I beg your patience over my absence, and I ask for your prayers. In June I accepted an administrative position with a new school district. While this is a very good opportunity in so many ways, I have never in my life found myself so overwhelmed. I can only say this: teaching was so easy!
At any rate, while this post is not original by any means, I couldn’t help but share the content of an article I ran across today. The liberal left often likes to pin social unrest on the ills created by the conservative right. You know how the goes … the economy is in the pits because of right wing policies put in place by George W. Bush … because people don’t have jobs they become socially discontent … because they are socially discontent they rise up “against the man”, so to speak. Rarely are people actually held accountable for their actions. Instead, we live in a culture that seeks to pin people’s actions on something external to the human will, something other than sin (dare I even use the word). Actually, this is nothing new. It is merely a modern version of ancient Christian heresies that seek to separate the body and soul, in this case to separate the external actions from the internal person. How often as a teacher did I hear a student explain their dishonesty with, “I know I cheated, Mr. Tawney, but I am not a cheater. I am a good person.” The danger in separating our actions from our persons will be catastrophic for the world. The Christian principle of sacramentality, understood here in its most general sense, says quite the opposite: the external is a reflection of the internal, and at the same time the external forms the internal. This is true whether we are talking about the words of consecration (which are externally symbolic of the underlying reality and are simultaneously efficacious in bringing about the internal reality) or whether we are talking about the moral act. Friends, we are how we act, and we act how we are. When we stand before God, we will not be able to pin our sin on the social policies of one party or another.
I have rambled enough … more than I intended. With that, I give you the motivation behind these thoughts: an article on the London riots.
The depressing truth is that at the bottom of our society is a layer of young people with no skills, education, values or aspirations. They do not have what most of us would call ‘lives’: they simply exist.
Nobody has ever dared suggest to them that they need feel any allegiance to anything, least of all Britain or their community. They do not watch royal weddings or notice Test matches or take pride in being Londoners or Scousers or Brummies.
Not only do they know nothing of Britain’s past, they care nothing for its present.
They have their being only in video games and street-fights, casual drug use and crime, sometimes petty, sometimes serious.
The notions of doing a nine-to-five job, marrying and sticking with a wife and kids, taking up DIY or learning to read properly, are beyond their imaginations.
Read the rest here.
Take away Christian morality and what’s left is the Lord of the Flies.
The terrible truth. From Mark Steyn (a notorious terrorist): “Big Government debauches not only a nation’s finances but its human capital, too. . . . While the British Treasury is busy writing checks to Amsterdam prostitutes, one-fifth of children are raised in homes in which no adult works – in which the weekday ritual of rising, dressing and leaving for gainful employment is entirely unknown. One-tenth of the adult population has done not a day’s work since Tony Blair took office on May 1, 1997.”
That will be America after Obama and the liberals, who call US terrorists, are finished with America.
“Men are qualified for civil liberty in exact proportion to their disposition to put moral chains upon their own appetites, — in proportion as their love to justice is above their rapacity, — in proportion as their soundness and sobriety of understanding is above their vanity and presumption, — in proportion as they are more disposed to listen to the counsels of the wise and good, in preference to the flattery of knaves. Society cannot exist, unless a controlling power upon will and appetite be placed somewhere; and the less of it there is within, the more there must be without. It is ordained in the eternal constitution of things, that men of intemperate minds cannot be free. Their passions forge their fetters.”
Edmund Burke, 1791
“The politics of envy was bound to end in flames.”
Scott Johnson: “What would liberals do without gaps to close? I think they’d pretty much have to go out of business. You’ve got your education gap. You’ve got your power gap. You’ve got your jail gap. You’ve got your income gap, perhaps the granddaddy of them all.”
The widest gaping maw would be the virtue gap.
One-tenth of the adult population has done not a day’s work since Tony Blair took office on May 1, 1997
If their age structure is similar to that of the United States, about 17% of the adult population (at any one time) is older than the median retirement age and another 3% of the adult population has been adjudicated as disabled. I do not think these populations have many dependent children.
Why beat around the bush, no pun intended. Multiculturism and plurialism have proved to be disasters for all societies. Most of the rifts in society, past and present, are due to racial, ethnic and religious conflicts that are insoluble and always will be. Learn from the animal kingdom. Go to a zoo and you’ll see that each species lives in harmony with itself and is segregated from others. If commingled, conflict arises.
Much of what happened in London was racially and religiously based. It is a portend of what is to come in America, where race riots are nothing new. Recently, roving blacks attacked whites at the Wisconsin State Fair for no other reason than they were white. Such is the “payback” that slavery engendered and now “the chickens are coming home to roost,” as the liberals like to say.
It is not PC to say these things, I know. This is not an argument for racial superiority, merely an argument that any time that you mix races, religious and ethnic groups, along with cultural differences, you will wind up with tensions that would not be there otherwise. Japan, which is largely a homogenous society, does not experience these types of civil disruptions nor do most Scandinavian countries and those where ethnic, racial and religious minorities are very small.
As the “browning” and “muslimization” of America increase and by 2050 whites will be a minority, the frictions will only increase. A black president was the first step toward assuaging the “guilt” over the past. That was the only reason Obama was elected, notwithstanding a weak opponent; it was white Americans doing collective penance for the sins of slavery. Affirmative action for presidents.
I likely will not live out the decade and am glad I won’t be around to see the ultimate collapse of America, largely due to its destruction from the “vandals within,” as Lincoln warned.
Moscow by the Hudson elected its (less glib) Obamateur/exercise in electoral racist quotas in November 1989.
NYC has not elected a democrat mayor since then. Racists!!!
Again, “The politics of envy was bound to end in flames.”
Joe’s post is so over the top wrong I’m wondering if it is satire. America has since its inception been a melting pot of different ethnicities and cultures. The melting process necessarily involves a robust measure of pluralism and has never been easy. Indeed it has always included elements of racism, extremism, discrimination, resentment, and violence. Notwithstanding these difficulties (or perhaps because of them) this process has made our nation stronger, not weaker. Comparing humanity’s different races, cultures, or ethnicities to different animal species is vile and should have no place in an intelligent forum as this one. The “browning” of America is probably as inevitable as is the “browning” of worldwide humanity (due to a combination of natural intermarriage and travel — the world is getting smaller — and genetics), and there is nothing dangerous or sinister about that at all.
If the stresses of diversity are in some ways greater today it is because the organic social forces that used to assume and encourage sociological assimilation now encourage sociological amalgamation — i.e., progressive forces have been and are trying to replace the melting pot with the “salad bowl” as they imprudently obsess over cultural differences rather than on the more important common elements of our humanity. These forces are wrong — multiculturalism is not really compatible with e pluribus unum — and will not succeed in the long run (races will eventually disappear altogether for instance), but they are making the process more difficult and acrimonious than it needs to be.
If America collapses it won’t be because we let too many “brown” people in the door; it will be because we lost so much confidence in our traditional values that we no longer felt them to be important enough to expect their acceptance by our immigrants and pass them on to our children.
I have too much to do to be spending time writing blog comments today, but Joe’s post should not go unanswered in a blog that is normally as intelligent and civilized as this one.
The riots in England had little to do with race and a great deal to do with a womb to tomb welfare system that has created a completely dependent under class that has little interest in work or obeying laws. I will have a great deal more to say about this in a forthcoming post. It should be noted that some of the prime defenders against the riots, after an almost complete abidcation by the police, were ethnic shop keepers, including Sikhs and Turkish Kurds, something that Darwin noted in an earlier post.
You are correct, Don. What progressives don’t seem to understand is that as multiculturalism works to retard social advancement, the welfare state serves to retard economic advancement.
From my position as a public school teacher and very-semi-part-time Director of Religious Education for my Church parish: I truly believe that the disintegration of society and culture is in direct proportion to the decline of sacramental Baptism.
We are living in a society that is becoming de-Sacramentalized at an alarmingly accelerating rate. In the public school where I teach, I’d say that easily 70% of the students are not baptized. Without the infusion of salvific grace into the souls of the members of our society, we are descending into the pagan darkness.
As T. Shaw says, the problem is the “virtue gap”. Without the graces from the Sacraments, there can be no closing of this gap.
N.B. – While I single out the Sacrament of Baptism, I do not mean to neglect the continued reception of the Reconciliation and Holy Eucharist. It’s only that Baptism is the entry-point into the Sacramental life.
Mike Petrik:
If nothing else, history vindicates my position that so-called “diversity” weakens rather than strengthens America. Yes, it has such a warm and fuzzy connotation — “the melting pot, the salad bowl” — which are little more than euphemisms for a mishmash of races, religions, cultures and ethnic tribes that have splintered a foundation that was formed by Western philosophy and civilization solely.
One prime example, from the Bible itself: In Rameses’ time, the Egyptians enslaved the Hebrews and kept them solely for economic reasons. They were never true “brothers,” and as separate religions and cultures, they were dissimilar in virtually all respects. Along comes Moses, who leads them to the “Promised Land,” wandering first for 40 years before finding their homeland, which today is largely modern Israel. Neither Moses nor his charges wanted to stay in Egypt, but rather were told by God Himself to get the hell out of there; which is what Moses and his heirs down through history have done. The Jews wanted and still want their own nation. As a people, they did not mix with others; secular history bears this out as well. They always were apart from Gentiles, a separate people, “chosen,” if you buy their raison d’etre, for a certain destiny.
The negroes in America would have done well to follow Marcus Garvey back to Africa, like Moses did, leading themselves back to the lands of their birth, back to their “natural” environment; a continental of unmatched natural resources and one for which they are well suited and one that represents their racial heritage.
I don’t know what you mean by “natural intermarriage.” Neither the Jews nor many other groups believe in intermarriage because they know it presents special problems including clouding the identities of children who grow up not knowing who they are. Inevitably, internal conflict arises. Some of these unions have been successful no doubt just as legal immigration has added to a flourishing nation, but the vast majority of these people were from Europe and were able to much better assimilate into America than others who crawled under fences illegally, refused to learn English, kept their own cultures and traditions and did not nor ever will become “Americans” but are merely here to either make money or start their own new tribal enclaves.
Lastly, I see no “vileness” in comparing the human animal to those of a lower order because nature has much to teach us about human behavior. You view stems from the questionable position that animals, other than humans, lack a soul and have no concept of God. How do you know that? I have owned dogs all my life and have received more love and kindness from them than from most human beings. And God, if we are to believe Genesis, made the animals first and although we were given “dominion,” that does not equate to superiority.
Everything great about America is drawn from Western Civilization, whose cradle was Europe, from the ancient Greeks and Romans down through the ages.
I quote Seymour Martin Lipset who wrote: “The histories of bilingual and bicultural societies that do no assimilate are histories of turmoil, tension and tragedy.” Which is excerpted from Pat Buchanan’s book, “Day of Reckoning.”
Pat wrote, “The United States, the greatest republic since Rome, and the British Empire, the greatest empire since Rome, may be said to have arisen from the three-cornered fort the Jamestown settlers began to build the day they arrived. But that republic and that empire did not rise because the settlers and those who followed believed in diversity, equality and democracy, but because they rejected diversity, equality and democracy…they believed in the superiority of their Christian faith and English culture and civilization. And they transplanted that unique faith, culture and civilization to America’s fertile soil. Other faiths, cultures and civilizations — like the ones the Indians had here or the Africans brought, or the French had planted in Quebec, or the Spanish in Mexico — they rejected and resisted with cannon, musket, and sword. This was OUR land, not anybody else’s. Buty today American and Britain have embraced ideas about the innate equality of all cultures, civilizations, languages and faiths, and about the mixing of all tribes, races, and peoples that are not only ahistorical, they are suicidal for America and the West.”
An inconvenient truth, but the truth.
Joe, I find your comment a bit ironic in view of the fact that today’s Mass readings were all about how Christ expanded salvation beyond just the Jews to include the Gentiles. The Gospel was about the Canaanite woman who repeatedly begged Jesus to drive a demon out of her daughter, even though He rebuffed her twice, the second time saying that it was “not right to take the children’s bread and give it to the dogs.” Even so, her persistence was rewarded and Jesus granted her request.
Obviously the issue of whether or not God intends to offer salvation to people of all cultures and nations is a separate issue from whether or not a particular nation ought or ought not to defend its own culture. And while Christ offers salvation to all, all have to accept it — they can’t just remain pagans or atheists. Nor can they cling to aspects of their native culture that are in direct opposition to Christian faith and morals (e.g., polygamy, voodoo, child sacrifice). Likewise, immigrants need to show loyalty to the laws and customs of this nation over the one they came from. Still, I think the Catholic faith, and the American way of life, offer plenty of room for people of different cultures to preserve what is good and unique about their culture or nation of origin.
The direction these comments have taken are especially interesting given today’s Scripture Readings:
http://new.usccb.org/bible/readings/081411.cfm
Now I am not one to believe that different cultures are equivalently good, equal in morals and virtues. That would make a mockery of what it means to be a Christian and to have a Christian culture. If one doesn’t believe that Christianity is infinitely superior to Buddhism, Hinduism, Islam, Taoism, etc., then is one a Christian?
Of course now some will point out that culture is more than mere relgious affiliation, a sentiment with which I would agree. But to be Christian one must be wholly Christian, and it is this that gives rise to a culture that enabled the former greatness of Western Civilization, and it is its abandonment that now leads to our sad demise.
Yes, there will inevitably be differences in the expression of what once was Christian culture – a European expression, an African expression, an Indian expression, a Japanese expression, etc. But the underlying root that makes Christian culture unique remains the same. Welcoming the foreigners who join themselves to the LORD (Isaiah 56:1-7), and serving the needs of the Canaanite woman (Matthew 15:21-28) are but expressions thereof. However, a multi-culturalism that equivocates Islam or Buddhism or Taoism as equal to Christianity is bound to fail, and it is such a multi-culturalism that the liberal left supports to the exclusion of the principles of Christianity. Indeed, Jesus said to the Canaanite woman, “…great is your faith! Let it be done for you as you wish.” He didn’t make the paganism of her culture (from which the demon who tormented her daughter had likely come) equivalent to Judaism, and she even KNEW which was superior, hence her faith in seeking out Jesus.
Sorry, folks. I don’t buy into the idea that all cultures are equal in dignity. If that were the case, then we may as well sacrifice humans as the Central and South American Indians did so long ago. Oh, I forgot – we ARE doing such sacrifices and we call them “the right to choose.” Silly me!
Opps, Elaine said it better – darn cross-posting again.
Paul, just goes to prove that great minds think alike 🙂
Elaine, Beethoven would have “all men as brothers,” which he longed for in his great 9th Symphony. However, but for there to be the “brotherhood of man,” then what necessarily follows is “the fatherhood of God.” And those who do not believe in the same father cannot ipso facto ever be brothers in any sense of the word.
‘The riots in England had little to do with race …’
Really, Don?
Don, the London riots began in Tottenham described as having “a multicultural population, with many ethnic groups inhabiting the area. It contains one of the largest and most significant populations of African-Caribbean people. These were among the earliest immigrant groups to settle in the area, starting the UK’s Windrush era. Soon afterwards West African communities – notably the many Ghanaians – began to migrate into the area.”
Connect the dots.
E. K., From our homilist, the Canaanite was not only persistent she evolved in Faith to which our Lord led her by his earlier rebuffs.
“Soon afterwards West African communities – notably the many Ghanaians – began to migrate into the area. Connect the dots.”
If being of African descent were the problem, then Philip’s message to the Ethiopian eunuch in Acts 8:26-40 would have been fruitless and useless. But unlike the Ghanaians who immigrated to Britain, the eunuch wanted to learn. What made the difference was attitude and responsibility.
As others have said, Britain has abandoned any pretense at being a Christian nation, and has willy-nilly opened its doors to all manner of paganism. The result is inevitable: a whole class of people without history or dignity utterly dependent on largess from the public treasury. Thus the plebians riot in the Roman forum, and thus Caligula tosses out gold coins to appease the masses. This is ancient history.
“Really, Don?”
Yeah, really Joe. The rioters were of all races just as their victims were of all races. You can see that for yourself on You Tube videos of the looters.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DNh-fTv1Gm8&feature=related
Trying to make this about race misses completely the point of the riots. What the point of the riots is I will address in my post tomorrow.
C’mon, Don. The vid proves nothing; show about 10 people out of thousands who rioted, most of whom were from Tottenham, which is heavily black and muslim.
You are deeply wrong about this Joe. These were not race riots. What type of riots they were I will explain tomorrow. Stay tuned.
Don, I disagree, but look forward to your analysis.
This guy blames ‘boredom and alienation’:
http://www.npr.org/2011/08/13/139598062/boredom-and-alienation-may-factor-into-uk-riots
The riots in England had little to do with race and a great deal to do with a womb to tomb welfare system that has created a completely dependent under class that has little interest in work or obeying laws.
Long term doles for working-aged people do create social problems. However, per Daniel Patrick Moynihan, the descriptive statistics he was studying ca. 1965 indicated that an abiding dependent class emerged around about 1958. Prior to that, the population on relief rolls tracked unemployment rates closely. The underclass was a novelty during the riot mania of 1964-71, and continued to exist after rioting ceased to be common.
Mike’s 12:06 comment is one of the best things I have read on the internet in a long time.
Should note that there were masses of riots in the United States around about 1919, when common provision consisted mostly of institutional care and such (public schools, orphanages, asylums, sanitoriums, poorhouses, veterans’ hospitals). IIRC, outdoor relief was limited to benefits for veterans and their dependents.
Anyone want to guess the date of the deadliest urban riot in U.S. history? Let’s see, was it L.A. in 1992 (Rodney King)? How about Newark in ’67, or Watts in ’65? Was it Detroit in 1943, or even Chicago in 1919? Nope, not even close. The worst urban riot ever was the NYC anti-draft riot of 1863, at the height of the Civil War, in which at least 120 people died, and some estimates put the death toll as high as 2,000. According to Wikipedia,
“The rioters were overwhelmingly working class men, resentful, among other reasons, because the draft unfairly affected them while sparing wealthier men, who could afford to pay a $300 commutation fee to exclude themselves from its reach.” Obviously, this was long before dependence on a government welfare state became an issue.
Elaine, the point being?
Actually the New York City draft riots of 1863 were a prime example of a race riot with largely Irish mobs murdering free blacks throughout the riots. A good overview is here:
http://www.mapsites.net/gotham/es/_alexblankfein_es.htm
There were other factors, such as the ones that Elaine mentions, but the racial element was unmistakable.
“Actually the New York City draft riots of 1863 were a prime example of a race riot with largely Irish mobs murdering free blacks throughout the riots.”
Were those Irish mobs Catholic? I am sure that this is the very thing which today’s liberal atheists would love to point out.
Overwhelmingly so, and Archbishop “Dagger John” Hughes did his best to bring the riots to a close, in spite of the fact that he was nearing death.
https://the-american-catholic.com/2009/02/11/honest-abe-and-dagger-john/
Thanks, Donald! From:
http://www.city-journal.org/html/7_2_a2.html
In 1863, with construction of the cathedral suspended because of the Civil War, the worst urban rioting in United States history broke out among the Irish in New York. Over 1,000 people were killed in three days. The Irish were enraged that the Union army was drafting them in disproportionate numbers because they could not afford the then legal practice of buying their way out of military service. Irish boys, who made up about 15 percent of the Union army, were suffering horrific casualty rates since they were commonly used as frontline troops against better-trained and better-led Confederate soldiers. In addition, rumors spread that once the slaves were freed, they would take Irish jobs or live off taxes on the Irish. The rioting Irish attacked blacks, nativists, and, on the third day, anybody who was around.
A then-dying Archbishop Hughes summoned the leaders of the rebellion to meet with him. However disturbed he might have been that the Irish were being called on to do so much of the dying in the struggle against the South, he supported the war and was totally opposed to slavery, having preached against it since his ordination as a priest in 1826. He told the riot leaders that “no blood of innocent martyrs, shed by Irish Catholics, has ever stained the soil of Ireland” and that they were dishonoring that impeccable history.
The riot leaders went back to their neighborhoods, and the violence melted away. The riot saddened the dying archbishop: he felt he had failed as a prelate. His friend and loyal subordinate, Bishop McCloskey, was saying the prayers for the dying when the end came for Hughes on January 3, 1864.
—–
Sadly, it seems that London, Liverpool, Birmingham and elsewhere are lacking in heroes like Archbishop Hughes.
The youth are rioting because of right-wing greed. Taking away regulations so that the wealthy become wealthier and the poor become poorer.
” …I tell you the truth, it is hard for a rich man to enter the kingdom of heaven. Again I tell you, it is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for a rich man to enter the kingdom of God.”
Parallel versions appear in Matthew 19:23-24, Mark 10:24-25, and Luke 18:24-25.
“The youth are rioting because of right-wing greed. Taking away regulations so that the wealthy become wealthier and the poor become poorer.”
Yeah, looting a shop in Brixton is a stand against right-wing greed.
“The youth are rioting because of right-wing greed. Taking away regulations so that the wealthy become wealthier and the poor become poorer.”
We’ve heard that story before – John 12:1-6:
Jesus therefore, six days before the pasch, came to Bethania, where Lazarus had been dead, whom Jesus raised to life. And they made him a supper there: and Martha served: but Lazarus was one of them that were at table with him. Mary therefore took a pound of ointment of right spikenard, of great price, and anointed the feet of Jesus, and wiped his feet with her hair; and the house was filled with the odour of the ointment. Then one of his disciples, Judas Iscariot, he that was about to betray him, said: Why was not this ointment sold for three hundred pence, and given to the poor? Now he said this, not because he cared for the poor; but because he was a thief, and having the purse, carried the things that were put therein.
—–
Note the phrase: “Now he said this, not because he cared for the poor; but because he was a thief, and having the purse, carried the things that were put therein.”
That’s what every liberal leftist wants – the same thing that Judas Iscariot wanted: the money. They care not and have never cared for the poor.
“That’s what every liberal leftist wants – the same thing that Judas Iscariot wanted: the money. They care not and have never cared for the poor.”
The taxes do not go to liberals, they go to programs to help the poor meet minimum living standards. The Gospel of Judas by the way shows that he was simply fulfilling a role to make Jesus’ prophecy complete.
“Yeah, looting a shop in Brixton is a stand against right-wing greed”
It is a direct correlation. If today’s children (and adults for that matter) did not have to compete with slave wages-a direct result of corporations outsourcing their manufacturing and customer service, they would have no need to riot.
Republicans/Cons do not understand that just because it increases profits does not make it the right thing to do, greed has repercussions on everyone.
The Gospel of Judas is heretical and NOT a part of the Canon of Sacred Scripture. Period.
Now every so often an offensive is mounted by the proponents of the false gospel of social justice and peace at any price – in other words, liberal leftists. These proponents rarely if ever talk about God’s justice in the manner that Jeremiah, Ezekiel, John the Baptist, St. Peter, St. Paul or St. John talked about God’s justice. To them mercy is feeding the belly, not saving souls from eternal damnation. So when these offensives occur it becomes necessary to repeat what the TRUTH is.
When the crowd which had been fed the loaves and fishes followed Jesus around the Lake of Galilee to Capernaum, what happened? John 6:24-27 tells us:
“When the crowd saw that neither Jesus nor his disciples were there, they themselves got into boats and came to Capernaum looking for Jesus. And when they found him across the sea they said to him, ‘Rabbi, when did you get here?’ Jesus answered them and said, ‘Amen, amen, I say to you, you are looking for me not because you saw signs but because you ate the loaves and were filled. Do not work for food that perishes but for the food that endures for eternal life, which the Son of Man will give you. For on him the Father, God, has set his seal.'”
The crowd, having gotten free food without working for it, expected a continuation of the same. But Jesus told them NOT to seek the food that perishes, but the Bread of Life, and that is EXACTLY what the crowd did NOT want. Indeed, John 6:66 records that even many of Jesus’ disciples refused to follow Him any longer. The same is true today. When the mindless, faceless collective – that is to say, the crowd – doesn’t get its free food for the belly, then it abandons the very One from whom all good things come. It is time to see things as they are: get people used to handouts, and they won’t work for themselves.
In the Church at Thessalonica, some parishioners became so enamoured with the promise of Christ’s Second Coming that they stopped working for a living. They expected that the rest of the community, being so imbued with a sense of social justice, would continue to provide for their needs, food as well as medical, without them earning a darn thing. What did St. Paul say about this kind of behavior? 2nd Thessalonians 3:10 says, “In fact, when we were with you, we instructed you that if anyone was unwilling to work, neither should that one eat.” St. Paul’s social justice was very simple: get off your lazy behinds and get back to work.
Now yes, we all know that there are a great many sad situations in life, e.g., where a single mother hasn’t enough money for herself and her children, or an elderly person is without enough money for food and heating in the winter, or a thousand other examples. In situations like these we the members of the Body of Christ – NOT the Federal Government – are called to do our God-given duty, and every time we abdicate our responsibility to Caesar to provide for the poor, the destitute and the disenfrancised, then we surrended our authority and our freedom as children of the Living God Almighty. Caesar and his politicians can never ever be trusted to meet the needs of the poor. That is our job. The story of the sheep and the goats in Matthew 25:31-46 was given to the disciples, NOT the Senators in Rome, nor the advisors and lawyers and accountants surrounding Tiberius at the Imperial Palace. The story is for US the members of the Body of Christ. But that little fact is never mentioned by the proponents of the false gospel of social justice and peace at any price.
Let us now take the story of the rich man who came to inquire of Jesus what he had to do to inherit eternal life. The story is in Mark 10:17-23. Jesus told him he had to obey the law and the prophets. The man replied he had done so all his life. Jesus then said that he lacked one thing and had to sell all his belongings and give the proceeds to the poor. The man went away sorrowful. Jesus commented, “How hard it is for those who have wealth to enter the kingdom of God!” The point clearly had nothing to do with feeding the poor; rather, the point was the idol of possessions that the rich man had placed between himself and God. Never once did Jesus tell the disciples to confiscate the rich man’s belongings to acheive some kind of social justice. Never once did Jesus say Tiberius Caesar and the Roman Senate had tax the rich and redistribute that tax money to the poor. So where do these adherents of the false gospel of social justice and peace at any price derive their sacrilege of advocating the Federal Government to steal from those who earn to give to those who don’t. I have a feeling that it’s really because these liberal progressives don’t want to get their personal hands dirty feeding the poor, giving drink to the thirsty, caring for the sick, sheltering the homeless, clothing the naked, and visiting the imprisoned. That’s for someone else to do. After all, these advocates of social justice are the elite and can’t possibly be bothered with the hard work of actually helping out those in need.
“It is a direct correlation. If today’s children (and adults for that matter) did not have to compete with slave wages-a direct result of corporations outsourcing their manufacturing and customer service, they would have no need to riot.”
Need to riot? No one needs electronic toys and high end sneakers and clothes which were among the targets of the rioters. Of course the rioters also destroyed the jobs of the workers who worked in the looted stores. None of this had anything to do with any Leftist delusional protest against Big Business and everything to do with greed, a facet of human behavior that was on full display by the looters. I do enjoy your forthrightness, however, in condoning rioting and looting. It is refreshing to see a Leftist come clean and stand up for mass criminality if it can be dressed up in ideological cant.
Based on what Donald just posted, I have to correct what I wrote. I said:
“So where do these adherents of the false gospel of social justice and peace at any price derive their sacrilege of advocating the Federal Government to steal from those who earn to give to those who don’t? I have a feeling that it’s really because these liberal progressives don’t want to get their personal hands dirty feeding the poor, giving drink to the thirsty, caring for the sick, sheltering the homeless, clothing the naked, and visiting the imprisoned. That’s for someone else to do.”
I should have said that these liberal progressives won’t get their hands dirty helping others because they would rather steal from everyone else by rioting and committing other acts of violence. They create with their rioting the poor, the thirsty, the sick, the homeless, the naked and certainly the imprisoned. After all, this is only a natural extension of the violence that they legally commit against the unborn.
Democracy: two wolves and one sheep voting on what’s for dinner, in this case, your store, your bank, your place of work, even your unborn baby.
@Paul
The Gospel of Judas is heretical and NOT a part of the Canon of Sacred Scripture. Period. For one the Scrolls were not found until 1944 so of course they were not included, but we both know they wouldn’t have been anyway as anything that goes up against the propaganda by the orthodox church is oppressed-why do you think we have so many offshoots of Christianity even dating back to the formation of Christianity?
Now every so often an offensive is mounted by the proponents of the false gospel (I can say the same of Catholic dogma) of social justice and peace at any price – in other words, liberal leftists (Jesus’ parables parallel those of modern day liberals, he was in no way a money hungry corporatist). These proponents rarely if ever talk about God’s justice in the manner that Jeremiah, Ezekiel, John the Baptist, St. Peter, St. Paul or St. John talked about God’s justice. To them mercy is feeding the belly, not saving souls (turning away from Greed must be done before you can turn to God) from eternal damnation. So when these offensives occur it becomes necessary to repeat what the TRUTH is (lets hear YOUR version…).
When the crowd which had been fed the loaves and fishes followed Jesus around the Lake of Galilee to Capernaum, what happened? John 6:24-27 tells us:
“When the crowd saw that neither Jesus nor his disciples were there, they themselves got into boats and came to Capernaum looking for Jesus. And when they found him across the sea they said to him, ‘Rabbi, when did you get here?’ Jesus answered them and said, ‘Amen, amen, I say to you, you are looking for me not because you saw signs but because you ate the loaves and were filled. Do not work for food that perishes but for the food that endures for eternal life (replace the noun food with money and the meaning does not change), which the Son of Man will give you. For on him the Father, God, has set his seal.’”
The crowd, having gotten free food without working for it, expected a continuation of the same (nice try!). But Jesus told them NOT to seek the food that perishes (again replace food with money), but the Bread of Life, and that is EXACTLY what the crowd did NOT want (they wanted profits and thus power of others). Indeed, John 6:66 records that even many of Jesus’ disciples refused to follow Him any longer. The same is true today. When the mindless, faceless collective (the Tea Party?) – that is to say, the crowd (mob rule, gotcha!) – doesn’t get its free food (money off the back of others) for the belly, then it abandons the very One from whom all good things come. It is time to see things as they are: get people used to handouts, and they won’t work for themselves. (This is not the meaning of that verse whatsoever, do you really think Jesus was talking about being dependent on others for food? If so you need to retake a basic New Testament class).
In the Church at Thessalonica, some parishioners became so enamoured with the promise of Christ’s Second Coming that they stopped working for a living. They expected that the rest of the community, being so imbued with a sense of social justice, would continue to provide for their needs, food as well as medical, without them earning a darn thing (ironic that Church’s are exempt from taxes do you think?) . What did St. Paul say about this kind of behavior? 2nd Thessalonians 3:10 says, “In fact, when we were with you, we instructed you that if anyone was unwilling to work, neither should that one eat.” (First of all , no one is not willing to work, that is a lie. If you give someone a decent job at a livable wage they will and want to work but all the jobs continue to be outsourced by the wealthy so they can pocket the extra profits just like they did five years ago when they were told they would not be taxed on oversea profits-they did not trickle down the profits to their brothers and sisters, no they pocketed the change. That is what we have today an idle rich who cares only for themselves). St. Paul’s social justice was very simple: get off your lazy behinds and get back to work. (St. Paul’s social justice was to keep women in the household and subservient to men-see Michelle Bachman’s recent comments about her role to her (gay) husband).
Now yes, we all know that there are a great many sad situations in life, e.g., where a single mother hasn’t enough money for herself and her children, or an elderly person is without enough money for food and heating in the winter, or a thousand other examples. In situations like these we the members of the Body of Christ – NOT the Federal Government – are called to do our God-given duty, and every time we abdicate our responsibility to Caesar to provide for the poor, the destitute and the disenfrancised, then we surrended our authority and our freedom as children of the Living God Almighty (its unrealistic and if this was so why do so many in the richest country in the world live in poverty and can’t afford basic healthcare?) Caesar and his politicians can never ever be trusted to meet the needs of the poor (Caesar didn’t live in a Democracy). That is our job (and hence why WE elect politicians in our proxy). The story of the sheep and the goats in Matthew 25:31-46 was given to the disciples, NOT the Senators in Rome, nor the advisors and lawyers and accountants surrounding Tiberius at the Imperial Palace. The story is for US the members of the Body of Christ. But that little fact is never mentioned by the proponents of the false gospel (whose to say what is false and what is real-is it this or that version of Christianity, or maybe Buddhism, or even God forbid Islam!) of social justice and peace at any price.
Let us now take the story of the rich man who came to inquire of Jesus what he had to do to inherit eternal life. The story is in Mark 10:17-23. Jesus told him he had to obey the law and the prophets. The man replied he had done so all his life. Jesus then said that he lacked one thing and had to sell all his belongings and give the proceeds to the poor. The man went away sorrowful. Jesus commented, “How hard it is for those who have wealth to enter the kingdom of God!” The point clearly had nothing to do with feeding the poor; rather, the point was the idol of possessions that the rich man had placed between himself and God (fits the bill of modern day wealthy in American, no?). Never once did Jesus tell the disciples to confiscate the rich man’s belongings to acheive some kind of social justice (yeah, he kinda did-the Kingdom of God is right in front of you (i.e. we are living in it)-remember that? ). Never once did Jesus say Tiberius Caesar and the Roman Senate had tax the rich and redistribute that tax money to the poor. So where do these adherents of the false gospel of social justice and peace at any price derive their sacrilege of advocating the Federal Government to steal from those who earn to give to those who don’t (it is unreasonable to think that republicans would give to those who need it. Think about it..you guys would not have your giant military that you are so proud of if it wasn’t for forced taxes). I have a feeling that it’s really because these liberal progressives don’t want to get their personal hands dirty feeding the poor, giving drink to the thirsty, caring for the sick, sheltering the homeless, clothing the naked, and visiting the imprisoned (that’s because liberals are all those things, can a poor man help another poor man?). That’s for someone else to do (everyone collectively). After all, these advocates of social justice are the elite (so the Koch brothers are not elite? You know the guys who funded Scott Walker to take away collective bargaining rights of the unions so they can make a modest salary and suppor their families?) and can’t possibly be bothered with the hard work of actually helping out those in need (because the rich in this country work so much harder than everyone else, pfft.).
@Donald
” It is refreshing to see a Leftist come clean and stand up for mass criminality if it can be dressed up in ideological cant.”
You are right, looting bad-wars good (as long as we are killing farmers in other countries who want nothing to do with capitalism) no matter how much taxes they cost us (BY FAR THE BIGGEST TAX VACUUM in this country).
Looting stores to prove a point bad-Killing hundreds of people for profit good! Right-wing hypocrisy at its finest!
@Paul:
Democracy: two wolves and one sheep voting on what’s for dinner, in this case, your store, your bank, your place of work, even your unborn baby.
Republican Democracy: the best money can buy!
My point, Joe, is that this riot took place long before the liberal welfare state and the collapse of the traditional family ever became an issue so we can’t say that continuing, or getting rid of, the welfare state will necessarily prevent riots from happening.
Plus, the 1863 draft riots took place at a time when divorce and INTENTIONAL single parenthood as we know it today were not nearly as common. There were, of course, many fatherless/orphaned children but that was mostly a result of the high mortality rates of the day, not because vast numbers of women consciously chose to have babies outside of marriage or did not care whether or not their child’s father was marriage material. Yes, out of wedlock births did happen even then but I doubt they were anywhere near as prevalent as they are today.
“Looting stores to prove a point bad-Killing hundreds of people for profit good! Right-wing hypocrisy at its finest!”
The left has murdered 60 million babies since Roe v Wade. That’s an order of magnitude more than the Jews whom Hitler murdered.
As to the rest, truthfully I have neither the time nor the energy to debate a committed leftist. Neither one of us will change our minds. I will leave by pointing out that it’s not the job of government to be god, but that’s what liberals have always wanted since Judas Iscariot stole from the money bag. I have now said my peace.
PS, Thank God we have a 2nd Amendment: the Right to Keep and Bear Arms. It’s a wonderful deterrent against rioters.
The recent riots in France demonstrate the problem European countries face where second and third generation immigrants still do not consider themselves French, German, or English. –Bobby Jindal
If I’m not mistaken, Bobby is one of yours on the right.
The left has murdered 60 million babies since Roe v Wade. That’s an order of magnitude more than the Jews whom Hitler murdered. (That is just an ignorant statement).
As to the rest, truthfully I have neither the time nor the energy to debate a committed leftist (because you can not win and it makes you question your own beliefs, hard to look in the mirror, easier to go on a right-wing blog where everyone agrees). Neither one of us will change our minds. I will leave by pointing out that it’s not the job of government to be god (nope its the job of the people to be God like Jesus said he is within us and us within Him), but that’s what liberals have always wanted since Judas Iscariot stole from the money bag (Again Judas was simply fulfilling the Jewish prophecy of the 30 gold pieces Zechariah chapter 11: Verse 12-13, 30) . I have now said my peace.
PS, Thank God we have a 2nd Amendment: the Right to Keep and Bear Arms. It’s a wonderful deterrent against rioters. (how Christian of you, Guns and Jesus!).