Happy Easter.
The picture above is from one of Portland, Oregon's many protests against life in general. I mention this in passing, due to a picture which has made its way into the New York Times just in time for their Easter edition of Week-in-Review.
Oregon knows teh crazy. Which brings me to the text of this week's appraisal of the Left. I turn to Matthew 22:37-40.
Matthew shares with us the outcome of a meeting held between Jesus and the local party bigwigs. The bigwigs were trying to entrap Jesus into using words that would create criminal prosecution problems for Him. The bigwigs, you see, were convinced that they were the most ethical bigwigs, evah.
The problem, of course, was that Jesus wouldn't allow Himself to become ensnared in their rhetorical trap. And it didn't take Him 17 minutes and 12 seconds to do it. The question was, "...which commandment of the law is the greatest?" He simply stated, ""You shall love the Lord, your God, with all your heart, with all your soul, and with all your mind. This is the greatest and the first commandment."
And then He followed up. "The second is like it: You shall love your neighbor as yourself. The whole law and the prophets depend on these two commandments."
Pretty simple rules for life. Love your God. Love your neighbor as yourself. No wonder Tea Party People are being compared to the Bill Ayers crowd by the New York Times. No wonder the ACLU is attempting to drive out all references of God from our daily lives and political culture. We are told, repeatedly, that other gods are equally important to those who worship them as is the Christian God. But we're never really able to vote on that proposition, are we? That is, is there a consensus out there that the god Ba'al is as to be revered as is the Father of Christ? And forgive me if I get this mixed up, but isn't the God of the Muslim the same God as worshipped by the Jews and Christians? And do you want the debate on whether or not the God of the Jews, the Christians and the Muslims had better prophets when it came to the Jews, the Christians or the Muslims?
Of course not. That would be judgemental. And the Left doesn't want us to be judgemental. They celebrate "diversity," which is simply a lazy way of saying that your fundamental beliefs are inconsequential. They don't matter. And, we simply won't debate it. Because, if debated, a fundamental belief in the God of Abraham, the Father of Christ, would lead to a rise in "absolutism."
I keep hearing the refrain from the early days of Sesame Street when we learned that some things belonged to the other and some things weren't like the others. We are supposed to look at all the circles and suggest that they are all the same. And they are, relatively.
Relativism is an important addition to our current political debate. It allows us to say whatever comes into our pretty little heads without concern of justifying any views we choose to hold. And any debate on those pretty little ideas is an attempt to impose absolute beliefs, which is never justified.
We gotten so far from the meaning of the word "justified" that it no longer has any common sense in our use of that word, today. When all things are relative, when absolutes are a form of cultural imperialism, holding that there are central American values that we all hold and are responsible for protecting and defending, the second law of Christ is easily avoided as well; to love your neighbor as yourself. And it is important for the Leftist to obliterate this requirement; how else can you transform the theft of your neighbor's belongings into "social justice"?
Another group of political bigwigs had earlier confronted Christ. They began their meeting with a question about tax policy, hoping, again, to ensnare Christ with the political sandbag of the day. (Imagine tax policy having inflammatory effects on the general population!) Again, Christ didn't need to spend about twenty minutes explaining tax policy. He simply told them that fair is fair. You have skin in the game? You pay your share.
Which is where tax policy in this country has gone sideways. Fair is no longer fair. We no longer follow the Golden Rule. For this we need travel back a bit in our Bibles to find Matthew 7. "Do to others whatever you would have them do to you. This is the law and the prophets."
I can hear the ringing denunciations of the last major change in tax policy during the administration of Bush 43, known as the Bush Tax Cuts. Maybe you've heard these expressions of outrage, too. Rich Democrats talking about how they are willing to give more in taxes than they are. That it's their responsibility to share more, since they earn more.
But I disagree.
I know that our country is currently on a path to economic destruction. The size of the commitments of this, and previous, Congress are simply unaffordable. States, like California and Oregon, are on a path of fiscal obligation that simply cannot be paid for. Free medical care and public employee retirement costs are skyrocketing, and the State of Oregon is currently looking at a billion dollar shortfall in the next biennium. The response of our state's legislature was to further increase the amount we steal from the productive sector of the economy in order to transfer those funds to the least productive sector or our state's economy.
And it is my observation that this is true, since a majority of Oregon's voters have no skin in the game. Since they don't pay any tax, they have no interest in limiting the amount of taxes paid. It's no skin off of their collective noses.
Tax avoidance has become the official policy of the Left. And there is no longer any resemblance of a former system that viewed as an obligation that a citizen would help to pay for the provision of those government services that we choose to provide ourselves. Now we have two classes; thems that pays and thems that don't.
And thems that don't views this as just fine. It is justice, social justice. Why shouldn't the poor have all the trappings of the rich? I can think of several reasons why this wouldn't--or shouldn't--be so. But any of these reasons rely upon absolute assumptions. Things like, if I work hard, I will be rewarded. Things like, if I look to others to pay their share, it is only fitting that I be forced to pay my fair share, too.
The Left has reasons why our poor, under trodden masses need not pay their share. Really, a surfeit of reasons. Economic and cultural imperialism. Capitalism. Corporatism. Etc., etc., etc.
The Left doesn't view itself as the constituency of a kleptocracy. Someone needs to explain how mirrors work, I guess.
