Via Atrios…  I’m reading this story about how the republican governor of South Carolina finally decided it was better to let people collect unemployment then…well…starve or something I guess…

COLUMBIA, S.C. — Just hours before the unemployment benefits fund was to run out in South Carolina, the state with the nation’s third-highest jobless rate, Gov. Mark Sanford relented Wednesday and agreed to apply for a $146 million federal loan to shore it up, after weeks of refusing to do so.

The governor’s position had drawn rebukes even from fellow Republicans in the Legislature, one of whom denounced Mr. Sanford as “heartless,” and from newspaper editorial pages. On Wednesday, The State, the daily newspaper here in Columbia, accused the governor of playing “chicken with the lives of the 77,000” who are unemployed in South Carolina.

For weeks, Mr. Sanford, newly elected as head of the Republican Governors Association and known for being a fierce free-market foe of government spending, stuck to his stand, questioning the probity of the South Carolina Employment Security Commission and demanding a new audit of the agency. 

Emphasis mine.  Even from fellow Republicans.  Even from fellow Republicans.  Even from fellow Republicans.  Wow.  That must have been pretty heartless then. 

Third highest unemployment rate in the nation.  You’d think there were things South Carolina could do to put its unemployed to work, some infrastructure work, or other short term one-off projects that need doing that might not only keep the state economy going, but even improve it a tad.  But that would be government spending wouldn’t it?  Better to let people who can’t find work loose everything.  Gotta love that free market stuff.

Even from fellow Republicans.   Even from fellow Republicans.  Even from fellow Republicans.  I think quite a few working people who have voted republican lately because they hate the darkies and the feminists and the Jews and the wetbacks and the liberals and the homos are starting to discover that as far as the country club republicans are concerned working people aren’t shit either, even if they’re male, white, heterosexual and protestant. 

No job?  Retirement fund gone?  About to loose your house?  Oh cheer up.  The gays can’t get married so things can’t be all bad now can they?  You got what you voted for.  Smile!