Tuesday, November 19, 2013

St. Ryan de Paul

Paul Ryan is starting to showcase some fascinating new ideas for helping the poor! This could have important implications for the 2016 presidential race! If Ryan can bring together a coalition of evangelicals and the poverty-striken, while locking down moderate voters in the swing states, he could be tough to beat!

3 comments:

  1. Nonsense. Ryan is totally opposed to all social supports including money for food banks. He is of the Dickensian world view that the poor need utter desperation to 'pull themselves up". When did Oliver Twist and abject poverty become the new normal? That's all he and his ilk see - they are NOT Christians. They worship only St. Ayn, and they have no staying power with Americans who understand that justice is served with sustainable 'hand under the elbow' and not the hand on your back shoving you off the cliff.

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  2. As Churchlady320 demonstrates, Paul Ryan has performed the valuable service of starting a conversation on these subjects! I would remind Churchlady320 that advocates for the poor should be careful not to alienate moderate voters in the swing states.

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  3. Oh my. I suspect that what Mr. Ryan is promoting is the idea that that "hand under the elbow" mentioned above should come from you and me and not from Washington. I think of Matthew 5:42: "Give to the one who begs from you, and do not refuse the one who would borrow from you." Whether Mr. Ryan believes this or not or is just playing politics is another question, but I suspect the message here is that we are commanded to be the ones that give and to give to the ones that beg, without some government insulation in the middle.

    Why is that important? I think it's because God wants to help each of the "givers" as much as God wants us to help each of the "beggars". God cares about a whole lot more than money and affordable health care. Some of us may be rich in material possessions, but poor in spirit. I've found in life that many, many people who are poor in material possessions are still rich in spirit. I've stood in a homeless shelter at 5 AM making breakfast with men who have absolutely nothing in life, and they have still given me so much more than I could ever give in money alone (not always, sometimes they are just cranky and mean, but that's a lot less often than you'd think).

    I believe Mr. Ryan would say that the danger of looking to the government as the solution to social problem is that we become tempted to think that these program have absolved us of our responsibility to help. (I happen to believe this myself, but there's certainly room for debate)

    Cheers.

    Joe

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