Leftism and the Gospel: How Wide the Divide?

[_Droopy]

So, we have a six-year-old polemic from the Cato Institute, a ten-year-old panel discussion from the Heritage Foundation, and a Wall Street Journal editorial from 2009. I couldn't be more impressed if you'd linked quotes from Sean Hannity, himself.

Given the prestige, intellectual heft, and reputation of the sources, and then comparing that to your special pleading, I see little problem.

Oh, and by the way, this is proof positive of why I said earlier that I'm not going to do any homework for you. You brushed aside substantive analysis with an ad hominem circumstantial wave of your hand, and walked away from the debate.

Case closed, as far as you are concerned.

[_Droopy]

As long as you are calling me Johnnie Cochran, I'm sure you won't mind if I call you "Ron Lafferty" from now on. You are all about scholarly debate and intellectual high-brow, after all.

Yes, I can be, love to be, and am with those, whether they agree with me or not, who treat me civilly, with respect, and who appreciate serious, penetrating, and stimulating dialogue.

You, on the other, hand, may never see that side of me unless you peruse certain of my discussions with others, and for very obvious reasons.

[_Morley]

I think a little " speaking truth to power" is in order here:

http://www.cato.org/pubs/catosletter/ca ... erv3n1.pdf

http://www.heritage.org/research/lectur ... ealth-care

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB1000142 ... 45070.html

I have read most of the first and found some things obviously false.

Such as, and upon what basis?

I notice that it brings up breast cancer has better survival rates in the US then Britain. Hmm interesting that they don't look at overall death rates of cancer top see that UK has a lower rate.

It does?

http://www.hoover.org/publications/defi ... icle/58971

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/health/healt ... world.html

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/uknews/ ... urope.html

http://www.civitas.org.uk/pdf/cw55.pdf

This is the problem when one uses sources that have an obvious agenda from the beginning and will only show evidence that supports their agenda and avoid those that do not,

You're bluffing, Themis, and it appears you haven't done much homework on the issue thus far.

Apparently, you haven't done your homework, either, Droopy. Do you even read these or just do a search?

Reading the article in your link above (http://www.telegraph.co.uk/health/healt ... world.html), the last line says:

The report also found that United States ranks near the bottom in life expectancy among wealthy nations despite spending more than double per person on healthcare than the OECD average.

[_Morley]

So, we have a six-year-old polemic from the Cato Institute, a ten-year-old panel discussion from the Heritage Foundation, and a Wall Street Journal editorial from 2009. I couldn't be more impressed if you'd linked quotes from Sean Hannity, himself.

Given the prestige, intellectual heft, and reputation of the sources, and then comparing that to your special pleading, I see little problem.

Oh, and by the way, this is proof positive of why I said earlier that I'm not going to do any homework for you. You brushed aside substantive analysis with an ad hominem circumstantial wave of your hand, and walked away from the debate.

Case closed, as far as you are concerned.

You're confusing me with someone else. I didn't ask for references on this. I did expect the references you posted for thread to be better, however. I'm beginning to wonder if you're even reading that about which you're linking. Or are you just counting on the 'prestige' and 'intellectual heft' of the sources?

[_Droopy]

The first possibility is incorrect.

Good to hear that.

The second is also incorrect too, and rather insulting. I've paid into the system and I've had my healthcare, but have never put my hand out for anything.

No self parody of the classic leftist mindset could have been as sweet and satisfying as this. I couldn't have done it better myself.

I live in the USA, and as a British Citizen, I have no right to claim any welfare from the system my taxes now flow in to.

U.S. citizens have a right to medical treatment at any emergency room in the nation, by law. So do illegal Mexicans, so you must as well. Whether that right is of the unalienable kind is another question.

Have you ever visited anwhere in the world other than your own little corner of it, or is whatever comes from Fox News enough.

Yes, its time to degenerate into the Kevin Graham-hissing-and-spitting-in-the-corner mode of discourse, as you have now run out of the fumes that were propelling your argumentation prior to now.

I have visited the U.K., Belgium, the Netherlands, Denmark, Norway, and Holland, and lived in Germany.

Oh, right. I just don't understand it. It's all over my pretty little head. I knew that university education would never be of any use.

Sometimes that's a great blessing, and sometimes its a fearful curse.

There is evidence that JFK was killed by Cuba, or Johnson, or the Mafia, or the CIA, or whomever you could think of on the internet, and of course it must all be true. There are even sites with evidence it was Lee Oswald!

It was, indeed Oswald, in the name of primarily Cuban socialism, and perhaps with Cuba's acquiescence.

Ah! The Eloi. Created by that great Socialist H.G. Wells. I wasn't aware you enjoyed Socialist literature.

I love it.

[_Droopy]

You're confusing me with someone else. I didn't ask for references on this.

Yes, just a bit. Case closed with regard to Themis and you.

I did expect the references you posted for thread to be better, however.

What's wrong with those I posted?

I'm beginning to wonder if you're even reading that about which you're linking.

Have you read them?

No, you haven't. You saw that they were conservative and libertarian research, and dismissed them out of hand. That's why I said "case closed." Sorry I don't have any links to Worker's World for you.

[_Jason Bourne]

It will be accomplished by the voluntary contributing, at differing rates, of all excess income above the needs and wants of individuals and individual families, based upon their individual circumstances, to the Bishop's storehouse.

What happens is someone wants to horde their wealthy and not contribute? Will that be of or is there some mandate like tithing? Tithing is really a tax that is imposed to prove faithful. If not why impose it for temple entrance?

So what if Brother and Sister Brown make a million a year and want a mansion, BMWs and fancy trips and this they only give a bit, say $20k because that is their voluntary surplus. Then we have Brother Jones who makes 1ook per year and let's say he and his are disposed to live very modestly and they give half of what they make. What happens then? What happens if there is not enough in the coffers to assist those who have little to nothing?

I'm not saying that there will be no distribution of wealth from producers to those who require assistance (I tend to avoid the term "redistribution" because of the unexamined assumptions it carries).

And thus a form of socialism.

That already occurs in the Church welfare system. What I am saying is that the UO will be:

1. Fundamentally free market in orientation - much more than at present

Can it be under the situation I describe above?

2. Individual responsibility oriented in nature, not collectivist.

Can it be under the situation I describe above?

3. Property rights oriented. While all property will, at that time, be understood to belong to the Lord (not to the community) in actual practice all personal property deeded to the Church will be transferred back to the individual as a private stewardship to improve and expand through productive economic activity.

This is communal and a form of communism.

4. The UO is not an attempt to literally equalize income or material condition among its members.

Seems like it is to me.

[Guest]

You're confusing me with someone else. I didn't ask for references on this.

Yes, just a bit. Case closed with regard to Themis and you.

I did expect the references you posted for thread to be better, however.

What's wrong with those I posted?

I'm beginning to wonder if you're even reading that about which you're linking.

Have you read them?

No, you haven't. You saw that they were conservative and libertarian research, and dismissed them out of hand. That's why I said "case closed." Sorry I don't have any links to Worker's World for you.

Of course I read them. I'll repost the evidence that you skipped over:

Apparently, you haven't done your homework, either, Droopy. Do you even read these or just do a search?

Reading the article in your link above (http://www.telegraph.co.uk/health/healt ... world.html), the last line says:

The report also found that United States ranks near the bottom in life expectancy among wealthy nations despite spending more than double per person on healthcare than the OECD average.

[_canpakes]

My wife just had a critical and fairly long term illness, requiring expensive and intensive treatment. We have no insurance, and the hospital knew that at the outset. The treatment continued until it was medically realistic to send her home, and not before.

I'm sincerely sorry to hear that, and hope it hasn't left you too much out of pocket. I hope she is well on the road to recovery.

Melchett raises an interesting point. Any hospital stay for a 'long term illness' will likely result in a six-figure bill. I just watched my s/o's grandmother go through this very scenario.

If Droopy is indeed uninsured then he has now experienced one of the problems of the current medical system - that being, unless covered by insurance, most individuals cannot typically cover the costs of any sort of long-term hospitalized care.

The options for extensive medical care in this country are thus -

- Be sufficiently wealthy to pay for this cost out of pocket,
- Have the hospital forgive some of the cost,
- Have charitable organizations or people assist in the cost,
- Rely on insurance to assist in the cost.

It is interesting to note that the last three involve some system of spreading the cost out amongst a larger pool of individuals, not unlike what the the British or Canadian systems do. To the complaint that the American system isn't forced upon its citizens, it should be noted that participation within the American system - to the extent allowed by Canadians or Brits, as example - nearly requires participation in an insurance plan and therefore insurance becomes a compulsory expense if a fair comparison between the US system and any other as relates to patient opportunity is to be attempted.

It should also be acknowledged that US law requires that sufficient medical care be provided to anyone who enters into the emergency ward... the cost of this care is also spread out amongst all citizens through a variety of means. Were this law not in place, the 'effectiveness' of the US system in covering all potential patient needs would be compromised and the final stats on the overall health enjoyed by her citizens would be very different.

[Guest]

What happens is someone wants to horde their wealthy and not contribute?

Then they can leave Zion.

Will that be of or is there some mandate like tithing? Tithing is really a tax that is imposed to prove faithful. If not why impose it for temple entrance?

The law of tithing will be superceded by the LoC.

So what if Brother and Sister Brown make a million a year and want a mansion, BMWs and fancy trips and this they only give a bit, say $20k because that is their voluntary surplus.

Then they can show their local ecclesiastical leaders that this is a reasonable body of "needs and wants" according to their individual circumstances and conditions, or they can leave Zion.

Then we have Brother Jones who makes 1ook per year and let's say he and his are disposed to live very modestly and they give half of what they make. What happens then? What happens if there is not enough in the coffers to assist those who have little to nothing?

Those that do not wish to contribute the realistic sums expected of a covenant people can leave. However, their inheritance remains in Zion. Those that remain will be contributors by definition.

Droopy:

I'm not saying that there will be no distribution of wealth from producers to those who require assistance (I tend to avoid the term "redistribution" because of the unexamined assumptions it carries).

And thus a form of socialism.

No. That would imply that all the Christmas presents around my tree are a feature of socialistic economics. If you believe that the giving of gifts itself, or charity qua charity is, by definition socialism, then I''m afraid, my friend, that you understand neither.

Socialism controls and channels the means of production, allocation of resources, and personal incomes of a society by coercive force - social engineering. "Redistribution of wealth" is a leftist/socialist concept that, as with many such concepts (such as "capitalism") has little or no rational basis for its legitimacy outside the ideology in which it functions as an intellectual category.

"Redistribution" of wealth assumes that wealth, in a free market capitalist economic order is "distributed" in the first place, which is an assumption of socialist theory, not an obvious or clearly settled principle of economics. The Bishop's storehouse is a warehouse for the free will gifts of charity to the poor in Zion, within the context of an uncoerced, productive free market economy based in private control of individual resources. The Church will not control the means of production, manipulate financial markets, institutions, or money production, or make decisions as to allocation and distribution of resources in the production of wealth for individual families and businesses. That will be left in private hands, as far as we have any knowledge of the subject from modern scripture and the body of teaching on the subject by the Brethren.

Droopy:

3. Property rights oriented. While all property will, at that time, be understood to belong to the Lord (not to the community) in actual practice all personal property deeded to the Church will be transferred back to the individual as a private stewardship to improve and expand through productive economic activity.

This is communal and a form of communism.

Uh...no. There is no private property in a communist system. The state is the sole, or almost sole employer and provider of goods and services. Human beings are not stewards in a communist system but slaves. There are no markets, market forces, market disciplines, and market signals in a fully socialist society, and hence, little real productive economic activity at all. In a revolutionary socialist system, all property belongs to the state (to the people - the proletariat - through a total state controlling and allocating it in their name as representative of the collective will of the proletariat. In a utopian, say Owenite utopian form, it belongs to the community; to the entire group equally). In the UO, it belongs to the Lord, but is handled by each steward as if it were still private property in actual application - an individual stewardship. This represents a vast difference between the UO and "communitarian" systems, and avoids all of the evils and corruptions attendant to them.

Droopy:

4. The UO is not an attempt to literally equalize income or material condition among its members.

Seems like it is to me.

Yes, I'm sure it does.