Why are so many Christians conservative?

Why are so many Christians conservative? 

Hi Lee.  Delores sent me your post and I just can't keep from commenting. 

Your point is well taken.  I do agree with you that communism is probably the "impossible Dream", all of us living and sharing and working together for the good of all.  As you quite correctly said, what gets in the way is Greed.  And you point out that Greed occurs among the very poor as well as among the very rich.  Many people never think about that. 

From where I sit, our Western Civilization has Greed as its driving force.  It is what Capitalism is all about.  Gathering wealth and material possessions. 

Regardless of all our noble talk about what makes true happiness and personal  success, our culture measures success by what we have gathered about us.  Possessions and Power. 

And since all things are relative, Greed is as rampant among those who have virtually nothing as well as among those who seemingly have it all. 

I do disagree with your statement that, "The middle class are happier than the poor because they have enough..." 

Greed dictates that we never "have enough".  So the very poor struggle to be "better off" than their neighbors.  The Working Class envies the Middle Class to the point that they deny the existence of a Working class.  And the Middle Class claws its way up toward the Upper Class.  At the very top stand the Super Rich and the Empire Builders.  

It is at this top level that true Welfare exists.  Not at the door of the very poor, if they even have a door.  Like a clever slight of hand artist, the Super Rich misdirect our attention.  They hammer away in their newspapers and on their TV networks that the poor are undermining our nation with their greedy, lazy ways.  And what is going on at the top?  Well, after buying up all the politicians and paying off the very people put in place to defend our programs and public services, they go about taking whatever they want...which is everything.  It doesn't really matter to them if a few paltry billions go out to "help" the poor.  They will suck it all back because they own the store and the farm and the guns. 

And we are putting our hard earned dollars into their pockets without any say in the matter. 

Here's another example of welfare for the rich.  Out here on the Olympic Peninsula the big logging companies have developed a system of contracting out everything that they used to do through their companies.  In this way they are held harmless if anything goes wrong.  A logging truck might jackknife and crush an oncoming car, killing several people.  The driver owns his truck, not the giant corporation.  It is he who must pay any damages.  He takes all the risks and has all the responsibility while the corporation merely takes the profit.  Now, the hills have been clear cut.  Now, the rains begin to fall.  Now, the bare hills suddenly slide down and cover highways and homes.  Who do you think should pay for this "natural" disaster?  Why the taxpayers, of course.  The corporations are never responsible. 

One more example that still sticks in my craw.  Boeing corporation sprawled over hundreds of acres around Seattle, Renton and Everett.  In order to keep Boeing happy, and to ensure the thousands of jobs, we taxpayers underwrote Boeings civic responsibilities.  That is, Boeing was excluded from many of the taxes you and I were required to pay for the privilege of living in the Puget Sound region.  We built streets and put in sewers for them in order to placate them.  Boeing took millions and millions of dollars in welfare, covering it up by saying that they were, after all, providing thousands of jobs.  In short, we paid a ransom no different than if our ship had been captured by pirates and we paid to get it back. 

Another time I would like to offer my thoughts on why we believe that the very poor are lazy, and the very rich are industrious. 

And I would enjoy batting around thoughts on how far away from the teaching of Jesus the Church has come. 

But I'd better get back to doing my client entries, or we'll find ourselves among the truly destitute, too. 

 

Curious Carl

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We have met the enemy and, he is us. -- Pogo