Ode to Proposition 8 (soon to be a major motion picture)

[_Droopy]

Proposition 8
Its not too late
To save the marriage bed
From the welfare state

Its not too late
For the privileged few
For the bride and groom
For the infant's coo

For the ancient rite
Sealed and sworn
To faith and future
To those unborn

It not too late
To redeem the time
The crux of life
The newest wine

How far its gone
From heaven's path
Lust burns bright
The womb of wrath

Its not to late
To tables turn
Its not to late
Still time to learn

[_Ray A]

The Lord said to Noah in a loud voice,
the time has come to clease the earth of wickedness,
build an Ark, preach to the people, and give them a choice,
so go forth and do it with boldness.

Don't delay, the heavens are about to burst,
and soon you will gather two of every kind,
and shut the doors on this people that I have cursed,
and I'll let them know what has been on my mind.

I, the Lord, have seen the wickedness of men,
and I'm tired of their sins and folly, so now my patience is out;
you and your family alone will be left alone to fend,
and you and the animals that remain with you for joy will shout.

Then Noah gathered the animals to board the Ark,
but two of the same sex asked to come aboard,
and Noah was puzzled about what to do with these larks,
so he cried to the Lord to see what wisdom he could afford.

And the Lord replied, Noah, let them aboard the ship,
because I've seen the future in My Omniscience and I don't want to dice with fate;
I can easily get rid of wickedness with my Almighty whip,
But in the end, not even I can stop the overturning of Proposition 8.

[_Droopy]

I do hate to say it Ray but this was a sorry attempt.

Try again, but this time with feeeeeeeling.

[_Ray A]

I do hate to say it Ray but this was a sorry attempt.

Try again, but this time with feeeeeeeling.

I accept your expert judgement. And, of course, totally unbiased.

Good thing this isn't a poetry board. I'd be begging for food in the streets, like a good welfare bludger, and you'd be sweeping floors at Marriott, like a good capitalist.

[_Droopy]

Good thing this isn't a poetry board. I'd be begging for food in the streets, like a good welfare bludger, and you'd be sweeping floors at Marriott, like a good capitalist.

If I were a good capitalist, I'd be running a business employing people who sweep floors instead of having swung a weedeater for ten years.

I do believe in economic liberty. I don't really know what "capitalism" is, except what Marx and his disciples down to the present time say it is in relation to their own ism.

[_Ray A]

I don't really know what "capitalism" is, except what Marx and his disciples down to the present time say it is in relation to their own ism.

Out of curiosity, BC believes that Jesus was a capitalist. What say you?

[_Droopy]

I don't really know what "capitalism" is, except what Marx and his disciples down to the present time say it is in relation to their own ism.

Out of curiosity, BC believes that Jesus was a capitalist. What say you?

Perhaps the parable of the talents would be something suggestive here.

The Gospel is perfectly harmonizable with a free market economic order. Indeed, the wealth creation and personal political liberties that, at a society's best, exist coextensively with "capitalism", provide the best conditions under which the Gospel can grow and be taught. Prosperity is also far better than poverty, as wealthier people live longer, are healthier, and much more productive.

The Gospel is, after all, about liberty. Capitalism only becomes a problem when wealth or status displace God in our lives. Like any other mortal condition, wealth creates alternative tensions and areas of focus for us other than the Gospel, and therein lies the only actual danger. Virtually the entire Soviet economy, both the official and underground, was based on graft, bribery, and the fencing of stolen government property. Why? Because the low level of equality produced an overwhelming desperation to extract something out of material life beyond what meager pittance the average citizen could beg from his government. Further, the most intense repression is required to keep unique individuals equal aginst their will and against the natural, inherent, divine attributes that move them toward growth and creative, productive activity. To keep human beings from progressing, expanding, and fulfilling their dreams and actualizing their talents and potentials as children of God (in which case literally no one would be equal, in a material sense or otherwise) they must be leveled; mowed like grass, so that they cannot move beyond the collective-beyond the equal herd. This is Satan's way: to level. God's way is progression, refinement, excellence, creative activity, and exaltation. Material abundance is promised the Saints (as a group), as it was promised to the Nephites, but only on the conditions of righteousness.

Keep in mind that Satan wanted to save all humankind as a group; if one was to be saved, all must be saved (no child of God would be "left behind", as modern politicians might say). Jesus Christ, on the other hand, with our free agency as a sacred inviolate principle upon which our dignity and potential as children of God is grounded, taught that "whosoever" believed in him should have everlasting life.

The slothful servant was criticized by Jesus for burying his talent and not investing it and making a profit; for not using it to create more talents, that he could return to his master more than he had received.

This principle has applicability to financial matters as well as to the personal individual talents we bring with us here and develop as we grow. In either case, we are free, and in this country or another like it, unusually free to invest our talents, develop them, and create more where less was before.

Capitalism has historically produced greater wealth, prosperity, and economic security across all economic levels, from the poor through the middle classes to the richest of the rich. All sectors of society have prospered, each to a relative degree, because of the productive and creative human forces unleashed by the freedom to create, invest, invent, risk, and save.

No other economic system has ever so much as approximated democratic capitalism. Most have all but failed, and a number have done that and more.

No economic order is more moral, more positive, and provides more opportunity to succeed, from wherever one begins, than a democratic capitalist system. That is a matter of both empirical and social history, and is very simply not arguable. The poorest and the richest are far better off within a capitalist economic system than in any other, and as long as the rich are free to create jobs, opportunity, and invest in new industries, the poor will continue to have a way out of poverty.

Equality of condition is not the answer to poverty. The answer to poverty is wealth.

No Marxist or leftist that has ever lived and breathed on this planet has, as far as I can tell, ever moved intellectually beyond this fundamental first principle.

[_Gadianton]

The parable of the talents is actually pure communism. Note that Milton Friedman taught that our talents are purely a matter of luck and we are free to do whatever the hell we want with them and the whole situation is entirely amoral. But communists, like Jesus, believe that talents are bestowed by big government, and they are for the purpose of consecration toward the greater good of the people, and that if they are not consecrated, then there will be serious repercussions parallel to arrest and imprisonment.

[_Ray A]

Equality of condition is not the answer to poverty. The answer to poverty is wealth.

I don't think that financial equality is the best condition, either. You should earn what you work for, but capitalism also has abuses and inequities, and people don't always earn what they work for. They earn far more, and sometimes far less than what they work for.

No Marxist or leftist that has ever lived and breathed on this planet has, as far as I can tell, ever moved intellectually beyond this fundamental first principle.

You're confusing terms here. A leftist isn't necessarily a Marxist. A leftist isn't necessarily a socialist. I know of people on multi-thousands a year who have leftist views. And this is where I think some of your definitions tend to take on a too broad spectrum of labelling that simply doesn't apply to real life.

[Guest]

I don't think that financial equality is the best condition, either. You should earn what you work for, but capitalism also has abuses and inequities, and people don't always earn what they work for. They earn far more, and sometimes far less than what they work for.

1. Nobody in a truly free market earns any more or any less than they are worth. That simply isn't possible in a free market context unless one is being underpaid by an individual Scrooge, in which case the answer is to change jobs. I have no idea what being overpaid would mean.

2. Capitalism doesn't "have" any abuses because "Capitalism" doesn't exist. Capitalism is nothing more than economic liberty free of the meddling of the political class. It is liberty in the area of property. Abuse of others economically is a feature of the fallen human condition and a manifestation of human weakness, not "Capitalism". Such abuses exist under all economic and social orders regardless.

2. Why is inequity important? As long as mortality obtains, there is a perennial tension and trade off between equality and freedom. You simply cannot have both in any full or complete sense at the same time. A gain in either must mean a decrease in the other. Do you want equality? Then you must be willing to give up a portion of your freedom (or that of others in a larger political sense). Do you want freedom? Then inequity will be the inevitable outcome (as inequity between human beings is the natural and inevitable consequence of freedom, whether that be of an economic, intellectual, moral, or other personal kind).

You're confusing terms here. A leftist isn't necessarily a Marxist. A leftist isn't necessarily a socialist. I know of people on multi-thousands a year who have leftist views. And this is where I think some of your definitions tend to take on a too broad spectrum of labelling that simply doesn't apply to real life.

1. It would be difficult to find any modern leftist ideas, especially economic ideas, that do not owe something, at least peripherally, to Marx or his disciples in the 20th century (especially the cultural Marxists).

2. It would be unusual indeed to find a leftist who was not a collectivist, one who believes in the preeminence of the collective or group over the individual, and in the forced equalization of conditions between individuals in the name of "equity", the very term you have used. Socialism is a system that regiments and collectivizes society and especially its economic relations, and leftism, in its various manifestations, rarely if ever varies from these fundamental values.