BS: Government---the bigger the better PART

Subject: Government---the bigger the better PART
From: John Hardly
Date: 29 Oct 00 - 02:39 PM

"There are always those with the good old "Protestant ethic" who's belief in "Christian charity" only extends to people they know personally. The rest gets what they deserve, so they can go to hell the whole lazy lot of them. From reading your past posts, troll, I wouldn't have lumped you in with them."

Okay Bartholemew,

So it always has to come down to this. I'm wrong because I'm Protestant Christian. You've set up an effective strawman in this setting. I won't assume the worst of you or assume where your charity does or does not end. I would like to, as politely and respectfully as possible, ask to what extent (if any) you see any connection between behavior and poverty.

John

Subject: RE: BS: Government---the bigger the better PART
From: McGrath of Harlow
Date: 29 Oct 00 - 03:07 PM

THe blue clicky demon ran away with most of my last post - actually it was maybe better that way. But anyway here is what I had meant to post:

Hallelujah I'm a Bum

Which side are you on?

They've got the money, but we've got the songs...

The amazing thing is how the people with the real money seem to be able to turn the anger of the people with not that much money against the people with next to no money, and get clean free away.

Yes, there are people cheating on welfare - and there are two types. There are a few well organised crooks running a business doing it, the same kind of crooks who run other legal businesses robbing their fellow citizens blind. Illegal or legal, these are the kind of crooks who don't like to pay taxes, and have ways of avoiding doing so.

And there are other people struggling to get by on welfare or benefits of one sort or another who do bend the rules sometimes, rules which are often cruel and inflexible, and full of poverty traps.(I'm talking here for example about someone who gets a chance of a days work, and doesn't declare it - of course the nice middleclass person who gives him the work and pays cash in hand to save on the tax doesn't get slagged off as a tax cheat. He probably mouths off about welfare cheats.)

"The rich don't get hurt by high tax rates....the middle class does. The rich can hide their money, they can afford huge numbers of accountants and lawyers to protect their assets. Failing all else, they can afford to purchase whatever government functionaries they need, to escape burdensome regulation."

So people should just give in to the big thieves. Just should accept that nothing can be done to get the bastards, and roll over and vote the way they want you to, the way that makes it even easier for them to avoid paying their share - and take your anger and embarrassment out on the poor, beacuse you're too frightened to take on the real enemy.

(And here's a new bit - John H - look Bartholomew the fella put quote marks round that phrase. What he meant by it he can explain, but to me he clearly wasn't saying anything rude abour Protestant Christians as such, but about a distortion of Christianity that trades under thed brand name, but doesn't seem to have too much to do with the Sermon on the Mount.

It appears to teach things that the rich shall inherit the earth, and that all that stuff about it being easier for a camel getting through a needle is a load of leftist rubbish.

Subject: RE: BS: Government---the bigger the better PART
From: McGrath of Harlow
Date: 29 Oct 00 - 03:09 PM

Hell, it's still censoring me. Is this the dirty tricks department again? Here goes once more.

They've got the money, but we've got the songs...

The amazing thing is how the people with the real money seem to be able to turn the anger of the people with not that much money against the people with next to no money, and get clean free away.

Yes, there are people cheating on welfare - and there are two types. There are a few well organised crooks running a business doing it, the same kind of crooks who run other legal businesses robbing their fellow citizens blind. Illegal or legal, these are the kind of crooks who don't like to pay taxes, and have ways of avoiding doing so.

And there are other people struggling to get by on welfare or benefits of one sort or another who do bend the rules sometimes, rules which are often cruel and inflexible, and full of poverty traps.(I'm talking here for example about someone who gets a chance of a days work, and doesn't declare it - of course the nice middleclass person who gives him the work and pays cash in hand to save on the tax doesn't get slagged off as a tax cheat. He probably mouths off about welfare cheats.)

"The rich don't get hurt by high tax rates....the middle class does. The rich can hide their money, they can afford huge numbers of accountants and lawyers to protect their assets. Failing all else, they can afford to purchase whatever government functionaries they need, to escape burdensome regulation."

So people should just give in to the big thieves. Just should accept that nothing can be done to get the bastards, and roll over and vote the way they want you to, the way that makes it even easier for them to avoid paying their share - and take your anger and embarrassment out on the poor, beacuse you're too frightened to take on the real enemy.

Once again: Which side are you on?

(And here's a new bit - John H - look Bartholomew the fella put quote marks round that phrase. What he meant by it he can explain, but to me he clearly wasn't saying anything rude abour Protestant Christians as such, but about a distortion of Christianity that trades under thed brand name, but doesn't seem to have too much to do with the Sermon on the Mount.

It appears to teach things that the rich shall inherit the earth, and that all that stuff about it being easier for a camel getting through a needle is a load of leftist rubbish.

Subject: RE: BS: Government---the bigger the better PART
From: McGrath of Harlow
Date: 29 Oct 00 - 03:13 PM

Well it got the old post right - but it chopped off a postcript I added. - I'm starting to feel paranoid... Here goes for niothing!

John H - look Bartholomew the fella put quote marks round that phrase. What he meant by it he can explain, but to me he clearly wasn't saying anything rude abour Protestant Christians as such, but about a distortion of Christianity that trades under thed brand name, but doesn't seem to have too much to do with the Sermon on the Mount.

It appears to teach things that the rich shall inherit the earth, and that all that stuff about it being easier for a camel getting through a needle is a load of leftist rubbish.

Subject: RE: BS: Government---the bigger the better PART
From: John Hardly
Date: 29 Oct 00 - 03:45 PM

MofH,

Maybe he meant that but that meaning does not fit the context of the rest of the statement. I know Bartholemew has been a gentleman as well as a very good wrtier in this discussion. I just think he was angry and let a little vitriol escape in a way he may have felt but may not have intended to share.

The question still remains in tact; To what extent (if any) do you see a connection between poverty and behavior?

John

Subject: RE: BS: Government---the bigger the better PART
From: Little Hawk
Date: 29 Oct 00 - 09:06 PM

There's a connection not so much between behaviour and poverty, but between behaviour and inequity...or injustice. It is unjust to abandon whole sectors of a society to poverty in the presence of great wealth. And this is mostly where crime springs from...a reaction to those conditions of inequity.

Crime also springs out of a society that lives primarily by the competitive view of reality, rather than the cooperative view of reality.

It was cooperation that formed families, tribes, villages, and all organized forms of human society. It was competition (based on fear) that drove those societies to warfare, murder, religious conflicts, and crime.

The great incentive to advance human accomplishment is NOT the competitive spirit, but the innate desire in EVERYONE to improve on their own performance...the desire not for dominance, but for perfection.

Go to a local sports event, where competition has reached its berserk ultimate, and watch the people. Watch the parents of the kids who are playing. Is this healty behaviour? No, it is not. It is akin to the Roman amphitheatre...just less blood, that's all. And it's all done for the money....and the false glory that goes with it. I feel sorry for players who truly love the game under these conditions. At season's end you've got one winner...and many, many losers. I don't call that an intelligent way of doing things, nor is it worthy of the human spirit. We need to find ways where we can all be winners mutually.

Subject: RE: BS: Government---the bigger the better PART
From: Art Thieme
Date: 29 Oct 00 - 09:55 PM

In Chicago there was a place, one upon a time, called BUGHOUSE SQUARE where free speech flourished. Anarchists and Socialists and Communists and Fascists (sometimes called Libertarians ;-) -- everything was there out in the open in the shadow of the venerable old Newberry Library. It was haunted by the ghosts of speakers like Vachal Lindsey, Floyd Dell, Ben Reitman, Carl Sandburg, Maxwell Bodenheim, August Spies, Studs Terkel (still going strong), Iberus Hacker, Edgar Lee Masters, Jane Adams, John Reed, Slim Brundage, Sherwood Anderson, Thorstein Veblen, Theodore Dreiser, Clarence Darrow---to name a few.

Well, this thread reminds me that Bughouse Square is NOT dead. It has just moved into cyberspace. Thanks for taking me back there though.

Art Thieme

Subject: RE: BS: Government---the bigger the better PART
From: Jim the Bart
Date: 30 Oct 00 - 10:40 AM

Yes, indeed, I was angry. And still am. But my anger is not directed at the other posters here; those who have posted are examining questions that I consider to be very important. If someone has a point of view or experience that differs with mine it ought to be heard and considered. I'm not even mad at Troll, who I felt tried to discount my point of view, by writing me and some others off as, What? Children of the idle rich, who don't understand about paying a mortgage or meeting a payroll? I've done both.

As to John Hardly's question about the connection between behavior and poverty. . .It is true that hard work always pays off. But not always in money. And when it comes to another person's position in life, it is not our place to judge. There is no direct connection between behavior and poverty that holds for all cases.

Everyone has a different story. I've seen stupid and lazy people who, through accident of birth, will never have to work for a meal in their life. Sober, hard working people get washed out of the system through illness or through bad business decisions and bad personal decisions everyday. Businesses get ruined because the owner wouldn't pay off the right cops (it's still really easy to lose a liquor license in Chicago if you make an enemy in City Hall)or because the new landlord wants to upscale the building. I've got family farmers on both my Mom and Dad's side who work their asses off and barely scrape by.

Hard work is simply no guarantee of monetary success, particularly if you're not interested in participating in the dominant economy; or if you've been shut out of that economy due to color, national origin or a lot of other reasons. But that is hardly relevant to my point.

It is not for us to say that this person deserves help and that one doesn't. It is not "christian charity" to say I work for mine, so to hell with you.

The "Protestant ethic" that I was referring to is the belief that you can gauge a person's "holiness" through his/her earthly success. It's what allows all those evangelists to justify buying one more cadillac. When abused, it has justified all kinds of money grubbing.

Thanks to McGrath and Little Hawk for clarifying my points, and you also John Hardly, for giving me the benefit of the doubt. I may have let anger obscur my clarity. And if I offended troll, I apologise for that. I was not trying to belittle or dismiss his accomplishments or point of view, but I do expect the same courtesy.
As Art pointed out, the Bughouse Square tradition is one that deserves to be continued. It's a tradition that includes raving from atop a soapbox from time to time. Democracy is such a messy process.

Have a fine day
Bart

Subject: RE: BS: Government---the bigger the better PART
From: John Hardly
Date: 30 Oct 00 - 11:07 AM

Just to clarify. The protestant ethic with which I was raised, and still believe, is that there is goodness in work regardless of result. Prosperity theology is NOT part of the protestant ethic.

Christian charity may also require that others, for their own good and for loving reasons, take proper responsibility for their own lives. This in no way denies the need for others to be cared for.

Remember, this did not take this decidedly nasty turn until Art Theime offered that he chose to involve himself in an unprofitable enterprise to which it was responded that it was doubtfully our responibility then to shoulder a burden that it was in his best interest to carry. Even Art concede the fact but by then the "Christian Charity" grenade had been launched.

John

Subject: RE: BS: Government---the bigger the better PART
From: John Hardly
Date: 30 Oct 00 - 11:08 AM

Just to clarify. The protestant ethic with which I was raised, and still believe, is that there is goodness in work regardless of result. Prosperity theology is NOT part of the protestant ethic.

Christian charity may also require that others, for their own good and for loving reasons, take proper responsibility for their own lives. This in no way denies the need for others to be cared for.

Remember, this did not take this decidedly nasty turn until Art Theime offered that he chose to involve himself in an unprofitable enterprise to which it was responded that it was doubtfully our responibility then to shoulder a burden that it was in his best interest to carry. Even Art concede the fact but by then the "Christian Charity" grenade had been launched.

John

Subject: RE: BS: Government---the bigger the better PART
From: McGrath of Harlow
Date: 30 Oct 00 - 11:42 AM

One way to be rich of course is to rob your neighbours, and that includes legal ways of robbery.

"You can see what God thinks of money by the people he gives it to" is, I think, a Spanish proverb.

Subject: RE: BS: Government---the bigger the better PART
From: Jim the Bart
Date: 30 Oct 00 - 02:58 PM

We seem to be suffering some semantic problems. Being raised a Catholic I don't have a theological background in Protestant theology and have to fall back on what I have found in my reading of history. I seem to recall that success in business was seen by some post-reformation religious groups as a sign of God's grace. Whether this is fairly categorized as part of the "Protestant ethic" or is merely "Prosperity theology" is a point I will have to take your word on.

As far as Christian charity is concerned, I thought the idea was to give to those who were in need, not who proved themselves worthy.

As far as Art (the person and the avocation)is concerned, I can bring forward no better example of value and hardwork that gets unfairly rewarded in monetary terms under our economic system. This system unfairly distributes the wealth. It cares not a whit for a man who dedicates his life to raising the human spirit (through music or ART) and amply rewards any CPA who can help you avoid paying your taxes. It rewards speculators in hog futures more than the people who raise the hogs. It rewards (and celebrates)what the church used to condemn as "Usery". I still don't understand how you can justify this?

One other "semantic" point: When I rail against "Capitalists" I am not condemning all businessmen. I am talking about those in the economy whose sole business is making money. There is a real difference between a baker who has his own business and a man who invests in bakeries. A baker will bake even when there is little profit in it; a man who invests in bakeries will shut 'em down and turn them into butcher shops if that will generate more dough (pun intended). In my opinion, this is the crux of the problem with our economy. There are too many people making money investing in things and too few making money creating things. Investing is where the big money is. The problem with our political system is that it favors the investing class. And the peanuts that those of us in the middle class make on our 401k plans and the like are a sop to get our buy in. It wouldn't surprise me if that wasn't part of the rationale behind Bush's Social Security investment plan also. We will all learn the meaning of real "Christian Charity" if the bottom drops out of the market.

But this is a whole 'nother rant, and I'm ranted out for now. There is work to do.

Subject: RE: BS: Government---the bigger the better PART
From: Art Thieme
Date: 30 Oct 00 - 07:27 PM

I'd better go back and see what the heck I said!?

Art

Subject: RE: BS: Government---the bigger the better PART
From: McGrath of Harlow
Date: 30 Oct 00 - 08:05 PM

We'd better watch out before we get stuck into talking about "the Reformation" - could be hairier than the Irish threads and gun laws put together...

Back top government. Basically the real enemy is power hungry greedy bastars, and you get them in the givernment and in big business. But right now there are more of them in big business, and when it comes down to it the are more powerful and more dangerous. In most countries they effectively own the government.

Concentrating on the government as the fount of all oppression is about as relevant as people in England who pretend that the show business monarchy is a significant threat to our freedom, and take the heat off the real enemy.

Publicly owned and controlled services need not be part of any government. And for all kinds of things we need, that's the best way to provide them.