Posted on 09/25/2011 6:48:03 PM PDT by 2ndDivisionVet
Have no doubt about it: compassion is out of fashion, as Paul Krugman noted in the New York Times Sept. 15.
At the recent tea party-sponsored GOP debate Wolf Blitzer asked Ron Paul what we should do if a 30-year-old man chose not to purchase health insurance and then found himself in need of six months of intensive care. “That’s what freedom is all about — taking your own risks,” said Paul.
Blitzer followed up, “So, society should let him die?”
Before Paul could answer, the crowd erupted with cheers and shouts of “Yeah!”
Who are these tea party people?!
A year and a half ago when this movement got started we were assured they were just “average Americans.” And polls in April 2010 showed this was somewhat true: a little over half were Republican and the rest were independents and conservative Democrats. But the latest survey of their membership shows a much different picture. More than 80 percent are Republicans, 15 percent are independents and 5 percent Dems. They are for the most part the radical religious-right sector of the Republican Party that we have always known.
The most recent study of this group, posted Aug, 17, 2011, on the Internet, reveals the truth: They are white, have a low regard for immigrants and blacks, have a desire for religion to play a prominent role in politics, seek deeply religious elected officials, want religion brought into political debates.
These people who scream to let the poor fellow without health insurance die are religious! And let’s say it, they are Christian religious!
This is most disconcerting to me, a Christian clergy person. I have always assumed being Christian meant being compassionate for the weak and vulnerable. And especially those who are vulnerable through no fault of their own. For as Krugman points out, most uninsured Americans either have low incomes and cannot afford insurance or are rejected by insurers because they have chronic conditions. The tea party attitude, evidently from the audience response last week, is let them wither and die.
The same for immigrants. The same for minority school children in poor school districts. The same for Muslims.
So, the lack of compassion has become a matter of principle for tea party members.
It is a truly radical movement that is angry and organized to overturn the kind of society that we have enjoyed in the past, a society that tries, with the help of government, to ease some of the hazards of life through programs like Social Security, unemployment insurance, Medicare and Medicaid.
Bull-hockey.
Conservatism is compassoionate.
Conservatives are not the ones advocating a system that will systematically consign the elderly to the tender mercies of death panels, (whatever you want to call them.)
False promises are the opposite of compassion.
There’s nothing wrong with people donating from their heart to help others. How on earth does this phony pastor think he gets paid from his phony parishioners? Through taxes levied on “the rich?”
He’s a freaking idiot and obviously not close to the Word. I would wager he’s in favor of gay marriage.
“Have no doubt about it: compassion is out of fashion, as Paul Krugman noted in the New York Times Sept. 15.”
He’s right, where is the compassion to society from all those that sit on their butts and just receive checks from working people? Do they work soup kitchens, libraries, neighborhood watch - just where is their compassion to society and their fellow man paying their way.
The anti-compassion angle (which I’m sure will be ratcheted up esp. if a true conservative is our nominee) is rooted in the false assumption that the only channel to help the “less fortunate” is via the government.
What about the separation of church and state? If in fact, it’s the Christian thing to do to help the less fortunate as the good pastor puts forward - what business does the “state” have involving itself in an obvious religious function?
Charity should be administered through the church, NOT the government or any agent of same.
With private sector incomes declining and unemployment skyrocketing while debt and government spending as percentage of GDP and government employee salaries reach all time highs lets see how many bite.
He got up from the table and left.
Compassion does not come from coercion at the point of a rifle by the government which forcibly confiscates and chooses whom to help.
This so-called pastor is a communist jerk.
I’ve heard similar stories from lib friends who know young people or have children who are young adults with no health insurance. They get so self-righteous and emotional, it’s impossible to talk to them. I always want to ask them then why their kid or the young adult doesn’t get some kind of health insurance. If they have no problem expecting their kid to get auto insurance, why can’t they also purchase health insurance?
Maybe he thinks we should give alcoholics a bottle or two - or illegal drugs to addicts and electrical cords to child abusers. Is that compassion?
Some of us would call that enabling... Helping people to make destructive choices is bad.
This man thinks of himself as "Christian clergy' than fine - he can help the man who doesn't want to spend money buying health insurance. Or organize people to help. Many would 'help' if it was done responsibly... But forcing us to be enablers? Nah, that's not good.
I hope so.
Sorry Rev. Communism is not compassion. If you give a man a fish...
Hey Rev., ya got a link? I'd like to read that.
A lie. A flat-out lie. Two or maybe 3 people shouted "Yeah" out of a crowd of hundreds. No one - no one - cheered. But that doesn't serve their ends, so they'll just continue to lie.
I have always assumed being Christian meant being compassionate for the weak and vulnerable. And especially those who are vulnerable through no fault of their own.
The question was about someone who made a choice not to get insurance. The past may need to look up "fault".
What do you expect from a man who doesn’t actually have create/earn his money? He just passes the collection plate, so everything should be FREE! to him. Wonder what kind of car the good Rev. drives.
latest on Obamacare...
According to newly released documents, President Barack Obama’s underlings — including his Vice President — and Democrat leaders in both houses of Congress knew that Obamacare would become a fiscally unsustainable entitlement program, but they pushed for it’s passage anyway.
In yet another scandal brewing within the Washington Beltway, a new federal probe reveals the administration withheld crucial information from Congress about a new health care entitlement program that was destined for fiscal trouble.
These latest revelations marks the latest exposé of the secrecy that has prevailed throughout the president’s hostile takeover of the nation’s healthcare system.
Last year, a public-interest watchdog group obtained alarming documents regarding closed-door healthcare meetings with Vice President Joe Biden, Health Secretary Kathleen Sebelius, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, Obamacare Czar Nancy-Ann Min DeParle and union officials such as Cass Sunstein.
Just a few days ago Judicial Watch made public thousands of pages of additional documents involving the administration’s secretive process in granting waivers exempting companies and unions from inconvenient provisions of Obamacare. As of July 2011, 1,472 one-year waivers and 106 three-year waivers were granted, covering some 3.4 million enrollees, more than 50% of which belong to unions. Yet, according to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, union members account for only about 12% of the total workforce.
This week’s Obamacare scandal du jour comes from a congressional panel that concludes the administration lied to push a costly long-term care program known as Community Living Assistance Services and Supports (CLASS). Internal documents obtained by lawmakers from a committee of House and Senate Republicans reveal officials in Obama’s Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) were acutely aware that the program was unsustainable and suppressed the information from Congress and the public.
Continue reading on Examiner.com HHS admitted Obamacare was “recipe For disaster” - National Law Enforcement | Examiner.com http://www.examiner.com/law-enforcement-in-national/hhs-admitted-obamacare-was-recipe-for-disaster#ixzz1Z1PDGy9W
These are the same Christian clergy who wink and nod at document fraud, wink and nod at illegals driving without licenses and insurance, wink and nod with illegals abuse of gov assistance programs.Then say we must welcome the stranger, never said to welcome about what 20-30 millions strangers by now ?
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