Tuesday, September 6

How Christian is it to force the loss of services to the poor by giving tax breaks to the mega-wealthy?

I hate to quote myself but my post of 7/27 seems apropos to the current debate re the role of government when responding to natural disasters.
“How Christian is it to force the loss of services to the poor by giving tax breaks to the mega-wealthy? Yes, government services are socialist programs, but they are also Christ-like services. Unlike today’s pseudo Christians who get all worked up about the need for chastity, Jesus preferred to focus on charity. When asked what to do about the woman who was caught committing adultery, Jesus told those who were anxious to follow the letter of the law and stone the woman that he who is without sin should throw the first stone.”
First off it’s clear that we need to correct the conservatives’ lies about the role of government. The conservative mantra has been that government is the problem. They want us to forget that "We the People" joined together in a social contract to authorize government to do for us what the individual can't do. They would have you believe that government’s role is to codify the moralistic preaching of the holier-than-thou crowd, in other words, government’s role is to legislate morality. Once the particular "vice" has been made a crime we can start filling up the prisons and throwing away the keys. Our abysmally stupid system of criminalizing any use the hemp plant because some derive pleasure from smoking its flowers is a prime example of that kind of misuse of governmental authority. We currently have more people imprisoned than the Soviet Union and South Africa ever did; more than 2 million, about 60% of whom are non-violent drug users. Billions of dollars are wasted every year in the misguided use of resources to prevent allegedly free people from engaging in vices that the majority frowns upon. Big government flexes its mighty muscles in an effort to eradicate part of nature. Toxic chemicals are sprayed on Mother Earth, indiscriminately poisoning other plants in the area because William Randolph Hearst browbeat an incompetent congress into criminalizing the plant in 1937.
Liberal busybodies at their worst can compound the heard-hearted stupidity of conservatives. Drug laws are nanny government at its worst. Those laws are based on the proposition that government’s role is to protect us from ourselves, a liberal notion.
So-called conservatives accept that proposition and enforce them with a vengeance, compounding the stupidity by passing laws that require minimum sentences and others that require life sentences for third convinctions. There’s no end to the power of government when it comes to limiting the freedom of the individual. But it’s a totally different story when it comes to providing for the “public welfare.” That’s when they start talking about freedom and the rights and responsibilities of the individual. It's when it comes to helping the needy that conservatives start talking about getting rid of big government.

1 Comments:

Anonymous Anonymous said...

That sound you're hearing? It's several thousand people scratching their heads
Up-starts, up-smarts and other cranks & dilettantes adorn a media scene once renown for excellence, so this journal will attempt to point out the more obvious foibles of the local press to our gentle readers ...
Don Jr

If you have a minute, go see my home based business work at home related site. It isnt anything special but you may still find something of interest.

9/06/2005 06:49:00 PM  

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