"Stripping the virtue from a [charitable] transaction"!? This is just what I've been saying: for a certain type of Christian, charity has nothing to do with the suffering person, it's just an optional opportunity for the good, well-to-do Christian giver to earn some brownie points with God, plus get that "good Christian feeling" from helping somebody else. This view on charity totally disregards the suffering and dignity of the person in need, reducing him to an "opportunity" for the better-off person and nothing more.
Likewise, the very word D'Souza chooses, "transaction," implies an exchange of value between the charitable giver and the needy person. Jesus Christ never spoke of helping the poor in transactional terms, i.e. "what's in it for me?" He said it should be born of love and out of Christian moral duty, which ideally are one in the same.
Christianity is not about a system of charitable debits and credits which add up to... Paradise, or happiness on Earth, or whatever. Christ threw the money changers out of the temple; and he certainly did not preach that God was an accountant.
Sorry to teach the Christian faith to some of you, but millions of you have obviously forgotten it, or never learned it in the first place!....
Further on, "the guy with gun" here is our duly elected representative, fulfilling our wishes. He is not some hereditary Hobbesian king. If we don't like what he's doing, we can unelect him every two years.
So to say our taxes are "coerced" is untrue and not at all what the Founding Fathers thought about the system that they established, whereby only directly elected representatives could levy taxes and incur spending. Which is a long way to say that: if you don't like the results of our democratic elections, then nobody is forcing you to stay in America, you can love it or leave it and find someplace you like better!
D'Souza demonstrates that real conservatives are inherently anti-democratic whenever the result of democracy is to "steal" from the rich or lucky via the tax system. He's entitled to his point of view; but he must recognize that there are precious few countries on Earth remaining where the majority shares his view.
And this is the problem with conservative Republicans and debates on taxes: we always start at square one, i.e., taxes are "stealing" and so how can higher taxes, i.e. greater stealing, ever be morally permissible? It's a faulty premise logically and morally to start with.
And this is the problem with conservative Republicans and debates on taxes: we always start at square one, i.e., taxes are "stealing" and so how can higher taxes, i.e. greater stealing, ever be morally permissible? It's a faulty premise logically and morally to start with.
Next: "It's kind of nicer in the [welfare] wagon"?! Yes, which is exactly the message we get from all the reality TV shows, music videos, best-selling novels and books, self-help seminars, life coaches, etc., about the joys of welfare. What's that you say, there is no such thing? There is no general yearning in America to be a dependent, non-working, non-productive person who barely gets by? Well then, now you're talking sense, now you're recognizing the world as it is, and not as some professional pundit like D'Souza would like to sell it to you. People still aspire to things, and they realize, rationally, that welfare is not the means to any kind of material or personal aspiration, it's just bare survival. And that doesn't inspire or attract hardly anybody.
But on to D'Souza's next point: that the people "pulling the [economic] wagon" deserve more credit from, well, government and everybody. OK, fine, they are rich, famous, comfortable and feted and on and on.... But don't try to tell me that they would willingly pay more in taxes, or support Obamacare, if only Obama would "give them more credit," if only Obama told them "thank you," more often. No, that's not what their beef is; they are not upset about being "demonized" rhetorically. They want to keep more of their money, plain and simple.
Finally, back to Michael Whatsisname's original point that "universal coverage" or health insurance, is a political not a moral issue, in the sense that, morally, we should all be in favor of it [agreed], but politically, we should look at the "the most efficient way that everybody gets that coverage." In that case, then there's really no debate: countries with universal coverage demonstrate better health outcomes with lower costs and greater coverage than the United States. Politically, there is no debate for anybody who is not cherry-picking statistics. Morally, you can invent whatever twisted reasoning you like to avoid helping your fellow man, your fellow citizens... it's just completely disingenuous to label such moral contortions as "Christian."
Uploaded by republicunited
October 12, 2012 | YouTube
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