Leaders and loud mouths like to use statements like these in order to perpetuate the stereotype of a welfare entitlement state.
It pictures in the listeners mind the lazy good for nothing ne’er do well that will steal the silverware as soon as your back is turned. It’s a good reason to keep people suspicious of one another.
When people are suspicious then they do not trust and seek only personal gain. When people only seek personal gain they forget about the consequences to actions on larger issues. This reinforces the structure of class in society to keep the rich isolated and the poor disenfranchised. Statements like these unveil the upper class entitlement as it hides behind the puritan work ethic.
The “pull yourself up by your own bootstraps” cliche is usually brought out to heap shame upon the unlucky or the disillusioned who are trapped in a survival mode mentality brought about by the limited freedom provided by elite oligarchs and captains of industry.
We the people are not lazy, we are disillusioned. We are continually disappointed by leaders who have abandoned working for the common good in favor of the corporate good. Moreover though we are constantly subjected to the politics of protecting a power structure we all see as broken and a lifestyle we see as unsustainable.
Politicians call this power structure America when they get all misty eyed talking about why they are in the business. It’s a politicized lie referring to the true state of their perception or version of they think America should be.
READ MORE ABOUT IT…
http://www.reuters.com/article/2014/09/18/us-usa-congress-poverty-idUSKBN0HD2OC20140918
http://www.msnbc.com/rachel-maddow-show/boehner-blasts-americas-unemployed-lazy
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2014/09/19/john-boehner-unemployment_n_5849742.html
http://www.salon.com/2014/09/22/paul_krugman_dismantles_boehners_callous_attack_on_the_unemployed/