One of the surreal aspects of the 2008 campaign was the emergence of a kind-of, sort-of plumber named Sam Wurzelbacher, a.k.a "Joe The Plumber," a high profile asset in the final weeks of John McCain's ill-fated run for the White House.
To refresh your memory, Wurzelbacher first came to public attention when, in October of 2008, he questioned Senator Obama's small business tax plan, describing it as at odds with "the American Dream." Obama responded by noting that his tax plan would mostly benefit small business, but there would be an increase in the over-$250,000 tax bracket from 36% to 39% (what this means, by the way, is that if you made $300,000 in a year, the additional tax you would owe would be 3% of $50,000, or about $1,500. Not exactly crippling). Wurzelbacher suggested at the time that his taxes would go up because he was getting ready to a buy business worth more than that. As it turned out, Wurzelbacher wasn't really getting ready to buy any business, but that, in any event, businesses like the one he claimed he was planning to buy would probably have qualified for a tax break.
But the real fun began when Obama said:
"It's not that I want to punish your success. I just want to make sure that everybody who is behind you, that they've got a chance at success, too... My attitude is that if the economy's good for folks from the bottom up, it's gonna be good for everybody. If you've got a plumbing business, you're gonna be better off [...] if you've got a whole bunch of customers who can afford to hire you, and right now everybody's so pinched that business is bad for everybody and I think when you spread the wealth around, it's good for everybody."
The McCain-Palin campaign and the right jumped on this comment, arguing that this was tantamount to socialism (a "concern" that Wurzelbacher himself expressed often in the final weeks of the campaign). Of course, the hysteria about Obama's plans to transform America into a socialist dictatorship has escalated dramatically since he became President, based on a staggering ignorance of what actually existing socialism (especially of the totalitarian kind), actually looked like.
But what I find most striking in this hostility to "socialism" from many of the ringleaders of the contemporary American right is their simultaneous insistence that our first duty as Americans is to pay fealty to God's law, given what the Bible has to say about wealth re-distribution (more on that in a moment).
The relevance of God's law to American life was recently articulated quite clearly in a widely cited comment by Sarah Palin:
"Go back to what our founders and our founding documents meant -- they're quite clear -- that we would create law based on the God of the bible and the ten commandments."What in hell scares people about talking about America's foundation of faith?" Palin continued. "It is that world view that involves some people being afraid of being able to discuss our foundation, being able to discuss God in the public square, that's the only thing I can attribute it to."
In fact, many people, like Palin, believe that the Bible represents the literal word of God and that, therefore, we are beholden as a nation to its plain utterances.
And while we're speaking of the Bible as the literal word of God and our duty as a nation to follow its proclamations, here is a far-from-exhaustive sampling of God's word on spreading the wealth around (what Palin et al contemptuously refer to as "socialism"):
Exodus 23:10-11 - "Six years you shall sow your land and gather its yield. But in the seventh you shall let it rest and lie fallow. Let the needy among your people eat of it, and what they leave let the wild beasts eat. You shall do the same with your vineyards and your olive groves."
Deuteronomy 15:1-2 - "Every seventh year, you shall practice remission of debts. This shall be the nature of the remission: every creditor shall remit the dues that he claims from his fellow: he shall not dun (make persistent demands for payment from) his fellow or kinsman, for the remission proclaimed is of the Lord."
Leviticus 19:9-10 - "when you reap the harvest of your land, you shall not reap all the way to the edges of your field, or gather the gleanings of your harvest. You shall not pick your vineyard bare, or gather the fallen fruit of your vineyard; you shall leave them for the poor and the stranger: I the Lord am your God."
Of course, there are myriad other instances in the Bible, from prohibitions on usury to collectivizing resources, etc., to make the point.
Something has to give here. Either you insist, as Palin does, that the Bible is the unerring word of the Lord, easily comprehensible to mere mortals and the fundamental determinant of American law and morality. If that is the case, you must also believe that any society ruled by His law must mandate spreading the wealth around.
Or you've decided, after all, that you get to pick and choose which of God's dictates, as expressed clearly and plainly in the Bible, you deign to pay attention to and which you may toss aside. In other words, either you accept wealth re-distribution as among the indisputable directives from God. Or you believe that you may ignore the Almighty when you smell political opportunity in branding as "socialist" a moderate tax increase on those making more than $250,000 a year.
It's also worth noting here the arrogance of the Palins of the world for insisting that they know, beyond any doubt, what the Bible means.
At least one of our founding fathers, whose understanding of the world Palin claims to be faithful to, was quite sensibly much more humble about our ability to understand God's meaning. Here's James Madison in Federalist No. 37:
"When the Almighty himself condescends to address mankind in their own language, his meaning, luminous as it must be, is rendered dim and doubtful by the cloudy medium through which it is communicated."
But if you're Sarah Palin, arguably dim, but surely never doubtful, I suppose you need never confront the fundamental contradiction at the heart of your worldview.
Jonathan Weiler's second book, Authoritarianism and Polarization in American Politics, co-authored with Marc Hetherington, was published in 2009 by Cambridge University Press. He blogs about politics and sports at www.jonathanweiler.com.
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Eric Simpson: Sarah Palin, Glenn Beck, and Fundamentalist 'Voodoo'
And that is the same problem you share with Professor Weiler as it applies to his remarks.
Capital punishment is not murder. Its punishment for what are usually capital offenses.
An individual takes it upon himself or herself to commit murder, that is to take the life of an innocent person. In those states where capital punishment can be applied like here in Texas, the guilty party, the murderer, can be (but not always) given that punishment. As that varies from state to state, it is not a 'national' cornerstone. You could find a state to live in that doesn't apply capital punishment.
I don't own a gun to kill people. I own a gun to prevent people from killing me or my family, or you. As they say, "When seconds count, the police are only minutes away."
More thinking, less typing.
In general, no need to walk a mile or turn the other cheek.
Capital punishment is a form of retribution cast against those( minorities) without the resources to avoid it. Check the statistics. While we are at it check out the liklihood of being killed by a gun if you have one in your home. Damn those elitist scientific methods. Everyone knows how much it helps punching a brick wall with your fist when you are mad.It's just Texas common sense.
For them, the Bible might as well have only two chapters--the one where it says God created the Earth in seven days (thus disproving evolution) and the one where it says God hates gay people (thus justifying their prejudice). Everything else, especially the stuff about social justice and "loving thy enemy", is just fluff--not to be taken literally.
Bet you won't see any bible banger reading that one.
Hitler, Stalin, Mao, and Pol Pot were all atheists.
But it doesn't faze your gal one bit. Her arrogant assumption to speak for the public at large would be laughable if it weren't so poisonous to a certain uneducated or unevolved segment of society, Too bad Paylin wasn't around sooner, maybe she could have "changed your list of atheists into god-fearing repug-licans.
Considering the larger and larger portion of one's earnings being confiscated and wasted by government, the job of helping the poor in a truly Christian way is becoming more and more difficult. If
Your taxes are lower than they have been since the 50's. It is your greed that has increased disproportionately. There was a time when people didn't feel they needed to impress with their accumulation of things. How many are working those extra jobs paying for the third or fourth SUV and the house three times bigger than they require? The Governemnet is not taking anymore than they have in the past. You may disagree ,as I do, how it is spent but the real culprits are the Corporations that are all for socialism if they are the recipients. As long as people believe that these corporate parasites are just excercising good ole American capitalism they will gladly put themselves in debt to accumulate more stuff..
where is your proof that conservatives give more to charity, unless it is for tax write off?
It is obvious that some American people believe they own should keep all they earn.
Count the homeless families in any town in America!
Count the areas of poverty in any town in America!
Count those without health care in America !
Count the children who go to bed hungry every night in America, while NEIGHBORS throw away good food!
Then bash anyone who thinks we should be loving and kind.
God gave us the command to feed the hungry and share with the poor, not the Government.
We elect leaders to care for all the people of America, not to help the rich keep getting richer.
We look like a third world country---where the rich get richer and the poor get poorer.
IS THIS HOW YOU WANT AMERICA TO BE?
You might be the person without food and shelter sometime. OR
You might be the person who will be helping the poor.
It is obvious that some American people believe they own should keep all they earn."
Reframing the argument. Its about keeping what they earn beyond what our government is Constitutionally permitted extract from their income and making their own choices on where it should go.
If you don't have a school aged child or a dying family member without Healthcare access you are not likely to give towards education and Healtcare.The same holds true for those that don't approve of the wars this country enters.
Wait untill we get enough donations to protect our shores? There is no way this country can depend on the varied opinions,degrees of generosity,rational choices and impulses of a its people to solve the problems of a nation. Taxes are required to address the problems of a majority of a countries people ,not the minorities that feel they are unaffected by the plight of their neighbors.Don't insult our intelligence. This would be a backwards third world nation(providing we hadn't been invaded) if governemnet didn't tax us and people could pick and choose how to spend all their money. When taxes return to 1950 levels than maybe your whining about high taxes wouldn't sound so ridiculus . Did you complain about the taxes under the Republicans when they were actually higher?I doubt it.