Thought I’d drop in and see what you guys thought about an interesting article I recently read from Fox’s Father Johnathan about the presidential candidates’ basic positions on faith based initiatives.

http://foxforum.blogs.foxnews.com/2008/07/07/fa…

Thoughts?

He’s also got a recent take on Batman that is similar to what my brother and I have talked about in recent months. http://foxforum.blogs.foxnews.com/author/father…

Hmm, I would have to agree with Mccaine on that issue. It makes completely no sense for religiouse based organizations to not be discrimatative and have to hire people of other faiths. That only makes sense! It’s not a fact of it being discrimination, but the fact is how are you going to run a catholic religiouse program and hire a muslim, who has no idea how things are done in the catholic church? That would make no sense. If you want your religion to be up & running the people of that religion should be the ones running it to the things that that religion abides by. & well I dont care much about the batman movie thing quite frankly :)))

OK, I looked this over the other day, finally thought of something to say…

Fuck faith based initiatives! The fact that religions have to take care of the poor people in our society is a tragedy and a stain upon our nation. It is the responsibility of our government to make sure that children (and even adults) have a place to live, adequate food and health care. Religions were doing their part a long time ago and will continue to do so, even without government help. They are charities, too! PEOPLE give them money to help others. Witness the Salvation Army, catholic charities, etc. These folks aren’t going out of business anytime soon. If they become dependent upon taxpayer money to do their good deeds, what happens when the largesse disappears? Because you know that our worthless government will start wasting that money somewhere else next year… The government needs to take care of the neediest in our society, I’m sorry, that’s just the way it is. They are busy dismantling the expensive welfare state and foisting their duties upon charities that may or MAY NOT pick up the slack. Yes, I know, people abuse the system. We have laws against fraud, why not use them? (I know, they didn’t use them against Bear Stearns, but that’s such a special case. I would imagine that the Salvation Army could have put 30 billion to better use than our government did, but I just can’t prove it…lol).

As far as Father Mister in the link, he has it exactly right, McCain is parroting the Bush shit, Obama has no balls and won’t say the fuck thing that I said above. It’s a well known fact that Obama mislaid his balls somewhere. I will have to look long and hard for them inside the voting booth. Well, that’s enough for now… The Batman thing is cute.

I agree with about half of what you said, Koo. I do see a danger of charities becoming dependent upon the government dole. I think, however, that that is the primary danger and possibly the intent of the Obama Left. With their policies, such a situation would work to rip apart religious charities, trying to get them dependent on the government and then eliminating anything religious about them. So what he is saying is either malicious in intent and also political dishonesty, or just political dishonesty (dishonest in that he’s using the name “Faith-based Initiative” to mean anything but, just to slap a happy label on something that would actually break the system).

So I agree in that I am uneasy about the government giving money to charities at all. But I also recognize that the government is horribly inefficient and often counterproductive at almost anything it does, and is in that sense indeed “worthless,” as you say. I do NOT believe that it is

the responsibility of our government to make sure that children (and even adults) have a place to live, adequate food and health care.

This is a fairly recent notion about governments that I strongly disagree with. I recognize that a government exists to ensure the protection and cohesion of a nation and to promote the minimum amount of law and regulation for an orderly society. That does include some basic welfare (helping keep people off the streets), but I don’t believe in a nanny state, nor that health care is a “right.” Prosperity and its attendant benefits is a goal, a privilege earned, not guaranteed.

I do recognize, however, that because of the aforementioned government failure with social programs, it is potentially desirable that, must the government support things outside its basic mission and intent, it do them through private agencies as much as possible. Religious charities are good at helping people, so they make sensible targets. Providing a pool of money for any to draw from equally makes sense, but it must come with no strings attached to avoid the establishment clause.

So basically my position is that if you’re going to do Faith-Based Initiatives, do them right (and that’s much closer to McCain’s plan). If you’re not going to do it right, then don’t do it at all and don’t give us your lying BS about it you pandering phony politician.

I agree & disagree with you koo when you said it’s the governments responsobility to take care of the poor. I think it’s not only there responsability but EVERYONES. Everyone has to do their part in helping wether its donating clothes,money, or time. But I agree that the govt. has to step there game up and put the money to good use. Religion has always done its part in helping the poor, my church has something we call a fast offering. Every 1st sunday of the month we fast & give a fast offering(money) which goes to our churches funds to help people around the world. In fact, we give more aid then the Red-cross. Little f&f (fun fact) for you there :))) But yeah mainly I think its everyones responsability & mostly the govt. I mean we pay taxes for these kinda things dont we?

Not to sound callous here, but strictly speaking I don’t think the government’s purpose involves charity. I believe in a limited government more akin to the Framers’ idea than what we have now.

We can vote for our governments to take up certain welfare roles (and we have), but I think the place for that is much more with state and local governments. Even then, putting it on the government is an abdication of personal responsibility to help our neighbors, and encourages the mindset that the government should take care of it, and we can keep our hands clean of it all. And then there’s the fact that the government is generally quite poor and inefficient or even counterproductive at welfare.

So my perspective is that charity is primarily our individual responsibility. The government, preferably state and local, should provide a basic safety net that we must always keep an eye on. Ideally, private charities should handle everything and the government shouldn’t be needed. With that in mind, programs should try to limit government in favor of private charities.

Arandur wrote:
>Not to sound callous here, but strictly speaking I don’t think the government’s purpose involves charity. I believe in a limited government more akin to the Framers’ idea than what we have now.

Agreed.

So my perspective is that charity is primarily our individual responsibility.

Agreed, again. In fact, the original meaning for the word “charity” is “agape”- love- and has fuckall to do with throwing money at causes for the sake of personal piety, but that’s another story for another time.
However, as far as so- called “faith- based initiatives,” uh- uh. Not a fan. Mixing government and church money corrupts both; the two should have nothing to do with each other.

And, Koo, dammit brother, I’m sorry, but the government’s duty is to stay the hell out of our lives unless it’s an issue of defense. Beyond that, it’s ourselves alone, and it’s our duty to take care of each other. Individually, or in whatever little support cells we’re involved in.

Oh- but we suck at that? Yeah, we do. We didn’t always.
Why?