toldailytopic: US House of Representatives pass Obama-care.

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God-Breathed

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A Great Man once said Love thy neighbor as thyself... That's how I see universal healthcare. I love myself enough to want healthcare for myself, therefor I should love my neighbor enough to want healthcare for them. Whether they can afford it or not.
 

drbrumley

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A Great Man once said Love thy neighbor as thyself... That's how I see universal healthcare. I love myself enough to want healthcare for myself, therefor I should love my neighbor enough to want healthcare for them. Whether they can afford it or not.

Oh Lord, not another buffoon
 
A Great Man once said Love thy neighbor as thyself... That's how I see universal healthcare. I love myself enough to want healthcare for myself, therefor I should love my neighbor enough to want healthcare for them. Whether they can afford it or not.
I don't have healthcare. Let's see if you really love me.

I have a family of 10, which would cost about 25,000 dollars per year.

Send me a check to cover four years, and we will see if you can back up your beliefs.
 

chickenman

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A Great Man once said Love thy neighbor as thyself... That's how I see universal healthcare. I love myself enough to want healthcare for myself, therefor I should love my neighbor enough to want healthcare for them. Whether they can afford it or not.

That sounds awfully special of you, GB. However, that's not what the healthcare bill is about. You absolutely SHOULD provide for another if you are compelled to. But the healthcare bill FORCES you to provide care for others.

So...either you need to take up sozo on his request to prove that you really meant it...

...or you need to drop the self-righteousness and admit that you don't really mean what you say. What you REALLY meant to say was:
"therefore I should fake love my neighbor enough feel self-righteous while millions are FORCED to fund his healthcare. Whether he can afford it or not."
I vote for the first. That will prove your sincerity.
 

Town Heretic

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...either you need to take up sozo on his request to prove that you really meant it...

...or you need to drop the self-righteousness and admit that you don't really mean what you say. What you REALLY meant to say was:
"therefore I should fake love my neighbor enough feel self-righteous while millions are FORCED to fund his healthcare. Whether he can afford it or not."
I vote for the first. That will prove your sincerity.
You know better than that, cm. All he needs to do is answer honestly that he is without the means to do what you ask of him but is willing to do his part along with the rest of us to help everyone and the system that impacts all of us in the short and long term. There's nothing hypocritical about a limitation on what you can do and a willingness to meet what you can...

So why impugn someone's character because you disagree with his politics? :sigh:
 

chickenman

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You know better than that, cm. All he needs to do is answer honestly that he is without the means to do what you ask of him but is willing to do his part along with the rest of us to help everyone and the system that impacts all of us in the short and long term. There's nothing hypocritical about a limitation on what you can do and a willingness to meet what you can...

So why impugn someone's character because you disagree with his politics? :sigh:

Hi, TH.

Thanks for the rebuke. I appreciate that. But my statement wasn't a reaction to his politics. It was a reaction to his misuse of Jesus' words. He referred to Jesus' statement about loving one's neighbor. Truly loving one's neighbor has absolutely nothing to do with advocating forced contributions to healthcare.

That's true, right?

In the sozo example, if sozo is his neighbor, and sozo has a need, perhaps one way to demonstrate love for sozo is to help with the need. If he can't help with 100% of the need, then doing what he can (even if it's a fraction of the cost) is still an equal demonstration of love. If all he has to his name is $2, yet sozo's need is $25,000, then giving sozo $2 is an amazing act of love.

But advocating that millions be forced to help with sozo's need does not in any way demonstrate a love for sozo...or a love for the millions of "neighbors" that are forced to aid sozo.

Thanks, my friend.

Randy
 

Town Heretic

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...Thanks for the rebuke.
I Rebuke U. graduate. :poly: The carp and grown ceremony was spectacular, but in the end all I got was a lousy t-shirt and this attitude. :mmph: :D
I appreciate that. But my statement wasn't a reaction to his politics.
Had to be, since else you'd be criticizing his inclination to help others, which I know you wouldn't do.
It was a reaction to his misuse of Jesus' words. He referred to Jesus' statement about loving one's neighbor. Truly loving one's neighbor has absolutely nothing to do with advocating forced contributions to healthcare.

In the sozo example, if sozo is his neighbor, and sozo has a need, perhaps one way to demonstrate love for sozo is to help with the need. If he can't help with 100% of the need, then doing what he can (even if it's a fraction of the cost) is still an equal demonstration of love. If all he has to his name is $2, yet sozo's need is $25,000, then giving sozo $2 is an amazing act of love.
So you don't have a problem with him doing this as an individual, but if he goes further than his resources or reach and attempts in good conscience to promote a policy that does more and for many this somehow changes the equation because some don't share his belief?

Understand I mean to apply this principle elsewhere before you answer me. :D
But advocating that millions be forced to help with sozo's need does not in any way demonstrate a love for sozo...or a love for the millions of "neighbors" that are forced to aid sozo.
It absolutely must, if Sozo and even more benefit and he is willing to sacrifice to that end. Whatever you think of the wisdom of the policy, it is driven by a willingness to assuage the suffering of others. That is and serves an absolute good. Beyond that, since we know that helping those in need is good and in keeping with the teachings of Christ, the compulsory nature of the root cannot rob it of that good. In fact, only the reticent participant is robbed and that by his own intention.
Thanks, my friend.

Randy
Always a pleasure to reason with you, my fine feathered. :e4e:
 
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chickenman

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Had to be, since else you'd be criticizing his inclination to help others, which I know you wouldn't do.



I'm not quite sure I understand. Can you clarify? It sounds like you're saying that the only two available choices for characterizing my criticism are:
  1. Criticizing his political position...OR...
  2. Criticizing his desire to help others.
Am I understanding you correctly? If so, why can't I be doing exactly what I said and, instead, (#3) be criticizing his misuse of Jesus' words, which made him appear self-righteous? If all on the left hold that same opinion of Jesus' words, and my criticism, therefore, comes across as a criticisim of a political position, then so be it. But I was, in fact, criticizing #3.

So you don't have a problem with him doing this as an individual, but if he goes further than his resources or reach and attempts in good conscience to promote a policy that does more and for many this somehow changes the equation because some don't share his belief?
But the policy is not one of loving your neighbor. Forcing people to do something does not promote love, even if the something is good. If he were promoting a policy that somehow encouraged the masses to willingly give of their resources to help the downtrodden...then that would be great. But the policy FORCES people to help. Helping is good, forced helping only LOOKS good on the surface.

Why does God not force the world to love Him? Because love only LOOKS like love if it is forced. It can only actually BE true love when it is willful.


It absolutely must, if Sozo and even more benefit and he is willing to sacrifice to that end. Whatever you think of the wisdom of the policy, it is driven by a willingness to assuage the suffering of others. That is and serves an absolute good. Beyond that, since we know that helping those in need is good and in keeping with the teachings of Christ, the compulsory nature of the root cannot rob it of that good. In fact, only the reticent participant is robbed and that by his own intention.
Forced "love" is not good, though, TH.

Right now, it's easy to look at the system through one set of lenses and think that it is good. The logistics of it all are unseen. A recipient receives the benefit, and to him/her, it's just free healthcare.

But what if the logistics of it all were simplified and visible to all the recipients. Let's say that it's you who are suffering whatever serious illness and desperately need care that you couldn't afford before. Now you can, because of the new system. But instead of just "receiving it", the government forces millions to knock on your door and give you their portion in person. The ones who knock on your door who resent being forced to do so will be obvious. Would you truly want him to give you the money? Forget about the way the giver SHOULD feel. Forget about the assumed heart condition of the giver. Do you want someone who is forced to give to you...to do so?

Is that person loving you? Is that the kind of love Jesus meant when he said to "Love your neighbor"?



Always a pleasure to reason with you, my fine feathered. :e4e:
Likewise! :jump:
 

BabyChristian

New member
The administration is going to cut fraud in Medicare. HA! That should have been done years ago and it wasn't. So our tax dollars were being abused and now they finally figured it out?

Now we'll have added fraud with Obamacare.

How can a thinking person not know this?

I was and am for health care reform but I was not for the govt. being in charge of it, look how well they handle everything else they do.

This deal is so huge it makes everything else appear inconsequential that any President has done.

When welfare happened, it really didn't help so many. It made them dependent on it and it's abused as is everything else.

This is my opinion but I'll state it anyway.

These one parent homes, where the "baby momma" is the only one there. She may or may not be working but regardless, women are more often the friend, not the parent and the kids need to belong to a family and they often find gangs or end up on drugs to fill in the gaping hole in their lives.

Free rides don't work.
 

Town Heretic

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... If he were promoting a policy that somehow encouraged the masses to willingly give of their resources to help the downtrodden...then that would be great. But the policy FORCES people to help. Helping is good, forced helping only LOOKS good on the surface.
There are two goods being discussed here and you don't seem to consider one that I'd argue is more important. The first good is the good of easing and/or preventing the suffering of others. Then there's the good we experience in giving with a generous spirit. The second good depends on our approach and is something we can choose to embrace or to deny for ourselves.

When I was a boy I was taught to do for others. Sometimes I didn't feel like it and it was insisted that I do so anyway. In hindsight, I'd say that the imposition worked against my will did a quantifiable good for those impacted and, in the long run, accomplished a good in me by ingraining the principle of service and moral obligation that in my maturity became a desire.
Why does God not force the world to love Him? Because love only LOOKS like love if it is forced. It can only actually BE true love when it is willful.
Then if the point of the law was to teach love... But the fellow who started our dialog simply evidenced that he understood the opportunity for that second good in relation to the first.

Now I was taught that God disciplines those He loves. And God commanded any number of things from those who accepted His authority. He didn't ask Moses if he felt up to leading Israel. He didn't suggest David take on Goliath. And don't get me started on Abraham...
Forced "love" is not good, though, TH.
No one is arguing that. But love does carry with it demands or its nothing but a sound we make that signifies little.
Right now, it's easy to look at the system through one set of lenses and think that it is good. The logistics of it all are unseen. A recipient receives the benefit, and to him/her, it's just free healthcare.
It's health, wellness and an absolute good.
But ...Let's say that it's you who are suffering whatever serious illness and desperately need care that you couldn't afford before. Now you can, because of the new system.
There's a good then.
But instead of just "receiving it", the government forces millions to knock on your door and give you their portion in person.
It would then be a good accomplished through a peculiar means. But is my inconvenience more important than another man's life?
The ones who knock on your door who resent being forced to do so will be obvious. Would you truly want him to give you the money?
Let's alter it a bit: the person receiving the benefit or not is a four year old child. Which would concern you more, the inconvenience of some or the health of the child? Which would concern Christ more?
Forget about the way the giver SHOULD feel. Forget about the assumed heart condition of the giver. Do you want someone who is forced to give to you...to do so?
Where I'd say, FORGET about the maturity or lack therein of the person doing the good and consider the good itself.

:cheers:
 
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BabyChristian

New member
Just saw on the news that the CBOs made some errors.

We are having trouble now even getting China to loan us money.

We'll be reaching a financial point soon where Greece is now with our GDP heading the direction it is. By all means, let's go into debt up to our eyeballs to let the govt. run some more stuff and watch our country go broke.

Fidel Castro thinks this health care thing is a great thing here in the USA. That tells me a pant load.

Seems Castro and many Americans have something in common. Wish those people would have moved there to Cuba.

Govt. takeover of EVERYTHING is NOT the answer, that's been proven time and time again.

CUBANS STARVE ON DIET OF LIES, BY: DENNIS T. AVERY

CHURCHVILLE, VA—The Cubans told the world they had heroically learned to feed themselves without fuel or farm chemicals after their Soviet subsidies collapsed in the early 1990s. They bragged about their “peasant cooperatives,” their biopesticides and organic fertilizers. They heralded their earthworm culture and the predator wasps they unleashed on destructive caterpillars. They boasted about the heroic ox teams they had trained to replace tractors.

Organic activists all over the world swooned. Now, a senior Ministry of Agriculture official has admitted in the Cuban press that 84 percent of Cuba’s current food consumption is imported, according to our agricultural attaché in Havana. The organic success was all a lie—a great, gaudy, Communist-style Big Lie of the type that dictators behind the Iron Curtain routinely used throughout the Cold War to hornswoggle the Free World.

This time the victims of the Big Lie are the Greens in the organic movement who want us to trust our future food supplies to their low-yield “natural farming” The Greens want us to outlaw nitrogen fertilizer, biotechnology and whatever else might save room for the planet’s wildlife through higher farm productivity.

But now the Cubans have admitted sneaking rice, wheat, corn and soy oil imports into the country, bought with tourist dollars from European and Canadian visitors—many of whom came to see Cuba’s “stunningly successful” farming-of-the-future. As the U.S. embargos have loosened, food imports from the U.S. are also increasing.

The Cuban farming deception was aided by the “useful idiots” in the non-Communist world. The late Donnella Meadows, who wrote the stunningly-foolish book Limits to Growth in 1972, gushed over Cuban farming: “Suddenly deprived of half its food and most of its agricultural inputs, [Cuba] has not only maintained but increased its food supply in a way that creates jobs and improves the environment.”

Right, by importing 84 percent of the food.

Cuba has lots of unused farmland, but Castro’s system discouraged rural farmers. They couldn’t get their over-quota surplus to the cities for lack of fuel and trucks. Much of Cuba’s rural land has now grown up to thorny marabou bushes.

Instead, more than 10,000 Cuban city dwellers have become full-time gardeners. Environmentalist Bill McKibbon wrote in Harpers of a few-acre urban garden in Havana, on a site intended for a hospital. It grows 25 different vegetables, employing 64 people. Most of the beans and carrots have to be delivered to the government for the “ration stores” but the gardeners can make their own deals with the neighbors for the rest. The gardeners only make about 150 pesos per month (THAT'S $11.99 PER MONTH). Still, there’s even less to buy in Cuba than in the old Soviet Union—including almost no meat and little milk. They mainly subsist on rice and beans.

Should America force its people to spend their days’ hand-weeding vegetables in a field that should have been a hospital? Should our food be rationed like Cuba’s? Instead, 3 percent of Americans grow the food, on far less expensive land.

As Blake Hurst concluded in his March, 23 Weekly Standard article, “Dirt Poor in the Workers’ Paradise:” “If you are going to have a sustainable agricultural paradise, it helps to have a nearby neighbor with a million or so industrial farmers.”

http://www.cgfi.org/2009/04/02/cubans-starve-on-diet-of-lies-by-dennis-t-avery/
 

chickenman

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TH,
Since we're obviously going to continue to disagree on the subject, then I won't persist. I'll close with a final comment, and you can have the last word if you like.

Having a benevolent, generous attitude is wonderful. Giving to those in need is fantastic. I'm all for it. And as a parent, to your point, when my children don't want to do good, I might MAKE them do something they don't want to. Doing so molds their character and, over time, their actual desires change for the better, too.

However, the government is not God. Or Mom or Dad. They have a God-given responsibility to legislate on moral issues (don't murder or steal, e.g.) by punishing the wicked. This protects the innocent.

Being nice, however, is not a moral issue. The government has NO right to force people to be nice...or to LOOK LIKE they're being nice. That does not, in any way, promote love.

Thanks for your consideration.

RA
 

Town Heretic

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TH,
Since we're obviously going to continue to disagree on the subject, then I won't persist. I'll close with a final comment, and you can have the last word if you like.
Well, I can't say I'm not sorry to miss the answers to my inquiry, since I believe you to be by nature a good and just person. I suspect I could argue you out of your focus, one that I believe works at cross purposes to that nature everywhere else in evidence.
Having a benevolent, generous attitude is wonderful.
It's a blessing for the individual who holds it, without question. When I please God I serve my own interest, but I do so without regard for that interest or I lose the blessing.
Giving to those in need is fantastic. I'm all for it.
I wouldn't have thought otherwise of you and your generosity of spirit is in evidence all about TOL.
And as a parent, to your point, when my children don't want to do good, I might MAKE them do something they don't want to. Doing so molds their character and, over time, their actual desires change for the better, too.
They'll thank you for the lesson later. :thumb:
However, the government is not God. Or Mom or Dad.
No, it's us. And we can choose that it represents our best nature or our meanest conceits. That's one of the great things about our form of government. It can do what is difficult for many, selflessly provide a good to those who need it. When a man is fed or housed or cared for in his need, you can have your hand in it, though your right hand won't realize in the particular that you're doing it, to paraphrase a bit.
They have a God-given responsibility to legislate on moral issues (don't murder or steal, e.g.) by punishing the wicked. This protects the innocent.
I absolutely agree.
Being nice, however, is not a moral issue.
Seeing to it that a sick child is provided medical care, that a man who lost his job doesn't have to lose his life through an unkind turn of fortune isn't nice, it's a moral good. Failing to do what can be done is in practice comparable to the inaction of people who passed by an injured man who then found himself reliant on the unexpected mercy of a Samaritan.
The government has NO right to force people to be nice...or to LOOK LIKE they're being nice. That does not, in any way, promote love.
And I think your political ideas narrow your focus so that you can call a good a nicety. It's a dangerous conflation, to my mind, and an errant one. And even in its own context it's contradicted. If I forbid you to steal, I force you to respect property. If I insist you pay taxes, I force you to work any number of goods. That's very much the proper role of government, of us in relation to one another and collectively. That's nice and that's a moral good.

Love is promoted by loving acts. It is a loving act to instruct a harder heart in what is expected of it. And the upside is that even if they don't learn the lesson, as your children will, the good remains.
Thanks for your consideration.
My pleasure,

:e4e:
 

Ecumenicist

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"You must spread some (positive) reputation around before giving it to TH again."

Nice post TH. I give it my POTD. :first:

Well, I can't say I'm not sorry to miss the answers to my inquiry, since I believe you to be by nature a good and just person. I suspect I could argue you out of your focus, one that I believe works at cross purposes to that nature everywhere else in evidence.

It's a blessing for the individual who holds it, without question. When I please God I serve my own interest, but I do so without regard for that interest or I lose the blessing.

I wouldn't have thought otherwise of you and your generosity of spirit is in evidence all about TOL.

They'll thank you for the lesson later. :thumb:

No, it's us. And we can choose that it represents our best nature or our meanest conceits. That's one of the great things about our form of government. It can do what is difficult for many, selflessly provide a good to those who need it. When a man is fed or housed or cared for in his need, you can have your hand in it, though your right hand won't realize in the particular that you're doing it, to paraphrase a bit.

I absolutely agree.

Seeing to it that a sick child is provided medical care, that a man who lost his job doesn't have to lose his life through an unkind turn of fortune isn't nice, it's a moral good. Failing to do what can be done is in practice comparable to the inaction of people who passed by an injured man who then found himself reliant on the unexpected mercy of a Samaritan.

And I think your political ideas narrow your focus so that you can call a good a nicety. It's a dangerous conflation, to my mind, and an errant one. And even in its own context it's contradicted. If I forbid you to steal, I force you to respect property. If I insist you pay taxes, I force you to work any number of goods. That's very much the proper role of government, of us in relation to one another and collectively. That's nice and that's a moral good.

Love is promoted by loving acts. It is a loving act to instruct a harder heart in what is expected of it. And the upside is that even if they don't learn the lesson, as your children will, the good remains.

My pleasure,

:e4e:
 

Lighthouse

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If they want to take money from me for not having insurance they can pry it from my cold, dead hands.
 

WandererInFog

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Seeing to it that a sick child is provided medical care, that a man who lost his job doesn't have to lose his life through an unkind turn of fortune isn't nice, it's a moral good.

Whether or not something is a moral good isn't simply determined by ends one is seeking, but the means used to achieve them as well.

Failing to do what can be done is in practice comparable to the inaction of people who passed by an injured man who then found himself reliant on the unexpected mercy of a Samaritan.

But we're not talking about action v. inaction on the part of a single individual here, and as such the parable isn't applicable as the parable involves the Samaritan helping of his own volition not him attempting to persuade the nearest nearest Centurion force the priest and the Levite to do so.
 
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