Post by Cloud HobbitPost by KevrobPost by ClaveHard to believe a "Christian" clergyman is advocating
that old people starve and that old and poor people just
be forced to die if they get sick.
He isn't advocating that.
His PhD is in political science. He's not a theologian or
a doctor of divinity. "Charity" compelled by the
government isn't charity in the Christian sense, anyway.
I'm no Christian, and I don't consider paying my taxed
that fund welfare programs to be "donating to charity."
Making that mistake is on a par with conflating "society"
with "the state."
No collection of money at the point of a gun or threat of
prison [can be considered] charity. It is tyranny. Charity
is not the job of the government, especially not a
government that has morphed into the monster we have now.
It makes no sense to found a government based on the idea
of individual liberty and then slowly but surely remove
those liberties, which is what has been happening
practically since the moment the ink dried on the
Constitution.
Exactly.
And we've got to do something about that...
And do something fast!
The truth is, America has never truely lived-up to her lofty
ideals of individual liberty. And although we came very
close in the initial days (thanks, in most part, to our
high-minded and articulate founders, of which, modern-day
politicians cannot hold a fucking candle to!), the stain of
slavery and the continued oppression of certain classes
(thanks to the vile influence of theism), rendered the
implementation of those famous and poetic "appeals to
liberty" into nothing more than a scientifically observable
"hypocrisy in action".
If one wants to become enlightened by the knowledge of what
these "lofty ideals" represent, these "ideals" that form the
ideological basis from which _all_ liberty springs forth, then
one need look no further than those famous 35 words encoded
in the American Declaration Of Independence.
(modernized)
"We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all
[people] are created equal, that they are endowed by their
[existence] with certain unalienable Rights, that among
these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness"
And if "we the people", find that our "social
implementation" does not mesh perfectly with this
fundamental definition -- this *KERNEL*, this *SEED* -- then
we will *KNOW* that we have erred. And once we have
acknowledged our error, the same document informs us of what
we should do next.
"[...] -- that to secure these rights, governments are
instituted among [the people], deriving their just powers
from the _consent_ of the governed ("consent" being a key
word here!), — that whenever any form of government
becomes destructive of these ends, it is the *RIGHT* of
the people to alter or to abolish it (meaning: abolish the
government), and to institute (from it's smoldering
fucking ashes!) *new* government, laying its foundation on
such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as
to them (the people) shall seem most likely to effect
their safety and happiness."
We find ourselves today, in the "year of our non-existent
lord 2017", in much the same precarious predicament as our
founders were some 200+ years ago. And today, just as then,
the slow creep of tyranny and the ever expanding slimy
tenticles of government bureaucracies have transformed our
fundamental rights into a self-induced hypocrisy.
We have fellow citizens, at this very moment, wasting away
in prison cells for nothing more than ingesting or
possessing a substance that our government has deemed
prohibited. We waste billions of dollars fighting fruitless
domestic wars in the name of false "justice". We have
convinced our citizens that their own body does not belong
to them (if not them, then who could it possibly belong
to?). And we have legalized the theft of hard earned labor
capital from those who are productive, so that the same
capital can be given to those who refuse to be.
How much further must we go before we realize that we've
fallen off the tracks?
What *IS* "life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness"?
Is it merely the monotone words of a random child standing
on a random grade-school stage reenacting the events of our
forefathers for the sake of mere "cute spectacle"?
Or is it something more?
I believe it be...
I believe it to be one of the most profound realizations of
social justice that the human mind has ever conceived. A
culmination of many thousand years of trial and error, and
the product of much pain and suffering. The american
declaration of independence marks an epoch in our collective
human intellectual evolution, a specific time when a flash
of profundity rendered the blurry concept of "self-evident
social contracts" crystal clear -- for _all_ to see.
Post by Cloud HobbitPrivate charity is the correct place and means for charity,
not government which spends 75% of any money collected for
ANY project is spent on salaries.
It is impossible to legislate morality. And anyone who
claims to "bestow compassion in your name", is both a liar
and a thief. (In america, we call these fowl critters
politicians)