Jesus wouldn’t fund abortion!
Jesus healed quite a few people without government assistance.
Can government do the work of God (Charity)?
What I have read and understood from the Bible is that God and Jesus wants us to help each other by using our own time, treasure and talent and to give from our hearts (”Each man should give what he has decided in his heart to give, not reluctantly or under compulsion, for God loves a cheerful giver.” - 2 Corinthians 9:7). Nowhere have I found anything along the lines of “Go out and institute huge bureaucracies that will take money from some people at the point of a sword and give that money to other people as a politician sees fit.”
Our Founding Fathers were Christian and very pious men. They founded this country under strong Judeo-Christian tenets and reflected on their religious beliefs on all their decisions. They wrote nothing into the Constitution of any type of government “aid” to help the poor, children or anyone else on purpose. They wanted a very limited government for good reason. Limited government is the best way to ensure that freedom will be preserved. The Scottish philosopher Alexander Tytler, who lived during the time of the American Revolution and writing of the US Constitution, summed these views:
“A democracy cannot exist as a permanent form of government. It can only exist until the voters discover that they can vote themselves money from the public treasure.
From that moment on the majority always votes for the candidates promising the most money from the public treasury, with the result that a democracy always collapses over loose fiscal policy followed by a dictatorship. The average age of the world’s great civilizations has been two hundred years.
These nations have progressed through the following sequence: from bondage to spiritual faith, from spiritual faith to great courage, from courage to liberty, from liberty to abundance, from abundance to selfishness, from selfishness to complacency from complacency to apathy, from apathy to dependency, from dependency back to bondage.”
There are many interesting questions if citizens rely on government to do “God’s Work.”
If a government takes a portion of a man’s wages and does good with it, has the man also done good? If a government takes away a portion of a woman’s property and does evil with it, has the woman also done evil?
When a rich man pays more in taxes than a poor person, is he more Godly?
If the government then does evil, is he more to blame? A woman works for the government and uses other people’s tax money and does “God Work” with it, is this government woman now a good/Godly woman? If I legally try to avoid paying taxes, does that not make me an “Ungodly” man?
Today, the US government (federal, state and local) takes nearly 50% of a middle-class person’s paycheck after all taxes are factored in (income taxes, Social Security, sales tax, real estate taxes, gas tax, death taxes, phone taxes, highway tolls, sad etc.). Uncle Sam will spend more money in just this year (2004) than it spent combined between 1787 and 1900 - even after adjusting for inflation. I cringe at those numbers.
The Founding Fathers wanted nothing like the tax-consuming monster that we have as a government today. I also think of all the good work that could have be done if people were allowed to keep more of their own money and give it to organizations/people that they believe in their heart are doing God’s work. Maybe it comes down to trust. Will people do the right thing with their own money or must a government take a huge chunk of it to do the “right things?”
Except government rarely does anything right except for those tasks that were explicitly outlined in the Constitution as the Founding Father intended. I could cite many examples (such as where would you rather put $10,000 in retirement money - in Social Security or in your own 401k plan?) but the plight of black America illustrates this failure beyond comparison.
In 1965, the US government was going to wipe out poverty by the “Great Society” programs, in which to date over 3.5 trillion dollars has been spent. These federal programs were designed to “help families and children” or “buy votes” depending on your political viewpoint.
At the beginning of the 1960’s, the black out of wedlock birth rate was 22%. In the late 1975 it reached 49% and shot up to 65% in 1989. In some of the largest urban centers of the nation the rate of illegitimacy among blacks today exceeds 80% and averages 69% nationwide. As late as the 1970’s there was still a social stigma attached to a woman who was pregnant outside marriage. Now, government programs have substituted for the father and for black moral leadership. The black family and culture has collapsed (and white families are not that far behind).
Illegitimacy leads directly to poverty, crime and social problems. Out of wedlock children are four times more likely to be poor. They are much more likely to live in high crime areas with no hope of escape. In turn, they are forced to attend dangerous and poor-performing government schools, which directly leads to another generation of poverty.
Traditional black areas of Harlem, Englewood and West Philadelphia in the 1950s were safe working class neighborhoods (even though “poor” by material measures). Women were unafraid to walk at night and children played unmolested in the streets and parks. Today, these are some of the worst crime plagued areas of our nation. Work that was once dignified is now shunned. Welfare does not require recipients to do anything in exchange for their benefits. Many rules actually discourage work or provide benefits that reduce the incentive to find work.
The black abortion rate today is nearly 40%. Pregnancies among black women are twice as likely to end in abortion as pregnancies among white and Hispanic women.
The “Great Society” programs all had good intentions. Unfortunately, their real world results are that they have replaced the traditional/Christian models of family/work with that of what a government bureaucrat thinks it should be.
I could make an excellent argument that if the US government had hired former grand wizards of the KKK to run the “Great Society” programs, and if they had worked every day from 1965 to today without rest, they could have hardly have done better in destroying black America than the “Works of God” that the government has done or is trying to do.
I have visited many countries in which the government “guarantees” that everyone has a job, a place to live, education, health care and cradle to grave “government help” for all children and families. It all sounds great except that the people in these countries are/were miserable. They wanted to escape but were forced by their governments, at the end of a gun, to stay. The “worker’s paradises” of socialist and communist counties are chilling reminders of letting governments do “God’s Work.”
The Bible clearly states that we are to help those in need. The question is “Who should help those in need?” I firmly believe that scripture and the historical evidence strongly support that individuals, private organizations and churches should be the ones doing the heavy lifting.
Government help should be the last resort. “Charity,” enforced by the government, is not charity, it is extortion. “Charity,” delivered by the government, is not charity, it is a bribe which corrupts both the giver and the receiver.
Very Sincerely,
2banana
“If a man will not work, he shall not eat.”
2 Thessalonians 3:10
Whitman needs to read the Bible, it says to work with your own hands, live quietly, and mind your own business. Healthcare is not a right, and Jesus took our healing on the cross, it says ‘by his stripes we are healed’ ...Jesus would have performed a miracle, and he did many times.
Jesus was real big on people working and supporting themselves.
Tell his followers to practice charity. Tell Whitman, insofar as government involvement, that that was Caesar’s concern, not his.
And he said unto them, Ye will surely say unto me this proverb, Physician, heal thyself: whatsoever we have heard done in Capernaum, do also here in thy country.
There is no charity in forced taxation.
Jesus was a healer, He didn’t charge for His services but He did ask for belief.
He didn’t pressure the government to expand the dole system.
"Anyone who refuses to work should not eat."
"Neither paying taxes, nor endorsing that others pay taxes, in any way satisfies the call to care for for the needy."
“What would Jesus do?”
He would throw all of these abortion/euthanasia loving souless morons into the lake of fire.
Stop bringing Christ into this. Christ wants us all to return to him, as lost sheep. He does not want forced compliance of any kind, because it is not true belief.
Jesus would have overturned the tables of the money changers! Why no tort reform?
WWJD? Give to Ceasar what is Ceasar's. Give to God what is God's. He would tell someone to praise God, work hard, spread the word and take care of yourself. He would not say we should steal from one group of people to give to another. He would cite the charitable organizations that already exist in the name of God that are doing God's work for those that cannot afford it. Then he would call out the charlatans and hypocrites.
I know that Hitler used "The right to Health care" propaganda in NAZI (National Socialist Party) Germany. It ended with the Holocaust.
Awe Jeeze....
Bernard Whitman is a simpleton.
I get a bit annoyed when these communists/socialists/liberals asking the question what Jesus would do in a particular situation. These same Cs/Ss/Ls want religion out of our society, but when they want to argue a point with a Conservative they bring in the Deity. Bunch of hypocrites.
And to say that under our present system we already decide who is and is not going to live is another lie. All anyone who is sick or hurt (including illegal aliens) has to do is to report to an emergency room and he gets treated, no questions asked. That he may not be able to pay the bill is another question.
I know a homeless person who received a triple bypass and subsequent hospitalization. He never received a bill and the guy is in better shape now than before the surgery.
Jesus would heal Obama of his will to ABORT.
Next stupid question...