Are you as a Christian morally perplexed by the economic based social justice issues of the day? If so then I highly recommend the following book! And, if you read Sojourners Web Magazine – the Social Gospel’s Mother Earth Magazine – then I really, really, really recommend the following book to you. This book will help dispel the notion promoted by Sojourner’s Jim Wallis that government can be a proxy Good Samaritan. It will help counter the Marxist nonsense you will read on the Sojourner’s web page.
Here is a blurb about the book:
Defending the Free Market: The Moral Case for a Free Economy by The Rev. Robert Scirico, President of the Acton Institute.
Introduction: The End of Freedom
Here are the chapter titles:
A Leftist Undone
Why You Can’t Have Freedom without a Free Economy
Want to Help the Poor? Start a business
Why the “Creative Destruction” of Capitalism is More Creative than Destructive
Why Greed is Not Good – and Why You Can Get More of It with Socialism than with Capitalism
The Idol of Equality
Why Smart Charity Works – and Welfare Doesn’t
The Health of Nations: Why State Sponsored Health Care is Not Compassionate
Caring for the Environment Doesn’t Have to mean Big Government
Sojourners, Jim Wallis: “Republican budget is an immoral document.” What a load of partisan crock! Wallis plies you with this pietistic propaganda so as to pluck at your heart-strings! He’s implying that government has the moral responsibility to determine who gets what in our society. Why on earth would anyone put government in this position? Oh yes, the Evil One would. Jesus never called the government to come and follow Him. Jesus never told government to do anything for the poor. Never. Judas wanted that but Jesus, never. Sadly, though, people, completely ignoring history, subscribe to Sojourner’s brand of Gnosticism – mixing gospel with government. They do so not just at their own peril but also at the peril of the poor.
The U.S. Senate controlled by Harry Reid and the Democrats has not passed a budget in over 800 days. This is morally reprehensible. With no budget there is no accountability to the American people with regard to how taxpayer money is being spent. I don’t have to tell you that when there is no accountability for how our money is being spent then there is a lot of sleight of hand going on.
The House Budget Committee on Thursday released a report “demonstrating that economic hardships have been made worse by Washington’s misguided interventions and the lack of a credible plan to lift the crushing debt burden.”
The report, “Debt Overhang and the U.S. Jobs Malaise” comes at a timely moment: it has now been 800 days since the Senate has passed a budget.
“It’s really incredible” said Rep. Todd Young, R-Ind., a member of the House Budget Committee, “Democrats don’t get it. They either have trouble figuring out their priorities or they don’t want to reveal them to the American public. Instead we just get criticism for our plan, which is the only comprehensive plan out there.”
Wallis is a radical redistributive leftist hell-bent on radical redistributive social “justice.” Yet for Wallis and his ilk, true justice, justice for all, is just collateral damage in the war against poverty. It is to be thrown out the window for the sake of putting the poor on a pedestal. And with this shameful idolatry (remember the Israelites worshipping a golden calf – a facsimile representation of God?) comes the same old Robin Hood story – it’s perfectly OK to steal from the rich especially if you can villainize them first. Wallis and Obama know that a sucker (subscriber) is born every day.
You will be told by socialist quacks like Wallis (Marxist ideologues in sheep’s clothing) that voluntary charity doesn’t go far enough, that government needs to be involved.
Remember when the disciples brought a young boy to Jesus in response to enormous hunger needs?:
“Here is a boy with five small barley loaves and two small fish, but how far will they go among so many?”
The loaves and fishes freely offered by the young boy went as far as Jesus wanted it to go – to thousands of people! And so too, the widow’s mite. Don’t buy Wallis’ loaves and fishes. They will cost you everything.
The Democrats have done incredible damage to wealth creation, human initiative and human flourishing with their reckless spending and onerous regulations. They tax and regulate people out of business while at the same time building more casinos to strip away money thereby creating more poverty and more economic dependence. I live in Chicago. I see first hand the devastating results of the Dem’s social programs.
Voting for Democrats is like shooting yourself in the foot and also killing the poor person whose neck you are holding down to the ground with the jackboot of your “charity.”
The Republicans are correct – we need economic freedom for people – all people – to thrive. The Democrats redistribute what isn’t theirs to distribute. All private property and human rights are at risk under Obama the Terrible and a Democrat regime.
The Rev. Scirico’s book came out this year. It encapsulates much of what I have been posting about over many months. I have been writing about social justice issues ever since learning that Christians are now recycling socialism under the guise of social gospel.
Here is the web site where you will find the Rev. Scirico and others who can explain economics, charity and human flourishing better than Sojourners ever will: http://www.acton.org/
“No matter how much people on the left talk about compassion, they have no compassion for the taxpayers.” Thomas Sowell, economist
“Barack Obama’s political genius is his ability to say things that will sound good to people who have not followed the issues in any detail — regardless of how obviously fraudulent what he says may be to those who have. Shameless effrontery can be a huge political asset, especially if uninformed voters outnumber those who are informed.”Thomas Sowell, economist
Marxists know that when you redistribute money you redistribute values. They stole this knowledge from Christ. So, what values does government redistribute?
If we make government the dispenser of charity will Christ be seen?
Do we give to the poor in the name of Uncle Sam or in the name of Jesus?
Government should not be the middle man between us and our brother. That would be dehumanizing. And, enabling dependence on what is not of God is not compassionate.
When the poor receive alms from us the response we long to hear is “that’s So Jesus.”
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In Sweden, giving to charity, absurdly, came to be considered a lack of solidarity, since it undermined the need for the welfare state.” – Roland Martinsson
Milton Friedman : July 31, 1912 – November 16, 2006
Several years ago I watched Milton and Rose Friedman present the “Free to Choose” Series on public TV. Their simple and forthright presentation made economics and the free-market easy to understand. I recommend that you watch the whole set of videos as an Econ 101 lesson, a lesson that will open your eyes to how the free market works. I have no doubt that after watching these videos you’ll never want big government messing with you or the economy.
Here is an interesting statement from Chairman Mao, April 30, 1971:
“China should learn from the way America developed, by decentralizing and spreading responsibility and wealth among 50 states. A central government could not do everything. China must depend upon regional and local initiative. It would not do [spreading his hands] to leave everything up to him [Mao].
Imagine a candidate that seeks to make you utterly dependent on the largesse of government. Such a candidate goes way beyond promising to maintain our Constitution’s mandates, mandates which provide national security, national sovereignty and transportation networks. The rights of life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness have all been guaranteed in writing but, as we have increasingly seen, Obama the Candidate wants the pursuit part to be paid for out of money confiscated from those who have earned the money. In other words, Obama is telling people you don’t have to do anything to receive what he is offering. You just show up with a ticket (your vote) to play and then its lotto time.
If you’ve seen the “Julia” video (see my previous post) then you already know that Obama’s campaign promise is for government to be involved in every aspect of your life: from what you do in the bedroom (contraception and abortion) to your diet to your fuel to your health care to education to retirement. Cradle-to-grave you will be at the mercy of what government deems good for you. Imagine the intrusive TSA on steroids. Imagine waiting in line at a DMV for your privileges to be dispensed by a government worker. This is what Obama and the main stream media are campaigning for. Do you hear me?
Now imagine a campaign that seeks to divide a nation along racial and income lines, and along a state’s sovereignty right and immigration lines, a campaign that uses the main stream media to daily infect the nation with discord and discontent?
Obama is the direct opposite of Abraham Lincoln – keenly divisve Obama is intent on reshackling you to the likes of slave-owning fiefdoms circa pre-Civil War South. He will do this by using government programs with czars but the effect will be the same.
According to Obama’s political ideology, his characterization of you is that you are too stupid to carry on with your day-to-day life without government intervention. He wants you to want government. How odd, shortsighted and how hopeless this vision is for the American people. He wants you to go “Forward” down the aisle placing your hope and trust in him and government. He wants to hear your supplicant “Amen” loud and clear.
Obama and progressives envy Europe. They want America to emulate a socialist-democracy like Sweden. Yet, the economies of scale are vastly different between America and Sweden. It would be better if a person of such persuasion would move to Sweden in order to make their utopian dreams come true. That is until the country’s money runs out. Greece. Spain. Portugal. The European financial dominos are falling and falling fast and hard. If re-elected Obama would bring that type of ruin to America. He is in denial about the financial implications of endless open-ended government as are the heads of these European countries
Obama plays both ends against the middle: he lambastes Wall St. money makers will taking contributions from them. He baits Hollywood and homosexuals to gain votes and campaign monies while courting the black vote even though most blacks do not endorse homosexuality. Middle class values don’t matter to Obama. He has a higher vision for them – “Trust me.”
Obama discounts free enterprise most notably because it is not government. And his version of government is an organized community centered on him. Having had no experience with the free enterprise system whatsoever, Obama will still use capitalism as another weapon in his radical bag of tricks. It is common knowledge that people generally dislike, fear and perhaps hate what they do not know. Obama love-hates capitalism. Capitalism pays for his campaign but capitalism is too free-wheeling for Obama. Capitalism doesn’t need Obama so Obama ebraces government. Government loves it some Obama.
Obama’s book Dreams of My Father discloses his hatred of colonialism. Even though colonialism is non-issue in the world today Obama conflates free market enterprise expansion with colonialism. The fact that free market enterprises create jobs, choices and wealth in poor nations is lost on Obama. His anti-colonialism bent, formed in childhood, has stunted his growth, obscuring any other view of the free market. Obama doesn’t want business competing with government. Obama wants government to be a monopoly.
Imagine a President who is decidedly punitive towards those who make money, to those who create jobs, wealth and, of course, generate tax revenue along with all the good they do. Business is under attack by a two-bit President. People who do not have two nickels to rub together need businesses and jobs. But Obama is determined to undermine any free market option through imposing regulations and by doing nothing otherwise.
Imagine a President who would rather send our troops into harm’s way by sending them to the Strait of Hormuz to protect oil supplies instead of tapping into the wealth of carbon fuels readily available right here at home. Obama is against the north-south oil pipeline and off-shore drilling. Renewable energy programs such as solar and wind power generate a minute supply of energy to this nation. I know. I work in the industry. This president doesn’t have a clue about energy. He just knows that “green” is popular at the moment so he panders to the little “green” people most of whom are alien to common sense solutions.
Now imagine a candidate that has no record of positive accomplishment whatsoever. He has, though, created the biggest tax increase in history, Obamacare! Any pot smoking dead-head could have done that. Considering the relative financial backing of each candidate Mitt Romney has done more in a year to create jobs (and tax revenue along with the jobs) as a private citizen than Obama has in almost four years as POTUS.
Imagine a campaign that has no sense of history, a campaign ready and eager to repeat socialism’s blatant disasters, disasters both historic and current, simply because there is no risk to Obama or the Democrats. It is not their money on the line.
If you are clueless don’t vote for Obama. If you are in denial don’t vote for Obama. If you are desperate don’t vote Obama. If you are undecided don’t vote Obama. If you do, then hold out your wrists. Your master has shackles with your name on them.
OBTW: In between golf games and campaigning you will find Obama working hard at what he does best: selling the American people into slavery so he can buy another round of office.
The 2012 Presidential and congressional elections will be reflections of who you are. You will be deciding whether you want to be represented as a slave under a bigger more intrusive government with its plantation inducing mentality or whether self-government and self-determination will best speak for you. The former is easy – show up and do nothing except what the master tells you to do. The latter requires blood, sweat and tears.
Let me ask you straight up: what would provide you with more self-esteem? A government welfare check for subsistence or a check handed to you by your accountant after your company succeeded and made a profit? Or equally, a check handed to you by your employer because the company you work for succeeded to make payroll for another week because of your input? The former just pays the bills (and likely buys several lottery tickets). The latter provides for yourself, your family, your grandchildren and much more.
Another question: With those same checks in hand would the person with the government welfare check be more willing to give to charity or would the person who was handed the profit-sharing dividend or a paycheck be more willing to give to charity? (A Christian would have to be the second kind of person. King David once said, “I will not offer to the Lord something that costs me nothing?”)
You don’t have to think hard about this. The answer is obvious to most right thinking people, the vision is clear, but it is hidden from those who vote for Obama and the Democrats.
Progressives and their “Lean Forward” campaign (funded with monies from foreigner George Soros) want the U.S. government to dole out cradle-to-grave entitlements thereby making Americans utterly reliant on the political ruling class and their condescending “we-the-government-know-what’s-good-for-you” pseudo-altruism. In reality, these two-armed bandits want more gambling revenue to throw at money laundering schemes like Solyndra.
Thomas Sowell in his book of articles and essays The Thomas Sowell Reader describes the Big Government vision promoted by the ruling class “anointed” …
The anointed want to eliminate stress, challenge, striving, and competition. They want the necessities of life to be supplied as “rights” – which is to say, at the taxpayer’s expense, without anyone’s being forced to work for those necessities, except of course the taxpayers.
Nothing is to be earned. “Self-esteem” is to be dispensed to school children as largess from the teacher. Adults are to have their medical care and other necessities dispensed as largess from the government. People are to be mixed by race and sex and whatever else the anointed want to take into account, in order to present whatever kind of picture the anointed think should be presented.
This is the vision of human beings as livestock to be fed by the government and herded and tended by the anointed. All the things that make us human beings are to be removed from our lives and we are to live as denatured creatures and directed by our betters. (emphasis mine)
Those things that help human beings be independent and self-reliant – whether automobiles, guns, the free market, or vouchers – provoke instant hostility from the anointed.
Below are two contrasting videos: one video depicts a life on government programs ala The Life of Julia. The other describes you as a self-governing self-determining free person. I ask you, who is more empowered? You already know the answer. Vote the answer and not what the plantation’s political ruling class is promoting via the main stream media (MSNBC‘s Lean Forward Campaign, Media Matters, etc.).
Is the future of America you holding your DMV issued health-care card and food stamps? Or is the future of America (you and me) dependent on our own self-government and our own self-determination while holding on to our self-esteem and liberty? For a while fascism’s authoritarianism feels safe and secure but that quickly changes. You soon become a slave or an automaton in the system. Liberty on the other hand is scary good. As I have said liberty requires responsibility on your part but liberty is supremely worth it.
Yet, if the Obama plantation feels safe, if you see yourself as dependent on the master for your life then go with that but please don’t vote to take others with you.
Barack Obama is “Betting On America.” That’s right. Like most Democrats (Illinois Democrats are a prime example) BHO has made America his favorite slot machine. The gambling analogy is very apropos. He wants to gamble away our earnings, our future.
People, just keep giving BHO your money (or other people’s money) and he will keep pulling the lever for you until something good comes out. Expectations are big. Hope and Change are full tilt. This is Progress for Democrats: spend more, tax more, build more casinos.
Have you heard of the person who keeps doing the same thing while hoping for a different result? Insanity accounts for the actions of BHO the politician. Insanity also accounts for the votes of those people who continue to elect Democrats: “We keep hoping something good will come out of this – that we will win big in this Grand Casino of life.” “If only we could win without putting any of our money in. That would be all the better.”
Has our good money been thrown into the government slot machine? It wasn’t your money to lose? Oh well, there’s more where that came from right? Heard at the buffet table: “The 1% need to do their fair share so we can keep playing the slots.”
Your vote matters. 2012: Vote insanity and excuses out and reality in, if not for yourself then at least for your children and grandchildren. Don’t gamble with our future.
you enter the Disneyland-like fantasy world of smoke and mirrors, the amusement park of progressives. It is there that …
…you live under Chicago style politics instead of the U.S. Constitution.
…you receive Eric Holder – Black Panther style justice which is no justice.
…your liberty is traded for political hype: “Hope and Change’: “Yes, We Can”.
…the extreme Left receives all manner of special interest goodies. The resulting financial shortfall will be devastating (see Greece, Spain, Portugal, California). Our children and grandchildren will receive the enormous debt burden.
…the government becomes a monopoly, a monopoly that cannot and will not be broken down. Because of this the competition of the free market system, a system that works to lower consumer cost and to ensure better quality products and customer service will vanish from the scene. You will have to take what the government gives you or go to a black market.
…under Obamacare you have health coverage (you are fined for not having it) but not health care. You will have bought the lie.
…whatever health care you do receive will be meted out by bureaucrats (czars) who will tell how much, when and what kind of health care you will receive. They will also decide who lives and who dies, who benefits and who goes without.
…you are free when Obama says you are free.
…you will have your “fair share” when you understand that running from and resisting the Tax Man is impossible and you surrender. You then become enslaved and live on Obama’s Progressive plantation.
…the only good energy policy is the energy policy that financially powers the Obama candidacy and his progressive agenda.
…America will become a subset of the European Union. (BHO wants to eventually become the potentate of the world.)
…democracy will become meaningless because you will have ceded your liberty to a small group of people who you will be told have your best interest at heart. Your vote will mean nothing. Czars and bureaucrats will replace your representatives.
…a top down government will break the back of the states and in the process also destroy individual liberty. All of this for the sake of controlling costs, controlling your money and controlling you the citizen.
….Christians will be persecuted. The main stream media (powered by Obama’s political and secular colonialism) will openly attack Christianity as not being inclusive enough, as being too extreme. All this and more while homosexuals will be allowed to teach your children their moral values in the public schools.
…absolute moral truth will be replaced with the increasingly vogue secular religions of fairness, egalitarianism, environmentalism and political correctness. These ersatz religions are based on relativism and humanism. These ersatz religions will become the state religions and be reinforced by those who are in power using the main stream media.
…your voice will be silenced (i.e., the fairness doctrine) by the Obama regime if you disagree with his message. And, if you believe that the fairness doctrine will only neutralize conservatives, you are in complete denial. Totalitarians always direct the conversation. Controlling the message, the ideology and indoctrination are central to controlling the citizen on the plantation. See North Korea. See China. See Stalin’s Russia. See…
…your voice will be silenced in deference to a few well-connected intellectual elites who will be exalted within their “ivory tower” college professorships. Your “worker bee voice” will be not be heard. Instead, your life will become ‘handled’ by these self-promoting social-scientists who receive their power from above.
…America will be divided into those worship the Obamic Vision and those who do not. The race card will be used extensively to promote a divided nation. And, more and more people will claim minority status so as to indemnify themselves against “hate speech”. Class warfare rhetoric will be used to conflate fairness with an unjust confiscation of property
…your whole purpose in life under Obama will be to become a complacent useful idiot, no more, no less. Through taxation you will be required to buy into the BHO lottery: “Hand me your money and your liberty and we will take care of the rest. Yes, we can.”
…the subsequent rioting in the streets that will occur because of all of the above will be quashed by use of the totalitarian forces put into power by you the voter.
When you wish upon Obama you get the president and the government you deserve.
Wonderland by Daniel Henniger, Deputy editor, editorial page,
It’s 1936 All Over Again
The Obama 2012 campaign is channeling the ghost of Franklin D. Roosevelt in the Depression.
With a small group of credulous millionaires joining him at a White House séance the other day to support the Buffett Rule, the Conjurer-in-Chief called forth the spirit of Ronald Reagan, who the president averred would have supported his magic tax on “millionaires.” There have been 43 other presidents of the United States. The last one you would associate with Barack Obama is Ronald Reagan.…
FDR’s 1936 speech, however tough and accusatory, had Roosevelt’s natural personal buoyancy. Barack Obama has no such gift for popular uplift. Reagan and Bill Clinton had it, and it was an underestimated piece of George W. Bush’s two successful presidential runs.
Barack Obama is, frankly, a pretty grim guy. He does try to mitigate the downer mood—”This is also about growth”—but ultimately his audiences always hear about the ditch someone else put them in and the superhuman effort “we” have to make to pull out of this deep hole.
Barack Obama is grim because hebelieves, and has always believed, that dark forces are actively at work in America to shaft the middle class. So do his closest supporters. So you run on anger and antipathy.
Can you re-run Roosevelt’s Depression strategy without Roosevelt? In tough times, some voters will buy it. But I don’t think enough will to produce a majority of the beleaguered.
Barack Obama is asking people to cast a less-than-hopeful vote in November. Resentment is not something most people in 21st-century America carry around in the front of their heads. Once Barack Obama stirs it up, as he’s doing now, he has to sustain it for six months. He is asking people to vote out of something resembling, well, depression. (emphasis mine)
From the Occupy Myself Movement, an absurd and sappy video warning us that women will not be denied anything because, lo and behold, they are women.
Here is yet another example of the gushing narcissism that is encouraged by BHO’s White House. (BTW: I’m surprised that Al Sharpton has not yet called the White House a racist building!)
BHO’s explicit message to Americans:
“America is all about equality and fairness, about getting what I want when I want it at any cost to someone else, about stealing from the rich and giving to the “poor.” America is all about creating a big intrusive government to make this happen for you, the Obama supporter.”
This is a twisted and perverse version of capitalism and the free market system and is eerily similar in motive to Wall St.’s “fat cats” “greedy” motives that BHO hubristically denounces. Why the hypocrisy, Mr. Obama?
I find it completely ironic that the proponents of Left (Progressives and Democrats) so want to help others with their pseudo-humanitarianism and talk of “fairness”, “fairness”, “blah, blah, blah”, that each of the Left’s namby-pamby “afflicted” groups starts by helping themselves, forgetting that someone else has to unfairly pay for their desired self-absorbed utopian lifestyle.
The best thing for this video would be to deny it the oxygen of publicity.
BTW: Who is denying you anything, ma’am? Who is telling you what to do, ma’am? If someone was telling you what to do would you even hear them?
“We have entered, as I see it, a spiritual limbo. Our educational institutions are no longer the bearers of high culture, and public life has been deliberately moronised. But here and there, sheltered from the noise and glare of the media, the old spiritual forces are at work” Roger Scruton
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“When a common culture declines, the ethical life can be sustained and renewed only by a work of the imagination.”-Roger Scruton
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“Jesus prayed, “This is eternal life, that they may know You . . .” (John 17:3). The real meaning of eternal life is a life that can face anything it has to face without wavering. If we will take this view, life will become one great romance— a glorious opportunity of seeing wonderful things all the time. God is disciplining us to get us into this central place of power.” Oswald Chambers
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“No power on earth or in hell can conquer the Spirit of God in a human spirit, it is an inner unconquerableness.” Oswald Chambers
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To those who have had no agony Jesus says, “I have nothing for you; stand on your own feet, square your own shoulders. I have come for the man who knows he has a bigger handful than he can cope with, who knows there are forces he cannot touch; I will do everything for him if he will let Me. Only let a man grant he needs it, and I will do it for him.” The Shadow of an Agony,Oswald Chambers
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“If we wish to erect new structures, we must have a definite knowledge of the old foundations.” John Calvin Coolidge
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Atheism is a post-Christian phenomenon.
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If social justice looks like your hand in someone else’s pocket then you are stealing.
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“In Sweden, giving to charity, absurdly, came to be considered a lack of solidarity, since it undermined the need for the welfare state.” – Roland Martinsson
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“…to love democracy well, it is necessary to love it moderately.” Alexis de Tocqueville
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Capitalism seeks to help others through a servce or product it provides. Free Market Capitalism is the most moral and fair economic system available to man. Capitalism augments personal growth, responsibility and ownership. Charity flourishes under capitalism. Charity dies under subjective “fair share” government confiscatory policies. Socialism redistributes ambivalence and greed.
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“We are to regard existence as a raid or great adventure; it is to be judged, therefore, not by what calamities it encounters, but by what flag it follows and what high town it assaults. The most dangerous thing in the world is to be alive; one is always in danger of one’s life. But anyone who shrinks from that is a traitor to the great scheme and experiment of being.” G.K. Chesterton
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Any intelligent fool can make things bigger, more complex, and more violent.
It takes a touch of genius – and a lot of courage – to move in the opposite direction. Albert Einstein
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“You shall know the truth and the truth shall make you odd.” Flannery O’Connor
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“There is but one good; that is God. Everything else is good when it looks to Him and bad when it turns from Him.” C.S. Lewis, The Great Divorce
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“Though He slay me, yet will I trust Him” (Job 13:15).
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God’s grace is not about the allowance for sin. God’s grace is about the conversation God allows regarding sin.
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From the book of Proverbs: We are not to favor the rich or the poor. We are to pursue justice.
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“Always keep in contact with those books and those people that enlarge your horizon and make it possible for you to stretch yourself mentally.” Oswald Chambers
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One goldfish says to another, “If there is no God who keeps changing the water?”
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“The truth is always there in the morning.”
From Cat On A Hot Tin Roof script – playwright Tennessee Williams
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God blesses those who hunger and thirst for justice, for they will be satisfied.
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“America’s greatness has been the greatness of a free people who shared certain moral commitments. Freedom without moral commitment is aimless and promptly self-destructive.” John W. Gardner
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“Men of integrity, by their very existence, rekindle the belief that as a people we can live above the level of moral squalor. We need that belief; a cynical community is a corrupt community.” John W. Gardner
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“In the world it is called Tolerance, but in hell it is called Despair, the sin that believes in nothing, cares for nothing, seeks to know nothing, interferes with nothing, enjoys nothing, hates nothing, finds purpose in nothing, lives for nothing, and remains alive because there is nothing for which it will die.” Dorothy L. Sayers
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“Art, like morality, consists of drawing the line somewhere.”
G. K. Chesterton
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“The battle line between good and evil runs through the heart of every man.” Alexander Solzhenitsyn
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This is what the LORD says:
“Stand at the crossroads and look;
ask for the ancient paths,
ask where the good way is, and walk in it,
and you will find rest for your souls.
But you said, ‘We will not walk in it.’
-The prophet Jeremiah, 6:16
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“…our common task is not so much discovering a truth hiding among contrary viewpoints as it is coming to possess a selfhood that no longer evades and eludes the truth with which it is importunately confronted.” James McClendon, Ethics: Systematic Theology, Vol. 1
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Cindy Wity 
Sojourners or So Jesus?
August 3, 2012 Leave a comment
Are you as a Christian morally perplexed by the economic based social justice issues of the day? If so then I highly recommend the following book! And, if you read Sojourners Web Magazine – the Social Gospel’s Mother Earth Magazine – then I really, really, really recommend the following book to you. This book will help dispel the notion promoted by Sojourner’s Jim Wallis that government can be a proxy Good Samaritan. It will help counter the Marxist nonsense you will read on the Sojourner’s web page.
Here is a blurb about the book:
Defending the Free Market: The Moral Case for a Free Economy by The Rev. Robert Scirico, President of the Acton Institute.
Introduction: The End of Freedom
Here are the chapter titles:
A Leftist Undone
Why You Can’t Have Freedom without a Free Economy
Want to Help the Poor? Start a business
Why the “Creative Destruction” of Capitalism is More Creative than Destructive
Why Greed is Not Good – and Why You Can Get More of It with Socialism than with Capitalism
The Idol of Equality
Why Smart Charity Works – and Welfare Doesn’t
The Health of Nations: Why State Sponsored Health Care is Not Compassionate
Caring for the Environment Doesn’t Have to mean Big Government
Sojourners, Jim Wallis: “Republican budget is an immoral document.” What a load of partisan crock! Wallis plies you with this pietistic propaganda so as to pluck at your heart-strings! He’s implying that government has the moral responsibility to determine who gets what in our society. Why on earth would anyone put government in this position? Oh yes, the Evil One would. Jesus never called the government to come and follow Him. Jesus never told government to do anything for the poor. Never. Judas wanted that but Jesus, never. Sadly, though, people, completely ignoring history, subscribe to Sojourner’s brand of Gnosticism – mixing gospel with government. They do so not just at their own peril but also at the peril of the poor.
The U.S. Senate controlled by Harry Reid and the Democrats has not passed a budget in over 800 days. This is morally reprehensible. With no budget there is no accountability to the American people with regard to how taxpayer money is being spent. I don’t have to tell you that when there is no accountability for how our money is being spent then there is a lot of sleight of hand going on.
From a recent Weekly Standard Web Article titled “Just Reminder — It’s Been 800 Days Since the Senate Passed a Budget”
Wallis is a radical redistributive leftist hell-bent on radical redistributive social “justice.” Yet for Wallis and his ilk, true justice, justice for all, is just collateral damage in the war against poverty. It is to be thrown out the window for the sake of putting the poor on a pedestal. And with this shameful idolatry (remember the Israelites worshipping a golden calf – a facsimile representation of God?) comes the same old Robin Hood story – it’s perfectly OK to steal from the rich especially if you can villainize them first. Wallis and Obama know that a sucker (subscriber) is born every day.
You will be told by socialist quacks like Wallis (Marxist ideologues in sheep’s clothing) that voluntary charity doesn’t go far enough, that government needs to be involved.
Remember when the disciples brought a young boy to Jesus in response to enormous hunger needs?:
The loaves and fishes freely offered by the young boy went as far as Jesus wanted it to go – to thousands of people! And so too, the widow’s mite. Don’t buy Wallis’ loaves and fishes. They will cost you everything.
The Democrats have done incredible damage to wealth creation, human initiative and human flourishing with their reckless spending and onerous regulations. They tax and regulate people out of business while at the same time building more casinos to strip away money thereby creating more poverty and more economic dependence. I live in Chicago. I see first hand the devastating results of the Dem’s social programs.
Voting for Democrats is like shooting yourself in the foot and also killing the poor person whose neck you are holding down to the ground with the jackboot of your “charity.”
The Republicans are correct – we need economic freedom for people – all people – to thrive. The Democrats redistribute what isn’t theirs to distribute. All private property and human rights are at risk under Obama the Terrible and a Democrat regime.
The Rev. Scirico’s book came out this year. It encapsulates much of what I have been posting about over many months. I have been writing about social justice issues ever since learning that Christians are now recycling socialism under the guise of social gospel.
Here some of those posts:
Just-Fair-Equal: The Stooges of Progressivism
Joseph and the One Percent
When You Wish Upon Obama
The Lord Hears the Cries of the Poor. All Other Listen Up
Course Correction Needed
Outsourcing – a short story
Here is the web site where you will find the Rev. Scirico and others who can explain economics, charity and human flourishing better than Sojourners ever will: http://www.acton.org/
There you will find such topics as:
The Tortured Logic of the Obamacare Law
Black Scholars Give Obama an “F”
Final thoughts:
“No matter how much people on the left talk about compassion, they have no compassion for the taxpayers.” Thomas Sowell, economist
“Barack Obama’s political genius is his ability to say things that will sound good to people who have not followed the issues in any detail — regardless of how obviously fraudulent what he says may be to those who have. Shameless effrontery can be a huge political asset, especially if uninformed voters outnumber those who are informed.” Thomas Sowell, economist
Marxists know that when you redistribute money you redistribute values. They stole this knowledge from Christ. So, what values does government redistribute?
If we make government the dispenser of charity will Christ be seen?
Do we give to the poor in the name of Uncle Sam or in the name of Jesus?
Government should not be the middle man between us and our brother. That would be dehumanizing. And, enabling dependence on what is not of God is not compassionate.
When the poor receive alms from us the response we long to hear is “that’s So Jesus.”
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Filed under commentary, Writing Tagged with Big Government, charity, culture, Economics, human-rights, Jim Wallis, Marxism, materialism, politics, Robert Scirico, social gospel, social justice, socialism, Sojourners, the free market