Posted on 06/16/2005 1:54:27 AM PDT by The Raven
Pray for W and Our Troops
Liberals: America's domestic enemies.
"... effects on Republican behavior, as witnessed by their lack of any spending discipline."
According to the article in Rush's magazine, DeLay says that spending has actually been cut by about 4% every year the last 4 years .. and the deficit will post only $350 instead of over $400. And .. of course .. the media has not reflected that. But Cheney said the same thing about the deficit earlier this week.
If this is truly what the future has in store, then I'll have to become one of those damned moderates!
Serious question: are you part of the Christian Left?
I am a Catholic.
There really is no such thing as the Christian Left. It's just the Left that likes to surround itself with a haze of holiness.
I prefer the capitalist society in which I live, free from theocratic tyranny, that allows me to practice a faith that I choose and be redistributive with my property if I so desire. Therefore, God may have just created the conditions for us to be able to enjoy a secular world where we can fully participate and draw pleasure from it, and then be judged after we leave it - depending on how well we abided by His commandments [if that's what we choose to believe]. And, on that note, do you suppose God will judge you more favorably if you gave freely or, whether you gave because it was made compulsory by government - made compulsory because you just so happened to support the government coercion?
You have totally distorted my positions.
1. Since Enron, Global Crossing, etc, Wall Street has not regained the confidence of most Americans to the point where they feel comfortable with dismantling Social Security and handing it over to them. And as for no one being forced to take part in Wall Street, isn't that precisely what the 401K does ?
2. Libertarian trumpetting aside, there has always been a social safety net. It has been called the extended family. Families with 5+ children had plenty of hands to provide lots of free nursing and look after their elderly so there was little societal need for the national health insurance or Social Security. It was when the extended family could no longer do these things that people looked to the government. People being people, not being heroic iron jawed Dagny Taggarts and John Galts, have always looked to society and then to the state to protect them in sickness, misfortune, and decrepitude. Whether you think they are wrong in doing so is of no importance. Indeed, something that I have always found ridiculous about libertarianism is its utter incomprehension of the fact that a society of 2 child families flatly cannot provide the services that people have come to expect from the state. You cannot have a 1900 state without a 1900 culture and society.
3. Jesus never decried trade. Nor did the Bible. But what God did decry in His establishment of the Year of Jubilee was "devil take the hindmost" capitalism. A routine abolition of debts once every lifetime and restoration of ancestral lands was to give every family a fresh start and prevent the Israelites from dividing into a peasantry crushed under debt peonage and a landed aristocracy. The Christian viewpoint has always been to view human beings as ends in themselves, not in the materialistic attitude of Marxists and libertarians for whom they are things to be used and discarded when no longer useful.
You have any factual basis for your belief? IIRC several recent Senate campaigns were between clear free trade candidates and clear protectionist candidates. The free traders won each time. Please, correct me if I've misremembered.
Polling shows vastly diminished support for free trade agreements, even among white collar workers.
The CAFTA fight is public opinion vs money. Toss up who wins. Which is surprising because money generally wins hands down.
Polling where?
What about those Senate races?
And you're forced to make contributions? Even with the social safety nets that exist that you so favor? Hmm, perhaps you're correct, but why? [after thought: I've been confident!]
2. Libertarian trumpetting aside, there has always been a social safety net. It has been called the extended family. Families with 5+ children had plenty of hands to provide lots of free nursing and look after their elderly so there was little societal need for the national health insurance or Social Security. It was when the extended family could no longer do these things that people looked to the government. People being people, not being heroic iron jawed Dagny Taggarts and John Galts, have always looked to society and then to the state to protect them in sickness, misfortune, and decrepitude. Whether you think they are wrong in doing so is of no importance. Indeed, something that I have always found ridiculous about libertarianism is its utter incomprehension of the fact that a society of 2 child families flatly cannot provide the services that people have come to expect from the state. You cannot have a 1900 state without a 1900 culture and society. So, the composition of today's family, and the realities that it brings, has forced you on the side of soliciting..nay...advocating for a redistributive government that creates even more dependency?
3. Jesus never decried trade. Nor did the Bible. But what God did decry in His establishment of the Year of Jubilee was "devil take the hindmost" capitalism. A routine abolition of debts once every lifetime and restoration of ancestral lands was to give every family a fresh start and prevent the Israelites from dividing into a peasantry crushed under debt peonage and a landed aristocracy. The Christian viewpoint has always been to view human beings as ends in themselves, not in the materialistic attitude of Marxists and libertarians for whom they are things to be used and discarded when no longer useful.
So, Old Testament biblical law makes good policy and the Jubilee is something that, if a political candidate endorsed it, you'd sidle up to him or her?
Nothing more than mouthing words. Like Clinton's "era of big government is over" speeches.
Can't help but wonder if this is more than just coincidence. Could Hillary really be that Nero-esque? Willing to figuratively burn down her party to remake it in her own image?
The bill for establishing religious freedom, the principles of which had, to a certain degree, been enacted before, I had drawn in all the latitude of reason and right. It still met with opposition; but, with some mutilations in the preamble, it was finally passed; and a singular proposition proved that its protection of opinion was meant to be universal. Where the preamble declares, that coercion is a departure from the plan of the holy author of our religion, an amendment was proposed, by inserting the word "Jesus Christ," so that it should read, "a departure from the plan of Jesus Christ, the holy author of our religion"; the insertion was rejected by a great majority, in proof that they meant to comprehend, within the mantle of its protection, the Jew and the Gentile, the Christian and Mahometan, the Hindoo, and Infidel of every denomination.
Here's another Jeffersonian take, this time from an excerpt from a letter to Samuel Kercheval in January 1810:
Yours of the 7th instant has been duly received, with the pamphlet enclosed, for which I return you my thanks. Nothing can be more exactly and seriously true than what is there stated: that but a short time elapsed after the death of the great reformer of the Jewish religion, before his principles were departed from by those who professed to be his special servants, and perverted into an engine for enslaving mankind, and aggrandizing their oppressors in Church and State: that the purest system of morals ever before preached to man has been adulterated and sophisticated by artificial constructions, into a mere contrivance to filch wealth and power to themselves: that rational men, not being able to swallow their impious heresies, in order to force them down their throats, they raise the hue and cry of infidelity, while themselves are the greatest obstacles to the advancement of the real doctrines of Jesus, and do, in fact, constitute the real Anti-Christ.
Perhaps the poor immigrants (read illegal) can now get their money directly from the Liberal Rich Dems. I always wondered where the Liberal Rich Dems got their money. Then I remembered, the dolts running the Dems either married, inherited or stole their money - they "earned" it the old fashioned way, I guess.
Amen!
Dependency of one sort or another is a reality of human existence. Dependency on extended family to cushion predictable life shocks such as sickness, catastrophe or decrepitude has simply been transferred to the state. Human beings are not nor ever have been your Ayn Rand towering ubermensch tracing dollar signs in the sand. Deplore that if you like. But human nature really does not have to be justified to you.
As to "Year of Jubilee" I accept the Biblical principles indicated. Clearly, God does not view stark extremes of wealth and poverty as desirable. After all, the key reason consumer demand has not responded to ever lower interest rates is that the average household is already tapped out with record levels of debt. Historically, the response has been to inflate the currency and reduce debt loads. So is Year of Jubilee that different ?
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.