vindicatrix:

 ”I was reading Deuteronomy last night, and some of the notes by Rabbi Hertz, who is the late Chief Rabbi of the British Empire. Deuteronomy goes back to pre-literate days among the Jews; it actually was formulated before they had a written language. I thought, My God, the injunction in the Torah — in Deuteronomy — about caring for the needy, caring for the sick, caring for the poor, caring for the helpless, caring for the disadvantaged, are built into this thing which is maybe 3,000 years old, and has worked for 3,000 years. And now we’re hearing that kids don’t get hot-lunch programs, and the elderly don’t get social security, and everybody will have to get by on his own. We’re not seeing the clock turned back to 1912, before the graduated income tax was enacted; we’re seeing it turned back to Imperial Rome, where I think it was Seneca who said, “There’s no use giving food to the starving. It’ll just prolong their miserable lives.” Rabbi Hertz quotes him. The Roman attitude was that being hungry, poor, and sick, you deserved to die anyway. Aristotle, Plato, Virgil, Seneca and all of these people, don’t even include it as a virtue — they actually include it as a vice, that you would help the needy. We’re now seeing a return to the old imperial system of, “Let the disadvantaged sink to the bottom, let ‘em die.” This is so tragic and so inhumane.

        “But I can’t work up any animosity toward Reagan. I see him as caught up in historic trends that are so powerful, he was literally brought to power, the way Hitler was, which was legally and by a very large majority. And look what happened last week with Tip O’Neill’s fight against Reagen’s budget cuts. Did you see Tip O’Neill standing there at that microphone? The guy was ruined. His face was sagging, he was shaking. You didn’t even have to have the sound on.

…

        “There is one thing in Deuteronomy where he says, “You must always pay the hired man before sunset. For he is poor and has his heart set on it.” And in the notes Rabbi Hertz has for that, there is: “The workman is so poor that unless he is paid by sunet, he will not be able to buy food for his family.” I just lay there thinking about that, “For he is poor and has his heart set on it.” It is so incredible that we have fallen away from something that was so basic to our civilization, for maybe as many as 2,000 years.

        “We are in a time when there is a cruel spirit across the land, and it seems to be gathering momentum. I have some very close, personal friends who are showing symptoms of great cruelty…”

from Philip K. Dick’s last interview
http://www.philipkdick.com/media_twilightzone.html