Religious Leaders: GOP’s ‘Ayn Rand’ Budget Targets Poor, Goes Against Religious Values

[democracy1st]

Run time: 01:35 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LopysrngfnQ   Posted on YouTube: June 03, 2011 By YouTube Member: ThinkProgressVideo Views on YouTube: 1693   Posted on DU: June 06, 2011 By DU Member: democracy1st Views on DU: 1831

 
Four members affiliated with the religious group Faith In Public Life held a brief press conference during FFC’s afternoon intermission to denounce the GOP’s adherence to the philosophies of anti-government, anti-religion author Ayn Rand. The leaders — Rev. Jennifer Butler, Jim Wallis, Rev. Derrick Harkins, and Father Clete Kiley — asserted that the GOP efforts to cut funding from many anti-poverty programs while balancing the budget on the backs of the poorest Americans were not in line with Christian values:

The sky is falling on poor people in this country. The sky is falling. This time it really is. In the past, when we’ve done deficit reduction — and we’ve done it before — we’ve done poverty reduction at the same time. You can do both together. And every previous attempt there has been a bipartisan agreement to a given, a principle, that poor and low income people are not the ones to make hurt more when you’re making tough decisions. … They don’t bear the brunt of our fiscal irresponsibility because they didn’t cause it. We did not get into fiscal trouble because of poor people. … The poor didn’t cause this. Let’s not make them pay for it.

What we’re saying in the faith community, across the spectrum, is that a nation is judged — our Bible says — by how we treat the poorest and most vulnerable. Period. That’s what God says to us. That’s God’s instruction to us. To be faithful to God, we have to protect poor people.

http://thinkprogress.org/politics/2011/06/04/236238/progressive-faith-ayn-rand/

[OHdem10]

1. The Republican Party is not and nnever has been concerned

with the poor. They do not consider them their constituents.

The Poor and Working Class are dependent upon Liberals
and Progressives. If Conservative Democrats are put
in a position of having to choose between Business and the
Poor and Working Class, they will throw the Poor and working
class under the bus.

[Zoeisright]

2. Conservative Christian is an oxymoron.

It's impossible to be conservative and a Christian. Period.

[pnwmom]

3. Ayn Rand was an atheist who hated Christian social values.

It's disgusting that she has so much support among so-called Christians.

[dballance]

4. Good Thing Some are Starting to Wake Up

Ayn Rand preached the most hateful brand of selfishness. Certainly not what Jesus preached. Rand's philosophy was you either made a killing in the market or you starved. I don't recall that philosophy being the one Jesus preached. But, of course, Rand was an atheist. Something all these right-wing GOP Christians seem to overlook.

[pansypoo53219]

5. out time they were called

UN CHRISTIAN. even if thy save a fucking fetus or 2.

[Enthusiast]

6. The GOP answer to this

is that any action 'against' poor people is justified because they are lazy or they made poor life decisions. Seriously. I have heard this time and again. I have heard them say, "You have to keep people hungry if you want them to work."

There is nothing Christian about this attitude. When Christ fed the multitude he didn't instruct his disciple's to look through the crowd and give food only to those that are 'worthy'.

[ScottLand]

8. Good point. How long did Jesus struggle with the idea that if

he performed the miracle of the loaves it would take away the people's desire to find their own food?

[polmaven]

9. And I don't recall

reading anything about Jesus requiring the proper amount of insurance before healing the sick.

[Beartracks]

14. This is why Jesus was clearly a progressive.

Even if he wasn't technically a "Christian." :silly:

=================

[SemperEadem]

7. you cannot embrace Jesus as the same time embracing ayn rand

they walk in totally opposite directions and anyone who tries to conflate the two is a lying devil.

[russspeakeasy]

11. "lying devil" is not near strong enough.

[SemperEadem]

12. ;D I know--I didn't want my post to get deleted

I do have some choice words, but the kiddies might be reading and might go tell on me.

[Moostache]

10. That would matter if there were true Christian values in that party to begin with...

There is no "Christ" in their version of "Christianity".
That "Christ" figure was a dirty, long-haired hippie. A pinko-commie socialist plant from Satan, meant to distract from the "TRUE" message of the Bible:

1) Every man for himself
2_ Free markets are the answer to EVERY question
3) Tax cuts ALWAYS create jobs (and if you show statistics that dispute this, you are clearly a pinko-commie socialist intent on 'class warfare').
4) The poor are in their condition because they are lazy (not because of circumstances or a corrupt system or ill timed medical tragedy).
5) the rich are in their condition because they are virtuous captains of industry (not because they steal the money from clients or workers or because they were squeezed out of the right vagina at the right time).

Cafeteria Catholics indeed....if the version of Catholicism was written by Ayn Rand!

[defendandprotect]

13. Remember, all wealth originates with the nation --- its nature, natural resources, animal-life ...

labor --

it's ability to tax --

From the very beginning, we have had "redistribution" of that wealth from the

many to the few --

that's what capitalism is intended to do and it does it very successfully everywhere.

The planet is a commonwealth -- certainly doesn't belong to the few of us!!

[fascisthunter]

15. because Ayn Rand was what some consider evil...

not sure about evil, but definitely a sociopath, which for some is evil.

[Blacksheep214]

16. Why is it

that the states which suffer the biggest natural disasters that require FEMA and more federal help are the same ones flipping the rest of the country the bird?

Next tornado, flood, hurricane or other disaster, call someone else for help!

I can't help people who would remove womens rights based on stone age beliefs.

Elect moderates before the next calamity!

Or call your god, either one.