Maybe it’s the name “Rand”

(Warning: I’m annoyed and political here.)

Rand Paul has some awesome advice for the unemployed:

“As bad as it sounds, ultimately we do have to sometimes accept a wage that’s less than we had at our previous job in order to get back to work and allow the economy to get started again,” Paul explained. “Nobody likes that, but it may be one of the tough love things that has to happen.”

Really. No shit. That’s all it takes, because Rand Paul has told us that all you have to do is just snatch up one of the millions of jobs that are out there, ripe for the picking like the apples in fall. All you gotta do is swallow your pride and take less pay!

Mr. Paul? I’d just like to say: No, f*** you.

I was unemployed some years ago, from July, 2002 to January, 2004. To hear Rand Paul tell it, I must have clearly been spending my time sleeping in, watching teevee and surfing Teh Interweb, chowing down on Ramen Noodles and enjoying the scenery on the back of my small unemployment checks (which sure didn’t run for eighteen months, either).

You know what I was really doing? Combing job classifieds in every local publication I could find. Searching online for jobs. Applying for all kinds of jobs that — guess what! — paid less than what I’d been making at the telesales job that had canned me. I tried lining up freelance work, and aside from a few nibbles and a few volunteer assignments, I found nothing. It took me eighteen months to finally land a job with a company that, in that time period, I applied with five times. And that was when the economy wasn’t in the toilet.

Someday when I collate my list of Things You Can Say That Will Instantly Reveal That You Are In Fact An Asshole, I’m sure that any variation of the conservative “Unemployed? Go get a job!” meme will be high on the list. To conservatives, there are always tons of jobs out there. There are always great schools that you can get your kids into. There’s always charity health care to be found, or, failing that, the ER. All millionaires should get tax breaks no matter what the economy is doing, science is something we should just ignore when we wanna, we can drill drill drill our way to energy independence, and our corporate overlords are demigods whose wisdom we should never, ever question.

(Hey, Rand? If you’re still looking for a job come the day after Election Day, I’ve got one for you: You can go around and take your idiot father’s Presidential campaign placards off all the telephone poles. Thanks.)

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