Jesus was no Leftist

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We have seen the results of enacting Marx’ and other leftists’ ideas – and I think we can safely say Jesus would not approve.
 
The more I read M. Hillaire Belloc, the more I like distributism. . .
 
But would Jesus approve of everything the political right is doing? They can pass budgets for wars but not for the poor in their own country. Tsk, tsk. While he may not have been a leftist he wasn’t an extreme rightist either. He came down right in the middle of everything.
 
goofyjim said:
But would Jesus approve of everything the political right is doing? They can pass budgets for wars but not for the poor in their own country. Tsk, tsk. While he may not have been a leftist he wasn’t an extreme rightist either. He came down right in the middle of everything.
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Which country are you talking about?

It can’t be the United States, because our poverty programs are based on entitlement, not budgets – we are on the hook legally to pay regardless of the budget.

At the same time, these very entitlement programs have inflicted enormous damage on the people they were enacted to help – resulting in an abrupt halt to the decline in the poverty rate, increased drug addiction and alcoholism, out-of-wedlock births and so on.

The one program that could actually help – public educaiton – has failed miserably, and throwing money at it produces no results.
 
goofyjim said:
But would Jesus approve of everything the political right is doing? They can pass budgets for wars but not for the poor in their own country. Tsk, tsk. While he may not have been a leftist he wasn’t an extreme rightist either. He came down right in the middle of everything.
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At least the right hasn’t pulled us out of the “War on Poverty”. Let’s see, how long has that been going on now? 40 years?
 
The title of the article is misleading. The article is not about whether Jesus was a leftist, but whether he was a pacifist.
 
vern_humphrey said:
Poverty won.😦
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LOL. As Pat Paulsen, the comedian who was running for office, once said, “My opponent wants to spend $27 billion on poverty; frankly I think there’s enough poverty already.”😃

Seriously, I think the Parable of the Laborers in the Field shows Christ’s position on political issues best.
 
vern_humphrey said:
Which country are you talking about?

It can’t be the United States, because our poverty programs are based on entitlement, not budgets – we are on the hook legally to pay regardless of the budget.

At the same time, these very entitlement programs have inflicted enormous damage on the people they were enacted to help – resulting in an abrupt halt to the decline in the poverty rate, increased drug addiction and alcoholism, out-of-wedlock births and so on.

The one program that could actually help – public educaiton – has failed miserably, and throwing money at it produces no results.
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And you’re always assuming that the entitlement programs are the sole cause of these things. There are many, as I have stated who would be on the street w/o these programs and do no use the money for drugs, alcohol and out of wedlock births. Puleeze everyone stop these unfounded judgements.
 
BobP123 said:
LOL. As Pat Paulsen, the comedian who was running for office, once said, “My opponent wants to spend $27 billion on poverty; frankly I think there’s enough poverty already.”😃

Seriously, I think the Parable of the Laborers in the Field shows Christ’s position on political issues best.
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Particularly when you realize our “poverty programs” are designed to pay people for not laboring. (And to reward women for having children out of wedlock and so on.)
 
goofyjim said:
And you’re always assuming that the entitlement programs are the sole cause of these things.
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And you’re always assuming that entitlement programs do not subsidize out-of-wedlock births, drive men out of families, leave people hopelessly locked in the poverty cycle, and so on.
goofyjim said:
There are many, as I have stated who would be on the street w/o these programs and do no use the money for drugs, alcohol and out of wedlock births. Puleeze everyone stop these unfounded judgements.
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But there are many, many more who do.

Puleeze everyone stop these unfounded judgements that these programs help more than they hurt – because that is demonstrably untrue.
 
vern_humphrey said:
And you’re always assuming that entitlement programs do not subsidize out-of-wedlock births, drive men out of families, leave people hopelessly locked in the poverty cycle, and so on.

But there are many, many more who do.

Puleeze everyone stop these unfounded judgements that these programs help more than they hurt – because that is demonstrably untrue.
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All I know is I would be homeless w/o these programs. And the parable of the laboreres does not apply to those with disabilities.
 
Franciscan said:
townhall.com/columnists/column.aspx?UrlTitle=jesus_was_no_leftist&ns=DennisPrager&dt=03/13/2007&page=1

Prager, a Jew, makes sense to me more than many Christians.
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Prager’s distinction between micro and macro is a heretical lie (when embraced by Christians–obviously Prager is not a heretic because he’s not a Christian).

The words of Jesus apply to all aspects of life or they do not apply at all.

On the other hand, I agree with Martin Bucer that Jesus told us to turn our own cheek, not our neighbor’s cheek. “Turn the other cheek” is not a command for nations to give up resisting evil (Prager is right that we can’t take a literalistic approach to the Sermon), but it is a condemnation of vengeance or saving face (literally) through violence. In other words, the impulse after 9/11 to say “we must show them that America can’t be messed with” was in direct violation of Jesus’ teachings, however understandable and natural (for sinful humans) it was at the time. On the other hand, it was quite right for us to resolve to protect our own innocents and those of other nations against the bloodthirsty murderers of al-Qaeda. It is difficult to keep these two things distinct. It is much easier either to take the pacifist extreme or to explain Jesus away as Prager and other so-called “conservatives” do.

Edwin
 
I am so fed up with both the political right and left. I don’t listen to either side anymore. They’re all full of hot air.
 
goofyjim said:
All I know is I would be homeless w/o these programs. And the parable of the laboreres does not apply to those with disabilities.
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And I appreciate that.

You note that I do not attack you – which is why I wonder at your hostility to me.

If I may, let me point out that you are advancing the Fallacy of Limited Alternatives. You are in effect saying we have only two choices – either to abandon those who really need help, or to keep on our currrrent disasterous course.

Now I know you don’t mean that – you don’t really say to yourself (as some have said), “Who cares how many other people get hurt, as long as I get mine?”
 
vern_humphrey said:
And I appreciate that.

You note that I do not attack you – which is why I wonder at your hostility to me.

If I may, let me point out that you are advancing the Fallacy of Limited Alternatives. You are in effect saying we have only two choices – either to abandon those who really need help, or to keep on our currrrent disasterous course.

Now I know you don’t mean that – you don’t really say to yourself (as some have said), “Who cares how many other people get hurt, as long as I get mine?”
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It’s not only as long as I get mine. The majority of friends I have are those with disabilities who do not do drugs or alcohol or fit any of the unwanted situations you talk about. While these are not statistics they are what I witness on a daily basis. Whereas you just point to the ills of society and blame them on something that still is providing a good for many.
 
goofyjim said:
It’s not only as long as I get mine. The majority of friends I have are those with disabilities who do not do drugs or alcohol or fit any of the unwanted situations you talk about. While these are not statistics they are what I witness on a daily basis. Whereas you just point to the ills of society and blame them on something that still is providing a good for many.
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True, good for many. But there are so many problems associated with these programs.

As was stated earlier, it’s not an either/or situation. The government feeds the body, leaving the soul to starve. This we can see quite clearly in the broken down communities across the country (if we can even call some of the places ‘communities’). When we say that the current system isn’t working, we are talking about the huge number of problems, not the comparatively fewer successes (like your own).
 
It sounds to me like people here don’t want to pay taxes for social welfare programs but don’t mind at all forcing a system on the Muslims that they are entitled to resist. I’m actually feeling it’s time to pull out of the lost cause known as Iraq. Then we would have more funds to fix up the holes in the welfare systems instead of just cutting them back.
 
goofyjim said:
I’m actually feeling it’s time to pull out of the lost cause known as Iraq. Then we would have more funds to fix up the holes in the welfare systems instead of just cutting them back.
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Oh come on, be realistic. How much good could we do with $500 billion?
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goofyjim:
I am so fed up with both the political right and left. I don’t listen to either side anymore. They’re all full of hot air.
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Me too. The quality of the arguments are often appallingly bad and often seem more interested in scoring points than in advancing the common good.

The article mentioned by the OP is a case in point. The bulk of it is against the idea of Christian pacificism, which he asserts is a mainstream “leftist” position and which he implies is a position advocated by Democrats, in particular John Edwards. Yet he offers no evidence of this connection - its simply a straw man argument.
 
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