Tuesday, January 1, 2013

God and Government, The Real Ties

We often hear on The Right side of the isle that God is an integrated part of people's execution of political power.  However, upon closer examination of those views that people exercise, often those views are not the compassionate, moral imperative of The Savior's mission as detailed through the Gospels Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John...but the minutia of the Old Testament, which legislates religious law, obscure references which people overly emphasize as cemented and permanent in the modern day, and the many speakings of the letters and epistles of the New Testament, which again, reference problems that those people encountered in those societies.  The Christian Right cherry-picks scripture, using a literalist view of the holy scriptures to push their political agenda.  They purposely ignore important and contextually necessary aspects of scripture to claim they are right.  Culture is everything as it defines the context and criteria of scripture and defines it's scope, purpose, and intent.  While it's important to not minimize the contributions of people like Paul, Peter, Simon, Jude, and John the brother of Jesus as they do contribute to the fabric of Christian thought in very significant ways, it's important to reference that very few of the "Christian Right's" views align with the message that Christ gave us.  Practicing compassion, being fair, doing unto others, loving your fellow man, giving selflessly, and exercising power for the good of all, not yourself, and not for your "friends/donors/etc."

One of the most infuriating arguments from "The Right" is the that you can't legislate "Greed."  I beg to differ.  Greed is spoken against quite fervently by Christ.  "And again I say unto you, It is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle, than for a rich man to enter into the kingdom of God."  Matt 19:24.  Christ worried about the destruction that greed can have on people.  Because true greed doesn't just affect the person being greedy, it affects everyone around him, below him, and beside him.  Greed is a destructive and awful problem.  A greedy person will destroy everyone around him to obtain what he lusts after.  In the realm of business it has even more problematic issues.  Greed will cause job losses, theft, fraud, and ultimately the collapse of a company if it's left unchecked.  Greed is a horribly insidious problem that will literally suck the life out of everyone who's a victim someone who can't get a hold of themselves.

So how do we legislate greed?  The answer to this problem was answered quite well during the post-war era: Taxes.  Taxes disseminate wealth through society creating opportunity for those with nothing, building up institutions which are needing work, or investing in the future through grants and loans for new ventures in technology and research.  It's important that we return to the system we had in 1949 to 1980 to ensure that the wealthy aren't "The super wealthy" who literally make more money than most nations' GDP, and that their influence isn't felt in government as much.  The most peaceful time, politically, was when wealth disparity was low and distributions of wealth was high.  Unionization, high wage growth, reasonable CEO pay, and regulated businesses to ensure steady, stable, consistent growth is what made the US great during that time in history.  We technically do not need to trade with anyone if we do not want to.  If we returned to the system we had during the post-war era, we'd be our own manufacturers, our own food producers, and our own power generators.  None of this "importing things we can do here" crap.

Pulling us back, government can control greed by ensuring that wealth is fairly shared with people that do work.  Time after time again, we see that if you don't coerce someone to do something, they won't do it, and they'll do the bare minimum they can get away with.  It's evident all over the country.  We see fast food workers of 20 years, not even barely breaking $10/hr after 20 years of service.  We see Walmart employees all on the public dole because the company doesn't pay enough.  We also see labor unions being broken up by employers so employers can exercise their power over employees, pitting them against each other for the crumbs the company drops to them.  ENOUGH!  Its time we, as moral, spiritual people rise up against these frauds in government...frauds that use the Name of Christ to get their fascist, petty, self-serving ideology codified in law.  These frauds who lurk in dark alleyways conspiring ways to steal your hard-earned money and then claim it's government taking it from them.  These frauds who claim the name of Christ, but have all the character references of loan shark.  And finally, these frauds who manipulate laws to disenfranchise voters through legal red tape, making harder and more inconvenient to vote for the person they'd prefer.  Christ-centered government is simply and aptly defined as government where the values of Christianity at their core are used to govern.  That means "Doing unto others" and being fair in political decisions, writing law that favors neither one or another person, and representing the interests of ALL people in society, not your party, not your friends...but everyone.

I do appeal to all Christians out there to examine your hearts and minds, read the scriptures with an open mind and an honest heart.  Ask the Holy Spirit to reveal to you the wisdom of the scriptures when you read, and pose you hard questions to answer.


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