Friday, October 14, 2011

The Man with the Power to Convert His Personal Prejudices into Law

Republican Speaker of the North Carolina House, Thom Tillis.

We're calling him "Thunderdome Tillis" for his apparent relish at pitting single mothers against the disabled in a virtual steel-cage match to grapple for the crumbs that his Clown College of Republican law-makers in Raleigh leave the poor -- once they've made life as cushy as possible for corporations.

To recap, Tillis made his "let's find a way to divide and conquer people on welfare" statement at Mars Hill College last Friday.

Backpedaling furiously since then, but mainly just repeating "humanah humanah humanah" (as Rob Scholfield characterized Tillis's sputtering this week), Tillis has now drawn a sharp editorial in The Southern Pines
Pilot, which begins this way:
It's getting downright embarrassing to have Thom Tillis occupying the exalted post of speaker of the N.C. House. There's problem enough when an everyday Joe - or even a state legislator - says some of the insensitive kinds of things Tillis has said lately. But when he is in a position that gives him the power to get some of his private prejudices converted into public law, it gets a little scary....
Maybe Tillis is embarrassed to be caught exhibiting the human fellow-feeling of Vlad the Impaler. But frankly, we're not sure that he, let alone his Republican co-conspirators in the NC General Assembly, is capable of being embarrassed.

1 comment:

Not Really said...

You know, I guess I appreciate on some level that Tillis is honest enough to come out and say what he thinks. What's more dangerous are the politicians who feel the way Tillis does but are crafty enough to disguise their antagonism towards the poor and their worship of the wealthy.