Category: Social Justice

Swampland – TIME

Swampland – TIME:

“Our Gross National Product, now, is over $800 billion a year, but the GNP–if we should judge America by that–counts air pollution and cigarette advertising, and ambulances to clear our highways of carnage. It counts special locks for our doors and jails for those who break them. It counts the destruction of our redwoods and the loss of our natural wonder in chaotic sprawl. It counts napalm and the cost of a nuclear warhead…and the television programs which glorify violence in order to sell toys to our children.
Yet the gross national product does not allow for the health of our children, the quality of their education, or the joy of their play. It does not include the beauty of our poetry or the strength of our marriages; the intelligence of our public debate or the integrity of our public officials. It measures neither our wit nor our courage…it measures everything, in short, except that which makes life worthwhile. And it can tell us everything about America except why we are proud to be Americans.–Robert F. Kennedy
March 18, 1968″

Thanks to Joe Klein!

From BibleGateway.com: The Sheep and The Goats

BibleGateway.com: From Matthew Chapter 25, The Parable of the Sheep and the Goats.:

“41’Then he will say to those on his left, ‘Depart from me, you who are cursed, into the eternal fire prepared for the devil and his angels. 42For I was hungry and you gave me nothing to eat, I was thirsty and you gave me nothing to drink, 43I was a stranger and you did not invite me in, I needed clothes and you did not clothe me, I was sick and in prison and you did not look after me.’
44’They also will answer, ‘Lord, when did we see you hungry or thirsty or a stranger or needing clothes or sick or in prison, and did not help you?’
45’He will reply, ‘I tell you the truth, whatever you did not do for one of the least of these, you did not do for me.’
46’Then they will go away to eternal punishment, but the righteous to eternal life.'”

How bad can single payer be that Christians can walk away from this lesson so blithely? What evil in a government sponsored single payer system is so compelling to ignore these charges of Jesus? What principles have been teased and tortured out of Christianity to trump this parable so central to Christ’s call for us to take care of each other?