"We cannot be content, no matter how high that general standard of living may be, if some fraction of our people—whether it be one-third or one-fifth or one-tenth—is ill-fed, ill-clothed, ill-housed, and insecure."

      - FDR

i have been thinking about democrats v. republicans as of late with the controversy surrounding katrina. i have heard and read a lot of people who blame the people in new orleans for the terrible situation they are in. blame them for being poor. i'm not going to go there with this.

i'm just thinking that the difference between the dems and reps could be as simple as asking this question: do you believe in second chances? it seems that these people who are hating on the poor in the south and blaming them because they chose to be poor. putting all societal factors aside, they could get up and get an awesome job and have an awesome house.

but perhaps they made an awesome mistake that leads to their current situation. an example: a young woman did not protect herself when she had sex as a teen. she ended up pregnant with no familial support so she had to drop out of high school to take care of the child. with no education she never got a decent job. she has worked hard all of her life and cared for her child [this is not about welfare, let's just say she didn't get any], but has never been able to rise up out of poverty because of one mistake. yes, it's a mistake. but some people in this country believe in second chances. that you should not have to pay for a mistake with your life.

this, to me, is the difference between these ultra-conservative republicans and us liberal democrats. we care.