The New Civil War, Part 2

Monday, September 17, 2012 at 10:48am
D wrote:

Yup, feeding the poor and loving those less fortunate is close to the heart of what Jesus was preaching while he was on Earth. I am certainly in favor of that, but its really HOW it is done that bothers me.

If I give money to my church, I know that over 90 cents of every dollar I give goes straight to the mission that our church sets forth. That to me is just awesome. There is NO way that our secular, corrupt government can promise the same.

And that's my problem with the ACA. I can't say my church is going to provide medical assistance for the poor, but listen to this story.


In 2008, my church took a special offering and told us the money was going to go straight into a fund to hire a career services person who would be free to the community of Columbus and work full time to find employment for anyone who wanted to find work. In one weekend, my church family gave over $600,000. In the last four years, only a third of that money was spent and well over 300 people have found jobs (with health insurance) and are paying taxes, feeding their families, and hopefully tithing their money back to Vineyard Church. That is how it works best brother, in my opinion!

Less government, lower taxes, promote growth of small businesses, create jobs and give good tax paying, God worshipping Americans an opportunity to set examples and give back to their communities and help their neighbors.

Let me close with this, when I give my time or money to help someone, I end up getting blessed just by how great it feels to help someone else. When the government takes the money I would normally give freely to my neighbors, and tells me they are going to give it to the poor, what happens? I'm robbed of the choice to give and that feeling of being blessed KNOWING that I really helped someone. When you get your paycheck and see how much the Fed and state takes out of your paycheck, do you get that warm fuzzy feeling that your tax dollars are really going to help your neighbor?

Thursday, September 19, 2012 at 1:55am
K wrote:

That's actually a truly great story about your church. But think on this, that's happening all around the country. AND, and this is a big and, the government invests a billion dollars in Medicare, Medicaid, and Social Security. That's in addition to tax expenditures like the earned income credit and mortgage relief, education grants and housing programs in addition to the hundreds of millions of dollars in private donations like those from your church.

Yet still we have the highest numbers of people enrolled in the SNAP program, Medicaid, and receiving unemployment than we have had in years, maybe in that combination ever.

What do you suppose would be happening in this country without the public programs?

Poverty in this country has hit crisis levels yet neither Pres Obama or Mr. Romney have mentioned it, except for Mitt to mention that he doesn't care about the poor.

The system you are describing is one of sheer and brute force, which is what we basically already have. That's what got us here. Foreclosures are at an all time high. Income inequality, the education gap between the wealthy and the poor, and lack of social mobility have never been this high in this country. Mr. Romney is not going to change that. Pres. Obama won't either. He's had four years to do so and hasn't done much. But the Romney/Ryan free-market-capitalism-rules-yee-ha ticket are certain to exacerbate the problem simply because their capitalism is all about capitalizing on someone else's loss. The people with capital, i.e. money, capitalize on the losses of the lower classes. The best system in their minds is one in which the wealthy gain more. Then they toss the scraps to the peasants and that's how we grow richer, too. Voodoo.

Just the cuts to Medicaid that Ryan's Path to (his) Prosperity alone stipulate could lead to a pandemic in our already struggling cities never before witnessed here.

But that's not all; then Ryan proposes to put all of those funds into boosting the already burgeoning military budget because, according to Ryan, our defense is our number one priority. Really? I somehow remember a little clause in the Constitution about the welfare of the people being the responsibility of the government. But I must be thinking of the constitution of Norway.

Private donations are incredibly important but they're not enough. They just aren't. And this idea that god-fearing religious folks can save the poor as examples for the rest of of us is kind of a scam too. Mitt tithes. That's part of Mormonism. And I get that. It's in the Old Testament - one tenth. But not all Americans go to church. And not all Americans are Christians, my friend. A growing number of people are proud to claim no religious affiliation. That may scare you but it is a principle our country was founded on - freedom of religion.

But back to god, GW Bush talked to god on a daily basis and he got responses. If I told you I was hearing someone talk to me you'd toss me in the loony bin.

Truthfully, I'm all for smaller government.

Let's shrink the whole thing but let's start with the military.

End the fruitless wars in Iraq and Afghanistan that have resulted in the deaths of hundreds of thousands of innocent people and the creation of a terrorist network of remotely-controlled flying robot bombing raids (soon to be in your backyard).

End the idiotic and wasteful drug wars.

Then let's address the salaries of our elected officials along with their benefits packages.  Reduce all of it.  No elected official should be tempted to make it a career.

After that let's address tax expenditures the government doles out to the wealthy such as investment loss deductions, capital gains, and breaks for multinationals.

Then legalize marijuana, prostitution, and any other high priced drugs and tax the hell out of them. Consumption taxes ought to be much higher in general but there's no way you can tell me that ganja is any worse than booze.

Legalizing ganja gets a bunch of dudes out of federal prison, saving millions. Get them jobs in dispensaries, guarding hookers, or making crack. They're working, paying taxes, and spreading good will.

Now that would be a free country.

Then we can address health care. Nationalize the whole damn system. Steal the model from our Canadian friends. But make improvements. Look to Taiwan for a more cohesive system focused on preventive care, less on treatments and procedures.

Now that's a plan I can deal with. Keep god out of it. That's way too relative. The relationship between you and your god are personal. Mine is too. Let's keep it that way.