I have been accused of being a disability freeloader (by family even) in the past. I’d like to introduce you to a real freeloader.
Vanderboegh said he once worked as a warehouse manager but now lives on government disability checks. He said he receives $1,300 a month because of his congestive heart failure, diabetes and hypertension. He has private health insurance through his wife, who works for a company that sells forklift products.
(Democratic Underground link Washington Post link)
I can say for certain the man is a freeloader, because disabled people don’t make their way halfway across the nation and threaten a sitting Senator with violence,
One of Nevada rancher Cliven Bundy’s supporters did not hold back his disdain for Sen. Harry Reid (D-Nev.), hurling a painful threat in the process.
In a video posted by Right Wing Watch on Wednesday, Mike Vanderboegh warned followers that “we are still staring Civil War in its bloody face.” He pulled out a soap dish for Reid, calling it the “2014 award” for inciting such conflict.
“I will send it as a reminder, with the message ‘Don’t poke the wolverine with a sharp stick, Harry, unless you want your balls ripped off,'” Vanderboegh said, drawing boisterous “yeahs!” from the crowd.
(Democratic Underground link Huffington Post link)
I”m not too worried about Senator Reid, He’s proved he’s a scrapper. However, as a person who lives on disability himself, who only regretfully applied for disability (and received it after three years of fighting) after suffering from the symptoms of undiagnosed Menieres disease for at least a decade, I find this man’s hypocrisy particularly troubling and revealing. Troubling, because his activity proves there are freeloaders on disability. Revealing, because these types generally do assign their own ‘sins’ to everyone around them.
…My family and I are thankful, every day, that the government was there to keep us in our house, my kids in school, food on our table, etc, etc, etc. Had the government not taken the steps to insure me for disability, my children would be homeless, and I would probably be dead.
There is a reason *why* the government steps in to cover matters of public health, and I personally am glad, now, that they do. I wasn’t always this enlightened. Had I not been taken ill, I might very well have been as deluded as this guy, still believing that the government was my enemy. At least my sickness saved me from that mistake. If he was really ill, really had time to think about his predicament as I do, he might be spared his current hypocrisy. In any case they should probably stop cutting his checks. Clearly if he can take part in an armed insurrection, he can do some real work.
(h/t to Jim Wright of Stonekettle Station for bringing this to my attention)
