A Jew says “Jesus was no Leftist”

Posted on March 21st, 2007 by Darth B'strad.
Categories: Ethics, War, Terrorism, Philosophy.

That Jew is of course Dennis Prager in one of his articles Jesus was no leftist. Interesting to note that we have a Jew here commenting on the internal believes of Christians but he is exactly right.

Democratic presidential candidate and former Sen. John Edwards told an interviewer from the religious website beliefnet.com that Jesus “would be disappointed” at how little Americans help the destitute who live among them. Jesus, Mr. Edwards said, “would be appalled” at our selfishness.

In the view of John Edwards and other Christians on the Left, Jesus would raise taxes, promote single-payer, i.e., socialized, medicine, be pro-choice and advocate same-sex marriage. But most of all, Jesus would be anti-war, opposed to the military and essentially be a pacifist.

And then I Noted his Hypocrisy in my post, The Pony boy says that we’re too greedy.

This is based largely on one of His most famous statements: “Do not resist an evil person. If someone strikes you on the right cheek, turn to him the other also.”

The flaw in interpreting such statements as policy statements on how a nation should behave is that Jesus was speaking about the life of the individual — the micro — not about nations and the macro.[…]

But Jesus was clearly referring to interpersonal relations. It is critically important when trying to understand any portion of the Bible or any other text to read a passage within the context of the surrounding material. As biblical commentaries often put it, “Context is king.”

Noting what precedes and what follows this verse shows that it deals with attitudes and behaviors of individuals in such matters as anger against another individual in one’s personal life, adultery, divorce, oath-taking, giving to the poor, prayer, fasting, prioritizing, worrying, etc. Jesus was talking about interpersonal relations and noted that in our relations with people in our lives, it is not generally a good idea to hit back.

Now that is exactly right! That verse means you PERSONALLY are suppose to turn the other cheek. you’re not to go turn someone else’s cheek for them. That is a big problem when reading the bible; you have to put it onto context in order to tell if it is referring to a micro issue or a macro issue. In other Words you need to determine if this is something that I personally are suppose to follow or if this has implications for the society as a whole. The vast majority of things that Jesus talked about are micro issues that we Christians are to read and try to implement into our lives but we are not to force others into those things. One example is giving, we Christians are to give charitable to those that are less fortunate but we are not to steal form others to give to the less fortunate. But that is exactly what you are doing when you raise taxes in order to give to the poor or to farmers that are not doing well or to old people for their retirement. That is legally stealing the money that someone has worked hard for in order to be charitable to someone else. You personally are to give to charities not take what others make in order to give to charities and thus makes this a micro issue.

Now imagine applying this to nations: Should we have said to the Japanese after they attacked Pearl Harbor, “Now that you have attacked us in the West, please also bomb our cities in the East”?

The idea that a country should offer its other cheek to an aggressor is simply immoral, not to mention suicidal. Such thinking renders Jesus and the Christian Bible foolish. […]

Jesus was no leftist. He was, among other things, a religious Jew who knew and believed his Hebrew Bible, which contains verses such as this one from Psalms: “Those of you who love God must hate evil.” That, not offering another city for terrorists to bomb, is likely what Jesus believed.

And I would also like to know how you pacifists out there answer this from Matthew 10:34-35

“Don’t imagine that I came to bring peace to the earth! I came not to bring peace, but a sword.

‘I have come to set a man against his father,
a daughter against her mother,
and a daughter-in-law against her mother-in-law.

or how about this one from Luke 22:35-37

Then Jesus asked them, “When I sent you out to preach the Good News and you did not have money, a traveler’s bag, or extra clothing, did you need anything?”

“No,” they replied.

“But now,” he said, “take your money and a traveler’s bag. And if you don’t have a sword, sell your cloak and buy one!  For the time has come for this prophecy about me to be fulfilled: ‘He was counted among the rebels.’ Yes, everything written about me by the prophets will come true.”

It would seem to me that Jesus was pro Second Amendment form that last verse. So here comes a macro issue of self defense and pacifism and he starts to say things that are opposite to what the leftist want. Does that mean that Jesus is a hypocrite? NO! That means Jesus understood the difference between micro issues and macro issues and you have two completely different ways of handling these issues. To say that we are to sit back and watch as people are murdered and Islamic Fascists try to kill us is foolish and you people are the ones that are going to get us killed. For the macro issue of the war on Islamic Fascists Jesus would be on my side of the issue.

15 comments.

Bieren Skidels

Comment on March 21st, 2007.

First off… Darth B’Strad decides to interpret the Bible “in context” when it comes to non-violence passages - but decides to interpret it “literally” when it comes to things like warnings against tatoos in Leviticus even though he ignores the preceding verse about cutting the hair on the side of your face because it is “cultural” or something like that…

There’s a million verses that one could use to support a republican or democrat on many issues… most people who intelligently argue for non-violence (I would not put Mr. Edwards in this category) draw on a holistic sense of what Jesus cared about - and not just a few specific things that he said - doing something like that would be like assuming that the verse about pitting father against father actually meant we were supposed to be violent to our fathers… is Jesus promoting disrespect to parents? - and Jesus telling them to buy a sword supports the second amendment? even though he later rebuked Peter for using his sword and stated “he who lives by the sword dies by the sword” …

or maybe things are a bit more complex - and we can’t just make generalizations from single verses suited to each specific purpose and context we would like to apply them to? Wasn’t that the main point of Prager’s article?

ok, whatever - at best a simple call to take a more complex, holistic view of the Bible… unlike the two verses B’strad used to (seemingly) justify violence and the second amendment

uhh…??? did I miss something?

Darth B'strad

Comment on March 23rd, 2007.

Actually you completely missed it. It’s actually not that difficult to understand the Bible, you just need to put it into context, determine if the issue is a macro or micro issue, and try to apply it. Prager’s point was that the leftist say that you can not take the Bible literally when the verses don’t fit their rhetoric and then improperly applying a verse to everyone that clearly refers to something that you personally are to follow. Another thing is that Dennis is big on making correct generalizations and he says that you can not have wisdom if you do not make generalizations. “he who lives by the sword dies by the sword” is generally true but that does not always mean that you are not to fight and now with that statement you’re now making a sweeping generalization based on only one verse (kinda doing what you tell me not to do). But my believes are not only based on those two verses but those are the only ones that came to mind while righting this, Sorry that I didn’t have time to think up 200 verses to write up to back up my statement but sometime I’ll write a article that will completely explain this issue. I say that if you do not know if the verse is literal or not then just take it literally. And it would seem that Prager agrees with me because of the verse that he quoted from psalms and he says that we should follow that. You need to learn how to put things into context because in the verse from Matthew 10 Jesus is saying that following him will cut your family apart not that you are to try to cut your family apart. but my larger point to that is that Jesus says that HE IS NOT FOR MAKING PEACE, so why is making a peaceful world our goal. No we are to spread the gospel and to strive to do what is right in the world that does not always mean that we are going to make peace in the world. So yo, start reading up the Bible more and read the whole verse or even the whole chapter in order to make sense of it and then it is easy to understand the Bible.

J-Ro

Comment on March 25th, 2007.

Hold on there. The religious right imposes micro issues on a macro scale all the time! Isn’t abortion a micro issue? Gay marriage? As a Christian, the bible appears to mandate against these things. But making these mandates into law? Isn’t that a classic micro-to-macro problem?

If Jesus’s teachings don’t apply to tax code or charitable giving they sure as hell don’t apply to abortions or homosexuals.

Darth B'strad

Comment on March 25th, 2007.

No, marriage and abortion are macro issues. Now making a law preventing Homosexuality would be a micro issue that the government should not be making laws about because it is a personal issue even though the bible teaches that it is wrong. However abortion affects the society because now we have killed them instead of letting those unborn children have a chance at life. Marriage is a macro issue because that affect how the society is raised and what that society values. The society has the right to say that only one man and woman can get married.

J-Ro

Comment on March 26th, 2007.

I couldn’t disagree more, especially about gay marriage!

Now, I can’t quote scripture like you, so please dig up a counter argument from the Bible if you can, but to my knowledge Jesus made no claim that a marriage between a man and a woman is the proper way to raise a child. If I remember correctly there is talk about homosexuality being “against nature” but nothing about how it destroys marriage. Your argument is that gay marraige is a macro problem because it effects how members of society are raised. I think that is your assumption, not the Bible’s teaching. Am I wrong?

Darth B'strad

Comment on March 27th, 2007.

Why can’t you quote scripture? It’s not that hard, all you need to do is to look in the bible and type it down or now you can even look up an online bible and copy and paste from that. It’s really not that hard. However, I’ll get to the issue at hand here. Of cruse gay marriage is a macro issue. I think your confusing an individual and a group of people here. I will never say that that person can not get married to that person as long as those two people are of different sexes. It does not matter to me if two people of the same sex want to have a relationship. I will say that I don’t think that it is right but I don’t think that it is my place to judge them. I am a sinner just as much as any gay person is and I am not any better than them. My falling is just in another area but I will not pretend that it is alright because I think that it isn’t and the bible teaches that it is not right. However what people do in their bedroom is not my business. What I am saying is marriage as a societal creation is something that needs to be recognized by that society. If marriage is not recognized by that society then it is worthless because then all it is, is a tax break and thus making it a macro issue. We used to allow one man to get married to multiple wifes in the past but we do not now thus making a societal decision to make it one man and one woman. If we did allow gay marriage then why not let a man marry five different women or even his sister or how about his cat? Where does it end? Genesis 2:24 says “For this reason a man will leave his father and mother and be united to his wife, and they will become one flesh.” So this is saying that the ideal is one man and one woman in order to raise a family. The bible allows for the unideal family to come about of course but we are to strive for this ideal and it even gives plenty of examples of how the unideal family ends up really screwed up (just read about what kind of father David and Solomon was). I can also tell you that my parents are married and it was a great blessing on my life having them both raise me. It’s not a perfect world but that does not mean that we should start chucking our values just because it’s difficult.

Bieren Skidels

Comment on March 27th, 2007.

Bstrad

The “lives by the sword dies by the sword” reference was a balance to your statement - I would not assume that such a generalization applied in all cases. In fact, that what a generalization is - something that doesn’t always apply. I agree that wisdom may be arguably connected with generalizations, but obviously it’s about “good generalizations” and more importantly - proper use of them.

second, you are being very arogent saying “it is not actually dificult to understand the Bible” followed by your recipe for Bible understanding… Theologians much older and wiser than either of us have spent their lives studying the Bible and they continued to disagree with eachother - so how can something which leads so many wise people to so many different interpretations be something that is “easy to understand”…???

or maybe you are just smarter than the rest of us? What I know is that peace is a fruit of the spirit - and while I agree that many personal moral issues cannot be expected of a government body - I think you pick rather strange ones for the government to follow…

you think that the government should mantain some kind of idea of marriage as not gay… you don’t care about the government enforcing that peple stay married and respect the sanctity of that marriage, and you don’t think the government should necesarilly act in a peacful manner?

I am not saying I disagree on each of those points - I am just saying they seem rather contradictory… and don’t hide behind verses - God gave us the ability to interpret and that’s all we can expect to do, so don’t claim that any one verse trumps the logic of another… The Bible gives us insight, and while it has authority - all we can do is hope that God has actually illuminated some of the truth to us. And with so much disagreement between wise people, it seems he must not be making it absolutely clear to any of us!

J-Ro

Comment on March 27th, 2007.

First, I didn’t quote scripture because I have no experience. I actually enjoy your quotes, so I wanted to leave it to you. Not being a bible reader myself I don’t feel totally qualified for a purely theological discussion…

…but this one isn’t purely theological.

I don’t, and never will, buy the slippery slope issue. Where will it end? Come on. Polyamory has been legislated away by society NOT because of religious objections, but of societal objections, and theirin lies the difference. If you want to ban homosexual marriage, then give me some proof it is wrong. Not bible proof, science proof. Find me a real, peer-reviewed study that says children growing up in homosexual households are in any way disadvantaged. That, honestly, wouldn’t even be good enough for me. Find me a study that says growing up with two moms IS WORSE than growing up in a divorced family, especially those messy ones where a kid sees his dad twice a year for 12 hours. Then I might be inclined to join you.

But until then, the breakdown of marriage argument holds no water. As Bieren said, if the government is going to get into the business of legislating quality marriages, divorce should be an issue, parental prepardness should be an issue, corporal punishment, etc… Maybe the government should start giving parenting lessons? (my own slippery slope argument, not that I buy it…)

Darth B'strad

Comment on March 31st, 2007.

Man quite a Ruckus I have stirred up here.

Let’s start with Bieren first.

Well you’re finally coming around to what I am saying on one point. We need good generalizations in order to make sense of the world that is exactly right and what I have been saying to begin with. Now were we are differing is on reading the Bible. There are some “wise people” who spend years reading up in the Koran and come to the conclusion that murdering all non-Muslims is right. Should I just believe such people as this because they spent a long time reading and studying a book or should I read it for myself and come up with my own thoughts on it. My statement was to say that people out there are not at stupid at some of you out their think they are and they all don’t need some “wise person” to tell them to check their brain at the door and just listen to whatever the “wise person” has to say. Sounds a little like what the old Catholic Church used to say. The Bible is not hard to understand the problem we’re having right now is application. I’m arguing that people are improperly applying this verses is whys that they should not be applied and that is where all the disagreement is around. Now the whole point of the article is about a theological disagreement. So bringing up a bunch of verses to back up what I am saying is not hiding behind them, it’s using them to prove a point. Also, the purpose of government is not peace and according to Matthew 10:34-35 it was not Jesus’s purpose as well. Also it is not the government’s job to enforce good values on people that is what the family is for. That is why people need a Mother and a Father.

Now to J-RO

Well if you want to stay out of the theological discussion that is perfectly fine by me but don’t start making Biblical Insertions and expect me not to call you on them. However you’re helping me make my point here in saying “Polyamory has been legislated away by society NOT because of religious objections, but of societal objections, and theirin lies the difference” because my initial point was that this was a macro issue and thus society makes that rule. However just saying that it is a slippery slope argument dose not answer the question. If it is alright for two men or two women to get married then why is it wrong for a brother and sister or one man and ten women? You still need to answer the question because in a little while after you change the definition of marriage for the first time in all of human history then thoes small groups of people are going to start asking you that question. The definition of marriage being between one man and one woman is there because that is necessary in order to produce a child and has the best chance of being successful. Now that is not to say that single parents can not do a good job. they do the best that they can and some times that may be better than pulling that kid of to a foster home. Also a divorce is also not the end of the world. Most kids with divorced parents still have both of their parents and are in better shape than if the parents had stayed together. This is not a perfect world we’re living in here but what I can tell you is that a man can give a child something that a woman can not and a woman can give a child something that a man can not. If you want my prof of this just look a the African American community in our country and tell me how well they are doing in school (a lot of them did not grow up with fathers). Oh and Again, government is not here to legislate morality and values on people. Government is here to enforce law and to defend it’s people.

J-Ro

Comment on April 3rd, 2007.

Wow…where to begin…

1. I have been thinking about this a bit and I revise my position. I have no problem with a man and a man, 2 men and a woman, or 18 women and 500 men getting married. As long as all parties can provide for each other equally (everyone is fed, clothed, and tended to in equal measure) then I say why not. Who am I to legislate love? I believe the Koran says the same thing…

2. Marriage should not be about reproduction. Just because there may or may not be a chance to create a child should not preclude a couple from marrying. By your logic women who are barren should not get married. And married men should never have a vasectomy, or use birth control. When marriage takes on legal benefits (right to inheritance, power of attorney, etc…) then marriage being solely about children loses any weight as an argument.

3. Divorce is not the end of the world, agreed. Single parents can do a good job, agreed. Having a whole family as opposed to a divorced one is probably better for the child (though I don’t think you’ll find definitive scientific evidence to back that one up…), but that comment about African Americans? Are you kidding? Saying that black children are disadvantaged because of their family structure is ignoring most of the issue. What about poverty? What about racism? What about geography (living in bad neighborhoods with bad schools)? What about consumer debt? What about the abundence of fast food? What about drugs? Alchohol? Lack of positive role models? Regressive taxes? No welfare or health care? There are many many issues in the ghetto. Honestly, family might not even be in the top 5.

4. You claim the government is not here to legislate morality? Really? Ok then, why is there a fight over abortion? Why a fight over gay marriage? Stem cell research? Global warming? The list goes on…

The government can’t help itself! It can’t stand by and watch people do what they want with their lives. It has to step in and tell them what is right, what is better, what is morally justified.

Response?

J-Ro

Comment on April 3rd, 2007.

By the way, I’m liking this debate, if you can’t tell…I’m formally inviting you to debate me on my site, www.theseminal.com. Got any good ideas for a topic?

Darth B'strad

Comment on April 6th, 2007.

Well you kind of hijacked my post here from a internal Christan debate on the application of verses (primarily the one on turn the other cheek) into a debate on gay marriage but I think that this was a good one here. At least I can say that you are consistent in your position when you say “I have no problem with a man and a man, 2 men and a woman, or 18 women and 500 men getting married.” There are a lot of people on your side of the issue that will not confront that question but given that answer it is not very likely that we will ever really come to agreement on this issue. I say that if you’re going to allow 18 women and 500 men to get married then what is the point of even having the institution of marriage (except of course for the tax break). Oh and on the Koran, I am pretty sure that it does not allow for gay marriage. It does allow for polygamy but not gay marriage and in fact there is not a single religion that does allow for gay marriage (except for the religion of leftist secularism of course). But of course you know well what is in the Koran, right.

I don’t think that married couples who do have trouble with reproduction should be allowed to stay married because there is this wonderful institution called adoption that I think should be the thing that the society uses instead of abortion. There are a few marriages that will not produce children (usually with older couples) but the overwhelming majority of marriages do produce children even if the parents are incapable of having them physically. One man and one woman is still a best shot that a child gets in this life.

I didn’t say that having a together family that is bitter is better that a divorced one that may have somewhat happier parents. I think that the divorce issue should be decided in a case by case fashion because sometimes it dose turn out better for the kid and sometimes turns out bad for the kids.

On to the African American comment. Yes, that is a major factor in this this situation. there are rich blacks and poor whites. A lot of white people abuse drugs too. I was in districts with bad schools too. Oh and what does fast food have to do with kids dropping out and joining gangs? However it is the lack of role models that is the problem in that community (and the white community is not doing all that much better). Lack of a father figure that is. Oh and it is welfare that created this problem in the first place because then the government started making it so that the father does not need to stick around. Bill Cosby has been really good at this pointing out the problems (a lot of those same problems are in the white community as well). But ask yourself this: if poverty was the problem here then why in the hight of segragation in America was the time when black men were achieving great things and now when they are richer than ever before and less segregated than ever before are they doing really poorly?

And again you missed the whole point of the post: THERE IS A BIG DIFFERENCE BETWEEN MICRO AND MACRO. you can bring your values into macro issues but it is not the government’s job to make sure people behave in their micro life. But then again that is classic liberalism “the government needs to take care of you.” In a capitalist society you take care of yourself and the people around you help build up the character of the people around them (that is why having a religious society helps out a lot in this system). Thus it is not government’s job to build up my character.

It’s been good fighting with you on these issues. Sometime I’ll poke around your blog and start another one.

J-Ro

Comment on April 7th, 2007.

All right, first my response and then lets get this thing back on track…

1. You are right about the Koran, it doesn’t allow gay marriage, which I see as something of an issue, in that it really isn’t being consistant. But that’s never going to change.

2. I agree with you about adoption being a good option, but I still think you are speculating when saying that one man and one women is the best shot a child gets. If you are sure about this, tell me why? Are you basing your assertions on personal experience? Or observations you’ve made about the world around you? Or maybe, just maybe, you are basing it on facts, like scientific studies? Which is it?

3. African Americans. Still dead wrong here, sorry. I think you need to look at your history a bit closer. Fast food has a lot to do with it. There are major scientific studies that link bad diet to poor performance in school. Here’s just one example: http://www.ingentaconnect.com/content/cabi/bjn/2004/00000092/A00201s2/art00007

On top of that, diabetes, being overweight, heart disease, and other effects of poor diet exert financial and social pressures that do more to keep these kids down.

Welfare. You assume that the fathers in this situation that aren’t sticking around could earn money if they did. An unemployed father who can’t get a job really isn’t proving your case, though that IS the case in these situations (see http://www.truthout.org/issues_06/031907LA.shtml).

As for your comment about Blacks doing so well at the height of segregation, you couldn’t be more off. African Americans have never been better off in this country than they are today. You’ve had two black secretary of states, black governers, senators, and representatives. Black CEO’s, financiers, and investors. The black middle class is booming (see http://www.worldandi.com/public/1999/February/middle.cfm). There are, in fact, more opportunites than there ever were. There are still immense problems, but hey, every race has their problems. Whites are being ravaged by a decline in blue-collar jobs and a rise in meth use.

Ok, onto macro and micro. When you start attaching government benefits to being married you bring it from the MICRO level, where I agree the public has no business, to the MACRO level, where it does. Married people can more easily adopt, pass along benefits, travel together (visas and such), inherit each other’s wealth, pass along power of attorney, and absorb all sorts of other benefits the government has bestowed upon the marriage insitution. If you deny those benefits to homosexual couples that is discrimination, period. Now, I would support a “civil union” which bestows upon homosexual couples all the legal benefits of marriage, but I doubt the Supreme Court would. Seperate but equal has long been proven to be unequal.

Again, I stress that marriage is now a macro issue by virtue of the fact that it bestows real, tangible legal benefits. If marriage was just a word, or an oath, or a religious ceremony then I would have no case. Alas, that is not the case. Hence the battle.

Darth B'strad

Comment on April 11th, 2007.

hey, this is not a talk radio show with a limited amount of time. If you want to hijack my topic to bring in something interesting feel free to do so. It will help keep me on my toes here. I only wish I had more time here.

I actually was not talking about economics here but that was my fault, I was not being very clear so I apologize for that. However, economically the entire country is booming with only a few drags on it, but we’ll get them worked out eventually. The question I am asking is why is Jazz (a wonderful African American creation) such happy and upbeat music and rap is alway usually angry and unhappy. why is it that back then we had great black men striving to archive what was denied them and now to be educated is to be “un-black.” There are a lot of blacks running for office who are republicans but yet at the same time in the democrat party they always seem to get pushed aside. One example is our former mayor Wellington Webb was push aside from the chairman of the DNC for a white guy and that was not the first time. I now you’re going to say that Obama is the first “clean black candidate” (as Joe Biden puts it). However, now they are saying that he is not “black enough” and that he was not “down for the struggle.” Oh wait I forgot, Bill Clinton was the first black president, sorry. It seems that if you are black you can only go so high in the democrat party but in the republican party you can make it to sectary of state and start getting people begging you to run for president. But what is undeniable is back then they worked hard to get into a society that would not allow them in because of their skin color and now the society does not care about skin color but they have written off the society as racist. Welfare has allowed for those fathers to leave their kids behind so that they can continue their lifestyle of dealing drugs, gangs, pimping, ect. The very thing that those young men needed was a father there to teach them that they need to treat women with respect, stay in school and to not deal drugs and take them but thanks to welfare their not there. They don’t have to take responsibility for their actions because the government will take care of it. Every time government takes over the situation end up worse than it was before.Just like a normal liberal you think that this is all about economics but it really has nothing to do with money here, it has to do with taking responsibility. Besides our unemployment is less than 5% they should be able to find a job.

Again, you just proved my point. I said marriage is a macro issue in the first place. Now gays pretty much do all of the things you are suggesting without a civil union. However, I have no problem with civil unions as long as they do not allow adoption and the title of marriage. We had a referendum last year for making civil unions that if only there was not the provision of adoption in there I would have voted for it (and I think it failed overwhelmingly). I did that because I believe that children need a mother and a father to raise a child. Even for a single parent I think that there needs to be someone who comes into that child’s life to play that opposite role and in a gay couple that is very unlikely. It also just serves to confuse children especially little girls.

Oh and the Koran is consistent in this area because the women are not married to each other, they just share the same husband. They are not suppose to be lesbians in this set up. Image that, a Christan defending Muslims, isn’t this a great country?

And one last thing why should I believe these studies there is just going to be another one that comes along to say that that one was wrong. I just heard another one that said smoking and coffee will help prevent Parkinson’s. One day it is bad to eat carbs the next you have to or you’re going to die. When does it end?

J-Ro

Comment on April 15th, 2007.

Seeing as I’m a musician, I’d love to take on that jazz vs. hip hop comment.

First, you are taking jazz as a whole, which isn’t very useful to your argument. You say it is a happy and upbeat music, and at times you are right. But, genres such as free jazz and bebop sound much less like “pop music” than swing and big-band. However, all jazz music was originally black music, shunned by white society at large. Consider that in 1930, when the swing masters were in their heydey, the pop charts were holding music from white composers such as Irving Berlin and George Gershwin. Swing didn’t really become popular with everyone until 1935, when it was “dumbed down” to cater to more broad tastes.

Hip hop went through a similar thing. Born out of frustration with conditions in the South Bronx and Brooklyn in the late 1970’s, hip hop was originally positive protest music. Hip hop pioneers took old soul music and put their own words to it. Acts like Wu-Tang and Biggy certainly rapped about the problems in the hood, but they had an overwhelmingingly positive and introspective message. Now, when hip hop went popular, it succumbed to all the classic stereotypes that white people hold about black people, going straight back to the classic myth of the “african” being violent and savage. So there’s a little history…

As for blacks on either side of the aisle, that is to be expected and in fact encouraged. To look at the black community as having one ideology is of course a big mistake. There is room for conservative and liberal blacks, and the major parties should never count on their support as a given.

As for welfare, I still think there is a lot more that goes into it. There was high unemployment, or employment without a living wage, before there was welfare. Blacks still face racism when interviewing for jobs and when dealing with the cops. A teenager who was wrongfully arrested and convicted during the crack wars in the 80’s when racial profiling was at its worst ended up out of jail with an arrest record in the 90’s. Nobody was hiring or course, so what recourse was there? I think you have to consider other factors before you go off and blame welfare. Racial profiling, corrupt police, poverty (parents had no car or time to drive kids to their teenage job, which is how most white people start out in the workforce), and all sorts of other factors are in play here. I agree with you on principle that if all other things were equal, welfare would discourage people from working. But all other things are not equal. If you say that the opportunities afforded you by your upbringing were equal to those of someone growing up on the south side of chicago, I’d say you are dead wrong, and quite honestly have no idea what you’re talking about.

As for civil unions, adoption, and scientific proof, again we run into micro and macro. On a micro level, you can find a scientific study proving or disproving anything you want. However, on a macro level a pattern emerges. Eventually the scientific community converges on a consensus. It is a right for all Americans to raise children (life liberty and the pursuit I believe), and if you want to start taking away rights and treating certain classes of people differently, I believe you have to prove your claims, not the other way around. Nowhere in the Constitution does it say marriage, adoption, or child rearing are the sole province of married people. That is your inference, and until you back it up with proof your argument holds no weight with me. I think court precedent has shown that to discriminate (which is what you are doing, no matter how justified you may feel), the burden of proof is on you. So prove it.

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