The left would like to see the state seize a man's assets at death.
Yeah. The Left wants to seize our assets from the moment we begin to create them until they pry them out of our rigid, dead hands..and then out of the living hands of our children.
But Liberals are only seeking a just and equitable society...
Nothing is going to startle us more when we pass through the veil to the other side than to realize how well we know our Father [in Heaven] and how familiar his face is to us
- President Ezra Taft Benson
I am so old that I can remember when most of the people promoting race hate were white.
A man saving money to give his offspring a better life than he had is not undeserved wealth.
The problem here is that leftist ideology as a broad philosophical movement posits that all wealth created in a free market economic order is, in essence, undeserved, because all of it is, in essence, profit stolen from labor through exploitation. Further, the profit motive, because it is not directly focused on charity as the sole expression of economic activity, is inherently immoral.
Another form of this is that only manual labor is authentic work. CEOs, entrepreneurs, and especially the wealthy who put there otherwise idle money to work creating new wealth (and hence, jobs and opportunity) do not "work".
Nothing is going to startle us more when we pass through the veil to the other side than to realize how well we know our Father [in Heaven] and how familiar his face is to us
- President Ezra Taft Benson
I am so old that I can remember when most of the people promoting race hate were white.
Chap simply doesn't understand the New Testament, and so can be fruitfully ignored.
Nowhere in the Old Testament or New Testament is wealth ever condemned when it is melded with presonal righteousness. The Biblical texts are replete with extremely wealthy indivuduals who are never condemed or reproved for their wealth. Indeed, in Job's case, great wealth is seen as a consequence of faith and personal righteousness (as in the Book of Mormon).
It is only when wealth begins to be loved, and displaces God and other higher priorities, that it becomes dangerous.
Leftists must revise and rewrite everything in this manner because their entire world view is grounded in a series of core falsehoods that, once accepted, must create logical and conceptual consequences in all other areas of thought and life.
Jesus himself certainly might have rejected or modified some number of things conservatives have believed and taught over time (and in a perfect world where men were angels, we could too), but he would reject leftism as what it is, part of the GAAC.
Nothing is going to startle us more when we pass through the veil to the other side than to realize how well we know our Father [in Heaven] and how familiar his face is to us
- President Ezra Taft Benson
I am so old that I can remember when most of the people promoting race hate were white.
Droopy wrote: Moksha believes that the way to improve the lot of the poor is to attack and punish the affluent. His fundamental attitude is not one of raising up but of leveling and flattening. He has no interest in teaching the poor how to succeed and prosper, but only to confiscate the fruits of the labor of those who have worked for it - a form of class punishment for economic success - and distribute it to the poor in an ever widening closed loop of economic stagnation. Alms and charity then become a punitive moral expedition against success, achievement, excellence and economic freedom in the name of moral absolution, not charity in the New Testament sense.
It makes him feel socially conscious and morally superior, however, and so serves its purpose.
"Are there no prisons? Are there no workhouses?" - Ebenezer Coggins Scrooge, A Mormon Christmas Story
Moshka I'm not denying that capitalism doesn't have its share of problems. I think the main problem with going against it in a religious sense is that human civilization is built upon capitalistic principles in my view. Private property is a very old principle. Heck, even animals evolved a sense of territoriality for the betterment of their species. One of the most important parts of making a law a good law is to have predictability and consistency. Any set of rules that we come up with are going to have problems. Seeing the way socialistic experiments have worked in France, Cambodia, and Russia I tend to say that capitalism with all its problems, is still the best system on earth. I also question how good European socialism really is. Western Europe doesn't allow every immigrant to nationalize in their nations. Correct? What government can afford that? Could western nations open their borders and bring the entire third world to our level without being consumed by it? Of course not. Do you not understand this, or is it a fact you just choose to ignore? Do you know how much the families of the Spaniards you see playing Wimbledon pay to train their children? about $4000/week? Do you know how much David Ferrer earned the week that he quit tennis and decided to try his hand as a construction worker? $30/week. Can you believe that? Who cares if you have free health care? $30/week won't buy groceries. How can Western Europe criticize the U.S. when from my perspective $30/week isn't much different than slavery?
A better economic system must be built upon consistency and predictability. If you've found a set of rules that you think would work better for the common good than I'm open to that, but you can't reserve the right to change the rules every time you get an outcome you don't like. Elections are often won on flawed and incomplete ideologies with a tyrannical majority voting based on, "What's good for me right now." This is not following the Brethren's counsel to study and pray about how you cast your vote. The truth is that most voters are short sighted and incomplete in their analysis, and until the majority of people get past this, we're not going to see a better economic system. A majority can be just as tyrannical and unfair as any king. You can't expect people to respect and sacrifice for the law if they know all along that it's just a human invention, especially if you're remaking laws that continually work against them.
Point being, you can't just ignore the choices people make in family planning, willingless to sacrifice in war, save, work etc. and come in some time later and say, "Ok let's divide up the money equally between all men," and call it fair or just. Christianity may not always be fair, but it should be at the very least fair. While you could argue that Jesus forfeited some of His rights for the betterment of others, you could never argue that anyone coerced him to do this, much less had any right to do so.
You have a right to demand fairness based on the rules that were set from the beginning. You have no right to demand charity.
And when the confederates saw Jackson standing fearless as a stone wall the army of Northern Virginia took courage and drove the federal army off their land.
Droopy wrote: Moksha believes that the way to improve the lot of the poor is to attack and punish the affluent. His fundamental attitude is not one of raising up but of leveling and flattening. He has no interest in teaching the poor how to succeed and prosper, but only to confiscate the fruits of the labor of those who have worked for it - a form of class punishment for economic success - and distribute it to the poor in an ever widening closed loop of economic stagnation. Alms and charity then become a punitive moral expedition against success, achievement, excellence and economic freedom in the name of moral absolution, not charity in the New Testament sense.
It makes him feel socially conscious and morally superior, however, and so serves its purpose.
"Are there no prisons? Are there no workhouses?" - Ebenezer Coggins Scrooge, A Mormon Christmas Story
Really, its like trying to debate Phil Donahue or Keith Olbermann. There's no intellectual engagement coming from the other side.
Nothing is going to startle us more when we pass through the veil to the other side than to realize how well we know our Father [in Heaven] and how familiar his face is to us
- President Ezra Taft Benson
I am so old that I can remember when most of the people promoting race hate were white.
Back to the point, early Christians were communalists. Jesus was a Leftist.
So, Jesus was a "leftist"? What kind of a leftist? What did he teach or believe that could reasonably be interpreted coherently in light of historical definitions of this term and, more importantly, the discreet beliefs, policies, and actions taken by leftists and leftist governments throughout history?
Jesus damned Christ. Your backwater West Virginia brain can't put its grasp around the concepts i'm using. Why should I bother explaining it to you?
Just in case you are off the bottle this month, here is a breakdown:
What Jesus started, or more specifically what his cult followers started several hundred years after his supposed existence, was a movement modeled around shared resources. I am sorry your inability to visualize this concept without invoking a Mcarthyesque interpretation has affected your mental capacity. I am sure there are other Memes behaving similarly on your life.
Jesus was a hippie. A dirty stinking hippie.
And crawling on the planet's face Some insects called the human race Lost in time And lost in space...and meaning
Droopy wrote: Moksha believes that the way to improve the lot of the poor is to attack and punish the affluent. His fundamental attitude is not one of raising up but of leveling and flattening. He has no interest in teaching the poor how to succeed and prosper, but only to confiscate the fruits of the labor of those who have worked for it - a form of class punishment for economic success - and distribute it to the poor in an ever widening closed loop of economic stagnation. Alms and charity then become a punitive moral expedition against success, achievement, excellence and economic freedom in the name of moral absolution, not charity in the New Testament sense.
It makes him feel socially conscious and morally superior, however, and so serves its purpose.
"Are there no prisons? Are there no workhouses?" - Ebenezer Coggins Scrooge, A Mormon Christmas Story
Really, its like trying to debate Phil Donahue or Keith Olbermann. There's no intellectual engagement coming from the other side.
What Jesus started, or more specifically what his cult followers started several hundred years after his supposed existence, was a movement modeled around shared resources. I am sorry your inability to visualize this concept without invoking a Mcarthyesque interpretation has affected your mental capacity. I am sure there are other Memes behaving similarly on your life.
Jesus was a hippie. A dirty stinking hippie.
Beyond the fact that I really should not be engaging you in the first place, could you please provide some Biblical texts that support your contention that the movement Jesus started was "modeled around shared resources"? Capitalism (as it is called), as practiced in a free market economic order under the rule of law, is predicated upon precisely the same principles, so what kind of distinction are you trying to make here?
Your use of McCarthy here demonstrates, yet again, the fantastic diminution of the modern intellect in the age of "information".
Nothing is going to startle us more when we pass through the veil to the other side than to realize how well we know our Father [in Heaven] and how familiar his face is to us
- President Ezra Taft Benson
I am so old that I can remember when most of the people promoting race hate were white.
Jesus and Lenin, two peas in a pod. I think not. I'll let you try to figure out the difference with your highly evolved and affluent city intellect. While you may enjoy the fact that ethnic slurs against WV is socially acceptable and deemed as morally upright by the left, you may consider this the next time you wonder why the Democrats lost in one of the poorest, labor union run states in the U.S.A in our last election.
You guys trying to be generous with other peoples money reminds me of missionary companions I had. They were all for working harder and making more sacrifices, but when it came down to it, what they really wanted was for other people to do that hard work and make those sacrifices, not themselves. In fact it drove them crazy to see someone work the most miniscule amount less than they did. This taught me a lot about their true motives and outlook.
I don't see Ted Kennedy sending any of his own money to Latin America, but he's more than happy to help them out by taking from other Americans (the majority of whom have much less than Ted himself). Show me the statistics where any of these big time politicians donate more to charity than other politicians. It shouldn't be hard. I'm sure he put every dime he ever gave up on a million dollar flag pole to make sure everyone knew. What does that tell you? Are they really that concerned about the poor?
What, Ted can't fix the world by himself? Well neither can the entire U.S.A.
And when the confederates saw Jackson standing fearless as a stone wall the army of Northern Virginia took courage and drove the federal army off their land.
