Posted on 12/01/2004 6:04:00 PM PST by OklaRancher
I belong to a Methodist Church in a rural area with a small congretion of 30 or so. This past Sunday the Pastor started his sermon by saying how much good the Bush tax cut could have done if it had been used to alleviate poverty.
Us rich Republicans cannot get our camels through the eye of a needle ...Do not let this happen to you ...stay poor and pray...also give away all your money so you can get poor and happy
As a Christian, I do my part to help the poor among us and as a busness owner, I help the poor by providing jobs. If I'm sending all my money to Washington I can't afford to help anyone.
The govt might provide much for the poor but it costs twice or ten times as much as when it is done in the private sector.
When I was a girl I went to an Episcopal church and had no choice but to listen to sermons that consisted of little more than tirades about Vietnam, every single Sunday. Got me so sick of church I stopped going until I found out, fifteen years ago, that there is such a thing as a conservative nondenominational Spirit-filled church.
So much for the old liberal saw about ketchup becoming a vegetable under Reagan.
In both cases, I doubt the sitting President had any knowledge, let alone influence, over what the civil servants did.
The "gap" argument is phony. The solution is not to have less rich people, but more. The problem is that the poor aren't doing their share by getting rich. If they did, the gap would disappear too.
It is said that even if we redistributed ALL wealth evenly, within a very short time, an imbalance would reappear simply based upon individual abilities, inclination and motivation. Think about people you know. Would they ALL use their money the same, or would some spend, some invest, some gamble, some start businesses, etc.?
The Liberals seem to think that the rich have money that somehow should and would have gone to the poor
Bull
If we killed all the rich people and buried their money with them, the gap would narrow too, but the poor would actually be worse off because the rich wouldn't be there buying stuff to create jobs, or banking their excess wealth to provide loans.
The only people that have money in the bank (to make loans) are people that have extra money they are willing to rent out to people who need to finance homes, cars etc.
Otherwise we go back to the early 1900s where most people paid cash for those things. Capitalism assumes some people have surplus, unproductive money, that they are willing to rent to others who can make the money more productive, even after paying interest (rent).
Jesus never held a sword to a rich man's head. OTOH the United States government has.
Something I read recently -paraphrased and edited that may help you:
After years of pondering questions framed in such polarized presupposition, I've come to the conclusion that it really is a psychological thing. Most of the liberals I know pride themselves on what they view as their "compassion", their "charity", their "kindness." Their entire self-image is that they are the ones who care about "the poor", the "downtrodden", the "oppressed." And so, their actions and attitudes, their beliefs, are molded, are defined, by dividing the world up between those who "have power" and those they perceive as not having power, the "powerless."
The liberals analyze, therefore, not on the basis of principles, or foundational beliefs, but rather on the basis of deciding who is powerful and who isn't. Those they deem with power are naturally, logically by their 'system', wrong. And those without power are naturally, logically by their system, right.
The morally relative basis liberals employ to determine and pursue justice is inherently and severely flawed -IT is at the root of all great injustice suffered upon man by man....
Is that Latin for "Silence is Golden"?
Excuse me, you don't know what you're talking about. I belong to a Methodist Church and we do plenty of Bible reading and studies. Our last study " Forty Days of Purpose" ( which we just completed Nov 1st.)we even had some members of the local Baptist Church join us for the study.
Remember the 60s and how people would say, "Some of my best friends are Baptist."
To paraphrase Rush, "Liberals want credit for intentions not results."
I have noticed most liberals ( not all, but most) are not real big on charities. They think the government should take care of everyone.
It is my feeling that those who preach about the poor, put their money where their mouth is and donate some money to some of those organizations that help the poor.
If the church would be doing what they are commanded to do, there would be many community projects to take care of the underprivileged. I would rather pay less taxes and be able to donate my money where I see a need.
Actually, when I see a fat person I think about genetics, diet, exercise, and lifestyle. And, growing wealth inequality is, in fact, true. So what is something we should be discussing. So what? My read of history is that the social, political, moral, and economic glue of societies becomes problematic as wealth inequality grows to historic levels. Sure, other things are at play--but this seems accurate in societies from ancient Greece to Depression era US.
So what? growing wealth inequality is one things when private family wealth is growing for all, even if the wealthier become even richer. However, it is quite another thing when families just putting together nesteggs for their own security and to move forward actually experience declining wealth while the wealthy grow wealthier. And, this is what is happening today. These are hard-working families who play by the rules who are eating their seed corn.
Lots of other so whats to raise in other discussions.
I agree. If we played the comparative and historical relativist game, there are no poor in the US. Likewise, no one is sick, hungry or malnourished. America is about the spirit of doing better, working hard, striving, accomplishing. Many families falling below poverty level are doing just this--at least trying very hard. You probably disagree, but the poverty line gives us a yardstick about how our economy and policies are doing. Growing poverty tells us something is not right and I want to listen. Mostly, from the experience of families at or aroung the poverty level, their standard is not America circa 1800 or Pakistan today. They look at how they are doing compared to how they were doing in their past, compared to their own efforts, compared to others with similiar accomplishments, and, yes, to those "above" them.
I hope it is not "total" crap. As we know it, Social Security is a pay as you go system--one generation supports the retirement of the generation that worked before it. It's really not our own money we are getting back, and this is where the debate over privatizing it starts.
Sorry, but the evidence is quite clear that Social Security is very effective in supporting the elderly at decent levels. No other population or demographic group in the US has benefitted as much from public policies in reducing poverty as the elderly. Social Security gets the credit. Unlike most other programs, we contribute to Social Security.
You simply uniformed on how SS works. We quailfy our benefit based on how much SS wages we had and we paid taxes for that benefit. There is no free lunch. Our current seniors would have much more to live on had they invested it on their own. The math is simple and basic. The return in exchange for the tax is one of the very worst investments anyone can make.
What do you propose?
There are Southern Baptist Churches in the North.
Could be a repeat offender via IP address. There are a number of times where new posters show up and plant seemingly innocent stories that are really designed to focus on a negative. If that is the case this time, the post wasn't as effective as he thought it would be.
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