"'Spreading the wealth' punishes success," [Rick Perry] said during his announcement speech on Saturday, "while setting America on {a} course to greater dependency on government." ("Texas Tax System Heavily Burdens Poor Residents.)
Please just think about that for a moment. "'Spreading the wealth' punishes success ...." We wouldn't want to go and punish success, would we! Do any of these godbotherers ever read a single word of the bible they bandy about and hide behind? Never mind who the right-wingers' Jesus would bomb, what would the more authentic figure – I mean that long-haired radical proto-hippy fellow from the gospels, with his open contempt for wealth and penchant for hanging out with sinners and speaking up for fallen women -- say about such a philosophy?
"Good master, what shall I do to inherit eternal life?" asked a ruler of the day.
And wouldn't you know it, that impertinent socialist peacenik said, "sell all that thou hast, and distribute unto the poor, and thou shalt have treasure in heaven: and come, follow me." (Luke 18:18-22, KJB).
We are told that the ruler who had asked the question walked away sorrowfully. For Lo, giving away one's wealth to the rabble punisheth success.
Well, pardners, it kinda sounds like Jesus didn't have much patience with what we now call "the gospel of prosperity," and I doubt that he would appreciate its being applied at the secular level to sock it to the poor in taxes for the benefit of the rich. Verily I say unto you, too many of our modern "Christians" are surely hypocrites. I believe the Jesus of the gospels would more than blush to call them followers – yessir, I reckon he'd vomit right down in his ten-gallon hat, if he'd worn one. But commies don't wear cowboy hats, so it's silly of me to conjure it up. Well, I think I remember seeing a picture of "Gorby" wearing a cowboy hat once, and if memory serves, Karl Marx considered emigrating to Texas in the mid-1840's. Even so, I apologize.
I'm more than happy to give the Guv'nuh some refining and wiggling room and of course the snippet I referenced isn't his entire announcement (easily Googled), but as far as I am concerned, those who emphasize a principle of worldly success over the well-being of their fellows, and call themselves Christians, are in fact devotees of Mammon. And in case any of us have forgotten the Ten Commandments as handed down to Charlton Heston by God Almighty in 1956, let's recall that one of them has to do with it being a very big no-no to worship idols in place of the Lord of Hosts:
Thou shalt not make unto thee any graven image, or any likeness of any thing that is in heaven above, or that is in the earth beneath, or that is in the water under the earth.
Thou shalt not bow down thyself to them, nor serve them: for I the LORD thy God am a jealous God, visiting the iniquity of the fathers upon the children unto the third and fourth generation of them that hate me. . . . . (Exodus 20:4-5; for all the details about what you mustn't do, see Exodus 20:2-17, and Deuteronomy 5:6-21.)
Yet, the suggestion coming out of Texas seems to be that it's downright irresponsible to take a little silver from even the most impressive of personal Mammon-hoards and toss it in the public coffers for dispensation to the needy, lest the industry of the successful be dispraised and neglected and unrighteousness spread amongst the poor like wildfire in droughty woods. It smacks of idol-worship and forbidden self-sufficiency to me.
Mammon, as Milton points out in Paradise Lost, is almost admirable for his enthusiasm amongst the fallen rebel host in his determination to wrest the necessary riches from Hell's landscape and start building a rival, divided empire. He counsels infernal self-reliance: let us "seek / Our own good from ourselves, and from our own / Live to ourselves" (2.252-54). But even he was a collectivist by Republican standards, from the sound of it. Well, whatever the case, it would apparently be un-Christian to get in the way of excessive attachment to one of the most deplorable of pagan "Divils to adore for deities."
Yes, "divils." Don't you just love Milton's spelling? Even more cheerful is the thought that he and his contemporaries might have pronounced it that way, too.
So "spreading the wealth" - has that phrase now replaced the old "tax and spend" mantra of the Conservative masses?
ReplyDeleteSeriously, opponents could really hammer away at Perry by demonstrating how his policies are quite anti-Christian.
Robert,
ReplyDeleteYes, I think they could. I've never heard anything so contrary to the spirit of the gospels as coddling the rich at the expense of the poor. If I were in a bad mood and a believer in anything but the Dinosaur Gods (TM), I'd call it BLASPHEMY. I reckon Guv'nuh Perry is harkening back to Huey Long -- isn't he the one who used to say "share the wealth" or "spread the wealth"? and "every man a king"? I'll take corrupt old Huey Long -- or even Edwin Edwards, for that matter -- over any Texas conservative any day of the week, and twice on Sunday. Looziana has its virtues -- so long as you do as some of the hotel room placards say there: leave your other virtues at home.
Well, let me say this about that: Rick Perry is a dangerous idiot - just smart enough to be a Pied Piper to even more dangerous idiots.
ReplyDeleteIdiot enough to completely misunderstand what Capitalism is, and that's a means to produce and distribute wealth, not to hord it. Without money in the hands of people with the highest marginal propensity to consume, capitalism dies.
But I hesitate to attribute it all to idiocy, when Evil is the simplest explanation and the Devil is a handsome fellow who tells you your ideas are correct. Just like so many corrupt critters who call themselves Christian.
People can only follow Jesus so far. Some people with tithe ten percent, but very few will tithe everything, that Hippie!
ReplyDeleteDino, you've summed up well the masquerade in which so many who call themselves Christians engage. I have no doubt that the Jesus in whom they profess to believe would throw them all out of the temple.
ReplyDeleteRegardless of whether there is a God, if you profess to be a follower of one you should at least adhere to Her basic principles. There is nothing Christian in the behavior of most of the people who confer that title on themselves.
If it were just that they are hypocrites, perhaps their hypocrisy could be ignored. However, the havoc that they wreak with their hypocritical proselytizing cannot be forgiven nor ignored.
I think that Robert is on to something. What's needed is a campaign that involves attending rallies for these "Christian" candidates, quoting the Bible in which they profess to believe, and asking them how they reconcile their positions on the economy with the Bible's teachings.
ReplyDeleteGovernor Perry, according to the Bible, "It is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle, than for a rich man to enter into the kingdom of God." (Mark 10:25 KJB) You are a wealthy man, do you think that your opposition to spreading the wealth might make it hard for you to pass through the eye of that needle?
Capt. Fogg,
ReplyDeleteYes, misunderstandings -- the gospel of prosperity is the worst possible mix of misunderstandings. It's a veritable Frankenstein's Monster: git rich in the name of Jeeeeeeebus, and spit on the unfortunate.
Sheria,
I hope I don't have to go through the eye of a needle because I'm 40 feet long, tail included.
But sure, I'd just love to see some libruls show up at these righties' meetings and belt out, "Do you READ the Bible, brothers and sisters? Now I'm quotin' here, so lissen up: {insert damningly anti-Mammon, anti-bigot Bible-thump-worthy passages of your choice}. The Eyes of Tammy Faye are upon you, brothers and sisters, so make your decision for Christ or shut the hell up."
"I like your Christ, I do not like your Christians. Your Christians are so unlike your Christ. [And I don't think your Christ would approve of them either]." (Mohandas Gandhi)
ReplyDeleteThe only way Rick Perry could pass through the eye of a needle is to put him on a very strict diet; and that still wouldn't get him into the White House.
ReplyDeleteVery well done, O Greenish One.
ReplyDeleteI've read that some of Perry's old friends have remarked that he wasn't all that religious until just recently--until, it seems, he remembered that conducting onself as a preacherman is a requirement if one hopes to win a GOP nomination.
"Christianity as a specific doctrine was slain with Jesus, suddenly and utterly. He was hardly cold in his grave, or high in his heaven (as you please), before the apostles dragged the tradition of him down to the level of the thing it has remained ever since."
GEORGE BERNARD SHAW, preface to Androcles and the Lion
Good old GBS. That's pretty much what caustic Christian critic Tom Jefferson said and more than once. The historical Jesus is very difficult to get to and when we say we're following his teachings, we're following what other people who never met him tell us his teachings are - and those have changed down the centuries. Many of those people were not good people, said our Founding Father and were guilty of murdering Jesus all over again.
ReplyDeleteThe Jesus I have the most confidence in was all about purifying Israel and Judea so that the dynasty of David could be restored: purifying Judea of the corrupt Temple cult and the ritualistic priests who were collaborators with Rome, most specifically.
The problem with being a Christian is that it's really not easy to define it and it never has been. From giving away your clothes to the poor and becoming a wandering mendicant like the compassion teaching Therevada Bikkhus that some say had made their way to the Galilee in Jesus' time, to vicious crusaders and inquisitors, to pompous kings, to pacifist Quakers and the Humble Amish - they all call themselves Christian even when some have given us centuries of war over slightly different opinions of Jesus and his teachings.
So I don't know really what a Christian is except that so many call themselves that and identify with it the way people identify with the Pittsburgh Steelers or the Chicago White Sox and bludgeon fans of opposing teams after games won or lost.
I think it's clear that for nearly everyone, religion is a shallow thing because if one really believed in an omnipotent God, they would act very, very differently and in a passionate way -- and of course they don't, even while passionately going to war to "protect the faith."
Jesus, as I see him, set a very high standard for the kind of personal behavior needed to Redeem Israel from the Romans just as his biblical namesake threw the Canaanites out of Israel. A standard Ghandi would have had a hard time living up to, mush less a tactical Christian like Perry.
Unfortunately, Jehosua rebbenyu has been interpreted by so many as teaching that it doesn't matter what you do as long as you believe that Jesus, like a Roman or Greek or Persian god was half human and by identifying with him, you went to live with the gods forever. We're not saved by good works, remember?
Lo, he goeth by me, and I see him not: he passeth on also, but I perceive him not.
@Mr. Fogg,
ReplyDeleteWow, your last comment should be another post. It is excellent.
Do you have quotes where this can be found: The historical Jesus is very difficult to get to and when we say we're following his teachings, we're following what other people who never met him tell us his teachings are - and those have changed down the centuries. Many of those people were not good people, said our Founding Father and were guilty of murdering Jesus all over again.
If so, I want them saved off. I have written on this kind of topic many times and statements like these need to be handy.
I usually take the satirical route, but I could fit something like this in there.
Capt. Fogg,
ReplyDeleteOn the shallowness thing, yes indeed -- I should think that genuine belief of the sort you describe would be life-transforming. It's obvious that many people either consciously or unconsciously "use" religion as cover for the fact that they are lunker bassholes. I think Jesus is a magnificent literary figure, that's my angle. The one William Blake identified as the very principle of imagination. Much of what he says is an arrow right into the shallow hearts of false believers:
"But when ye pray, use not vain repetitions, as the heathen do: for they think that they shall be heard for their much speaking." (Matthew 6:7.)
Shaw,
Thanks. I like old GBS too. But I must point out that I'm khaki-hued. I think only persnickety little dinosaurs are green. We larger ones are mottled brown or tan.
John,
ReplyDeleteI'm thinking of The Jefferson Bible, a collection of his letters and his redaction of the gospels. I'm sure it's still in print. James Madison wrote a good deal that would be scandalous today if anyone were to read it.
Dino,
Yes, as a literary figure, he's the central character of the Western World, but in my opinion, the most misunderstood. If suce a real figure were to appear, he would be destroyed with as much speed and more ferocity because as Freddy (Nietzsche, not Kruger) said we love to be decieved and thrive on deception.