DNC Plays Race Card?

[Dr. Shane]

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What it really means is privatizing as much as possible, so that the number of civil servants declines, while budgets actually climb at a higher rate over time. This because the functions are privatized and given to contractors (who have lobbyists, whereas civil servants don't)

There we have some real SPIN. Sounds like a government-employee union official.

Contractors have to compete with each other for government contracts. When they are awarded those contracts they have to meet deadlines or they are penalized. When ends up happening is private-sector contractors do jobs more efficiently and at less cost than government employees would. On top of that - and this is important - although the private sector gets the job done for less money, they still make a profit and end up paying taxes on that profit. The private sector can also be held accountable in a way which it is difficult to hold the government. So privatizing government services is a good solution.

On another note: America takes care of its poor. I am a prime example. Born into a home with two alcoholic parents, my father abandoned us when I was five. I grew up in the lowest income bracket in America. The government always made sure we had food, shelter, heat in the winter and 14 years of free public education (pre-k - 12). When I cam of age they provided me funds to go to a university where I was able to get a bachelors degree. That doesn't happen to children in Mexico in my same circumstance.

[John317]

Originally Posted By: John317

It sounds like forced redistribution of wealth is Biblical and OK with you? For the government to take what you have worked for and give to other people? Don't you think you have a right to decide whether to give your money away? Or would I have a right to come up and take your money?

That is not what the Unites States government was formed to do-- to be in the business of redistributing the wealth. That is an idea right out of Karl Marx.

Quote:

The theory of marxism and socialism in the purist sense come closer to the Biblical model of heaven's economy than Capitalism. Unfortunately greed and lust for power corrupted it just as happened to the OT mandated theocratic economy. [/quote']

I'm surprised that a Seventh-day Adventist could say that Marxism in the purest sense comes closer to the Bible model of heaven's economy than Capitalism. See: http://jyte.com/cl/pure-marxism-is-feasible

In pure Marxism, the state dominates and controls the individual. The individual only has what freedoms the state gives him. That is, the individual is completely subservient to the state.

Marxism as Karl Marx taught it and envisioned it is atheistic. If anyone truly understands Marxism, he will realize that Marxism is based on dialectic materialism, which is antithetical to the Bible or the belief in God.

It is no coincidence that whenever Marxism has been practiced, or been the ideal of the state, you will find a suppression of religious freedom. It is not in the interest of the state under Marxism to allow religious freedom or freedom of expression.

The reason of this is that Marxist thought cannot accept any power above its own or above the power of the state. The state decides what is true and what is right and wrong. It won't accept anyone saying they get their rights from God. According to pure Marxist theory, all rights are accorded and thus may be rescinded by the state. God does not exist in the context of pure Marxism. There is no place for God in dialectical materialism, which is the foundation of Marxism and Marxist theory.

The "socialism" or "communism" spoken of in Acts 2: 44, 45 was as a result of the hearing and accepting of the gospel and under the motive of the Holy Spirit. No where does the Bible give credence to the notion that it is right for the secular state to take money from its citizens without their consent in order to give it away to others.

I think all Christians would like to see no poor people and more equality of wealth, but it must be done with the consent of the governed and not by force. Americans are firmly convinced of this, which is why we have a representative government and also why Americans have chosen to have a capitalist economic system rather than a state-planned economy. We want the means of production and services to be under the control of individuals and not under the control of the state. Having it this way encourages greater individual liberties and allows for far more freedom of religion and worship.

[John317]

Marxism is not just politics and economics. Marxism is also a world view, a way of looking at and explaining the world. As such, it encompasses philosophy and religion, while paradoxically and vigorously asserting its atheism and contempt for philosophy.

The Encyclopedia Britannica points out this quasi-religious nature of Marxism:

Marxism, which provides remarkable evidence of the power of dominant key ideas to inspire and direct man. is undoubtedly one of the greatest challenges to traditional religious belief .. the thinking of Marx had religious overtones, whether from his own Jewish background or from a Christian atmosphere, not least in Britain where he lived from 1849 to 1883. Second, Marxism can be called a quasi-religion insofar as it calls from its followers a devotion and a commitment that in their empirical character greatly resemble commitment and devotion that characterize religious people. Marxism has undoubtedly fired the spirit of man and given to revolutions, whether in Russia or China, a powerful direction that has maintained stability and avoided anarchy. Furthermore, like a religion, it has provided themes of fulfillment and hope – a revolution interpreted as the initiation of a Communist world society that would be a final consummation. There are many logical similarities between the doctrine of the Marxist millennium and the Christian doctrine of Christ's Second Coming (Encyclopedia Britannica III, Macropaedia, "Philosophy of Religion," Chicago, IL: William Benton, Publisher, 1978, vol. 15, p. 598).

And:

Marxism and its offspring, Russian Communism, have always maintained world domination as one of their goals. Believing as they do in the inevitability of world revolution and believing that this revolution must be aided and abetted by violence, it is against the very nature of the system for Communists to "live and let live." It is this aspect of domination which poses a grave threat to the world, especially that part of the world that treasures its traditions and inheritance of democratic, constitutional government. The very existence of the church is sharply challenged....

For Christianity, the conflict becomes most basically a spiritual conflict. In Christianity, Christ becomes the motivating force of all action and is the center of the culture of believers. Marxism and its proponents – though usually referred to as atheistic – have set up their own guiding force which is history itself. This becomes their god, and the motivation for all activity around this is materialistic. Thus they deny God and Christ and spiritual power in history and culture (Thomas O. Kay, The Christian Answer to Communism, Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan Publishing House, 1961, pp. 11, 12).

[Tom Wetmore]

Before you get your knickers in a knot and hyperventilate yourself into a mild case of hyperoxia please read more carefully. Context is very important.

I merely picked up on your reference to Marxism and made a very limited comparative relativistic observation about a very narrow aspect of Marxism/socialism in the context of the point under discussion - Economic theory. I wasn't comparing all aspects of Marxism/socialism. And ripping that out of the context from the whole of what I said ill-serves my primary point that the Biblical theocratic economic mandate was indeed all for the periodic redistribution of wealth and that those Republican right-wingers, erstwhile posers of Christan values, who claim the Biblical high ground seem rather far removed from and decidedly unfamiliar with the ground they claim. Socialistic economic theory comes closer than capitalism to that heavenly ideal.

And while I may have not written with the obsessively hypergraphic detail to which you may be personally comfortable, my chosen economy of words was simply that the purist idea of socialist economic theory is that all work for the common good and all will be cared for equally and economic classism is no more.

For a quick and dirty refresher - Socialistic Economics

Tom

[Bravus]

J317, would you be willing to leave aside the Marxism lessons and engage with the concept of the jubilee? It seems like a pretty solid Biblical mandate for wealth redistribution, so if the position is that only an unfettered capitalist system is appropriate (Biblical?) it's something that needs accounting for.

[jasd]

QR frame:

Re Marxism: unfortunately, theory and practice do not often track, as reality intrudes.

"Take therefore the talent from him, and give [it] unto him which hath ten talents. For unto every one that hath shall be given, and he shall have abundance: but from him that hath not shall be taken away even that which he hath."

There seems to be a principle of sorts re asset redistribution in the above.

Doesn't Biblical Jubilee presuppose a bit of Feudalism; that is, if you ain got nothing belonging you, you ain got nothing coming you - seven, six, eight, or other years out.

One must indulge in semantics to justify Biblical Jubilee today, as it was first made OT possible by theft and murder/war to the max; that is, the dispossession of the natives - wow! - including life.

I know, I know...

[John317]

J317, would you be willing to leave aside the Marxism lessons and engage with the concept of the jubilee? It seems like a pretty solid Biblical mandate for wealth redistribution, so if the position is that only an unfettered capitalist system is appropriate (Biblical?) it's something that needs accounting for.

The jubilees as well as the teachings of the OT prophets certainly show us clearly that God wants people to take care of the poor. The issue here is whether government-- and particularly the United States federal government-- should be taking money from people by force and redistributing it.

No one is arguing against God's will that there be no poor or that people share their wealth with the poor. That is not the question or the issue as far as I'm concerned. The issue has to to do with whether the US government has the responsibility or the duty or power to be that mechanism.

So the question is whether Americans want the federal government to be in the business of redistributing the wealth of the nation more than it already has. If the American people vote on it and decide it's something they want their government to do, then that would be giving permission for the government to do it. But it shouldn't be something the government does without the will and full support of the people.

The redistribution of wealth through taxation was a primary goal of Marx and Engels and the socialists. It's not something that most Americans want to see happen.

Do Americans want their federal government to "take care" of them from birth to death? Or do Americans want the government to stay out of their lives and give them more freedom and take fewer taxes? Or do they want the government to get more involved in their personal life, take away freedoms, and take more of their hard-earned money? Marxists and socialist want the latter. I want the former, and I believe most Americans also want that.

I see this general election as deciding some of those important issues. It's obvious where both candidates come down on them. It's a clear choice.

[there buster]

The notion that "Marxism" or "communism" is closer to "hangings way of doing things," is based on a fundamental flaw in logic.

In the first place, all economic systems on this earth are based on the notion of scarcity. Indeed, it's because, especially in primitive societies, there's not enough to go around, that economies arise and are necessary. In heaven --- or actually, as it should be, The New Earth --- there will be no lack. Abundance, rather than scarcity, will be the norm. So trying to make some analogy between that situation and socialist economics is spurious.

One might as well claim that capitalism is the economic system of the New Earth based on Isaiah's declaration that, "they shall not build, and another inhabit; they shall not plant and another harvest." Certainly, that seems to support private ownership. But what that actually means in a radically different society -- 1 without sin and selfishness -- we certainly don't know.

As to the Jubilee being a redistribution of wealth, this also is based on a fundamental flaw. In a society where land equaled the ability to produce one's own food and fiber, and wealth was generally measured by the size of flocks and herds, to be land less was essentially to be destitute. So the system was set up in such a way that land could not be sold permanently.

In practice, the economic system --- which was essentially a free market system --- adapted to this reality by adopting the practice of paying for so many "crop years." If they adhered strictly to the Sabbaths of the land, an inherent part of the Jubilee system, then the "purchase" of a parcel of land actually amounted to payment for 42 crop years.

So there was no "redistribution" in fact. Ownership remained unchanged. And we might note that it was indeed individual ownership and not state ownership.

Several years ago, I dealt with the issue of wealth redistribution in article in Spectrum online. There was no forced redistribution of wealth in Israel. There was an individual duty to care for the poor, as there is today.

The notion that forcing someone else to conform to our idea of righteous behavior is a virtue is a fallacy that lies beneath virtually every form of tyranny. And it's strange that those who are so concerned that the church might influence the state are totally unconcerned when the state takes over the functions of the church.