Apparently, nobody invited Glenn Beck to the General Conference.  Are we unaware that Glenn Beck has instructed his faithful to abandon their church if it brandishes the phrase "Social Justice"?  Are we so blind to the fact that "justice and fairness for the poor" is simply an anti-American, Stalinist, Leninist, Maoist, Nazi, Communist code that Obama and the Left have created to hoodwink us?

At a time when many church members give more credence to the rants of Glenn Beck than the writings of Ellen White, adopting an official statement such as this is bold, indeed.   

Thank you, Monte, for referencing The Ministry of Healing in this post. I read Ellen White's counsel on helping the unemployed and the poor, and I wish we had such direct, level-headed leadership in our local and federal governments!

Personally, I have a problem with much of what is termed "social justice" in our society because the policies appear to be directly against (what you have pointed out is) Ellen White's counsel.

"We may give to the poor, and harm them, by teaching them to be dependent. Such giving encourages selfishness and helplessness. Often it leads to idleness, extravagance, and intemperance. No man who can earn his own livelihood has a right to depend on others. The proverb 'The world owes me a living' has in it the essence of falsehood, fraud, and robbery. The world owes no man a living who is able to work and gain a living for himself. Real charity helps men to help themselves. If one comes to our door and asks for food, we should not turn him away hungry; his poverty may be the result of misfortune. But true beneficence means more than mere gifts. It means a genuine interest in the welfare of others. We should seek to understand the needs of the poor and distressed, and give them the help that will benefit them most. To give thought and time and personal effort costs far more than merely to give money. But it is the truest charity." MH 195 

This is why the body of Christ is to provide help for the poor: their true needs require thought, time, and personal effort . . . not simply money. To look to the government for solutions to poverty through the enactment of "social justice" policies is the wrong path. Government programs can't provide thought, time, and personal effort. Governments can only throw money at problems.

As church leaders, let's call our church members not to rely on government programs, but to return to this true form of charity . . . one that does not come simply from a check in the mailbox, but one that includes the flesh and blood interaction from the hands and feet and compassion of the body of Christ!

What is it about the government policies of ensuring people have enough to eat and a roof over their heads that we have come to determine "appear" to be against EGW's counsel? 

I have yet to see a food stamps recipient who is in danger of the sin of extravagance, or a medicaid patient whose cancer treatment might lead to intemperance.  The sin of sloth might be encouraged, but realistically, most people will not be satisfied with mere subsistence nutrition or government-subsidized housing.  

I worked for several years as a case worker for welfare recipients, administering the government welfare programs.  Each recipient was put on a time limit for food and cash benefits, and as a requirement for receiving their benefits (food stamps or welfare) they were required to complete a work, training, or school component for 40 hours per week.  If they failed to comply with the work, training, or school component, their benefits were shut off.  

The fallacy of rampant well-bodied eternal welfare cases was certainly fabricated by those who would have the safety net ripped away from all, and it's a shame that people are willing to spread that lie without having direct, certain knowledge of the programs that they run into the ground or label as "against" the counsel of a prophetess of God.  Please stop the Beck/Limbaugh lies about Social Justice.  

Steve,

I see examples of "well-bodied eternal welfare cases" every day. I won't fill up this forum with the stories, but from my work as a court clerk, to administering housing to welfare recipients, to watching fast food workers work their specified time at the job then suddenly quit so they could be eligible for the benefits again (and to hear them say that's exactly what they're doing!), I have seen enough to know that we are definitely not helping people.

My husband and I have taken a little 11-year old child under our wing. We have been a "big brother and big sister" to him since he was 6. His mother died of a drug overdose when he was 2, and his father (who retains custody of him) is addicted to pot. They do not "want" for anything, according to the government's welfare standards. But they are in need of everything important.

The government can do no more than hand out money. But God calls us to help the poor around us. Most of the time, that definitely involves money, but it certainly never stops there. Yet when we abdicate the church's job and leave it to the government, there's no other choice but for it to stop with the money. To the government, you're not a unique, special, one-of-a-kind individual with worth in God's eyes. You're a number or just a name on a piece of paper.

Maybe it's easier for us to just give the money, feel satisfied that we've done our part, and sort of insulate ourselves in that way from having to "deal with" the problem of the poor in our community. But I think God calls us to something higher, even if it's harder.

"Working to reduce poverty and hunger means more than showing sympathy for the poor. It means advocating for public policy that offers justice and fairness to the poor, for their empowerment and human rights. It means sponsoring and participating in programs that address the causes of poverty."

This kind of language makes me very, very uncomfortable.  Advocating for public policy that offers "justice and fairness" is inviting a wedge between liberals and conservatives on non-essential issues.  Left-wingers will interpret this sort of vague language as authorizing whatever is their enthusiasm du jour, typically a regime of high taxes and redistribution that always kills economic activity, development, and wealth creation wherever it is imposed (including here in the U.S.).

As a right-winger, I could also interpret it in devisive ways.  For example, the overwhelmingly immediate cause of economic ruin and poverty in Zimbabwe is the regime of Robert Mugabe, a murderous thug who has outlived any usefulness he might have had to this planet.  The best thing anyone could do to address the cause of poverty in Zimbabwe is to overthrow Mugabe's regime.  Anyone want to join me and few mercenaries in a little coup d'etat?  Yeah, I thought not.

Steve,

Yes, I believe that the welfare system has provided help for some people who ran into misfortune and needed temporary assistance as they worked hard to get back on their feet. However, I do not believe that scenario describes the majority of welfare recipients, at least not in today's world. (Perhaps things were better when you worked for the welfare system.)

Several years ago, a friend of mine broke her arm so badly that she was out of work for three months while she recovered. Her bills began to pile up, and after about a month, her pastor suggested she apply for financial assistance from the state. During her interview with the case worker to assess what aid she qualified for, she was shocked when the conversation went this way:

Do you have any kids? No.

Are you pregnant? No.

Is there a way you could become pregnant? You see, if you have children, I can offer you a lot more money. The more kids you have, the more money you can get.

--

I'm sure that kind of stuff doesn't go on in every welfare office, but I have to wonder when, just last week, a young woman filled out an application for a home that would be paid for with Section 8 funds. It just about broke my heart because, on the application, she listed her 8 children, each having a different surname. She was 30 years old, and she'd been having a baby just about every year since she turned 20. Maybe someone tipped her off that the more babies you have, the more money you get.

Many people probably look at that lady and feel sorry for her. I feel sorry for the children. In the days before government was happy to send you a check in the mail, what did women do when they had out-of-wedlock children? They lived with family, under the roof with mom and dad or grandpa and grandma. There was a support network around that child. Now, we'll give a subsidy for daycare instead. That's one of the sad and major unintended consequences of systematic welfare -- the decimation of the family.

I do not want to remove the "safety net" from people. I guess where we probably disagree is in thinking that government is that safety net. I believe God is our safety net, and as such, His body on earth should be caring for people, helping them to help themselves and helping those who can't help themselves. In any event, the further the government goes from God, the less it will be able to solve the problems of poverty. It will continually search for solutions but be unable to find them.

Only God can address all the issues in the human heart that contribute to the problem of poverty. Removing Him from the equation only ensures a continuation of the fundamental problem.

Hi Kellee, I'm a relatively young guy in my mid 30's, so it wasn't that long ago that I was working for the state. It was certainly recent enough that I can recall never having a conversation encouraging people to have more children as a money-making scheme.  It is also obvious that bearing children is not a financial net-gain, even with government assistance.  Food stamps and the small monthly cash amount per child do little to meet needs, much less pad a person's bank account or fund an extravagant lifestyle.  

A broken arm might qualify your friend for unemployment (number of children don't factor into this...) or disability (again, children are irrelevant...)  Either you didn't get or you aren't relating the story in its entirety.  

I've sat in rooms full of people like the young lady with the 8 children you described.  I'd guess that rather than bearing children at 20, she quite likely started much sooner - perhaps at 15 or 16, or even sadly enough, before then.  There is a behavioral cycle at work there that is much more complex than "have a baby, get paid."   

The Tri-county region in which I worked was rural.  The average household (not per person, mind you) income was less than $15,000 per year.  Seasonal agricultural jobs were drying up, and processing and manufacturing factories were closing.  We had the highest rate of teen pregnancy and recidivism in the state.  We had a very low high school graduation rate, and beyond that, the highest level of accessible education was a community college offering trade schools, LPN, and RN degrees.  The prevailing attitude was that there was nothing to do there and no way to get out.  

We were fighting against high unemployment, high teen pregnancy rates, low education levels, and limited access to training and advanced degrees - not against lazy baby-makers.  (As an aside, you blame welfare for the "decimation" of the American family, but I'd suggest that the like the specific welfare issue, the reasons behind that "decimation" is much, much more complex.)

The church is poorly equipped to administer and address those problems.  We don't have the money or resources to address what I saw.  The church can no more cure those ills than take it can take care of homeland security or the national highway system.  Government, while always woefully inefficient and often corrupt, is still necessary.  Moreover, as a democratic nation, we are our government.  We vote to send people to DC or our state Capitals.  If it's failing, we're failing, so let's take responsibility and fix it. 

Steve,

Thank you for your response. I appreciate your point of view. I am glad you have not seen corruption in the welfare system in your area as I have in mine.

Caring for people who cannot or will not care for themselves is definitely a multi-faceted problem, but I choose to believe that the church (if it were truly alive to God) absolutely could address the problems we see in society. Can God not equip His own body to care for the needs of His children? Of course He can. I still believe that all things are possible with God.

However, first we would need to have a body that is alive to God and thinks of His priorities and values above our own. But until that happens, I suppose we'll have to continue to seek government solutions. Thanks for doing your part to make the welfare system in your area a help and not a hindrance to people's social and economic development!

For those who are adamantly opposed to abortion, the inevitable product will be babies who grow up.

It is not that the government is supporting "baby-making" but that children are the innocent victims of their parents activities and should not be punished.  What would you suggest?  Let the babies starve?  Not provide medical care?  Or education?  Are we not our brother's keeper? 

It is not supporting immoral acitivity but supporting innocent children; just as supporting the victims of any situation:  the earthquake victims in Haiti, the victims of war--none had choices. 

Let's stop harranguing against "mothers on welfare" and channel our concerns over better education for both the mother and her children.  Harsh judgments cannot be of any benefit and as Christians some are more prone to judging than helping. 

Elaine wrote: 

For those who are adamantly opposed to abortion, the inevitable product will be babies who grow up.

Yes, the much better alternative would, of course, be the mass slaughter of the innocents. Of course, as you pointed out, their innocence is slaughtered anyhow when forced to grow up in the environment into which they're born.

God is not limited by their environment. Every out-of-wedlock child is precious to Him.

It is frightening when we withdraw our trust from God and place it in humans and human-run institutions (such as government). Monte Sahlin referenced the United Nations in his blog on poverty. Did you know that the U.N. publishing house, Lucis Trust (which began as Lucifer Trust, by the way), operates in the Economic and Social Council of the United Nations under the "World Goodwill" program?

The objectives of this program are (among other things) to prepare the world for the reemergence of The Christ (whom they think is some guy called Maitreya -- look him up if you want to go on a scary trip . . .) and to accomplish their "Plan for Humanity," which includes eventually maintaining the earth's population at 500 million, in order to be in balance with nature. So, it's interesting that you bring up abortion, because in order to scale down the world's population by about, oh say, 90 percent, we're going to have to graduate to adult abortion, I'm afraid.

This Maitreya person, who claims to be God (but not really God, because he says there is no God, he's just God in the way you and I can be God when we also achieve the same level of enlightenment), says that when he reappears in the world, he will draw all nations together and, under the banner of humanitarian and social justice, we will end poverty and provide food, housing, and education for the entire world. (Not sure if that is before or after we get rid of 90 percent of the world's population.)

I don't know how many people in this country recognize that New Age beliefs and humanism are at the root of much of the thinking/belief on social justice. Let me be clear: we need to address the needs of the poor and marginalized in our society!! Nobody is disputing that. But we ought to have a long, hard look at how it's being done right now and where that agenda is headed in the future, because Satan is doing an awful lot of mixing truth with error.

On the bright side, it's exciting to see how things in the world are becoming so ripe for the return of Jesus. I'm ready to go home!

" we're going to have to graduate to adult abortion, I'm afraid." 

 In case it has been overlooked, this has been accomplished may times:  The Holocaust, those killed in all the wars of just this century has been of ONLY living, breathing human beings, and far outweighs the abortions during that same period.  Plus, unwanted and unloved children have been abused since that time too numerous to count and will never be known.

Needless to say, I strongly disagree with the adoption by the Church of a Robin Hood political agenda. There is no hint of such a priority in the life or teachings of Christ. The Bible makes a distinction between justice and charity. Leviticus and Exodus tell us that justice is to be rendered equally to both rich and poor. The poor are not to be favored over the rich in doing justice, though certainly charity is directed to the poor. The notion that inequality equals injustice, or that the justice deck constantly needs to be reshuffled, to promote equality and punish those who become wealthy and create wealth for others by obeying the law and following the rules, finds no place in scripture, and, in practice, it has only impoverished the intended beneficiaries. 

The standard of living for my family when I grew up was considerably lower than the standard of living for those who today are classified as living below the poverty line - no T.V., no air conditioning, patched, definitely non-designer clothing, no eating out, no commercial entertainment, no government provided school meals, etc. We were so poor that my mother was actually reduced to cooking meals for the family from scratch and packing school lunches because we could not afford to eat in the cafeteria. Yet it never occurred to us that our misfortune should occassion the transfer to our family of honestly earned income from the pockets of wealthy church members or neighbors. I didn't even realize we were poor, because I had a family who loved me and enough food to eat. We had no poverty pimps to tell us that others were to blame; that the system was rigged against us; that we needed to vote for corrupt politicians to redistribute what was not theirs to give away. 

You see, I was seduced and deluded by an "uncaring mother" to believe the myth that choices have consequences, and that I was free to choose thoughts and behaviors that would yield success or failure. (Today, of course, we know that is a vicious, unChristian lie, invented to preserve the corrupt power structure of decadent Western materialism.) I actually believed that being poor was neither a disease nor incurable. I believed that values - not resources - produce both spiritual and material well-being. The idea that God's Kingdom can be advanced de jure, bringing down one segment of society - the "rich" -in order to raise another - the "poor", finds no support in history or scripture. I was raised, despite material scarcity, with strong values. And wealth redistribution by the government not only fails to produce such values, but actually destroys them.  

The wealth and opportunities produced by free markets and the rule of law in America have no parallel in the history of the world. While inequalities are great, the rising tide created by economic freedom has greatly reduced poverty not only in America, but throughout the world. At the turn of the last century, many Americans harshly criticized the decision to put a bathtub in the White House as a wasteful luxury.

Even by the ridiculous standards used to define poverty in America, statistical evidence indicates that there are three very simple steps that could virtually eliminate poverty: 1)Finish high school; 2)Get married; 3)Do not have babies until you are married. The overwhelming majority of those who fall below the poverty line have chosen to ignore one or more of these steps. Every parent knows that, when poor choices of their children are subsidized, those children will continue to make poor choices. Why the rules by which good parents run their households are suspended when it comes to our standards for government will always be a mystery to me.

As citizens and as church members, we should be far more interested in promoting the behaviors and attitudes that avoid poverty than in promoting feel good policies that have had disastrous consequences in families, cities, and nations.

StatefarmSteve, I probably cannot dissuade you from your penchant for incontinently dumping on conservative talk show hosts and conservative politicians. But just because those who disagree with you do not have your gaucherie does not mean that there is not a target rich environment from which your views emanate. These are issues about which reasonable minds can differ. You embarrass yourself and your cause with your disparaging allusions and Pavlovian attacks on the morality and/or intelligence of Christians who have honest differences of opinion about the priorities of the church, and the best path to liberty and justice for all in this earthly kingdom..

Nathan - my comments are a direct referral to Glenn Beck exhorting his viewers to abandon their church if their church did exactly what our church did at the GC.  

Perhaps your position as a board member at AToday leaves you free to personally insult me and refer to my opinion as "sh*t," albeit in fancier words with more syllables.  (Yes, "incontinence" is somewhat widely-known to be a reference to one's inability to control their urine and their feces - I learned that as an English major...)

The conversation between Kellee and I was respectful, and even though we don't agree, we exchanged ideas and opinions respectfully and quite cordially.  Your scatalogical references are out of place and unnecessary, and I'm quite befuddled by your out-of-the-blue attack on me.  

My ideas, while different than yours, are hardly embarrassing to me.  Your poor attitude, however, should cause you to blush, if the mother you refer to in the above story raised you properly.  Of course, "Thou shalt not be a jerk" is not covered in the 10 commandments or in the 28 Fundamental Beliefs, so perhaps she didn't see fit to teach you that.

We need to do what we can to eradicate the CAUSES of poverty.  These are not difficult to asscertain as has been pointed out:  lack of education, poor choices and more.  Comparing  us older folk with today is useless:  there was not the abundance of TV with its advertising that makes those without feel deprived; the crime-ridden neighborhood which many are forced to live also contributes to this cycle.

There are individual or church groups that could offer after-hours tutoring in school subjects; parent classes for new first-time mothers; some churches offer day-care facilities, which are often neded; cooking classes to aid in healthy foods as an alternative to the fast food which so many eat.

Just a few ways that one can help with these problems.  What are you and your church doing to help?

I'm not exactly certainly what is meant by the "social justice" or "world peace" for that matter, as endorsed by the SDA church.  As a Christian, I'm certainly all for justice for the poor, and who is against world peace?  It's almost as sappy and meaningless as saying I'm for God, country and apple pie.  The real question is what is meant by these terms and how they are to be applied in the Christian life as taught by Christ. 

I see no evidence in His teaching to suggest that we are to advocate for government policies that will confiscate the wealth of some to redistribute it to others who are deemed less fortunate.  If such with the case, why not simply endorse communism, minus that atrocities that seem to inevitably accompany it?  As a committed follower of Christ who takes His message on charitable giving seriously, I take offense at others who find my conservative stance against this kind of government power grab, with the attendant forced "charity" to be the antithesis of their brand of "social justice."

As a psychiatrist, I have been working at mental health clinics for many years, with all the clients I see being on medicaid.  My exposure to this population has opened my eyes like nothing else to the abuses of the nanny state.  When I was not a believer, I used to be angry with the takers who were raising my taxes.  But now, as a follower of Christ, the issues in far less about my taxes and much more about how these misguided, possibly well-intentioned programs that create dependency are destroying the character of individuals and our nation.  I constantly see clients come in  with Latte in hand, promising their child a happy meal if they are good at the appointment.  Many have a pack of cigarettes in their purses along with salon painted nails, cell phones and designer jeans.  All the kids have video-games.  Many drive cars nicer than my own (93 Tempo). 

Many have to reschedule appointments, due to taking their vacation back East or going to Disneyland.  Many of the parents, looking fully able bodied for work, are both on disability, usually for Bipolar or maybe Fibromyalgia (both being diagnoses that you can easily get by simply endorsing symptoms you can read on the internet).  Many of these individuals are indeed lazy and following the natural human inclination to take advantage of doing as little as possible while getting something for nothing.  This is a wonderful country to live in if you're so inclined (and under the current policies, getting even better!). Those who advocate for a nanny state are seemingly oblivious to the basic motivation of human nature. 

The big lie contained in the diabolical health care reform was the notion that we were subsidizing health care for those who could not afford it.  Currently, from all I observe of the majority of clients I see, we are not subsidizing health care; we are subsidizing cell phones, iPods, big macs, happy meals, lattes, manicures, etc. 

We are going trillions in debt, passing this burden on to generations to come.  Would any of us support this kind of immorality on the part of our great grandparents if we had a vote?  This is the ultimate in taxation without representation!  Please tell me the SDA stand is directed at the individual charity that Christ advocated and not indicative of support for the nonsense nanny state that is the antithesis of Christ's message of individual love, freedom and responsibility that comes with His presence in our lives.

In support of this position, I'll quote Paul, an obvious conservative:  "We did not accept anyone's support without paying for it.  Instead, we worked and toiled; we kept working day and night so as not to be an expense to any of you.  We did this, not because we do not have the right to demand our support; we did it to be an example for you to follow.  While we were with you, we used to tell you, 'Whoever refuses to work is not allowed to eat.'  We say this because we hear that th ere are some people among you who live lazy lives and who do nothing except meddle in other people's business."  II Thessalonians 3: 8-11.

Can you imagine how well off our country would be if all who were sitting around watching TV (giving messages of how much more they deserve) or getting high had to work as Paul worked (far more than 40 hours a week) and felt the need to be responsible for themselves the way Paul did?  I assume that without tent making, he would clearly qualify for most government assistance programs today.  Although this would free up more time to spread God's word, I somehow can't picture him accepting any kind of government assistance.

Finally a quote from one of my favorite founding fathers, Benjamin Franklin: "I am for doing good to the poor, but I differ in opinion of the means. I think the best way of doing good to the poor, is not making them easy in poverty, but leading or driving them out of it. In my youth I traveled much, and I observed in different countries, that the more public provisions were made for the poor, the less they provided for themselves, and of course became poorer. And, on the contrary, the less was done for them, the more they did for themselves, and became richer."

Before Christians jump on the social justice bandwagon that takes from the working haves and gives to the non-working have-nots, they might consider the moral trade offs.  While the nanny state certainly benefits some deserving, what about the many who obviously are working the system? What about the sense of entitlement, increasing with each generation?  And what about the literal stealing we are doing from futures generations?  Seems like a rather high moral price to pay in the name of feel good give-aways.  I think I'll stick with my own charitable giving--to the truly deserving, which does not include the world's richest poor, residing in the USA. 

StatefarmSteve, you need to broaden your vocabulary. I have frequently chided traditional Adventists for their incontinent citation of EGW as theological authority, without anyone protesting that I was using foul language. The word means unrestrained, which is what you exhibit with clocklike regularity on these blogs when you disparagingly reference conservative political figures to denigrate the ideas of those with whom you disagree, when your opponents have not used those figures as authority for their arguments. I did not use the term to attack your ideas, but to call you out on your tactics.

What do you hope to achieve by this tactic? How do you advance your argument by pointing out that Rush Limbaugh, Glenn Beck, or Sean Hannity share the same viewpoint as the person you are debating? It's an evasion designed to vent your political bile, not to respond to the merits of an argument. You seek to morally smear your opponent by identifying his or her opinion with a political figure you despise. It is this form of argument, not your ideas, which should embarrass you. 

My observations may have seemed out of the blue to you, but if you review your comments over time, you will realize that identifying your opponents' arguments with famous individuals whom the high priests of political correctness have stigmatized as unclean is a favorite tactic of yours whenever a blog turns political. I guess I am just weary of having to navigate around the Rush Limbaugh, Sean Hannity, Glenn Beck voodoo dolls that you insist on dragging out every time these topics arise.  You're too intelligent for that.

Elaine, great post. I agree totally with you. Our local church does absolutely nothing in the community. Zippo. My husband and I have to find outreach opportunities outside of the church.

Stephen, thank you for that post.

Nathan - it's fairly easy to see that your interjection represents a sharp decline in the quality of the conversation that was occurring between Kellee and I, and that you took an obvious personal slap at me.  If you're weary of navigating around me, then leave me alone.   

You chose to engage me directly, then complain about having to navigate around me.  If you're "tired" of navigating around me, then stay away from me and out of conversations that I'm in.  That would be a simple solution to your fatigue, wouldn't it?  It's common sense that my grade school-age kids can apply, most of the time.  

Beck, Limbaugh, and Hannity all make very, very good livings propagating the idea that a thing like Universal Healthcare is a waste of a trillion dollars, but a Middle East war is a wonderful use of a trillion dollars.  They also push the idea that Welfare is wasted on the rich - which is something that I didn't see when I worked in the welfare system.  Sure, I saw many who didn't deserve help, and virtually every person I saw had complicated their lives with poor choices.  The real victims were the children, whose parents were likely adult versions of themselves - victims all grown up, creating more victims, and fueling a vicious cycle.

There is a legitimate debate regarding Social Justice and the Church, especially in light of the recent official Church Statement and Glenn Beck's idea that you should "leave your church" if it uses the words Social Justice, which he says is "code" for communism, socialism, and anti-Christianity.  But there can't be a productive conversation until we acknowledge that there is both waste in the welfare system, and that it accomplishes successes that private charity, including churches, can't match.  

Stephen S provides a great perspective that he's gained from his work with medicaid patients, as has Kellee from her work in the courthouse.  I believe I also have a clear perspective from my work as a welfare caseworker.  There was no evasion in the conversation - only acknowledgement of differing views and gracious discussion.  

At least until you came along. 

Steve said:
The real victims were the children, whose parents were likely adult versions of themselves - victims all grown up, creating more victims, and fueling a vicious cycle.

Unfortunately, I think you've hit the nail on the head here. One of the frustrating things is that I believe most people who champion welfare or "social justice" (or whatever you want to call it) have good hearts filled with wonderful intentions and just want to help people. But maybe the ways we have gone about giving that help have created as many (if not more) problems than we were trying to solve in the first place. Certainly, though, I can agree with you that there have been many people who have used and benefited from welfare as a stop-gap measure to combat some misfortune that has come upon them. I'm glad for that.

Steve Moran,

You seem like a nice guy; far too nice, in fact, to be on a first-name basis with the likes of Hannity, Beck and Limbaugh.

statefarmsteve's agitation and the resultant regrettable back and forth is understandable only because it was agronomically predictable; since acrimony, negativity, "hatred, variance, emulations, wrath, strife, seditions, heresies" are their (S.H., G.B., and R.L.'s) fruits, in inevitable abundance.

Their ilk really need never to be demonized. What they invariably leave in their wake tells you all you need to know.

On another aspect of the general topic (having nothing whatever to do with the aforementioned triumverate, their ilk, or their fan base), it is sad when materially blessed Christians view themselves as victims of the poor because a fraction of their tax dollars goes to help some whom they have judged to be undeserving. 

Stephen Foster, Atoday Blogger

Actually, StatefarmSteve, if you take a look at what I said, most of my comment was very substantive and topic directed. I simply used the last paragraph of my post to point out what Kellee was too polite to respond to. Perhaps I should have treated you like a child and ignored the Limbaugh/ Beck stink bombs that you had planted in your two previous posts. It probably would have been more Christian. But you do it with such regularity that I felt compelled to call you on it.

Can you see that, when you call Limbaugh/Beck, et. al., liars and scoundrels, and then superimpose those faces on an opponent's viewpoint, you have made a very personal attack? Would you not take it personally if I personally attacked political figures whose views you respect, and then tied your arguments to them? Wouldn't I in essence be attacking you personally without ever actually dealing with your argument? What would you think if someone arguing against vegetarianism pointed out that his opponent sounded like Adolf Hitler, who also advocated a vegetarian diet?  

As I have observed many times before, if you want to have a productive, meaningful discussion, it is important to respond to an argument as your opponent has framed it rather than putting your own frame on it, and then attacking it as if it were your opponent's actual opinion. It's called a "straw man" argument. What you characterize as a rude intrusion by me into a cordial discussion was simply me outting you for unfairly framing the arguments of Kellee. The nature of blogs does not give you a free pass simply because the person you fouled doesn't call it on you. 

It is apparent, from the fact that you spent half of your recent comment again sticking pins into your talk show celebrity voodoo dolls, that you either lack the will or ability to restrain yourself when it comes to substituting drive-by political attacks for argument. Do you really expect your posts on this blog to be private conversations, preempting others from calling you on fallacious arguments and ad hominem attacks on famous people whose views offend you? You certainly have the right to make such attacks, but don't act like an innocent victim when you are called out.

Perhaps we all can agree that some of us are much more comfortable with the ilk of conservative pundits, and others are more comfortable with the ilk of liberal pundits. The ideas and styles of each can sometimes appear acrimonious, negative, and hateful, particularly if they oppose your agenda (Isn't it interesting how dissent - only two short years ago the highest form of patriotism - has now become "sedition", according to Stephen Foster). But since the pundits aren't on this blog, and since the ideas expressed on this blog are neither discredited nor enhanced by the character or number of pundits who may subscribe to them, why don't we just stick to discussing ideas rather than persist in suggesting that those who share the political philosophy of pundits we happen to find odious are not good people. Such puerile insinuations only fuel the fires of "regrettable back and forths" that some love to hate.

Very tongue-in-cheek, I cannot resist wondering, S. Foster, if your incendiary observation that "acrimony, negativity, 'hatred, variance, emulations, wrath, strife, seditions, heresies'" are the fruits of Hannity, Beck, and Limbaugh does not put them in good company with our Master, who seems to have left a similar legacy in His wake. 

Statefarmsteve said: 

The Wefare system "accomplishes succsesses that private charity, including churches, can't match."

Obviously when the government is able to borrow and print money to the tune of trillions, they certainly can do more for the needy than the churches with far more limited moneys (even with all the huge waste that goes with all government programs).  Think of how much more private charities could do with that kind of money.  Imagine the wonders our churches could accomplish if they could barrow all the tithes and offers from 5-10 generations to come.

Our government giveaways are done at what cost to the character of others? And what about the sad perpetuation of an increasing sense of entitlement from one generation to the next?  Just because the government can do it (at a horrible overhead cost compared to private charities, I might add), should we as Christians really be supporting policies of forced charity?  

I would suggests that our policies have done much to destroy the sense of obligation to find the needy and the practice charity in our own communities. Reversing this course could lead to more individual responsibility and voluntary (rather than forced) Christian giving.  I certainly know that as I have learned about the truly needy in the world, my local community gets almost nothing of my charitable giving.  It's hard to justify giving locally, when I know that over 70% of the worlds population has no refrigerator, no running water, not toilets.  I even have trouble justifying giving time locally, considering that the truly needy will benefit far more if I simply work more and give the money overseas.

If our president is truly motivated to increase the Government's Robinhood-like policies in the name of the Golden Rule, as he claims, then why not use this policy for the truly needy?  We could end all subsidized healthcare in the US (including medicare) and give all the money overseas, saving far more lives and preventing far more suffering than could ever be accomplished with using the money here.  If most of us in the US never saw another doctor the rest of our lives, we would still have lived far better than the vast majority of the world's population.

Monte's blog surrounds one single, loaded topic - that the church has released an official statement advocating Social Justice.  That statement puts our church and its membership at odds with and fully in the crosshairs of the following statement:

“I beg you, look for the words ‘social justice’ or ‘economic justice’ on your church website.  If you find it, run as fast as you can. Social justice and economic justice, they are code words.  Now, am I advising people to leave their church? Yes!” 

- Glenn Beck, March 2, 2010 

The contradictory nature of the discussion has not prevented it from being a productive, interesting one, excluding the priggish nature of Nathan's repeated interjections and personal attacks directed at me.  Of course, perhaps I should feel flattered that he sees fit to dedicate so much time and direct so many fancy words at me...  I know he usually charges a couple hundred dollars an hour to lavish his attention upon a person.  

Excellent points, Steve S., which highlight the reality that the "poor" in America are frequently used as mascots by the political class to concentrate power in the federal government, enlarge the dependent class, and rhetorically posture massive wealth transfers as a moral imperative. 

It is a law of economics that when you subsidize something - e.g., poverty, homelessness, or biofuels - you will get more of it; and when you tax something - labor or wealth - you will get less of it. Could it be that conservative economic and political principles may actually lead to a reduction in poverty, if only they could ever be tried? Naw, that's crazy! Everyone knows that solutions motivated by those who profess to act out of care and compassion " are automatically superior. 

Economic Facts and Fallacies by Thomas Sowell is an excellent primer on this subject. Walter Williams also posted an excellent column on the "curse" of being poor in America on June 30, 2010, in the Jewish World Review Online. These economists are remarkably lucid writers. 

StatefarmSteve, I must agree that you tend to show a penchant for bringing in the icons of the right as a way to dismiss or disparage certain views (check out several of your previous posts on the other blogs).  I'm not sure I've ever heard Beck or Limbaugh say that "Welfare is wasted on the rich."  But I'm willing to go with that.  While most would see this as an exaggeration (few would say that welfare recipients are "rich"), I think that the vast majority of the world's population in poverty would fully agree with that suggestion.  If they saw the standard of living of the poorest on welfare, they would definitely agree that "Welfare is wasted on the rich" (from their perspective). But maybe we consider that American citizens and our need to feel good about giving to them should trump the needs of "the least of these."

The real irony now is that the very policies that those advocating social justice in government currently claim are absolutely essential are largely based on the monstrous dependency and entitlement these same policies have helped create since the Great Depression.  I have had the sad opportunity to counsel several teen girls who tell of their plans to escape from their dysfunctional welfare family our policies helped create by getting pregnant, ensuring that they will be cared for since the babies obviously can't suffer. 

You say "I have yet to see a food stamps recipient who is in danger of the sin of extravagance."  Allow me to provide one.  My son was single parenting his kids and qualified for food stamps years back, (Of course never mind that,without the government giveaways, we certainly wouldn't have let him and our grandkids starve...an example of unnecessary assistance that I see all the time).  He used to say that as a vegetarian, he could never spend all the assistance provided and at the end of the month, he'd load up on Dove bars!  Seems like an extravagance to me.  And how many on food stamps are buying pizzas, ice cream and a host of unnecessary, often damaging food items? 

I have been saying for the past decade that the only solution is to have a reset that will result in at least a generation of terrible suffering, including on the part of the children.  This would have to occur while the population finally began to comprehend that they were indeed on their own (other than local communities caring for each other), as was the mentality when this country was founded.  My liberal friends would understandable argue that this would result in terrible evil and suffering that would simply be unacceptable.

A decade ago, I was arguing that the alternative of financial meltdown and anarchy would be far worse.  Of course this was labeled as a ridiculous notion. But looking at Greece and our current debt, what was once seen as fear-mongering appears sadly a far more realistic possibility.  How much further down this road of destruction will we go, all in the name of preventing unacceptable suffering?  How much longer will we continue to destroy the character of our country, robbing generations to come? How much more will we tolerate in terms of moral deterioration resulting from government policies that destroy the spiritual principles upon which this nation was founded--policies that ensure servitude of both the tax payers and the recipients of the public largess?

StatefarmSteve, do you have any evidence that Adventists are contemplating fleeing the Church because of Glenn Beck's exhortation? Do you have any evidence that participants on this blog endorse his view on this subject? At least when attendance goes down in NAD churches, we'll know who to blame.

Now, before you get too farklempt over this alarming development, take a deep breath. Go to your church's website, and see if you find the words "social justice" or "economic justice". If not, there is a possibility that your church may not yet be in Glenn Beck's "crosshairs". Mind you, I am not suggesting complacency here. I understand "they" are everywhere; and it will doubtless be only a matter of time until "they" get to the fine print of social justice policies that may not be posted on your church's website. Then of course "they'll" get the mailing list for church members, and then...well you know... it's all been prophesied. 

There is a silver lining, however, to this looming apocalypse. The Roman Catholic Church was preaching "social justice" long before Adventists discovered it. Why, they almost invented the term. Maybe Beck and his sycophants will go after the Catholic Church before taking on the Adventists.

Oh wait a minute...I just had a chilling thought...Could it be that "social justice" is really the Mark of the Beast?  Wow! Now there's something to think about, StatefarmSteve. Is it really prudent to be so closely aligned with the antiChrist? Could even the very enlightened and very elect be deceived and seduced by the good intentions of "social justice", a central tenet of Catholicism? And to think, you were worried about some of us being aligned with Glenn Beck!

Steve Moran,

In answer to your question, that which is sad is not necessarily immoral. While it is sad that well-to-do Christians consider themselves to be victims of those among the poor whom they have judged and concluded are undeserving of public assistance generally, and of their tax dollars specifically; I never labeled or classified it as immoral.

What I consider to be misplaced or misguided aggravation is not necessarily immoral. Likewise, while not necessarily advisable, neither is judging others (necessarily) immoral. It is just sad (to me), when both come from certain quarters.

Clearly, it is not sad to you. So be it. 

Stephen Foster, Atoday Blogger

http://adventist.org/beliefs/statements/global-poverty.html

Stephen S - I do often use the names of Beck, Hannity, and Limbaugh to label certain views, but I don't apply any such labels to people that hold them.  I don't denigrate people as dittoheads, sycophants, or FauxNewsFans.  "Conservative Icons" of talk radio and TV produce prodigious amounts of material on these subjects, and their sheer volume (both in noise and in scope) provides clarity to views that I often disagree with - that's why I frequently use their names when discussing these topics.   

I often find myself apologizing for the tone and tenor of Liberal political commentators - Stewart is smarmy, Bill Maher is nasty, Maddow is ugly, and Olberman, well, he's a piece of work.  I often find myself distancing myself from the antagonistic words of Jesse Jackson and the like (see Dan Gilbert thinks he's a slave owner...)  And these guys bat for my team, but it is what it is.

On another note, it would be tough to convince me that eating dove bars is a sin.  I find it interesting that your son and your grandchildren would have found themselves in a situation in which they would qualify for and receive food stamps.  I find it even odder that he did when you had the resources to help him out. Your son grew up in a two-parent household in which at least one of his parents was a college graduate and working professional.  In my experience, he's the last person I'd expect to see at the government aid office.  Most of the people he was standing in line with had no such advantages.  Most grew up in single parent households or without either of their parents present, no educated family role models, and no financial resources to draw from.  

In the scheme of things, the two programs that we are discussing here (Temporary Assistance for Needy Families and the Food Stamp Program) cost the federal government around $40 billion per year - a smidgen of the national budget.  For perspective, the annual military budget, excluding the Middle East Conflict cost, which exceeds $1 trillion overall, is about $700 billion.  

In other words, welfare isn't breaking our budget - warfare is.

It would be a travesty of epic proportion to cut welfare spending while increasing the amount we spend on tanks, aircraft carriers, missiles, bombs, and guns.   

Much could be said about the Church's Statement on Poverty, particularly the implication that elimination of poverty per se (who knows what people mean when they use the term poverty?) finds support in the life and teachings of Christ. I just find it incredibly incongrous to think that our Master - who said "blessed are the poor"; who had no place to lay His head; who never gave money to anyone, and never took money from anyone; who taught that material possessions are an impediment to seeing and entering the Kingdom; whose teachings and life led to servanthood, self-denial, and a cross, all freely chosen; who left a world that He had the power to transform much as He found it (full of disease, suffering, injustice, and oppression) - would endorse an agenda by His followers, in His name, to coercively redistribute resources from honest haves and doers of the world to the have-nots and do-nots of the world.

On a different level, as Steve S. pointed out, if the Church takes its statement seriously (which it obviously doesn't), it should first be advocating radical cutbacks in our own "opulent" welfare state. It should be calling on members of NAD congregations to ratchet back to subsistence lifestyles so that the Church can put its money where its mouth is. The reality of desperate need in the world outside America is a compelling argument to dismantle our nanny state and drastically reduce the standards of living to which we all have become accustomed. 

Enormous progress has been made over the past 60 years to reduce poverty and improve health throughout the Third World. This has been made possible largely through First World technology and the spread of First World values that produce wealth, such as the rule of law, religious freedom, free markets, and representative government. Countries that have refused to adopt these values lag far behind, depite massive infusions of aid and relief. Countries that have turned their backs on these values find themselves on the verge of bankruptcy and impoverishment. 

But for the anointed, the gap between an ideal - no matter how unattainable - and reality is a crisis requiring control and direction by the enlightened and morally superior (Is there a difference?) among us who are greatly concerned by the gap and who care deeply. For them, freedom and autonomy are far too unpredictable and chaotic to be entrusted in large quantities to plebes or the bourgeoisie. Those who have the ability and will to see the crisis, to diagnose the disease, are ipso facto best equipped to treat it. The benighted, to whom this reality is not self-evident are obviously responsible for causing and/or perpetuating the problem. In the words of our President, "They need to shut up and get out of the way." [And if they don't, we will shame them, tax them, or regulate them out of the way.] The notion that power should not be entrusted to those who are qualified by disposition, education and sentiment to heal the world, bring peace, and end hunger, because they are as greedy, self-centered, and corruptible as the rest of humanity, is viewed by the anointed as a deep insult and affront to all enlightened, thoughtful people of good will.

Unfortunately, the anointed never seem very interested in reality or history - only theory, ideology, and intentions; they are seldom willing to seriously discuss the adverse side effects that their policy cures will produce; and they never want to seriously talk about risks, benefits, and alternatives. Why? Because they have a vested interest in their prescriptions. Would you trust a physician like that? Of course not! Why would you trust the pathetically unqualified political class with such power?

It’s one thing to misquote one of us; it’s another to misquote Jesus. Jesus actually said (and meant) "blessed are the poor in spirit,” which is quite different than “blessed are the poor.” Thankfully, there are wealthy people who are poor in spirit. Regrettably, there are plenty of relatively poor people who are not.

That said, the problem—with everything—is the love of material wealth.The love of material wealth causes all sorts of warped thinking; not to mention evil. Indolence certainly causes poverty, but the love of material wealth deludes and disguises itself as virtue, and historically rationalizes exploitation and oppression, often in the very name of freedom no less.

Perhaps the willingness to allow a few schemers and scammers to benefit from “the system,” or to “game” it, in order that legitimate victims of the circumstances of birth, social pathology, tragedy, educational opportunity, apathy, greed, and/or the human condition in general might live in dignity and perhaps have bootstraps with which to pull themselves upward, is akin to the willingness of some to allow countless guilty murderers to live out their natural lives on taxpayer dollars (in prison) rather than allowing the possibility of one truly innocent, but wrongly convicted, individual to be unjustly executed.

Is it just a coincidence that many of the same people who are willing to let the undeserving poor benefit from the system, are also frequently the very same people who are willing to allow actually guilty murder convicts to live, in order that both the deserving poor and the rare, wrongly convicted murder defendant respectively, are likewise beneficiaries of benevolence and mercy; as opposed to respective victims of penuriousness and injustice? Perhaps, but I seriously doubt it.

There is no question that there are indolent gamers of the system; and generations of them at that. There are also industrious gamers of the “free enterprise” system, and generations of them; who likewise lack integrity, but often escape the scorn reserved for the more easily identifiable indolent.

Indolence is not the root of all kinds of evil; it is simply the cause of an undetermined amount of relative poverty, which cannot be discounted. The same however cannot be said of the love of money, nor of the veneration of any system in which this love (of material wealth, capital, and money) is celebrated and rewarded. It is the problem and source—indeed the very root—of all kinds of evil. This is an inescapable and undeniable truth. Need we supply attribution? 

Stephen Foster, Atoday Blogger

Statefarmsteve, you say "'Conservative Icons' of talk radio and TV produce prodigious amounts of material on these subjects, and their sheer volume (both in noise and in scope) provides clarity to views that I often disagree with."  How would this provide clarity?  Given the "sheer volume" and "noise" it seems like there is far more potential to obfuscate rather than clarify, unless you address the specific issues raised by others here (and if you do, why cite these guys?).

Several who oppose your views find your citing of these individuals to be far more directed at dismissing and disparaging views of others on this blog than attempting to provide clarity.  It's quite clear that most who you oppose would much prefer that you directly address the arguments presented, rather than throw in names of others who may or may not hold identical views.  Perhaps I am still missing something here and you may wish to provide some examples from your postings here on how referencing these icons has clarified and furthered the discussion.

You say, "I often find myself apologizing for the tone and tenor of Liberal political commentators."  Why?  I have enough to apologize for in my own life without taking any responsibility for the prima donnas in media on the right or the left.  I just can't see how any of these icons are in any way relevant here, unless they say it better than I could and I quote them.  The only other time they are relevant is when the blog is dealing with them directly, like one that might ask about the church's role in Beck's tea party movement.  Otherwise, other than these guys having a bigger forum and being more famous than me, I believe my own experience, values and ideas are equally relevant, especially in this forum.

You go on to say, "it would be tough to convince me that eating dove bars is a sin."  Where did I say anything about sin? You mentioned the sin of extravagance, though clearly there could be much debate on when extravagance is sinful (Mary Magdalene being an example of extravagance sanctioned).  I certainly don't think dove bars are a sin and never suggested such.  But hopefully most can agree that when we're giving away money to the needy, using it to purchase unneeded food items is extravagant. (I'm sure that that the 25,000 who will die of starvation related diseases tomorrow would certainly agree.)  And would you grant that sellingl food stamps for drugs would qualify as an extravagance?

I was rather taken aback by your observations about my son's situation.  You seem to suggest that if someone is raised in a good stable home they will not find themselves in desperate straights.  I've been working with people on the public dole for over 25 years, while it appears that your own experience with them is much more limited.  This may explain your tendency to stereotype.

Obviously, even when you do the right things and act responsibly, it doesn't guarantee a good outcome.  I'm rather surprised by your implicit assumptions around this.  I've seen numerous people in my practice whose parents are professional and yet they end up in tough straights, based on either poor choices or being the victim of circumstances (yes, even I believe there are victims, but far fewer that the left suggests).  I also have seen several who choose to go on public assistance, while parenting and going to school.  Then there are rich grandparents caring for their druggy kid's children, taking them to vacations in Hawaii.  They qualify for medical coupons based on their druggy parents, though the grandparents could easily afford their medical care.  If you're upset with people getting care when others like me can provide support, so am I.  This is one of the problems with the nanny state.  Besides undermining individual responsibility, many, (in my experience most) aren't truly needy.

If you must know my son's situation, his ex had serious problems and left the family, leaving him with two children under six.  With the need to be a full-time parent and full-time student and an ex providing no child support, he obviously qualified for public assistance.  Also implicit in your observation seems to be the notion that he should have sought support from us rather than the public dole.  Why?  He knows we don't give handouts and he would only be adding to his debt to us.  Should his hard times result in a sizable debt, while others without parents of means go on the public dole and come out debt free?

Maybe you didn't intend it, but I resent the implications that my son shouldn't have been on food stamps because in your opinion he was far less deserving than others.  I suppose you would also say that I shouldn't itemize deductions on my tax return, since I don't need to save as much on taxes as others.  But your discomfort with my son standing in line with others points to the problem with government assistance.  Someone is deciding on winners and losers.  And who would you trust to fairly decide that?  Do you really think that decisions on winners and losers in the current economic crisis were fair, where labor union pension funds get bailed out while bond holders are left holding the bag, or where bogus stimulus dollars only benefited certain businesses?

The world isn't fair.  My wife just died prematurely two months ago.  Life sucks.  But when the government tries to make it fair, it just ends up making things worse, and given human nature, it becomes an inevitable a power grab, whoever is in office. 

As to your budget issue, however we decided to spend, let's require a balanced budget and pay our way with the required spending cuts.  I'm actually more concerned with what the nanny state is doing to destroy our morals than with the unconscionable debt.  It's debatable, but I think moral decay will destroy us first.  And at this point I have mixed feelings about railing against all this. If we continue on this course, I can look forward to soon seeing the end of time and joining my dear wife. 

Stephen Foster,

You might want to take another look at your Bible - try Luke 6:20. I am not a Biblical scholar, but I have heard theologians suggest that Luke's version - "Blessed are the poor" - is probably more accurate than Matthew's account - "Blessed are the poor in spirit".  I'm not sure why you are so confident of knowing what Jesus meant. But St. Luke is probably at least as good authority for what He said as you are. If I misquoted Jesus, it is only because St. Luke misquoted Him. Is that your contention? 

We agree, Stephen, that the love of money is the root of all evil. Do poor people love wealth less than rich people? Do those who would redistribute money love it less than those from whom they take it? Were it possible to achieve equality in the distribution of wealth, would people love it any less? As Solzhenitsyn observed, the line dividing good and evil cuts through the center of each human heart. So just how is legislated wealth redistribution going to change human hearts? 

No, I don't think it is just a coincidence that those who would indulge indolence also are likely to coddle criminals. Neither is it a virtue. It is a dangerous pathology which has an insidious effect on character and society. David Warren has observed that  "It is an axiom of human nature, true in all cultures at all times and places, that if you reward bad behavior you will get more of it." Furthermore, you will always end up punishing or penalizing good behavior. As the Talmud puts it: "All who are made to be compassionate in the place of the cruel in the end are made to be cruel in the place of the compassionate." This passage has also been translated as "Those who are kind to the cruel in the end will be cruel to the kind." 

• Abandon their entire family (25%)
• Become prostitutes for a week or more (23%)
• Give up their American citizenship (16%)
• Leave their spouse (16%)
• Withhold testimony, letting a murderer go free (10%)
• Kill a stranger (7%)
• Put their children up for adoption (3%)

Those ten year old stats would in all likelihood by higher today.  And I think it's safe to say that among the indigent population, those percentages would be much higher. When I see those stats I shake my head in amazement over how liberals can have such a positive take on the morals and motivarions or our population.

Right now I could lie in bed for six months and scrape by, while seeing some shrinks to easily get diagnosed with Major Depression. It wouldn't be that hard an act, given my current state after my wife's recent passing.  They'd say that I was burned out, being her caretaker for years and then losing her and now depressed and suicidal.  I'd flush the several trials of antidepressants that they gave and say they didn't work.  Finally, I'd apply for disability, and with an attorney, trust me, I'd get it. (I've seen far to many with far less justification.)

Between my disability policy and SS, I'd collect over 8,000 monthly with cost of living increases for the rest of my life.  Am I stupid or what?  I have morals and without them, I'd be on the dole.  But given the stats above, there are millions with no such moral compunctions.  When the left claims the vast majority on the dole are deserving, they are both naive and in denial of the reality of present day morals and our basic human nature. I wished I could be so positive about our basic goodness, but my experience and Scripture teaches otherwise.

Schilts,

I happily stand corrected on Luke 6:20; my wife ("the woman whom thou gavest..."?) suggested that I "correct” you, "...and I did eat." (It won't happen again.) LOL

Seriously though, since Jesus said "blessed are the poor" (and/or "...the poor in spirit"), why do some of us seem to take the somewhat contradictory position that, instead, indeed "blessed are the wealthy; for they are the job creators"...while apparently taking the (opposite) corollary position; which would in effect be "cursed are those poor whom ye believe to be scamming that which ye have grudgingly rendered unto Caesar"? 

You can't have it both ways; since it is true that the love of money is, indeed, the root of all evil," how can anyone simultaneously hold that though this is true, Gordon Gekko was essentially right as well? Whether the “blessed” poor among us love money more or less than those who have it is not quite the point. Neither the tax system, nor capitalism, nor socialism (nor any other -ism) is designed “to change human hearts.” The point is that loving material wealth is the root cause of all of our problems; and any system actually designed to encourage, celebrate and reward such love (if there is such a system) is not necessarily virtuous.

Finally, Nathan, you either did not carefully read, or clearly misunderstood, my parallel regarding the death penalty. Being unwilling to take the chance of executing an innocent convict does not equate to coddling criminals. Never did I hint at a willingness “to coddle” or release those adjudicated to be guilty. It is however, roughly analogous to being more “willing” to perhaps permit many (Stephen) to game the system if, in so doing, relatively few—and preferably none—of the deserving poor fall between the proverbial cracks. Your misunderstanding may well have been my fault; but perhaps you should read it again. 

Stephen Foster, Atoday Blogger

From Stephen S:

How would this provide clarity?  

Conservative Icons have clearly outlined conservative positions which in my view are indefensible.  My view is further reinforced when in the many posts above, people defend Beck and Limbaugh and attack me, and pointedly ignore the questions I pose about those conservative positions.  In this particular case, Beck has labeled our "official church position" (and those who've read my writing know how I feel about official church positions...) as socialist, nazi, communist drool, and exhorts us to not just leave, but to turn and run the other way.  What should we do?  And the response is - "Steve, you're mean to Conservative Icons!"

So, in light of the "fact" (Glenn Beck loves facts, you know) that we now worship in what has been deemed by a conservative icon to be a socialist, nazi, communist church that is attacking our freedom to read the bible, what should we do?

I do tend to apologize too much for too many things that I don't bear direct responsibility for, and for that, I'm sorry.  I'll try to stop.

The discussion regarding the "sin of extravagance" stemmed from the EGW quote provided by Kellee regarding not laying on charity so thick as to foster the "sin of extravagance."  My reply was that I haven't seen too many welfare people that are guilty of the "sin of extravagance."  You said you would provide an example of it, and related the story your son's purchase of dove bars.  I then said I didn't think eating dove bars was a sin - perhaps in his situation a little extravagant, but does it rise to the level of sin?  I don't think so, but who am I to judge?  I don't expect your son to eat gruel until he gets back on his feet.

In your 25 years you've seen a much more limited slice of the welfare pie than I saw in my time.  You see people seeking mental treatment or have been ordered into mental treatment.  I saw the whole gamut.  You, unless I miss my guess, are limited to doctor/patient relationships.  I chose not to limit my relationships to counselor/welfare recipient.  I spent time with them, talked with them, sat in their living rooms, my kids played with their kids, they ate at my dinner table and I ate at theirs.  I ate a lot of generic boxed macaroni and cheese, canned tuna, peanut butter sandwiches, and "ghetto spaghetti" made from generic noodles, bulk hot dogs, and ketchup.  No dove bars, though.  I cried with them when they lost, and celebrated with them when they won.  I still count many of them as my friends, and when I return to my hometown, I can't walk around town without seeing some of them working in jobs and careers that I helped them get.  I seriously doubt that my experience is "much more limited" than yours.  You are using your professional experience as perspective on the entire welfare system, which is akin to the team doctor for the LA Lakers pronouncing that based on his extensive professional experience, the entire US population is a tall black male millionaire.

I am absolutely dumbfounded that you'd disband a system that your son once needed.  I didn't suggest that he should have gone to you instead of the government (you were the one who pointed out that you wouldn't have let him starve) - I believe that the safety net is there for people like your son.  You and your brother (and Beck and Limbaugh for that matter) are the ones that suggest that those who advocate providing the govenment safety net and those that use the safety net are immorally stealing your money.

I make no judgement on your son's situation or his decision to apply for and take a government handout as opposed to accruing debt to you in order to eat and feed his children.  I can't help but wonder though how you feel about your son using what you believe is an immoral system to avoid debt as opposed to taking a principled loan from you to feed his family.  

Most importantly, the question of paying for welfare or warfare is not just a "budget issue."  You referred to our Robin Hood government that steals from the rich to give to the poor.  If anything, the overwhelming bulk of what we is "stolen" from the rich goes to funding the massive American war machine. Less than a dime goes to welfare for every dollar that goes to warfare.  This ratio pretty clearly demonstrates to me that we have much more to fear from taxation by a Rambo government than we do from a Robin Hood government.   

Statefarmsteve: I'd prefer that, when defending your position that I have challenged you limit yourself to my posts.  I haven't seen much in terms of defense of Beck or Limbaugh here, and I certainly haven't defended them.  I think that when you see others defending positions that you equate with those of conservative icons, you equate this with a defense of them.  I have enough work defending my own position and certainly have little interest in defending them.  I think they are more than capable of doing that for themselves. 

But as the your specific attack on Beck for his attack on the social justice position of the church, as usual this is about context. It is quite clear that Beck is speaking of social justice as defined by the left, meaning the forced redistribution of wealth.  He was advising that where churches make this social justice message a primary corner stone of their message, believers should be looking for another fellowship.  With that particular position, I tend to agree and having said that, attacking my position on this is fair game.  But you didn't really need to bring Beck into this and up to now, it has confused the picture.  By bringing him in, you appear to equate the SDA statement on social justice to the left's position on this, only adding to the confusion. 

Maybe you have some special way of discerning the meaning ot this statement, but it is certainly far from clear to me.  Do you take from that statement that the church is promoting your version of social justice, supporting the government mandated redistribution of wealth as lauded by our president? By suggesting that Beck equates our church position "as socialist, nazi, communist drool, and exhorts us to not just leave, but to turn and run the other way," it is quite clear that you believe the SDA church is fully on board with Obama's redistributive change.  I certainly hope you are wrong and if the church is indeed promoting the notion of forcibly taking from the rich and giving to the poor, injecting itself and it's member into politics to that degree, then, indeed I would suggest people leave and find a fellowship that is far more centered on Christ and his kingdom rather than the politics of this kingdom.

"I don't expect your son to eat gruel until he gets back on his feet."  Actually, if we are going to provide any safety net for the poor, it would best be done in a manner that would discourage people from choosing this route and have them wanting to end their dependence ASAP.  Toward that end, I indeed would advocate something just this side of eating gruel.  After all, being full of gruel is way ahead of the 25,000 who daily die of starvation related diseases in this world.  So I would advocate the poor being given basic food stuffs....flour, beans, rice, etc., healthful nutritious food.  While this is still marketable, it would be much less likely to be used to purchase drugs than food stamps. Also, when you take away freedom of choice, you motivate people to get off the system.

Would my perspective gain any more credence with you if I told you of all my colleagues who have worked in DSHS and are sicken by all the scamming and gaming of the system going on?  My two daughters in law are social workers and could fill these blogs with a plethora of examples.  Also, over the years, many of the social workers I have worked with have previously worked at DSHS or go on to work there.  Their feedback fully supports my concerns.  In fact, I was much less the heartless conservative before talking with them and having my own parallel experience.  

"I am absolutely dumbfounded that you'd disband a system that your son once needed."  Well at least I'm consistent and not trying to make exceptions when it meets my needs.  I just can't see where Christ was at all invested in governments getting involved in caring for the poor.  He could cure poverty tomorrow, but I assume his goal is much more about changing hearts than changing poverty.  I see no hearts change by a forced redistribution of wealth.  If anything, it increased resentment and destroys charity on the part of individuals and groups in local community.  And it is quite clear that many on welfare would have friends and family pull together and help if there was no safety net.  Still, if the safety net were as bare bones as I suggest, I think I could support that, since, in the market place, Welfare would be far less attractive, leading to greater individual responsibility.

"I can't help but wonder though how you feel about your son using what you believe is an immoral system to avoid debt as opposed to taking a principled loan from you to feed his family."  This observation is more than bizarre.  Are you suggesting that where we have other options, we shouldn't take advantage of every legal opportunity provided by the government?  That would mean that you would advocate that, since I consider SS to be an immoral pyramid scheme, I not take SS when I am eligible, since I can afford not to.  So let me get this straight: You want to have a government that confiscates my wealth in order to redistribute it to the poor and also advocate that I voluntarily give up any benefits from government that I consider to stem from an immoral system? You might want to run that by the debt commision as, if it could be sold, it could make a sizable dent in the debt.

As I previous said, when it comes to budgetary concerns, I'm more concerned with moral than economic destruction that comes with the nanny state.  But while there is huge waste in the military, it is a primary function of our government as set up in the Constitution, something that certainly cannot be said for Welfare. 

Perhaps somewhere in this discussion it might be good to consider that the SDA church is a world-wide church, and that most SDAs do not live in the US.  All the issues you are discussing may actually be irrelevant to most SDAs.  Many live in countries where any form of social welfare is rudimentary, if it exists at all.  They also live in countries where giving any assistance of any kind across racial/ethnic/tribal/religious lines is the exception.  In most of the world, taking advantage of welfare simply isn't an option.  When the SDA church makes an official announcement like this, it is not likely to be doing so in the context of just one country.  Most of the world believes, at least in theory, that taking care of the welfare of its citizens is indeed a central function of government.  What the US constitution states is irrelevant to about 90% of SDAs.

Kevin

Kevin, when you say, "it might be good to consider that the SDA church is a world-wide church," I certainly agree.  That is why I suggested that Christians who wish to suggport the notion of government forced dedistribution of wealth should also advocate immediately ending entitlement programs here in favor of funding the "least of these" in the third world. 

I also fully agree that the US constitution is relatively irrelevant compared to God's church.  (Some might even argue the SDA church takes a rather back seat to God's Church.).  I was responding to concerns about the US budget and what were sanctioned responsibilities of government by our founding (the military being a clear one, whereas nothing is written about Welfare).  Clearly our founding fathers nevver intended "general welfare" to mean today's Welfare. 

But what I advocate and practice as an individual follower of Christ is different than what I advocate in government that implements policies for believers and non-believers. That is one of the difficulties in this and other blogs.  We seem to always be trying to superimposed our spiritual values on government and it never works well.  I can engage in a lively discussion of the pros and cons of government policies in various areas, as it applies to the pragmatics of managing diverse communities with individuals holding highly variable belief systems and values here on earth.  I can do the same with discussions of applying spiritual values to how we best show love to others, both as fellowship communities and as individuals.  But when the two are mixed, it doesn't work well, and leads to people feeling that their morals are being judged. This has little to do with the issues of our salvation and that of others, which is, after all, what we are all about.

Certainly I would hope that the SDA statement on social justice is simply meant to indicate that part of our committment to love one another involves concern for the lot of the least of these.  And looking at the world wide community, in terms of concerns with social justice, Church commitment to the least of these would be almost wholly ignoring the NAD, given limited resources and the terrible condition of others around the world.  I'm ignoring any advocacy of government policy in this, as I assume that the SDA church is not so naive and misguided as to think they have any role in advocating the leftist notion of government mandated social justice, something which clearly has no support in scripture.

You appropriately note, "What the US constitution states is irrelevant to about 90% of SDAs." I would add that 90% of SDA's worldwide find the leftist agenda for government mandated social justice here to also be irrelevant.  Considering the desperate situation of the least of these world wide, it is my hope that we in the NAD will also find this bogus agenda irrelevant. 

From Stephen S

Statefarmsteve: I'd prefer that, when defending your position that I have challenged you limit yourself to my posts.

Stephen S, if you've challenged my position, shouldn't I be free to defend it as I see fit?  I apologize if using references to Beck makes you uncomfortable, but it is sometimes both easier, and in my opinion clearer, to use his widely known positions as a framework, rather than use broad generalizations such as "all my colleagues who have worked in DSHS and are sicken by all the scamming and gaming of the system going on..."

As for the SDA Official Statement we are discussing, it seems pretty clear to me that it uses the language that Beck says is code for Naziism, Socialism, and Communism.  There doesn't seem to be a need for me to have a "special way" to discern the meaning...

After reading your previous post, I'm still amazed that you defend your son's use of an immoral means to support his children (and buy dove bars) on the basis of its legality.   It would be legal for my daughters to "pole dance" for dollar bills in order to pay their way through medical school, but I would neither idly sit by and watch it happen nor would I defend their behavior based on its legality.  

You criticize what you view to be a "Robin Hood" government that steals from the rich and gives to the poor, yet assert that your criticism is mostly based on the harm, or "moral decay" caused to the poor.  If you are truly not really offended by the tax burden and deficit spending (which I pointed out is influenced much more heavily by warfare than welfare) then I have few arguments with you, excepting our differing belief on the question of whether or not welfare does more harm to the recipients than good, and the question you raised of the constitutionality of a welfare system for the poor vs an exponentially more expensive warfare system.  

It seems I need to remind you that there is as much in the US constitution that authorizes a perpetually standing federal army as there is that authorizes welfare for the poor.  Moreover, the authors of the constitution specifically opposed any federal army that could overwhelm state militias, and as a protective measure against this, limited the funding of a federal army to 2 years or less.  Constitutionality is a moot debating point between us, though, as the SCOTUS doesn't seem to have a problem with either welfare or warfare.  

At any rate, we'd gotten to the point in our discussion in which Kellee and I had agreed that the system is both helpful to some and abused by others.  I believe those whom it helps, including your son and grandchildren, makes welfare worthwhile, especially when compared with the equally constitutionally questionable and exponentially more expensive national warfare budget.  Are we able to agree to disagree, or is further discussion warranted?

Stephen Schilt,

Let me see if I understand you correctly; in so far as the federal budget is concerned, you are “more concerned with moral than economic destruction that comes with the nanny state,” and though you acknowledge the “huge waste in military [spending],” you can live with it, because military spending “is a primary function of our government as set up in the Constitution, “while the same cannot be said of Welfare spending.

In a subsequent posting, you express “hope that the SDA statement on social justice is simply meant to indicate that part of our commitment to love one another involves concern for the lot of the least of these” and that while this is presumably a good thing, “advocating the leftist notion of government mandated social justice” is not scriptural, and is presumably a bad thing (because it is “leftist”).

Further, because the poor in other parts of the world are much poorer than are the poor in the NAD, the NAD poor are not actually among “the least of these,” so neither should the NAD, nor the U.S. federal government, nor individuals such as yourself, focus much attention or devote much of their (your) limited resources, to them; particularly since according to your personal Constitutional interpretation, Supreme Court precedent relating to the General Welfare and the Elastic (Necessary and proper) Clauses notwithstanding, the founders did not anticipate Congress’ providing for assistance to the less fortunate, whereas they did make provision for war and national defense. Besides, any advocacy for poverty relief legislation is leftist/bad and non-scriptural, and does more moral harm than good anyway.

Yet, you opine that it is not advisable to mix a discussion of spiritual values and priorities with one of governmental policy, precisely because doing so “leads to people feeling that their morals are being judged.”

Have I summarized your position fairly and accurately? 

Stephen Foster, Atoday Blogger

The most recent Time poll shows that the U.S. citizens would prefer that Congress      reduce spending in these areas:

Wars in Afghanisan and Iraq              55%

Other defense spending                    46%

Unemployment compensation          34%

Medicaid                                           20%

Medicare                                           16%

Social Security                                   12%

 If the present wars and defense spending were cut drastically, there would be more for our own citizens in the form of unemployment compensation and medical needs.  Not included is the tremendous sums that will be necessary for many years to care for the veterans of this and previous wars. 

Statefarmsteve:

You say: "if you've challenged my position, shouldn't I be free to defend it as I see fit? I apologize if using references to Beck makes you uncomfortable."  You are certainly free to defend you position however you see fit, citing Donald Duck or anyone else you choose.  But when several here tell you that it adds nothing to the discussion, suggesting such citings have another agenda (with no one indicating how helpful this is), I would think you might choose a different tactic.

If I responded to your opinions by quoting Louis Farrakhan, Maureen Dowd, or Frank Rich, whom you do not reference as authority, or if I suggested that some of the opinions of Left wing radicals whose opinions you reflect were a broadside against the Church, you would doubtless cry foul. But if you're that stubbornly wedded to using right wing icons in your arguments and find some sort of comfort in this, regardless of others take on it, just have at it.  For those into logic and intellectually honest debate, it obviously does nothing to persuade and therefore tends to enhance the position of the opposition.  I wasn't indicating a discomfort with your use of these icons, but rather was making a suggestion that might help clarify rather than obfuscated the discussion.  However, when ones position is more untenable, obfuscation is often preferable.  

When you accuse me of broad generalization in saying that "all my colleagues who have worked in DSHS and are sicken by all the scamming and gaming of the system going on," I'm rather curious as what crystal ball leads you to that conclusion. I also wonder why your find your own experience and perceptions are more important and valid than my perceptions and experiences and those of my colleagues. What I said was factually correct.  Every individual I know who has worked at DSHS complains incessantly about what an inefficient, overloaded bureaucracy it is, feeling that while well intentioned, it is often doing more harm that good.  And they indeed lament all those gaming of the system all the time.  I don't recall anyone in a discussion on this who doesn't agree (though I'm sure the top bureaucrats would disagree).  That certainly doesn't mean that they believe that all are gaming the system, something which I never suggested.

You seem to be somewhat locked in to specific words rather than the meaning behind the words.  While "social justice" certainly has become a loaded term, you have yet to define what you believe the SDA church means when it uses this term.  You and I would both say we believe in social justice, but would certainly not agree on what exactly this meant and how it shold be implemented.  And I suspect that if you quizzed them, many SDA]s would also have rather differing opinions on this.  I also wonder whether our leaders would want to clarify this.  Most institutions love to pass generalized statements that are subject to all kinds of interpretation, so that members can claim support for highly variable positions. 

Since you continually cite Beck's statement on social justice (which obviously means the leftist political position on this) it appears that you believe this is identical to what the church means in their statement.  I have not read the statement and sadly, you may be correct in this assumption. But even so, this position statement would have no more impact or relevance to the members than other denominational statements. Just consider how influential the Catholic church's position on abortion and birth control has been among it's members in the USA. Frankly, if one my fellow members was so influenced by a media icon and had a limited commitment, such that a statement like Beck's was going to have them leaving my church, I'm not sure there would be much loss there.  

When you make arguments such as likening my support for my son taking food stamps to the hypothetical of you supporting your daughter in pole dancing, I'm left almost speechless.  How are you able to get your brain to wrap around such a complete non-sequitur? First, I really have a problem with the way you continually refer to things I never said.  Where did I say that food stamps is "an immoral mean's of support?" And again, what does dove bars have to do with morality?  I never indicated that those who legitimately qualify for food stamps and accept them are immoral.  I said that the the nanny state, of which that is a part, tends to undermine the morality of the population.  But you are clearly suggesting that I believe all who take food stamps are immoral. 

I would not support any of my children choosing to pursue actions which I believe to be immoral.  I prefer to label results rather than a given government institution as immoral.  I know many people at DSHS and I don't believe most are immoral. People, not institutions are immoral, though by their policies, institutions can increase the likelihood of immorality among people. Are you suggesting that if I'm willing to take legal advantage of institutions that I believe end up furthering immorality in others, I am supporting immorality?  But that logic, since I believe SS has been an immoral pyramid scheme, I suppose that you would find my action in applying for social security equates with accepting my daughter pole dancing.  Since as a pacifist, you view our military and most of it's actions to be immoral, do you find it immoral to accept the benefits of freedom (which most would say has only been possible through a strong defense and the horrendous sacrifice by others)?    

When you say, "You criticize what you view to be a "Robin Hood" government that steals from the rich and gives to the poor," you are once again referencing things I never said.  Please quote things you want to respond to, since most of your paraphrasing is simply not accurate.  I have never labeled government actions as like Robin Hood stealing from the rich.  Conservatives often make that comparison.  However whatever the government collects in my taxes is perfectly legal and therefore not stealing as Robin Hood did (though at the time, some might consider his civil disobedience to be more moral that the government actions).  While I am most concerned with the what I see as Welfare's impact on the morality of the population, I am also extremely concerned with the immorality of borrowing from future generations (whether that is based on our military or entitlement programs).

The fact that SCOTUS has no problem with welfare or warfare is hardly a ringing endorsement from the standpoint of morality, given their other decisions on issues such as segregation, which they have supported in the past.  I'm sure we would agree on that.  As I have previously observed, this discussion gets confusing at times, since we seem to mix arguments on the pragmatics of government (in referencing the constitution) with arguments of morality and spiritual values that are impacted by government policy (and to what extent the church should advocate around this).  I find it is a problem when the right attempts to legislate their version of morality (school prayer, family values, etc) and also when the left does the same (with social justice, redistributive change, etc. for our "collective salvation"). That being said, in terms of constitutionality, I think it's clear that throughout our US history, there has been little disagreement with the constitutionality of the military, something present since our inception.  The same can hardly be said for Welfare.  Were we ignoring constitutional mandates when we had no entitlements for the first 150 years of our existence?

In terms of further discussion, I'd like to better understand what specifically you believe the SDA statement on social justice means.  Also, in that context, I still haven't gotten a response to why Welfare in the US should take precedence over meeting the far more urgent needs of worldwide poverty.

Stephen Foster:

I think from an accuracy standpoint that, with few exceptions, you've summarize some aspects of my position fairly, though some might question the tone.

In terms of the military, that could be a rather lengthy blog by itself and I don't want to get to far off track.  In fairness, I don't believe I suggested that I could live with military waste. I cringe at and lament government waste at every level, which is one of the reasons I strongly support limited government.  There are many fiscal conservatives, such as Ron Paul who don't support our military ventures, and I must say that I have very strong reservations about Obama's current escalation in Afghanistan.  

I also am not against government mandated social justice because it is a leftist view. I am against it because I believe as a policy, however much suffering it relieves in some, it causes much greater overall harm and simply doesn't work in the long run.  This belief is not only based on my observations of history and my own experience, but also based on Scripture as I read it.

Since you find that the founding father's General Welfare and the Elastic (Necessary and proper) Clauses were intended to have congress provide for the poor, why were the deserving (those far more needy than the poor today) for the first 150 years of our existence largely ignored?  Did the congress until the 1930's somehow overlook and ignore this crucial constitutional mandate?

In terms of mixing spiritual values with government policy, this is obviously rather inevitable in any discussion.  Allow me to clarify.  At an individual level, people of faith will do this all the time, and it is impossible to divorce my advocacy or opposition to certain government policies from my faith and spiritual values.  My problem is when my community of faith goes beyond a give and take discussion among it's members to take an official position on claiming that morally we should be advocating for government mandated social justice.  By logical extension, it seems like this makes those of us opposed to such a position immoral in the church's eyes. We can disagree as individuals, but an official stand like this inevitably is experienced as judgmental.  I would also suggest that this kind of advocacy on the church's part is far more likely to result in loss of church members than anything Beck might say. 

On July 14, 2010 Stephen Schilt said

If our president is truly motivated to increase the Government's Robinhood-like policies...

On JULY 19, 2010 Stephen Schilt said

When you say, "You criticize what you view to be a "Robin Hood" government that steals from the rich and gives to the poor," you are once again referencing things I never said.  Please quote things you want to respond to, since most of your paraphrasing is simply not accurate.  I have never labeled government actions as like Robin Hood stealing from the rich. 

Oops - must have misinterpreted your July 14th reference to the Governments Robinhood-lie policies as criticism, whereas you must have been referring to another literary character named Robin Hood who stole from the rich and gave to the poor.

On July 15, 2010 Stephen Schilt said

I have morals and without them, I'd be on the dole.  But given the stats above, there are millions with no such moral compunctions.   

On July 19, 2010 Stephen Schilt said

Where did I say that food stamps is "an immoral mean's of support?"  

Again - Oops.  I must have misinterpreted what you meant in your previous post when you referred to morals and "the dole." And RobinHood-like policies, which as we can see that you clearly wrote about above, do involve stealing from the rich.  Accepting stolen property or money would certainly be immoral - and as you said above, without morals, you'd be on the dole.  

Stephen S, I'm just not sure what you're saying and not saying... 

Stephen Schilt,

In fairness, you didn’t say that you could live with military waste, but the clear inference was that military spending was at least constitutionally mandated or at least referenced, whereas social welfare spending on the poor is not; so that while you are not happy with wasteful military spending you accept it as at least a constitutional fait accompli.

If you are “not against government mandated social justice because it is a leftist view,” perhaps it would be fair to say that you are against it partly because it is not scriptural in your view, especially since you have said so twice, once in two separate posts. Now what that has to do with governmental spending is frankly baffling. The U.S. Constitution may inform what you believe to be appropriate governmental spending priorities, but if you claim that the Bible does so as well you have opened Pandora’s Box; as you must surely know. There are Christians who read Acts 4:32 and have accordingly advocated what you would certainly consider to be communism as the economic ideal for a Christian-based community. Perhaps we can agree that we just don’t want to go there at all; in either instance.

I don’t know if you read my comment drawing somewhat of a mirror image parallel with the opposition of many to the death penalty on the grounds that the risk of executing even one innocent convict is not worth whatever social utility is derived from the imposition of the penalty; with that of your opposition to social welfare spending on the grounds that though it may actually help some people, the negative unintended consequences that you perceive result from such spending, are not worth the social utility of helping those who may be legitimately benefitted through this means.

I would suggest that agreeing with the former (death penalty opposition reasoning) and disagreeing with the latter (social welfare opposition reasoning) is simply a matter of willfully erring on the side of justice for those deserving of justice, and of mercy for those deserving of mercy.

Besides, just because there are industrious entrepreneurial individuals who have found ways to unethically game the capitalist system for the sake of greed and the love of money is certainly not a reason, I’m sure, to do away with the capitalist system. Why then should we dismantle the social welfare system, just because there are unethical indolent individuals who game that system as well?

As for American constitutional history and the founders’ intentions relative to social welfare spending, keep in mind that the laws that are passed in a representative republic are to some extent reflections of what the voters, to whom those representatives are accountable, either want, perceive a need for, or demand. You will of course recall that the founders, and just as importantly, the voters for the first roughly 130 years of our history as a nation were practically all land owning males, a few of whom “owned” more than just land. (In fact, prior to the ratification of the Constitution there were religious tests in some colonies for voting privileges.) As the franchise has been extended to a larger demographic cross section of the populace, the laws that have been passed have increasingly reflected the wants, perceived needs, or demands of that expanded, more economically diverse electorate. To the framers' credit, the General Welfare and Elastic Clauses have provided for the accommodation of this reality.

Stephen Foster

Adventist Today blogger

http://www.atoday.com/blogs/stephen-foster

Two questions, Steve,

 Do you believe that the unemployment compensation should be extended? 

Are you presently employed or unemployed?  

Elaine,

As you know, there are at least three of us to whom this question can reasonably be assumed to be addressed.

My answers to your respective questions are yes, and technically neither (because I am an early retiree).

Why, do you have a job for me? 

Stephen Foster

Adventist Today blogger

http://www.atoday.com/blogs/stephen-foster

Statefarmsteve:

You definitely caught me on the Robin Hood.  I obviously lapsed into the typical conservative rant on that one post that I missed.  While it may be parsing things some, my thought was on Obama's desire to take from the rich and give to the poor which was similar to Robin Hood.  But once he is successful in making it law to take even more from the rich through taxes, then the analogy breaks down, since it is legal.

However your other attempt at "gotcha" is mixing apples and oranges.  If you read the post, you'll realize I was talking about the immorality of faking disability to get on the dole.  How is that related in any way to accepting food stamps when this is legally allowed.  I was pointing out how easy it was to lie and game the system as I have oberved many are doing.  That is a different issue than those who honestly legally qualify for getting on the dole (though with many, such as my son, the desparation of their straights and other options could be debated). Again, I never said that accepting food stamps was immoral.  Now I guess in the gotcha game we're even.

In the broader sense, I must say that as a recent poster, I wonder about the value of some of these exchanges.  Forgive my digression, but so much of the time, it seems to be about competition and a somewhat gotcha game.  And often, much of the concerns raised in a post are ignored, since it is so much more tempting to go after the red meat of some minor error. 

This is not simply an attempt to pick on you, Statefarmsteve, as it comes from all sides by various participants.  So far, on the boards I have observed, I'm not convinced that anyone changes their position that much, and it seems to be more about verbal sparing that doesn't end up convincing anyone other than the choir on one's side. Ideas are exchanged, but most of the arguments we've all heard before. 

So it seems like more of a game of who can pull some sort of one-upsmanship that puts down on another.  I often see many make mistakes here, but when this happens, the opposition is often not satisfied to legitimately point out the mistakes but often (likely with some glee) does so in a rather sarcastic put-down manner.  As vices go, this is certainly far more benign than most others.  But I must say, even though I've been an active participant, I often wonder what the point is and whether my time would be better spent on something else (maybe a different game that is more transparent in its purpose of competition and winning).  That might be an interesting topic: What is the purpose and value of these blogs....or...How have these blogs influenced or changed your views?

Stephen S - I read your post, and I didn't get any inclination that you were referring to faking a disability. Considering your situation, I'm willing to bet that you more than once, and quite understandably so, teetered on the edge of truly feeling like you couldn't go on, much less put in a hard days' work involving helping people whose problems paled next to yours. Of course the pill-flushing etc was over the top, but I would completely understand where losing a spouse could disable a person.

I agree that few people change their minds by reading blogs, but if you read the initial exchanges here, they were cordial and respectful, in spite of some strong statements and feelings on both sides. Those exchanges offer insight into other points of view. There was no oneupsmanship - just a back and forth followed by a proposed statement of understanding and acknowledgment of the complex truths involved in adopting a church statement supporting a controversial political viewpoint.

If you read between the lines, and understand who I am as a person, you'd realize that my whole point in even posting on this particular topic is to express my disdain for "official statements" that extend beyond the basic teachings of Jesus - Love God, and Love your neighbor. As much as I feel this statement regarding Global Poverty has value, I'd never vote for its adoption by my church because I think it is much more likely to cause problems within our church than it is to solve problems outside of the church. Adopting the abolition of poverty as a mission is a self-aggrandizing endeavor that smacks of hubris. Should the church work to provide more opportunity for its members to help the poor across the globe? Yes. But an "official statement?". Please. It's like loudly announcing to the world that you're going to take up the cross of Jesus, when you should really just pick it up quietly, humbly, and with the realization that bearing that cross benefits us much more than it relieves the burden of others.

This discussion just underscores my whole point - let's let our actions speak for the SDA church. Keeping the Sabbath speaks much more loudly than proclaiming that we do it because of a six-day creation. Actually reaching out to the poor says much more than adopting an official statement. Living a healthy lifestyle says much more than I don't eat meat or smoke or drink.

When did we become so dependent upon our words to obscure our actual works?

Stephen Foster:

I suppose we could go on and on about military versus poverty spending and what might be the ideal balance.  But the subject here is about poverty.  Maybe I haven't been clear here, but, while waste is a serious concern, I'm most concerned with the entitlement mentality our nanny state creates, which undermines values of independence and self-sufficiency that throughout our history has brought out the best among our citizens.  Where waste is used as an argument, I suppose that since waste is a huge problem with any government program, you could argue against all government programs.  The waste in the military is horrendous, but other than the immorality of passing on massive debt to future generations, I don't find that is destroys human incentive, independence and self-sufficiency like Welfare has done.

You question what government spending has to do with my belief about Scriptural teaching concerning social justice.  My individual faith impacts most of the significant decisions in my life, including what I support in terms of government policies.  I would expect all Christians to do the same and I'm not sure why this is so baffling.  The fact that many Christians will read scripture and come to rather differing conclusion on social justice and a host of other issue doesn't keep me or them from voting our conscience.  I thought the issue was more about church statements and policy.  We can certainly debate how we think our principles of faith will guide our political decisions and will often agree to disagree.  But when the church takes a stand, that to me is when Pandora's Box is opened. 

While we can debate the Constitution and the founding fathers' intent, it seems that most still tend to vote their conscience or maybe wish, as evidenced by the highly variable votes by the Supreme Court, all of whom claim to be following the Constitution. And while the Constitution is a wonderful document, I would tend to vote my conscience, based on my faith and reading of the Scripture, over and above someone's interpretation of the constitution.  An example would be abortion, where the court has indicated this is a constitutional right, though many people of faith still cast votes whenever possible to have it limited or banned. 

It seems that most of the political subjects on this board, whether they be about global warming, unemployment, capitalism, or whatever are almost always discussed through the filter and perspective of one's faith.  My views on government spending certainly are strongly related to my spiritual beliefs and moral values.  If not, then I suppose I could be far more cavalier about our massive debt.  I'd be more like my friend who just began collecting SS and said, of the looming 100 trillion dollars of entitlement obligation for us baby boomers, "Oh well, who cares; I'd be dead by the time it all melts down."

I certainly agree that there are many who are truly needy that benefit from Welfare, and as I previously said, I have seen many families where I say, there but for the Grace of God go I.  I just find that the history of Welfare indicates that the consequences have resulted and will result in more evil than the good that it provides to many.  My faith tells me that God's primary concern is with our hearts and our eternal life with him, more than how we live, or how long we live here on earth.  I see Welfare as clearly improving the lot and suffering of many who are deserving.  But not only does it do nothing to change hearts for the better, it actually undermines the notion of self-sufficiency that Paul preached.  I also believe that it undermines charity. 

Christ said that poverty will always be with us, and I think His investment is in giving us the opportunity to truly love others who are in desperate straights.  I'm not impressed that well intentioned Christians advocating for Government mandated social justice do anything to further this cause.  In fact, I believe they undermines it. Let's face it, the only reason for Government to get involved in social justice is because the citizens won't act in a a charitable, responsible manner in their communities.  If that is the condition of our hearts, Government spending on this is likely to make this worse.  From Christ's standpoint, this is hardly the loving heart change he is looking for.    

I'm not primarily opposed to Welfare because there are many who game the system (collecting through dishonesty).  I would never suggested dismantling Welfare based on a few dishonest individuals. However it poses an interesting question that tends to separate liberals from conservatives.  What percentage of undeserving people would have to be taking advantage of the system before you'd bag the system, allowing the deserving to suffer more?  90%, 60 %. 30% 10% dishonest freeloaders?  It's a tough question, but I assume that even the most ardent liberal supporters of Welfare would trash the system if it was learned that 90% of those collecting were undeserving.  

No, my objection is more about the impact of increasing safety nets, government dependency and sense of entitlement that undermines character.  The majority on Welfare likely legally qualify (though few of these would turn down taking some odd jobs under the table).  But there are many who still have other options, where families, churches or friends would well be able to help if there were no other options (such as in my son's situation).  And those who were given charity through these other options would be much more anxious to get off the dole than when they are on government assistance.  I just see many who are quite comfortable on Welfare.  I have had a few patients who complain that after being on Welfare and then finding work, they questioned the benefit of employment.  By the time they paid for regular rent versus section 8 housing, food costs versus food stamps, medical insurance and copays for meds and appointments, versus totally free care, they indicated they had no more disposable income than when they were on Welfare. 

Actually, given my lifestyle in recent years, I could live fairly comfortably on Welfare lifestyle. Due to my wife's illness we never went anywhere, no vacations, going out to eat, etc, for several years.  I drive an old car (though on Welfare, I could take the bus or walk, so could even dump the car).  Other than possibly losing my internet connections, I'd be comfortable in a studio apartment with adequate food and some books (which, I'd have far more time to read, being off work).  And there are many who are comfortable with subsistence living (which most of those living in poverty around the world would see as way beyond subsistnce). 

One commodity they certainly have is time.  I find myself admiring the working poor, as they seem to often be no better off than those on Welfare, and yet often refuse to pursue the public assistance option.  It is indeed sad when kids I see occasionally will describe their parents on Welfare or disability as lazy.  Most are perfectly legal, but the incentive is obvious, even to children.  While liberals will heatedly disagree, for many I don't see much incentive for getting off the roles.  Looking back on my comfortable life growing up, I realize that we were no better off in terms of conveniences of life than those on Welfare today.  And we would have been more than shocked if someone had suggested that we were living in poverty.  BTW, I appose the death penalty. 

Statefarmsteve:

I apologize if the intent of my disability analogy wasn't clear.  At some level, you are correct when you say that losing a spouse can be disabling.  But the very idea of planning to go on disability tends to suggest rather fraudulent motives, though many do this.  I was using the same example years back with the notion of becoming a burned out disabled caretaker. 

But your confusion brings up an important point: incentive.  There are many who might be considered disabled that still continue to work out of necessity.  If I was given the option to quit work and grieve in bed and not impact my lifestyle or that of my children who I am still supporting in college, I'd probably go for it (and even though it's a poor idea, my heart of grief would likely win out over my head).  There are many, who are already living a simple lifestyle who are perfectly willing to go on assistance, freeing up time for other pursuits, while relieving them of work obligations.  I have heard patients frequently debate the pros and cons of this option in a manner that leads me to think it is far too viable an option for many.  

Thank you for your clarification of what was between the lines, since I certainly missed that.  We are in full agreement on the perils of the Church taking an official position.  I would certainly be equally opposed to the church taking an official stand which condemned government mandated social justice.  Might we also agree with the notion that official stands like this are a far greater threat to the members than any off the wall statement made by Beck? 

I'm afraid that most find far greater comfort in words than the risk of deeds that speak louder and more effectively. Your point is well taken.  I would also add that Government mandated social justice tends to absolve individuals and communities of the need to pratice deeds of love, so essential to Christ's work in us.  

Elaine:

Another Steve here responding to your question.  I'll answer the easier question first.  I am employed.

The question on extension of unemployment is much harder.  My heart looking at the immediate picture of some who are in desperate straights says, yes.  But from what I observe and hear from others, my head says that in the long run, it's a mistake to extend the benefits.  Almost all the clients I see who are unemployed say they know there's not chance that they will ever get back a job coming close to the $20/hour + they were previously earning.  Most jobs that are available for them are more like 10-12/hour.  They candidly tell me they have no intention of working for little more than they are earning on unemployment and will remain on unemployment until it runs out.

I have a son who is in the construction end of things.  He's now on unemployment and has been on this in previous years also. He jokes about hoping they pass the extention, as he plans on enjoying his extended vacation as long as possible, just as he has always done in the past.  I certainly don't approve of this.  But I'm not sure whether to be more disgusted with him or the program that incentivizes this kind of behavoir. He could easily get a job at McDonald's.  But why should he when it pays less than his current unemployment?

Now admittedly he is single and so not really hurting at all on unemployment. But sadly, I think in a world wide economy, we can't protect our wages and many jobs are either not coming back, or will be paid at much lower wages (meaning that in future years we all will likely need to lower expectations and do with less).  I just think the extension is postponing the inevtiable, costing us 34 billion while putting off the pain for many that who will have to eventually face it, or allowing others able to get work (like my son) to simply work the system a while longer.  I also suspect that much of the support for the bill is political, buying votes in a year where Dems are obviously in trouble.   

Of course, there are those who "game" the system.  It's done in the government as well, except there it costs us billions more than for unemployment.

Because there are some who abuse the system in no way means that all are doing so.  If there were plenty of jobs available, why would there be many times the number of applicants in line than jobs available? 

A year ago when I applied for seasonal work at the regional IRS here, there were several times as many applicants as openings, and that applies to nearly all jobs.  Because the banks are refusing to loan to small businesses they are unable to hire, yet it is recognized that they are the backbone of the economy.  So, it's a Catch-22:  more jobs needed, but no funding to expand. 

Now that Congress has given an extension on unemployment, maybe it will consider public works projects that are in terrible disrepair.  I well remember in the 30s with the WPA, PWA, CCC and other projects they put unemployed people to work rebuilding roads and other necessary maintenance.  It is the big banks that have made a killing but people seem more eager to condemn the ordinary working man--he is the one suffering while the big banks laughingly got 0% interest from the govenmenr and made out like bandits. 

Find your wings and soar!

!.  Jesus said the poor will always be with us.

2.  If you take away money I worked hard to earn without my consent to give it to someone who did not work for it.....seems like theft to me. 

After reading through many of the replies on this thread, I'm convinced that this church is on a downward spiral.

But that's what ya'll were expecting, correct?

Either you heed the words of Christ or you do not. Matthew 25, people. Matthew 25.

When the concerns of the poor are excused with talking points- ''robin hood mentality'' - Jesus has taken a backseat to Beck, Limbaugh, Hannity, Colter, etc.

Stephen S.,

I did not find it baffling the fact that you, or anyone, would use your understanding of scripture or your spiritual beliefs to inform your opinions “concerning social justice” in general. What I found baffling was that you have determined government spending on the poor particularly to be somehow non-scriptural; and that you are at least partially opposed to such spending precisely on this basis.

It is a Pandora’s Box scenario because while you consider 2Thessalonians 3:10 to be a Biblical principle, you apparently consider Acts 4:32 as something that needs to be taken in its context; whereas another Christian, with a different temporal ideological bent, will take the exact opposite approach, and come to a completely different conclusion “concerning social justice,” as you have acknowledged to a large extent.

You have shed further light on your extrapolation of moral values from governmental spending, which I nonetheless appreciate. You apparently consider deficit spending by the U.S. government, particularly on the undeserving poor, to be morally equivalent to profligate individual credit card use on that which is not beneficial. I did not pick up on that prior to your most recent posting.

Your basic assumptions seem to be that the problem with (at least) the American poor is the American poor and that if they were different, their circumstances would be different; and that the primary problem with most of those on welfare is the fact that welfare exists. As frustrating and irritating as this mindset may be to me, I have to accept that we simply cannot all agree or see things the same way. That’s probably why some of us (myself included) don’t have any problem whatever with our denomination having taken the exact position that it has relative to “Global Poverty;” while others of us have a significant problem with it. 

Stephen Foster

Adventist Today blogger

http://www.atoday.com/blogs/stephen-foster

statefarmsteve,

I would agree with you IF the church's Statement on Global Poverty actually explicitly or implicitly "[encouraged] or [steered] votes" in a particular direction (especially if it was the wrong direction – LOL); but it is carefully enough written so as not to do so.

It is POSSIBLE (and reasonable to assume) that your proposed statement sample would have been less provocative and less divisive; but given the level of disagreement here, I’m not too sure about even that.

I would never have anticipated a schism or any significant disagreement resulting from such a benign statement, but you probably have a better over-all feel for what others think about these issues than I do.

There was no implication on either side of this discussion that the other side are necessarily evil people or that “they are breaking a moral or biblical obligation” of some sort. Of course, I disagreed with the notion that the current American welfare system was non-scriptural or unconstitutional in any way, but neither side ascribed evil to the other.

Your larger point though is quite understandable and reasonable however, especially when juxtaposed with the hypothetical of what the reaction from some of us might have been had the church issued a statement advocating policies that benefit the leveraging of capital on behalf of potential job creators (come to think of it).  

Stephen Foster

Adventist Today blogger

http://www.atoday.com/blogs/stephen-foster

Stephen Foster:

You are correct; I find no basis in Scripture to support the notion that believers should be advocating for government mandated social justice.  The most one could say in support of this is that it is silent on the issue. But I think that the principles suggested in Scripture supporting heart based charity are actually undermined by government mandated social justice.  Acts 4:32 advocating communism among early believers hardly suggests believers today are to advocate for secular government mandated redistribution of wealth among a population in which the majority are not committed believers.

Yes, I might be seen as doing the same with Paul's admonition of no work no eat (though even among believers he was obviously not advocating communism at this time).  But I was referring to the principle there as apposed to government policy. This is in contrast to the left who seeks active government intervention, whereas neither Paul nor I are suggesting government intervention.  Also, if you feel that Acts is also suggesting a principle that should be generalized to all populations, then I assume your advocacy would go beyond some redistribution of wealth to actual communism, which among secular governments hasn't faired all that well.

I'm still not clear on how the fact that believers apply different scripture in different ways is opening Pandora's Box.  Isn't it rather common for one person to cite a text as illustrating some universal truth, whereas another believer will see it as conditional and irrelevant?  If that opens Pandora's Box, I'm afraid that train left several centuries back.

Actually, in terms of government spending, I object to deficit spending (whatever the program) that gives debt to our children, just as I would object if my great-grandparents had done the same with their government.  Thankfully, they acted more responsibly and settled for a government that lived within their means. I don't find debt for war any more acceptable than debt for the poor.  Obviously debt for the poor represents a very small portion of the debt compared to other areas.  If welfare payments were the only thing we were going into debt for, I'd be ecstatic in terms of our current finances.

However, Welfare is also only a small part of our entitlements, which now include not only Medicare, disability, SS, and a host of other programs but also bail outs, stimulus package, labor union pension support, etc in an unending interference in the private sector, driving us into astronomical debt (increasingly untenable as we are facing well over 100 trillion in entitlement obligations for the baby boomers). Much of the debt is based on entitlements that we're all used to and have grown to expect.  I'd be thrilled if politicians of courage took my SS, along with others who can afford not to have this, and moved to have SS be only subsistence for the indigent elderly.  But with the nanny state mentality, that will never fly.  No one will ever cut any benefit, no matter how disastrous our economic status.

Though I never suggested that our national debt was analogous to individual credit card debt, I tend to agree with this. To me the level of perceived benefit is not the issue.  That is the problem with our debt.  All our politicians who have been running up debt for decades point to the beneficial aspects (other than the obvious benefit to their own careers), just like those running up credit card debt can always point to the benefits. There is also a major difference between credit card debt and the government debt in that most individuals facing the dire financial situation of our government would cut back rather than pursue the bizarre notion of spending their way out of the crisis.

Whether debt is run up for something worthwhile or not, it's still debt.  If we believe it's that worthwhile--welfare or whatever--we should pay our way.  Couldn't every generation find areas that are beneficial and worthwhile to justify debt passed to future generations?  Given levels of poverty in the previous two centuries, seems like they would have far more justfication for passing on massive debt to us, to help others in far more desperate straights (and they'd actually be providing for basic sustinance, rather than iPods, big macs, lattes, fake nails, etc.).

Given our current concern with poverty that is nothing like it was a century ago, I'm surprised historians aren't far more critical of how little was done for the poor in previous generations.  Think of all the good they could have done if they'd been willing to add a few billion to their debt (for poverty, military, SS, infrastructure, or any other worthy cause) . Of course if they had done this, we'd have far less options in terms of spending on the poor or other areas, since even more of our budget would be going for servicing our (their) debt.

I don't agree with your statement on my assumptions about the poor.  Why is it that you equate my opposition to government mandated entitlements and redistribution of wealth to the notion that I blame all the poor or government for their problems? I dont' think it's reasonable to draw that broad generalization from what I've said. I have repeatedly said that there are many I see who are the victims of terrible circumstances, or, even when based on their poor choices, are stuck in terrible straights with few options. And I often say, there but for the Grace of God go I. Just because I believe that government mandated social justice is not the solution, and has and will continue to make matters worse, certainly doesn't mean that I think that without it there would be no poverty or that all the poor are to blame.

Where have I suggested that believers on the left who oppose my solutions on social justice don't really have compassion for the poor? Yet when I oppose the leftist solutions, this seems to be interpreted as me being against social justice and blaming the poor.  And from Statefarmsteve's latest post, it appears that he drew similar conclusions from your response.  I resent these assumptions, and am tired of defending against the suggestion that I don't care about the poor and don't think they are deserving of help, simply because I don't agree with liberals.

Without citing any icons of the left, it seems like in your response to me you are somewhat assuming a mindset that the left often assigns to conservatives; namely, we are greedy, heartless people who find the poor are at fault for all their problems and are not deserving of compassion--a convenient rationale that allows us to hang on to every dime we have--guilt free. 

No, you didn't call those on the right evil, but suggesting that I blame all the poor and government for their status and problems certainly would have most question my level of compassion compared to yours.  I believe I am both compassionate (both for this generation and those to come) and pragmatic.  Can we agree to disagree on the pragmatics of how best to practice charity while accepting that as fellow believers we still equally concur on the need to follow Christ's calling to minister to the least of these? 

So just how should we define poverty or the poor in America? What is an acceptable level of want or need beyond which one should not expect handouts? How about the answer of scripture - "Having food and clothing, let us therefore be content." 1 Timothy 6:8. By that standard, we could completely eliminate poverty in America, add medical care to Timothy's basic needs, and have hundreds of billions of dollars left over. Ridiculously generous unemployment benefits and social security benefits could be severely curtailed.

Poverty is like the shoreline, with wealth being the ocean. No matter how high the ocean rises, there will always be a shoreline, and by definition then, poverty is ineradicable. Thus, as a measure of real need, the term "poverty" becomes totally meaningless 

Why, if the goal is simply to insure that basic needs are met, does the government provide cash benefits at all? Those who find themselves in need of a safety net could temporarily relocate to work farms; they could be given vouchers that would only be redeemable for healthy foods. Believe me, once you take away the freedom that cash benefits provide, people would be highly motivated to find a paying job.

I grew up in a single parent home where my mother worked nights to support four children, earning less in purchasing power parity than what a similarly situated family would get on welfare today. Immigrants from other countries have started on even less and become affluent in a single generation. I repeat, it is a fundamental law of economics that the government will get more of what it subsidizes and less of what it taxes. Before anyone tells me that government needs to be giving more to the "poor" please disprove that law.  It is values, not wealth transfers or resources that create wealth and get people out of poverty.

I know it gives some of you moral thrills, with no personal sacrifice, to trot out the "poor" - your favorite mascot - to advance the cause of collectivism. But the notion that the soundness of public policy has anything to do with whether it is motivated by caring is incredibly naive, arrogant, and self-righteous. Which collectivist despot of the 20th Century failed to wrap his policies in the language of compassion and concern for the poor and downtrodden - Stalin, Mao, Hitler, Lenin, Pol Pot, Castro? They and the "useful idiots" who supported their ideology used precisely the same moral appeals as the social justice advocates today. Mind you, I am not calling anyone a communist or fascist here. I am simply saying that concern for the plight of the less fortunate does not validate one's position on public policy. Does concern about disease makes one better equipped to treat disease than a dispassionate trained physician relying on science and experience?

What system besides "self-serving" free markets and private enterprise has done so much to eliminate poverty and misery from the world? The best way to reduce poverty is to encourage the initiatives that create wealth. The worst way is to support U.N. resolutions overseen by leaders from failed kleptocracies, and public policies patterned after bankrupt cities, states, and nations, where the laws of unintended consequences have wrecked havoc on good intentions.

The Church's Statement on Poverty is naive and dangerous insofar as it calls on the Church to get behind public policy initiatives such as the U.N. resolution. But hopefully, it will in substance be nothing more than feel-good moral preening. 

From Nathan Schilt:

I repeat, it is a fundamental law of economics that the government will get more of what it subsidizes and less of what it taxes.

Does this fundamental rule of economics apply to poverty, or does it apply to to import/export, manufacturing of goods, and services?  

If the subsidy/tax rule applies to poverty, why not simply levy a 90% tax on poor people and tax them right on up into the middle class?  Perhaps the government could actually give "performance bonuses" for all households earning more than $1 million per year - before you know it, we'll all be rich!

 I am simply saying that concern for the plight of the less fortunate does not validate one's position on public policy. Does concern about disease makes one better equipped to treat disease than a dispassionate trained physician relying on science and experience?

I love this analogy - I certainly would choose a trained compassionate physician before I'd choose a trained dispassionate physician.  

I'd also like to point out that you, Nathan, went apoplectic when I invoked the name of Glenn Beck, yet you have trotted out Stalin, Mao, Hitler, Lenin, Pol Pot, Castro.  

What do you hope to achieve by this tactic? How do you advance your argument by pointing out that [Stalin, Mao, Hitler, Lenin, Pol Pot, and Castro] share the same viewpoint as the person you are debating? It's an evasion designed to vent your political bile, not to respond to the merits of an argument. You seek to morally smear your opponent by identifying his or her opinion with a political figure you despise. It is this form of argument, not your ideas, which should embarrass you. 

 

Are your cheeks turning red yet, Nathan? 

Statefarmsteve:

You say: If the subsidy/tax rule applies to poverty, why not simply levy a 90% tax on poor people and tax them right on up into the middle class?

While your suggestion is extreme (since even the well off poor of the USA couldn't live on 10%), the principle you are disparaging in this exaggeration (reducing disposable income) is exactly the pragmatic approach those on the right are recommending. Wouldn't you agree that most would find living on public assistance in the USA to be far more comfortable and acceptable than living in poverty in the third world?  And to the extent that it is more comfortable, many more will chose this option, with the inevitability of their children learning a sense of entitlement and the acceptability of a lower standard of living in exchange for the freedom from work.  While some still would not choose this, in the market place of supply and demand, human nature says that there will be many who will be motivated to get/stay on the dole.

As I previously stated, my own somewhat unique situation in recent years left me living with no more options that those on welfare (other than the size of my home--certainly not an essential).  Books, internet and TV were my only recreation and outlet (and work, which obviously is not an essential).  It is common place for those I see on public assistance to have iPods, lattes, fake nails, designer jeans, big macs and cigarettes--all luxuries my wife and I somehow managed to live without.  Amazingly, we never felt all that deprived.  Is a system that allows for such luxuries geared toward incentivizing those on the receiving end to get off public assistance?

Taken to it's extreme, however, most would find a system that disincentivizes public assistance to be unacceptable (other than extreme libertarians).  I am not for forcing families and children out in the streets to starve (however effective this would obviously be in dramatically reducing the roles).  But short of this extreme, it still seems that there is huge fat to trim, and that doing so would motivate many to find other options.  We could certainly humanely provide housing and food stuffs without cash incentives.  This would also help reduce options to use alcohol, cigarrettes and street drugs. 

When freedom of choice is reduced, public assistance becomes much less attractive.  Given the desperate needs around the world and the rather obvious negative side effect of generational dependency that Welfare has helped produce, I remain puzzled as to why we still insist on providing a level of support that goes far beyond subsistence.  All I can come up with is that it must be about assuaging feelings of guilt and/or gaining power and control, which is more about the needs of the haves than the have-nots. .

I still haven't heard a good argument against Ben Franklin's common sense observation which I'll repeat here: "I am for doing good to the poor, but I differ in opinion of the means. I think the best way of doing good to the poor, is not making them easy in poverty, but leading or driving them out of it. In my youth I travelled much, and I observed in different countries, that the more public provisions were made for the poor, the less they provided for themselves, and of course became poorer. And, on the contrary, the less was done for them, the more they did for themselves, and became richer."

Stephen F - Agreeing to disagree is the unicorn of the blogosphere; so rare as to have achieved mythological status, but it does crop up once in awhile.  I happened to read into the statement "advocating for public policy that offers justice and fairness to the poor, for their empowerment and human right" as an attempt to influence the vote of members, since at least here in America, voting is how we advocate for public policy. However, I find it reasonable and understandable that you interpreted it differently.  I hope your interpretation was the one our leadership intended, and mine was mistakenly and wrongly colored by my innate revulsion of church official statement in general.

Stephen S - If the "more of what you subsidize/less of what you tax" were a principle, as you put it, then yes, my example could be extreme.  However, you brother framed it as an "irrefutable law of economics" meaning if he's correct, then I'm simply extremely correct.

I'm as big a fan of economics as I am of official church statements.  I believe that economists have a tendency to overstate their insight into human nature, and oversimplify situations that have a million more mitigating factors than they ever could account for in their laws and calculations.  In math, 1 + 1 = 2.  That's irrefutable.  However, the assumption that you can tax people out of poverty seems to be silly at best.  Even if applying a welfare tax reduced the number of welfare recipients, would it account for the impact on the shadow economy of America?  Would it account for a potential increase in criminal activity as the American landscape becomes dotted with the favelas of Rio de Jineiro or the slums of Mumbai or Johanessburg or Manila?  If we could simply tax credit the middle class until they all become wealthy, wouldn't we have already done so?

Statefarmsteve:  I still tend to agree with the irrefutable law which you are attempting portray in absurd terms.  If you tax Welfare at 90% I think it's quite safe to say that large numbers would get off the public dole.  So the principle still holds, getting less of what you tax (or in the case of Welfare, getting less when you provide less benefits).  Your suggestion is only extreme in terms of it's impact on others, not in the notion of diminishing numbers on the public dole. 

I don't recall anyone suggesting that we tax Welfare. Taxation involves government taking a portion of ones income--income that doesn't usually come from government (unless you are a government employee).  Public assistance is already a government subsidy, and it is much more straight forward to talk in terms of reduction in the level of support.  In those terms, I'm not sure how you arrive at the conclusion that the notion of reducing benefits to get people off poverty is "silly at best."  To my recollection, its never been tried here.  Instead, since the Johnson era, the benefits, in terms of standard of living provided, have steadily increased.  And I don't find that method has been all that effective in reducing incentives for getting on public assistance. 

While I can't say for sure what impact reduction in benefits and numbers on the dole would have on the shadow economy, public assistance already supports this economy with selling food stamp for drugs, etc.  And obviously many on Welfare already support that shadow economy with drug dealing and under the table income.  It's hard to imagine that reducing benefits would make it worse.  Would we rather have people on public assistance than have them working and earning money in an underground economy?  If your answer is yes, then it seems like we're somewhat caving to blackmail: if you don't adequately support me, I'll resort to working in the underground economy.   

In terms of poverty and criminal activity, I'm no expert, but from what I've read, criminal activity has gone down during these recent terrible economic times, contradicting the liberal notion that economic hardship breeds crime.  Again, if you're saying that crime is likely to go up if we don't support the poor at levels beyond needs (levels that would equate with the middle class 50 years ago) then that is a rather sad indictment on the society our culture of entitlement has produced.  And using that mentality where does it end?  At this rate, we'll have to provide the poor with an annual cruise vacation in order to keep them from a life of crime to support what they believe they are entitled to (well beyond necessities).

Are you actually suggesting that if we provide basic assistance to the poor that won't allow for the purchase of iPods, big macs, fake nails, designer jeans, etc. our inner cities will become like the slums of Mumbai and Johannesburg?  If so, that is a sad indictment on our morals, and you are basically saying that we're under the gun to provide a level of support well beyond basic necessities.  That would also mean that we're way past talking about poverty.  Instead we're talking about providing a certain standard of living compared to the average standard of living here (to keep the masses from taking to crime against us), without regard to true necessity or the desperate straights of the truly needy around the world. 

If I have misrepresented your position here, please clarify.  I'm still waiting for an answer to why we support those on public assistance in a manner that goes beyond basic needs and is seen as luxury living by the vast majority of the world's poor.

 Stephen Schilt,

Clearly, I correctly deduced from previous postings of yours that you perceive governmental deficit spending as a moral issue; and while you didn’t specifically say so, the credit card analogy was the way I understood it to be so. Although I am not quite sure that I agree, I can certainly at least say that I understand and appreciate your thinking on this.

On the other hand, I honestly cannot keep up with your rationale that seems to divine a difference between what you understand as the “no work-no eat biblical principle,” and what others may understand as the “all things in common biblical principle.” Suffice it to say that to the extent that reconciling a difference between the two is problematic—along with the fact that many do not agree that there is a difference—is part of what I referred to as Pandora’s Box. How one can conclude that they are necessarily mutually exclusive is more than puzzling and also obviously part of the problem. Owning everything in common, while requiring all able bodied men to work for their sustenance can easily be co-existent realities in a given society, community, or nation-state. Given their common source, perhaps these principles not only belong together; they perhaps represent the ideal—together (as in “here a little, there a little”).

The other disconnects include your suggestion that though the nanny state in general, and the welfare system in particular have done more harm than good, you yet acknowledge that poverty in the U.S. currently is not as bad as it was a century or more ago (when these things did not exist), and that the poor in the U.S. are (now) not even poor in relation to the poor elsewhere.  This would suggest that the nanny state (labor and product safety laws and regulations, entitlement programs, etc.) and the welfare system have actually indeed contributed to the rise of the societal floor of living standards; so much so in fact that they have changed the very meaning of poverty itself. While you decry the negative effects that you perceive that the nanny state and the welfare system have had on those you consider to be the chronically indolent; and apparently believe that they indeed have effectively created a chronically indolent class, (whether you are correct or not) you nevertheless deny that you blame either these individuals or the (welfare) system that has ostensibly created (some of) them.

The poor will surely always be with us. We however will be held directly accountable for our willingness to feed, clothe, and visit those whom, but for the grace of God, we’d be. (Luke 6:37 arguably suggests that perhaps we should not even judge the poor or distinguish between who among the poor we’d be—but for God’s grace—and who we wouldn’t be, because of our moral values.) A philosophy that confiscatory taxes used to fund war making purposes are somehow less morally detrimental to society—partly because war making is a documented purpose for which Ben Franklin, et al. intended them—than are those (confiscatory tax revenues) that go to help to raise the living standards of the less fortunate among us, is troubling. This is what I perceive and it is why I continue to press this, for what it’s worth. 

Stephen Foster

Adventist Today blogger

http://www.atoday.com/blogs/stephen-foster

Stephen Foster:

Let me make one more stab at trying explain how I differentiate between  “no work-no eat" text, and the “all things in common" text.  First of all, many interpret one text as indicative of a hard and fast principle, whereas other believers will see the same as situational, cultural or conditional.  Many will legitimately point out that this is inconsistent, but if so, all believers can be accused of inconsistency in how they interpret the Bible.  Why does the SDA church use old Jewish laws to preach against unclean meat, while disparaging JW's stand on no blood as clinging to an outmoded old Jewish ceremonial law?  If reconciling differences between two problematic texts that many do not agree with is opening up Pandora's Box, then, as I say, that was an and continues to be an issue with all Biblical scholars for centuries. 

I have difficulty seeing how Acts 4:32 can be seen as a universal principle.  This was something advocated for early believers at a particular time, not secular governments.  Do you attach any significance to the experience and traditions of Christian's throughout history--believers who seldom advocated a communist system among church members, let alone their governments? I just find very little in Scripture that supports the notion of the church should be pushing for government change that will make it more like the Kingdom of God.  And the danger of this agenda is that modern believers often become more focused on making this world a better, more just place, than in changing hearts for ultimate salvation.

Many who have tried communism would love to hear how, given human nature, you get people who all own everything in common to work, when there is nothing to gain in terms of one's sustenance through working.  If someone told me tomorrow that my standard of living and all that I enjoy would be unchanged if I quit work, I'd quit.  There are other productive and personally fulfilling things I'd much rather be doing. Please tell me how this would work.  Considering how that system has fared throughout history, hopefully you have a more workable plan for implementing it. .

When I reference Paul's "no work no eat," I wasn't trying to support a government policy around this (as Paul wasn't advocating for this).  I was indicating that he certainly was concerned with the takers on the system and wasn't in any way advocating any system where others who were able bodied should live off the labor of others.  He seemed to be talking about a principle of individual responsibility for self support that should guide believers, not a government policy.  I'm quite satisfied in consistently saying that neither text has anything to say about what the church or it's members should do in terms of advocating any government policies.  That was my response to your suggestion that indeed Christian's should be playing an advocacy role in this.  If you can agree with this consistency, then all we can say is that Scripture is silent on the issue believers advocating for government mandated social justice, hardly a ringing endorsement.

In terms of my concern with Welfare doing more harm than good, we obviously have a different concern "good."  I was addressing the ultimate good; that is, the impact on character, morality and salvation.  Your "good" seems to be primarily focused on physical well-being, which I (and I might add Paul) find far more mundane.  But I also  think most might find the argument for Welfare doing more good from a physical standpoint to be highly debatable.  The fact the the standard of living has risen for those living in poverty over the past century is hardly convincing.  The standard of living for all classes has risen and most would certainly attribute this to innovations stemming from the motivation and rewards for human ingenuity in a capitalistic system.  How much innovation and improvement in standard of living can be attributed to communist regimes in the previous century? 

In the blame game you are mixing issues.  In fact, I do blame the nanny state for creating a perpetual generational sense of entitlement and lack of individual responsibility that has significantly and unnecessarily added to the roles.  I also observed that some on the system are clearly deserving of assistance and not at fault.  But even they are being supported at levels that often are not justified, which runs the danger of perpetuating the cycle, even among the deserving. 

I fully agree with your assertion that we will be held "accountable for our willingness to feed, clothe, and visit those whom, but for the grace of God, we’d be."  That is indeed an awesome responsibility and should present an ongoing challenge to all of us, given that most of us we live in the lap of luxury compared to the least of these.  But this is clearly an issue of individual accountability and responsibility.  I don't read any notion of collective responsibility or, as Obama puts it, "collective salvation" here.  Frankly, my platter is full with figuring out my individual calling to care for the least of these without worrying about my obligation to advocate for forcing others who might not be so inclined to give, especially when such advocacy is not for the truly "least of these" in the world.

In terms of your concerns with taxes for the military, that is a whole other discussion. Suffice it to say, most believers find some wars justified (while many clearly are not), and I think it's safe to assume that most would think that the evils of living under Hitler would outweigh the evils of poverty in our country today. I'm still not a purist on this and can support confiscation of wealth to help the poor, as long as it carries far less potential for making dependency an attractive alternative that some might want to continue. When I find in my own life that living on public assistance appears to be an acceptable alternative, it seems like a rather flawed system.

Stephen S.,

To clarify, I am not advocating a government policy based on either the no work-no eat principle or the all things in common principle. I am pointing out that you can’t isolate them to the point at which you advocate for a government policy based on one, and rail against a government policy based on the other; and that doing so, or attempting to do so, represents a conveniently inconsistent application, or ignoring, of scripture that is analogous to opening Pandora’s Box. 

I am perfectly satisfied to agree that the Bible is silent on the issue of a government welfare program, either in favor of one or against one, and therefore using a particular scripture in justification of our position on this issue is neither advisable nor appropriate. Notably, our church’s Global Poverty statement did not use a particular scripture in isolation—to its credit.

We now find you conflating the so-called American nanny state (government laws and regulations on labor and product safety, and entitlement programs) and communism. This may have been somewhat inadvertent on your part, but attributing the rise in the standard of living of America’s modern poor in comparison with those of America’s poor over a century ago to the innovations of capitalism, while disregarding the effect of governmental policies that were not in place over a century ago, assumes that unlike a century or more ago, the poor would have shared in the subsequent rising of the standard of living, without the so-called nanny state, because of…what?... technology that they may not have (otherwise) afforded?  A century or more ago, there were no workplace safety regulations, no anti-child labor laws, no 40-hour work week, no minimum wage, no anti-discrimination laws, no public accommodation laws, no minimum wage laws, no food stamps, no medical insurance for the indigent (Medicaid), no Social Security, no medical insurance for the elderly (Medicare), no public accommodations laws, etc.  Do you consider the above government policies, much of which you would undoubtedly consider to be part of the “nanny state” to be, in fact, communism? I don’t think you do, so I will attribute your conflation of the two as inadvertent; unless you correct me.

You have previously asked “why is it that you equate my opposition to government mandated entitlements and redistribution of wealth to the notion that I blame all the poor or government for their problems?...just because I believe that government mandated social justice is not the solution, and has and will continue to make matter worse, certainly doesn’t mean that I think that without it there would be no poverty or that all poor are to blame.” Now I consider that a denial that you blame the poor or the system.  

Of course, you had previously said things like “I just see many who are quite comfortable on Welfare,” and “it is indeed sad when kids I see occasionally will describe their parents on Welfare or disability as lazy. Most are perfectly legal, but the incentive is obvious, even to children.” So, instead of “mixing issues” in the “blame game,” I perceive a little having it both ways. Perhaps you are suggesting a nuanced perspective that is imperceptible to me; but, with all respect, I think that conservative philosophy and anecdote is driving attitude and argument alike, as opposed to reasoned nuanced perspective.

Nevertheless, perhaps we can agree that the system is flawed. The very existence of poverty, and the reality that it will always exist, is unmistakable evidence that we live in a flawed world. To address flaws, flawed systems have unsurprisingly been developed. 

Stephen Foster

Adventist Today blogger

http://www.atoday.com/blogs/stephen-foster

Statefarmsteve said:

"Nathan went apoplectic when I invoked the name of Glenn Beck, yet [then] trotted out Stalin, Mao, Hitler, Pol Pot, Castro."

You are too intelligent, Steve, not to realize that there is world of difference here. The The 20th Century Tyrants Hall of Shame notables that I mentioned have risen to power and committed some of the greatest atrocities in history in the name of the values that you and Steve F. argue are the mark of bien pensants. I offered these historical references in response to the arguments that the persistence of "poverty" makes wealth transfers from those who produce and earn to those who do not a moral mandate.  Since the only way to achieve this objective is by government coercion, it is very relevant to look at history and be aware of how the poor have been used by government as mascots to perpetrate unspeakable evil.

If I, for example, argued that Christianity should be our national religion, it would be perfectly reasonable for you to point out the Inquisition, religious wars, and atrocities that have been carried out when "Christianity" is embraced by the State.

But Beck and Limbaugh are political pundits. To my knowledge, they have never committed immoral or illegal acts in the name of the principles which they espouse. Nor have they risen to power on the rhetoric of class warfare, and then pursued genocide and population extermination on that platform. Furthermore, no one on this blog has recommended that church members leave the SDA Church because of its Statement on Poverty.

You happen to believe that Beck and Limbaugh are despicable characters, an opinion which is not universally shared. You think that, by associating commenters with them, you will somehow shame the commenters. Your agenda isn't really to deal with ideas and their consequences at all, but to personally stigmatize your opponents as heartless right wingers. Why, for example, didn't you invoke Milton Friedman, George Will or William F. Buckley, Jr., far more intellectually influential conservative icons who haven't been so demonized and stigmatized by the bullies of the Left wing media? The reason is simple. You didn't want to actually have to deal with ideas. Your reference to Beck and Limbaugh was like a "Mr. Cool" adolescent calling another kid a "nose-picker" and then ridiculing other kids who act friendly toward the one he has labelled a "nose-picker".

Stephen Foster:

I'm glad that we can agree on the fact that there is no Scriptural support for government mandated social justice.  I never cited texts in an attempt to suggest government policy.  My point in the text was to suggest a principle that Christians can fairly cite in their own individual lives.  To the extent they practice individual support and self-reliance, it may also impact what kind of governmental policies they support.  That does not equate in my mind with claiming that a text advocates corpoarate church support for a given governmental policy.  I still maintain that inconsistency in applying Scripture is rather pervasive with all students of the Bible and is often in the eye of the beholder.  If not, then we likely would not have the plethora of denominations who all believe their applications are correct (suggesting that your Pandora's Box has been open for some time).

Some might it concerning that the church would choose to make such a statement with no Biblical support for it, given the controversy surrounding it.  It seems like there is so much in Scripture that the church can make statements on, why pick an issue like this?

In reference to your concern with my conflating nanny state with communism, that was certainly not my intent. While nanny state taken to the extreme would equate with communism, most nanny state governments have not gone to that extreme.  I suppose what is viewed as a "nanny state" is in the eyes of the beholder and is often rather nuanced.  Given some broad definitions that suggest this is government acting on behalf of its citizens in passing various laws and regulations, a liberal interpretation could look on any government that goes beyond extreme libertarianism as a nanny state. 

Political Dictionary defines this as a system of government which provides everything for the citizens and tells the citizens how they should behave. That is the other extreme.  When I used this term, I wasn't thinking of the many issues you cited.  I was more referring to public assistance, such as Medicaid, free lunches, food stamps, section 8 housing, Medicare, AFDC, etc.  I won't argue that government laws that regulate things like health and safety standards and anti-trust laws haven't had a positive impact on living standards for the poor, just as the innovations from capitalism have.  It's not an either, or.  And I would even say that I could support all those programs I just cited, if they were providing only for those who truly needed assistance, and also giving support at fairly basic levels.

For example, when my wife was on dialysis and qualified for Medicare, I think my cost share for her care should have been far greater.  I was not nearly as needy as many are.  It seems rather unconscionable to have people working at minimum wages, paying into Medicare that is going bankrupt as they support many seniors who are millionaires.  The governments attempts to make things fair often don't work.  What if my wife had some equally devastating illness that was far less popular and didn't get her on Medicare like kidney failure automatically did?  I'd be out tens of thousands of dollars.  How is that fair?  It's not and usually government interventions like that end up with simply picking winners and losers which only changes who feels the lack of fairness (and helping to get some re-elected), while still not creating a fair world.

In your discussion of what you find as my contradictions in blaming the government or poor for their predicament, I would ask that you practice the same reasoned, nuanced perspective that you accuse the right of ignoring.  This is not a matter of all the poor and/or the government are to blame, or none of them are to blame.  And just because, on balance, I belief the the current Welfare system does more harm than good doesn't mean that I don't think that it doesn't so some good, or that in come cases it doesn't do enormous good. 

If we want to consider reasoned perspective beyond anecdotes (which do in fact have value in giving some perspective), why not address some of the specific questions here?  Do you grant that there is any incentive for those on welfare to remain on the roles, given the current standard of living and freedoms we support in this system?  Do you support that notion that we should be giving money's to the poor at a levels that allow them to buy cigarettes, lattes, big macs, fake nails, iPods and designer jeans--luxuries that most anyone who works with this population will tell you are rather prevalent? 

I'm glad we can agree that flawed systems directed at alleviating flaws are inevitable.  However, most of us in in our personal lives and at work are expected to recognize and address flaws.  Sadly, when it comes to government, I seldom hear from leaders on either side that any of the programs they pass have flaws.  While we will never have a perfect system, it still appears that there are rather glaring flaws in our system of public assistance that need to be addressed.  Unfortunately, those on both sides of the debate want to give so little ground that there is little room to discuss improvements.  You read the right as wanting to overthrow the whole thing and we read those on the left as insisting on defending it with little change other than adding to it, regardless of the level of corruption and risk for perpetuating state sponsored dependency. There just doesn't seem to be much common ground from which to address the problems and come up with pragmatic solutions.   

From Nathan Schilt:

You think that, by associating commenters with them, you will somehow shame the commenters. Your agenda isn't really to deal with ideas and their consequences at all, but to personally stigmatize your opponents as heartless right wingers. 

Perhaps, Nathan, it is you that thinks that by associating commenters with Hitler, Stalin, Castro, Lenin, Mao, etc, you will somehow shame the commenters.  Your agenda isn't really to deal with ideas and their consequences at all, but to personally stigmatize your opponents as murderous Nazis/Socialists/Communists. This seems to be a pretty fair accusation against you, when you say:

The The 20th Century Tyrants Hall of Shame notables that I mentioned have risen to power and committed some of the greatest atrocities in history in the name of the values that you and Steve F. argue are the mark of bien pensants. 

In reality, there is as much distance between Steve F's social values and Naziism as there is between modern Christianity and the religion that was practiced during the inquisition or the salem witch trials.   

Above, you even went so far as to mockingly ponder if the Obama administration is the Beast of the Revelation.  After all, it would be awful to only accuse Obama of mirroring the most despised humans to have walke the face of the earth, when you could take it a step further and paint him as Satan's handmaiden.

I, for one, find it less offensive to be have my views compared to a political pundit, rather than Hitler or Satan. Especially if I agree with the political pundit.  I'd much rather you accuse me of parroting Jon Stewart than say that my political ideology inevitably ends in goose-stepping SS brigades going from house to house confiscating good Capitalists' hard-earned money.  

Nathan,

Believe it or not, Glenn Beck, Limbaugh, Hannity, Levine, Borst, et al. are (very nearly) to some, as Stalin, Mao, Pol Pot, Castro are to others; perhaps even you. (I will not throw the Hitler hand grenade around.) Of course, "very nearly" (uhm, to some) because they have not physically murdered people and do not officially hold public office. 

Beck, Limbaugh, et al. are however late 20th/early 21st century American versions of Dr. P. Joseph Goebbels; and thus represent the very worst in our society--to some (as Stalin, Mao, et al. do to others). 

So, I see your point, perhaps statefarmsteve would have been better served by never having mentioned them (Beck, et al.) at all. I have previously done so myself, and now regret it.

Perhaps now we can agree to try not to reference or associate each other's opinions with any of these people; just a thought. 

Stephen Foster

Adventist Today blogger

http://www.atoday.com/blogs/stephen-foster

" when my wife was on dialysis and qualified for Medicare, I think my cost share for her care should have been far greater.  I was not nearly as needy as many are.  It seems rather unconscionable to have people working at minimum wages, paying into Medicare that is going bankrupt as they support many seniors who are millionaires."

Do you have exact knowledge of millionaires using Medicare, or is that an assumption?  Even if it is, what sort of "means testing" would you advocate.  I've been a Medicare patient for 20 years and there is no way I could begin to afford the necessary surgeries and treatments I have had.  Yes, I have a decent income from SS and a pension, but as you know, kidney dialysis is very expensive, and few average citizens can afford.

We also know there is fraud and waste in these two major programs, but to place many more people to check for fraud would also cost more and then people would not vote for more taxes:  a catch-22.  Before these programs were enacted, older citizens were at the mercy of hospitals that would not treat them without some money; today they cannot refuse admittance to the ER and those same hospitals constantly lose money as these same patients cannot get preventive care and resort to the much more expensive ER. 

Then again, this would not be the problem if the money that has been spent, and continues spending with two totally unnecssary wars--wars that were not at all defending our country and like Vietnam, will eventually end when we declare "Victory" and bring he soldiers home.

Elaine: 

I can't tell you the exact number of millionaires over 65, but it's safe to say that it's several million.  Stats from 2007 indicate that there were 9.3 millionaires in the US, with average assets of 2.5 million, and median age of 59.  That would suggest that that close to half these are over 65.  In terms of qualification, there is no income qualification.  Anyone over 65 automatically qualifies for Medicare.  Higher incomes have a somewhat higher Medicare premium, but believe me, even at the highest premium, it's a steal.  I think our recent premiums were just $130 monthly.  I get very disgusted with seniors with high incomes and assets on SS and Medicare who say, "We paid for it and we deserve it."  Most have not paid in anywhere near what they are collecting. 

I tell my children that once us baby boomers become an even more substantial senior citizen voting block, we'll vote them into financial oblivion (and while they used to laugh about it, their not laughing so much now).  Unless our politicians develop some guts to shift many of our entitlements to a means test qualification, we're going to go bankrupt. And I cringe when I hear some commentator on retirement planning, advising how to set up trusts to protect all your assets, in order that when you have to go into long term care, you will be able to go on the government dole (rather then exhausting all your assets), allowing you to still pass on a substantial inheritance to your children. 

I'm not for putting everyone in the poor house with medical expenses.  But no health care reform will work without more accountability, which won't happen unless all who can, pay more of their own way.  Even those I see on Medicaid could certainly afford a $5-10 copay.  In the seventies, almost 35% of health care costs were paid out of pocket. Now it's about 11%, and no surprise that with someone else paying most of the bill, costs are skyrocketing.  If we all had a substantial affordable income based deductible, there would be far less utilization, far less waste, more innovative, market-driven, cost-saving approaches and individual motivation (not just talk) for prevention. 

The highest percentage of expensive ER visits occur among the Medicaid population (3-4 times the general population).  No surprise, as when you have an ailment (and plenty of time with no work), why not get it taken care of right away in ER, when there's no copay to contend with?  In terms of preventive care, the most important aspect of preventive care cost nothing--diet and exercise.  Sadly, all this talk about preventive care is somewhat of a joke.  We have never known more about how to take care to the temple God has given us, yet, as a population, never done less about it.  Given human nature, I'm not convinced that a few more preventive office visits will get people off the couch and eating less and more healthfully.

Medicare has indeed been wonderful for so many.  The problem is that it's bankrupt and we can't possibly afford it for the baby boomers at current levels that continue to go up.  And while providing a somewhat artificial health-market demand (that wouldn't be there if more were paying more out of pocket), which has lead to much innovation in health care, Medicare has provided this at enormous cost that is unsustainable (and even without wars, our technological ability to save and prolong life will always outstrip our economic capability). 

I'd go for life expectancy of three years less and living within out means.  If we will justify spending based on life and death issues (as in--we can't afford not to provide the best health care for everyone) then we might as well all agree to get taxed to the hilt, live on subsistence, while extending our life span as long as possible.  Most wouldn't vote for that, and we can't have everything. 

Dialysis is indeed way to expensive for most.  But is it fair that others with other costly diseases which aren't covered by Medicare (for those under 65) should have to pay far more of their expenses than I dic? 

Unfortunately, there is huge waste in dialysis.  I spoke with a friend who wanted to take machines on his motor home.  When dialysis unit wouldn't allow this, he did a bunch of paper work and became his own Medicare dialysis supplier.  He told me that after two years of doing his own treatment, buying all the supplies and getting about $150-160 per treatment (three times a week) from Medicare, he had $20,000 in his dialysis account!  No wonder they call it dialysis for dollars.  If many who could afford it paid more cost share for dialysis, I believe it would lead to more cost saving innovation.  If I was paying more of the bill, I'd take far greater interest in the statements and the charges and look for ways to save.

While this is somewhat off topic in terms of poverty, it is part of the issue with entitlements and their unintended consequences.  My wife was a perfect example.  When Bush passed Medicare part D to help all the poor seniors who had to choose between heating their homes and paying for medication, I didn't bother applying.  After all, we were not poor and certainly wouldn't qualify for this government assistance.  But I kept getting notices from our secondary insurance (secondary to Medicare) which was mostly covering her medication costs, suggesting we sign up for Medicare part D.  I continued to ignore these, knowing we didn't qualify.  Finally, a week before the deadline, they called me on Saturday afternoon pushing us to sign up.  They explained that if we signed for any Medicare D program (with the lowest premium being $7/month at the time) they would then become our secondary insurance for medication coverage.  As such, our out of pocket expense would be the same, but they would then lower our premium by over $100 per month. 

Well I'm not stupid, so we signed up.  But somehow I don't think we were the ones Bush and our legislators intended to benefit from this.  And I assume we were just one among thousands who did the same.  Sadly, when lawmakers learn of these unintended consequences, they never take back the benefit from those who aren't deserving, fearing that some constituents will scream and try to vote them out.  My apologies for those who hate anecdotes, but this is just a rather blatant example of the many undeserving who qualify for entitlements. 

Even if we want to soak the super rich for all our entitlements, that will only pay for so much.  The top 1% of wage earners already pay 40% of income taxes and the top 10% pay 70%, with the bottom 50% paying almost nothing other than payroll taxes (and many of them actually get paid for being poor through earned income credit).  How much more progressive do we need to get with our tax system in order to pay our escalating expenses?  And when will we reach a point of diminishing returns in terms of taxing the rich? 

Stephen Schilt,

Let me begin by addressing your questions specifically, as you requested.

1)     There is indeed incentive for some “on welfare to remain on the roles, given the current standard of living and freedoms we support in this system.”

2)     I do in fact “support the notion that we should be giving money’s to the poor at levels that allow them to buy” things that many of the poor unwisely value; money’s that would be better and more wisely spent on things that would come closer to qualifying as necessities than on clearly unnecessary things that may be prevalent among them at any given time.

I thought that I had previously in effect stipulated that there are those on welfare who game and abuse the system. My position is that those who legitimately need, use, and are benefitted by the system, and those who use the “money’s” that others waste in order to live in relative dignity, should not be penalized or jeopardized because there are many who abuse and misuse the system. Personally, I am much more perturbed by wasteful military spending for unnecessary wars and wasted blood (with our tax dollars) than I am with anecdotal instances of money’s wasted by the poor on fake nails.

It is a simple matter of priorities. The politically powerful and influential military-industrial complex is in direct competition with the advocates of confiscatory wealth redistribution, as you would likely classify them. There is waste, fraud, and abuse on both sides of this tug-of-war. Some of us believe that it is better to err on one side of this competition; some of us believe that it is better to err on the other side.

However, to later assert in a subsequent post, as you did, that “I’d go for life expectancy of three years less and living within our means,” to me, is a powerful and undeniable statement of woefully misplaced priorities; especially when no such similar outrage (for lack of a better word) is expressed regarding deficit spending for bloodshed. Then you anecdotally admitted that you signed up for a government benefit that you didn’t think you either needed or deserved, because you’re “not stupid.” Some of us, on the other hand, would not think of denying you that benefit, simply because, in an inevitably flawed system of addressing flaws, you legitimately (legally) qualified.

As for tax burdens, suffice it to say that no one likes paying taxes. Some of us however do not see much wrong with the principle of progressive taxation in a land where (as of 1998) 5% of the population had more wealth than the remaining 95% of the population, combined; where the top 20% owned 83% of all wealth, and where the top 1% held 38% of all wealth.

This is apparently an example of what is occasionally referred to as an irreconcilable difference. So be it. At least, I think, we understand each other. 

Stephen Foster

Adventist Today blogger

http://www.atoday.com/blogs/stephen-foster

The "poverty" being experienced in the U.S. has been greatly affected by the costly and useless wars still being fought:  $1 billion yearly to Pakistan, our "friendly ally" has been gone to aiding the Taliban; more billions voted yesterday, "only" $8.7 billion that is "missing" from Iraqi reconstruction funds; the U.S. tab for those two wars is now $1 trillion, and counting.  Yet there was difficulty getting passage for extending unemployment benefits!

Consumer confidence is at a very low point:  people are not spending, businesses are not expanding because the banks are reluctant to loan money, and the consumer does have a direct affect on the economy when they are not spending.

Where could that money have been used to help our own U.S. citizens rather than being literally, thrown away on a never-ending war in Afghanistan:  a country that has never been conquered in written history?  This is a real quagmire from which it will be difficult for the U.S. to extricate itself; but it is guaranteed that there can be neither a democratic government established, or a victory.  No one has clearly stated the mission.

The waste in healthcare is minimal compared to these wars, yet where is the outrage?  I would much rather my taxes go to helping our own citizenry, even with known fraud, than sending it overseas to corrupt warlords and prime ministers where there is no accountabiltiy at all.  The Democrats in Congress who strenuously objected to this latest war funding is a sign that the next time, and there will be, it may not get passed; all this ignores that Congress never voted to declare "War."

Stephen Foster says:

"Perhaps now we can agree to try not to reference or associate each other's opinions with any of these people."

So does that include not referencing the Grand Inquisitor every time SDA fundamentalists raise concerns about what is advocated at La Sierra? Somehow, I don't think that's a pledge Elaine and StatefarmSteve would be willing to take.

Nor should they. The fact that a historical allusion might be dumb (as is SDA progressives' use of the Inquisition) does not mean they shouldn't use it. It just makes them easy targets when obvious flaws in the analogy are pointed out. We should always be prepared to learn from history and the lessons which the actors on that stage have to offer.  I quite explicitly said that I was not comparing anyone on this site to the tyrants of history. What I pointed out, without refutation, was that taking away economic freedom and private property in the name of social justice has had some pretty ugly consequences in history. I pointed this out to refute the notion that those who employ the rhetoric of social justice to cast wealth redistribution as a moral imperative are somehow on a higher moral plane than those who prefer government policies that encourage industry, self-sufficiency, charity, and personal accountability.

For the SDA Church, which has taken a very dim view of political advocacy by the religious Right, to now support political advocacy from the religious Left, seems to me terribly hypocritical, particularly when it is accompanied by an endorsement of policies by a world body (the U.N.) dominated by kleptocrats and moral thugs, who claim charity from the developed world as a moral right, in order to enrich themselves and keep their citizens hostages to a state of perpetual economic dependency and political domination.  

If the Church was truly interested in eliminating the causes of poverty in the U.S., its Statement on Poverty would address children born out of wedlock to parents who refuse to learn to read or write, being raised in fatherless homes. It would want to get at the root causes of material poverty, just as it seeks to get at the root causes of spiritual poverty. If it was interested in eliminating the causes of global poverty, it would condemn tyranny, and speak out for the rule of law, property rights, limited government, and free markets. Countries which have followed this formula in the past 200 years have not been perfect, but they have produced wealth which makes their poor better off materially than millionaires who lived only a century ago.

Unfortunately, just as it has done with communism and fascism, the Church would rather appease the political powers and "bien pensants" of world and national policy than tell the truth. 

But let me be quite clear. While I believe the Church could have articulated a strong and effective statement on poverty, I do not believe that it should have done so. The role of the church is to be Christ's body and make disciples of all through the personal touch, through freely giving up self to be His servants. Nothing in the Gospel commission suggests that throwing Christ's banner into the political arena is one of God's tools to advance His Kingdom. 

Stephen S.,

If your opposition to (what President Clinton used to refer to as) “welfare as we know it” is indeed primarily its effect on the “morals and character” on the poor, why wouldn’t you be even more concerned about (the general effects on “morals and character” of) a culture of greed, fostered by economic systems which reward and celebrate the quest for money (via the leveraging of money); since, after all, laziness and poverty has not been identified as the root of all kinds of evil—whereas the love of money unquestionably has been?

I have an economics question that I really do not need to have answered. What is wrong with the western European model of England, France, and Germany, for example? I bring this up with reference to your health insurance concerns. Do we consider their way of doing things either evil or morally deficient in some way; or economically unsustainable and inefficient? They live at least as long as we do; do they not? Just wondering; perhaps it’s not directly relevant to the blog, but then maybe it is.

Again, regarding taxation, since 99% of the U.S. population have only 62% of the nation’s wealth, how much (or little) wealth must the 50% who don’t even make enough to qualify for the "privilege" of paying federal income taxes have? You wouldn’t (really) want to be one of them under any conceivable set of circumstances.

Forgive me, but the priority of your concerns just appears to be warped in my view. You seem to be genuinely concerned about the tax plight of the good people who literally own practically everything; especially since some of their confiscated wealth is misused by an unspecified fraction of poor people to buy fake nails and such. Yet you claim your actual main concern to be the ‘”morals and character” of the nail customers. That said, given such disparities in wealth, I would probably be vehemently opposed to increases in the “middle class” share of the federal income tax burden myself.

Allow me to reiterate that this is likely just an irreconcilable difference between us, my friend. Perhaps we have no choice but to live with it. 

Stephen Foster

Adventist Today blogger

http://www.atoday.com/blogs/stephen-foster

Stephen Foster:

I'm not sure how you are able to divine the level of concern I have with greed and the love of money.  That isn't the main focus of this blog and I haven't spoken much to it.  Just because I don't believe that it's the government's role to legislate greed out of society doesn't mean that I'm not concerned with it.  In fact, from a moral standpoint, I have greater concern with greed than laziness.  (BTW, Welfare doesn't always breed laziness, but rather a lack of self-support.  I'd be productive on Welfare--just freed of the need to earn money to support myself.) 

I think you confuse my lack of belief in government intervention to end a given evil with my level of concern for that evil.  When it comes to government, I'm a pragmatist, far more than an ideologue. If government is the solution to ending greed and the love of money, then I wholeheartedly support taxing to the max by government that gives to each according to their need.  But my recollection is that previous attempts at this have given rather disastrous results and done nothing to end greed. While I think that the love of money is the root of all evil, the primary concern is with how this keeps us out of God's Kingdom.  While it also drives significant evil in man's kingdom, from a secular standpoint, human desire to get and have more (within the context of some government controls) has certainly helped produce needed goods and services, far more the communistic societies. 

I just find myself far more invested in spiritual poverty than physical poverty, and from a pragmatic standpoint, I don't find much evidence that Government policies and programs can change our hearts.  If so, then I assume that after all the entitlement programs and assistance for the poor in the past fifty years, we would find that people today have higher moral standards, and are much less greedy and tied to money.  Few would argue that this is the case.

In fact I would argue that government entitlements lead to ever more greed.  Look at Greece.  Laborers were screaming in the streets about the horrors of their governments austerity program that was required based on selling out to entitlements of the past that unions and others demanded.  Based on human nature, the more we get the more we want.  You'd think that most would be quite satisfied with collecting a comfortable pension at 65.  But in Greece they wanted more and their pension started at 53!  No wonder they're about bankrupt. 

You ask what is wrong with the European system.  While I'm no expert on the European economy, from all I have read, their system has indeed become unsustainable.  England is going the opposite direction of the USA, cutting back on their massive unsustainable health care budget, planning on firing a bunch of the bureaucratic bean counters and giving more control to doctors.  While Greece is in the worst shape, my understanding is that others like Portugal and Spain aren't far behind.  There's reason why Obama failed to get other countries behind his agenda for spending and stimulus.  They simply can't afford it, and while we are moving left, spending like crazy, most like Germany have taken a sharp turn to the right.

They have found that (like credit card spending) after all the borrowing that made socialism temporarily work and look attractive, they're all tapped out and the bills are coming due. With no more options in terms of further debt for social programs that aren't sustainable over the long haul, they have no choice but to move to the right. No wonder some pundits in Europe are writing commentary that voices dismay over our current course.  They find their own so flawed that they have trouble understanding why the US which is/was in better shape would want to emulate them and move toward the economic crisis in which they find themselves. 

So in answer to your question: "Do we consider their way of doing things either evil or morally deficient in some way; or economically unsustainable and inefficient?'....I would answer yes and yes, and on the question of sustainability most economists would agree with me. 

As to your question on life expectancy, many would question the stats on this.  Obviously this is often a matter of making statistics say whatever you want.  Does anyone really believe that Cuba's infant mortality is lower than ours?  When you factor out all our accidents and gun shots, and take life expectancy at 50 years old, USA is clearly top.  Just look up cancer survival stats for colon, prostate, and several others.  My recollection is that for colon cancer, Canada is closest to us and still is behind by 16% lower survival, and Europe is even worse. There's a reason everyone comes here for their CA treatment.  Clearly, while we spend astronomical amounts on health care, we also have far and away the best survival rates in the world.  Some might argue it's not worth it.  But few would claim to get better care or have better chances of survival anywhere else. 

In reference to my suggestion that I'd want to be in the lower 50%, you said "You wouldn’t (really) want to be one of them under any conceivable set of circumstances."  How would you know?  My lifestyle is and has been below the lifestyle that most experience in that category.  Admittedly, some in the bottom 50% are rather poor and I wouldn't want to join them (though the free time of not working is worth a lot to me), but that is certainly not the case for the vast majority in the bottom 50% of wage earners. 

Other than enjoying the luxury of being able to give substantial amounts to the least of these, I in no way live a lifestyle that is anywhere near commensurate with my income.  As I hear of the coming increase in taxes, I'm already calculating how little I need to live on, seriously considering taking early SS and joining the non-taxpaying public.  And once I do, from a purely selfish standpoint, I would be happy to vote for further benefits in health care or other areas, which will result in higher taxes for the other guy while costing me nothing.  So please tell me why the circumstances I envision are so inconceivable.

You say, "Forgive me, but the priority of your concerns just appears to be warped in my view."  Your response demonstrates how much you inaccurately read between my lines and how little you know about my concerns.  I am rather offended that you believe you have greater concerns for the poor or that I have greater concerns for the rich.  I'm not sure how you come to this conclusion.  Obviously I have no concern for the physical welfare of the rich as I do for the poor. In fact, by your lack of response to some of my questions and your advocacy that appears to be primarily directed at the poor in the US, I could well question whether you share my level of concern for the desperately poor outside of the US. 

I asked about your view on taxation of the rich, not because I'm at all worried about their well-being, but because I was seriously questioning the pragmatics of this and when we might reach a point of diminishing returns.  If we can tax the top 10% of wage earners at 80% and it would work, adding to the governments income without impacting productivity, unemployment or GDP, then I'd be all for it. You seemed to take my questions on this as a desire to disparage taxes and protect the rich.  I was actually asking what your limit was in terms of taxing the rich and to what extent you thought this would work.  Even you would likely agree that taxing them at 95% would be a point of diminishing returns.  I was just curious how far you'd want to go with this.

However, I have to wonder to what extent you even care about the practical. Maybe you are so wedded to perceptiions of equality that this takes precedence over the health of our economy. For many, mediocrity that allows for equality is preferable to a robust economy that would result in a greater gap between rich and poor, even if under this system the poor were far better off than in the mediocre system that provides for equality.  Given that choice, which would you perfer?

I am totally disgusted by the numerous examples of excesses among the rich, whether it be Clinton's multimillion dollar wedding, or Microsoft Paul Allen's multimillion dollarw yacht.  I'm far more concerned with this than the excesses of the poor. My issue was not so much with the excesses of the poor, per se, but rather with what our obvious excess support does to help disincentivize getting off the roles.

It seems that you are such a committed ideologue, you can't even discuss this from the standpoint of pragmatics, and see others opposed to your leftist social agenda as lacking in concern for the poor while trying to protect the needs of the rich. I don't know how to get you off that bandwagon. I suppose it's much easier to dismiss the arguments on the right by viewing them at simply on an agenda to protect the rich while caring less for the poor, suggesting we are morally inferior or less morally sensitive, with an impairment in our ability to empathize.

Hopefully we can agree to disagree on what methods are best to address the needs of the poor. But please don't attempt to disparage my methods by suggesting that I care more about the rich than the poor. There is no foundation for your implicit assumption that you and I differ in levels of zeal and concern for the spiritual and physical well-being of the rich or the poor.

Stephen S.,

I thought, at minimum, that I had attempted to answer questions that you raised, with the notable exception being at what point would taxing the well-off reach diminishing returns. Apparently, you disagree.

As for the diminishing returns question, I can only paraphrase the late Justice Potter Stewart, in that we will know it when we see it. It seems to me, anecdotally, that no matter how high income (and to a lesser  extent, capital gains) taxes go, people still want to earn more money and continue to seek maximum profit from any given transaction.

As for greed, there is no government policy or program that can quell it. There is no system of economics, governed by men that can change the heart or the tendency toward greed. That wasn’t my point at all. You point out that greed has caused positive outcomes. I think that the negative outcomes have far, far outweighed the positive.

Forgive me if I have surmised that you are more concerned for the haves than you are for the have-nots, and that your ideological leanings are suggestive of such a mind-set. Perhaps I have indeed “lumped” you in, so to speak, with others for whom I am persuaded that this is the case. I sincerely apologize.

I confess that I do not have much patience or apparent tolerance for this way of thinking, and since you believe that I have maligned or impugned your motives, which is a fair assessment, again, I sincerely apologize.

This unfortunate stereotyping of your ideology is not helped however by statements that seem to echo the push button talking points often used by others; like everybody comes here for their cancer treatment (which obviously isn’t true), and that our way of doing things is somehow morally superior to other civilized western democracies (after all, you did answer in the affirmative to the question of possible “evil” regarding  systems like those in the United Kingdom, France, and Germany), the routine “questioning” of inconvenient life expectancy and infant mortality statistics, and the inference that (admittedly, on my part) more concern for the poor than for the rich in a given society is “leftist” (whatever that is supposed to mean) and thus, by definition, not all that good.

I could go on about this; but it is probably ill-advised to do so, as we are getting lost in the land of political rhetoric. I believe that you have pragmatic reasons for your attitudes about how best to address poverty that supersede your ideology—because you say so. Pragmatism is whence you derive your ideology, is what I hear you saying. I will accept this because you know yourself better than I do; and I have no reason to doubt you, or that knowledge, whatsoever.

To paraphrase Malcolm X, we probably want the same thing; we just have different ways of getting at it. Let’s just say that the church’s Statement on Global Poverty is not at all misaligned with my way, and call it a day—especially since it rhymes. LOL

Stephen Foster

Adventist Today blogger

http://www.atoday.com/blogs/stephen-foster

Stephen Foster:

Thank you for granting that I might not fit all the right-wing stereotypes you assumed.  I also apologize for the "leftist" reference.  I was using it more as short-hand than as any put down.  While leftist might be accused of having greater concern for the poor than the rich, obviously, since I share that view in terms of their physical plight and am right of center, that notion clearly doesn't always fit.  Fair or not, I use the term leftist to reference a perspective that views greater versus lesser government intervention as the best solution to poverty. 

In fact, many leftist appear far less personally concerned with the plight of the poor than those on the right.  That has been anecdotally pointed out by comparing the charitable giving of the current and previous president and VP.  I recall that both Bush and Chenny gave 10-20% of their income.  Biden didn't even hit 1% and Obama gave about 5%, but only after running for president.  Before that, his giving was about 2%.  I'm no big fan of the previous administration, but it does seem that if liberals are so hot on spending the money of others, they should at least set an example by putting their money where their mouth is when it comes to charitable giving.

I'm not defending greed and maybe we need to define that better.  I'm only saying that I think in man's secular kingdom, it's hard to argue that our desire to gain more hasn't fueled our economy and lead to significant innovations.  That is certainly true for health care.  If most weren't so greedy about living as long as possible and most had faith that centered more on the next life than this life, obviously there would be far less innovations in health care and life expectancy would be much less.

And if we were all more in line with what Paul advocated, being perfectly comfortable with a lifestyle that only met our most basic survival needs of food, clothes and housing, there would be far less demand and far less innovation in terms of various creature comforts we now enjoy.  While some could argue that we'd be far better off from a spiritual standpoint with much less of this, clearly, from a secular standpoint, our wants have improved our comforts in this life significantly.  I agree that, in terms of our ultimate salvation greed is still evil.  But in this world, without the drive to have more, how would people be motivated to be productive (the vast majority having a secular orientation)?

I also wanted to respond to your observations on cancer survival.  Obviously everyone doesn't come here for cancer treatment.  But the vast majority who are well off and seeking treatment outside of their country come here.  That was my point that was inadvertently overstated.  If you want to know the truth about survival in the US, check out http://mjperry.blogspot.com/2009/08/us-vs-europe-life-expectancy-and-cancer.html  This clearly shows that when calculating standardized life expectancies which are adjusted for the effects of premature death resulting from non-health-related fatal injuries, the US is number one in the world for life expectancy. That same site shows that in almost every type of cancer, the US clearly beats every other country in terms of survival. 

But while I believe that our health care is superior to most other countries (at least when corrected as above), I would hardly equate that with the notion the we are morally superior or the best country.  After all, while it's not fair to count it in assessing our health care, our rate of murder is not that enviable and from that standpoint, there are many other countries that are safer and preferable to ours.  Also our educational achievement is depressingly abysmal compared to several other countries. 

Sorry if I appeared to single out European governments as more evil than ours. I was only responding to your question about Europe. Given how we are currently spending, I would include ours with that assessment.  And if you consider trends, then considering the direction we are moving compared to Europe, it could be argue that we are behaving more immorally.  Certainly many would argue that, in terms of our wars.  But I was actually thinking of evil based on our economic choices.  I think it is immoral for our government (or those in Europe) to be spending on programs we don't want to pay for, by going into debt on behalf of generations to come.  We would certainly think it was immoral if our great grandparents had done the same, choosing to make us akin to indentured servants because they wanted to spend more than they took in.

When you say, "It seems to me, anecdotally, that no matter how high income (and to a lesser  extent, capital gains) taxes go, people still want to earn more money and continue to seek maximum profit from any given transaction," I must seriously question whether you have a pragmatic bone in your body.  By this reasoning, I assume that if we taxed earned income and profits at 99%, you see no downside, believing that those in a position to pay that would still continue to work and invest to earn that 1% for themselves with the same zeal that they might if taxes were only 30%.  If you believe that, then I have some swamp land to sell you. 

I would never underestimate greed, but that includes more than money.  Most place a high value on free time.  If I'm considering a major drop in my income to go on SS and gain early retirement and free time, wouldn't you think that with higher taxation, many would also choose early retirement, maybe not at my low level, but still earning considerably less and then paying much less taxes. 

If there is no limit to that rate of tax that would add to the coffers, why aren't Obama's economic consultants advocating for much higher taxes, well beyond ending the Bush tax cuts?  Even Romer recently wrote "tax increases appear to have a very large, sustained and highly negative impact on output" while "tax cuts have very large and persistent positive output effects." So clearly, without attempts to look out for the rich, even liberal economist think there is obviously a point of diminishing returns when it comes to taxing those who can afford to pay more. Are you seriously saying that the wealthy would risk their assets, investing in the market to the same extent and in the same manner, whether their profits were taxed at 90% or 10%??

I fully concur with your paraphrase of Malcolm X.  

S. Foster does not have much patience or tolerance for those who are more concerned with protecting the private property rights of those who honestly earn income than with aiding those who would manipulate the law in order to take away as much private property and earnings as they can get away with (Foster will know how much is enough when he sees it.). Much as he would like to spin the issue to be one of those who have concern for the poor (righteous people) versus those who have concern for the rich (evil people), it is really an issue of principle: Property rights in a free society. 

In The City of God, Augustine sought to justify the emperor's expropriation of Donatist heretics on the grounds that property could only be owned by divine right (all things belong to the righteous) or by human right (subject to the jurisdiction of the kings). Either theory made the heretics argument that they had worked for what they owned a losing proposition.

Foster is probably closer to Augustine in his thinking than to our Founders. Whether he admits it or not, Foster essentially rejects the Founders' notion of natural rights, which include property rights beyond the reach of governmental authority. 

But rather than consider arguments from the haves, whose obvious self-interest Foster seems to believe automatically invalidates their opinions, Christian welfare state advocates might want to listen to C.S. Lewis, a man with impeccable Christian credentials, who, with remarkable prescience, identified and warned of the dangers of the global welfare state that now exists. For starters, read God in The Dock: Essays on Theology and Ethics, or The Abolition of Man. If you appreciate what a deeply compassionate follower of Christ C.S. Lewis was, his writings might force an abandonment of demagoguery and an acknowledgement that there may be principled reasons for Christian SDAs - even those who have compassion for the downtrodden and materially disadvantaged - to oppose the Church's Statement on Poverty.

Nathan S.,

S. Foster does not have much patience or tolerance for those who are more concerned with protecting the private property rights of those who honestly earn income than with aiding those who would manipulate the law in order to take away as much private property and earnings as they can get away with (Foster will know how much is enough when he sees it.)

Is this what I have said, or is this the ideologically spun interpretation of what I’ve said? Nathan, why not address me directly as has been customary in this space—especially since we are both commentators on Monte’s blog, with neither of us having written it—as opposed to referencing me in the third person? I don’t have a problem with it as such, except that the change of apparently established protocol is somewhat unsettling to someone as conservative as I am.

“Private property (rights)” is, I suppose, a euphemism for money in this context. “The founders’ notion of natural rights, which include[ed] property rights beyond the reach of governmental authority” clearly intentionally, and consciously, extended to include the “natural right” to own human “property.” This of course simply means that whatever their notion of either natural rights or property rights was, it was manifestly flawed and worthy of at least a measure of rejection; given the fact that (and to the extent that) some of them actually "owned" slaves and/or did not object to the institution (of slavery) in principle.

The notion that an undetermined amount of “honestly” earned income goes to aid an undetermined number “who would manipulate the law” (granted here only for the sake of argument) should be weighed against the reality that an undetermined amount of amoral human and capital exploitation goes to effectively dehumanize an undetermined number of “honestly” less fortunate human beings (e.g., the "working poor," in some instances), Nathan.

What C.S. Lewis thought, wrote, or believed is fine, but irrelevant; sincere Christian though he may well have been. I could theoretically cite many writers whom I have concluded to have impeccable Christian credentials; with whom you may or may not agree. I wouldn’t think that referencing them or recommending their material to you makes my point any more valid or my reasoning any sounder. Then again, since you were referencing me in the third person, you may not have been necessarily recommending this material to me after all.

Stephen Foster

Adventist Today blogger

http://www.atoday.com/blogs/stephen-foster

Nothing personal intended, Stephen F., by the third person reference. It was simply a reflection of the interval between your comment and my response.

You said: "The founders' notion of natural rights...clearly intentionally and consciously extended to the 'natural right' to own human property." Just who were you quoting for this preposterous assertion? Do you also think that enslavement of Africans by Muslims was the result of the "natural rights" theories espoused in Sharia law? 

You repudiation of America's founding principles certainly exposes and clarifies the radical provenance of your views. Had I known that you were dismissive of the natural rights presuppositions undergirding our Constitution, I think I would have given up much earlier. But even at that, it is one thing to deny the validity of "natural rights" theory. It is quite another to deconstruct history, as you have done, to suggest that the nascent theory of "natural rights" was responsible for slavery in its death throes. Nothing could be farther from the truth. Would you also dismiss the validity of freedom of choice because it has been used to justify abortion?

Until the Enlightenment, slavery was pervasive throughout all cultures and races. It was the theory of "natural rights" articulated in the 17th Century by John Locke and others which led Western Civilization to view slavery as immoral. Belief in "natural rights" gained so much traction that slave traders and slave owners tragically found it necessary to commit an even greater evil than slavery in order to justify it - namely the dehumanization of the Negro race. If Negroes were not human, then it would not be necessary to grant their entitlement to natural rights.

Never before in history had it been necessary to deny the essential humanity of slaves in order to justify slavery. This monstrous fiction made American slavery uniquely evil. But the greater good of "natural rights" prevailed, and has led American Blacks to becoming the most affluent group of Black people in the world. In fact, if American Blacks were an independent nation, their GDP would make them the 16th wealthiest nation in the world.

Nathan,

“The founders’ notion of natural rights, which include property rights beyond the reach of governmental authority” were your words. The “clearly intentionally, and consciously, extended to include the ‘natural right’ to own human ‘property’” were my words.

Remember, my issue was not so much with natural rights, as it was with “the founders’ notion” (your words) of them; which enabled some of them to justify "owning" people. You have accused me of repudiating America’s founding principles, whereas in reality I have repudiated some of America’s founders’ principles; as evidenced by their practices. You are quite correct that the founders who owned slaves and/or who had no problem with the institution of slavery had to “intentionally” and “consciously” (my words) dehumanize a race of people in order to “own” slaves among that particular race of people. However, you seem to suggest—and correct me if I’m wrong—that they would not have had slaves had they (the slaves) not been of a given (dehumanized) race, because their (the slave-owning founders') concept (or notion, if you will) of natural rights would have prohibited them, in principle, from doing so.

I hope you don’t call me radical for disagreeing with this (“notion”); and I won’t even call it (this “notion”) preposterous. (How’s that for “mere Christianity”?) 

Stephen Foster

Adventist Today blogger

http://www.atoday.com/blogs/stephen-foster

It's a bit off topic here, Stephen. But it's an important issue. I understood you to be dismissive of "natural rights" theory because it had been used to justify slavery. If not, why raise it? Every good theory or system can be, and has been, used to justify evil, including, as I have pointed out previously, "social justice" and the "war on poverty".  What do you think the Founders should have done? Should they have stuck to the principles that most of them believed in, and left the southern states as a separate sovereign nation to institutionalize slavery in a way that insulated them from the moral opprobrium of the northern states? Perhaps the South could have ended apartheid along with South Africa late in the 20th Century.

Odious as compromises with evil may be, it seems to me in hindsight that permitting slavery to exist in the South, while limiting it's power with the three-fifths rule, was preferable to any non-military alternative. The fact that in the real world we cannot always be moral purists does not invalidate our moral principles or even necessarily make us hypocrites.

I am relieved that you do seem to believe in "natural rights", which include economic freedom and private property rights. But I must say that I was astonished at what I understood to be your suggestion that abuses of the system by those who choose dependency must be weighed against abuses by those who are self-sufficient taxpayers. Doesn't that amount to economic gang warfare? What is the difference between the "balancing" you are advocating and the law of the jungle? Should we be a nation of laws or a nation of special interests? How about a Constitutional amendment providing that any law enacted by congress for one citizen or business must be equally applicable to all citizens?

You are well aware of the root causes of "poverty" in this country - terrible schools, advancing students who have learned nothing, teenagers having babies, fatherless homes, and subcultures of crime and violence enabled by governments that do not do their fundamental job of protecting citizens.

So just how is it that my producing a service that protects people, for which they pay me well, creates a moral problem that needs to be balanced by allowing those who produce nothing and pay no taxes to pick my pockets?

Nathan,

We may be getting somewhere; but who knows where? If you understood me to be rather dismissive of the founders’ notion of natural rights, it was precisely because their notion, in practice if not in theory, permitted or allowed for slavery to coexist with whatever else they may have intended.

Whatever “evil” may have subsequently been theoretically “justified” in the name of “social justice” and the “war on poverty” is not evil at all in comparison to the actual evil of the actual institution of post-Constitutional American slavery; for which the only “justification” in hindsight or any other sight, was greed.

You seem to equate or conflate economic freedom and private property rights with a freedom from taxation for purposes with which you disagree (in a Constitutional republic no less); and apparently believe that such a freedom is a natural right.

If I have misunderstood you on this, please correct me. I will hereby attempt to do likewise by correcting your interpretation of what I said concerning the balancing that, in my view, needs to take place. In fact, perhaps I should just repeat what I said: The notion that an undetermined amount of “honestly” earned income goes to aid an undetermined number “who would manipulate the law” (granted here only for the sake of argument) should be weighed against the reality that an undetermined amount of amoral human and capital exploitation goes to effectively dehumanize an undetermined number of “honestly” less fortunate human beings (e.g., the "working poor," in some instances), Nathan.

The same mindset of greed that permitted, compromised with, supported, and/or defended slavery also currently permits, compromises with, supports, and defends exploitation, both here and (if/when more profitable) abroad; and uses the notion of natural rights and property rights as justification for so doing. It is a notion that I summarily dismiss as amoral at best. Your list of the root causes of poverty is incomplete. It does not include human greed and the willingness of some to exploit others because it is their "natural right" to do so.

We live in an interdependent society, and world. Don’t kid yourself, my friend; none of us is self-sufficient. All of us are beneficiaries of this interdependence. More to the point, thankfully, the Statement on Global Poverty acknowledges that there are indeed rights that are more “basic,” necessary, and natural than even private property. 

Stephen Foster

Adventist Today blogger

http://www.atoday.com/blogs/stephen-foster

"If you understood me to be rather dismissive of the founders’ notion of natural rights, it was precisely because their notion, in practice if not in theory, permitted or allowed for slavery to coexist with whatever else they may have intended."

Actually, this is a misconception. Alexander Stephens, then vice president of the new Confederacy, in his (in)famous cornerstone speech, proclaimed that  "(Jefferson's) ideas, however, were fundamentally wrong. They rested upon the assumption of the equality of races. This was an error. ... Our new government is founded upon exactly the opposite idea; its foundations are laid, its corner–stone rests, upon the great truth that the negro is not equal to the white man; that slavery — subordination to the superior race — is his natural and normal condition." The confederates recognized that the doctrine of natural rights condemned slavery, and that only by repudiating that concept could they find any way to justify their odious practice.

Jefferson, and the other founders knew, as their letters and records of the debates over the Declaration make clear, that the words, "all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights," condemned slavery, and those who practiced it.

Frederick Douglass clearly understood the importance of natural rights, rights coming from 'Nature and nature's God.' He wrote: "Why am I a slave? Why are some people slaves, and others masters? Was there ever a time when this was not so? How did the relation commence?
Once, however, engaged in the inquiry, I was not very long in finding out the true solution of the matter. It was not color, but crime, not God, but man, that afforded the true explanation of the existence of slavery; nor was I long in finding out another important truth, viz: what man can make, man can unmake."

Henry Macneal Turner also understood this important idea of natural rights. He asked, "The great question, sir is this: Am I a man? If I am such, I claim the rights of a man.. . ."

Did the Founders, or have any of us, ever fully lived up to that great ideal of natural rights? No. Nor have we lived up to the Golden Rule. But that does not invalidate either one.

Unless we have natural, God-given, inalienable rights-- we have none at all. To quote Douglass, "what man can make, man can unmake."

Is a particular government good or just? Without natural rights we have no standard of judging. We simply have different opinions about what good is. If our rights come from God, are inalienable, "and to secure these, governments are instituted among men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed," then we can say that a government which does not attempt to secure these rights, and which exercises powers without the consent of the governed is not good and just. 

Governments are like clothing: a result of the fall. As Madison said, "If men were angels, no government would be necessary. If angels were to govern men, neither external nor internal controls on government would be necessary. In framing a government which is to be administered by men over men, the great difficulty lies in this: you must first enable the government to control the governed; and in the next place oblige it to control itself." If government itself is the source of rights, then it is answerable only to itself. If government only secures natural rights, there is an external standard to which it must answer.

In a sinful world, it is impossible to create "systems so perfect no one would have to be good," (T.S. Eliot). In a sinful world absent of natural rights, no system will be good.

Ed Dickerson, AToday Web Columnist

http://www.atoday.com/cw/dickerson

We should constantly be trying to improve:  ourselves, our church, our government, and the world.  To do nothing in the face of evil is to be complicit in it.

While slavery was accepted in the U.S., so were women as second-class citizens:  unable to vote, unable to obtain equal education and jobs, and remedies have been enacted.  We can do more to give everyone equal opportunity, which is not equal results, but allowing everyone, insofar as possible the rights to a good education, and access to jobs based on ability and merits.

Looking backward into history, we have come a long way;  but there are miles yet to go. 

Ed,

Please allow me another attempt to clarify my “natural rights” position. Nathan previously asked “Would you also dismiss the validity of freedom of choice because it has been used to justify abortion?” The answer for someone opposed to abortion rights as we know them, would be that they would dismiss the validity of freedom of choice as it relates to abortion because it is a rhetorical perversion of the concept of freedom of choice; and is used to rhetorically justify an evil.

This is precisely my position regarding the (mis-) use or perversion of the concept of inalienable natural and property rights on behalf of those who would exploit others with the justification that their inalienable rights to pursue happiness (wealth in this context) justifies the leveraging of capital/property to the extent that human beings are devalued.

In the case of slavery, IMO had Negroes not been used as practically free labor, some other class or race of people certainly would have been, because some justification would have been rationalized on the basis of perverted natural rights (to profit); they may well have been other white people, if history tells us anything. Does anyone seriously doubt this? It is the same mindset that, both contemporaneously with slavery and/or post-slavery as well, legally permitted child labor and unsafe, inhumane working conditions. It is at least akin to the mindset that justified the confiscation of territory previously occupied by indigenous people, by any means necessary (speaking of property rights).

I fully concur with the concept of inalienable human rights. However, I dismiss the rhetorical use of the concept of natural rights in disputations over the (legal) use of tax revenues; just as those who would oppose abortion would dismiss the rhetorical use of the concept of freedom of choice in disputation of (legal) abortion. 

Stephen Foster

Adventist Today blogger

http://www.atoday.com/blogs/stephen-foster