't want to be part of the program, they want to do away with the program altogether.

Update:

Amanda looks at it from another angle:

...

Certainly, chastising people for having children sounds a tad incongruous with the standard issue right wing anti-choice view that puts child-bearing into the “mandatory” category, but really this little passage from Hemingway reveals why they’re not “pro-life” or even “pro-baby”, but anti-choice. Like, any realistic choice. You don’t get a choice to abort that pregnancy but he’s also firmly against your choice to have the baby. Ideally, you’d be constrained to a handful of choices: Kill yourself, abstain from sex your whole life unless you’re a member of the elite class, or just let your babies with medical problems die for lack of care. Luckily, with the handy-dandy anti-choice policies, you’ll be making more whether you want to or not, and eventually some will be tough enough to get out of childhood, and then we’ll know for sure they’re healthy enough to pass the military physical exam, because we’ll be needing them to get the oil out of another country.

Hey, if you don’t like it, you should have chosen your socioeconomic class better when god was letting your pre-born soul in heaven pick your family.

...

Update Zwei:

Cliff Schecter:

I have not usually been one to have litmus tests, but for me, the vote on SCHIP is a litmus test. Not just as to whether you're a Democrat, but a human being.

...