Three Major Moral Failings of the Christian Right

The tea party is supported by the Christian right, and people like Newt Gingrich are hailed as the sort of Christians we want in high office. The first moral test Christians fail is the "what if everybody did that?" test. Right now one in every two marriages ends in divorce. If everyone were like Newt the figure would be one hundred percent. Pastor Mark has come out and stated that he thanks God everybody isn't like him. People like me know exactly what he is referring to. We hear about debt and households and budget balancing. How many wives do you know if their husband were fired from his job and just sat on his ass and didn't try to raise revenue wouldn't be getting pretty pissed at him? If everyone were as selfish and self obsessed and rationalizing of their own great wealth where would we be? What if all of us polluted equally as much as British Petrolium? These ultra rich commit the error of Nabel in the Bible who regarded himself as a "self made man", till God had different ideas. Christians will give Wall Street a moral pass, and yet Judy loves to scrutenize even minor flaws in my finances. Christians to say "well, we are all sinners". This thinking plays into Thom Hartman's example of how the far right views human beings as immoral and corporations as neutral, and therefore the moral superiors of the common man. Common sense tells us that if we all get greedy and afraid and constrict our wallets, that it will start an economic chain reaction. Another moral failing of the right is empathy, or putting your person in the other person's shoes for a while. It's a concept that's not even referenced in the Bible. Roosevelt said that he would allow no War profiteers and newly made millions because of the "current conflict that besets our nation". A tea party person would say "Well- - - if people get rich off the War it's only the American system, which the Old Testament endourses". That's what they'll say because Judy has said it. The third violation is the addage in the military of "Never leave a fallen comrad behind". How did Jesus do this? Did Jesus Christ ever spring anyone from prison? Isaiah 61 prophesyed he'd do it but did he? Did Jesus ever rescue anyone in danger? Did Jesus ever intervene to prevent or protest abuses in the Roman justice system? But more importantly the biggest slap of all to martyrs for causes everywhere is that Jesus's followers painted Jesus' sufferings on the cross as unique to human history, as if every day there weren't people languishing in dark dungons and prison camps, and being tortured, or being tried and put to death unjustly. I see not word one in any of Jesus' teaching about reforming any Justice system. People like Neil Savedra and Bill Halliday not only say Jesus' disadvantages in life were no worse than yours or mine, but give the clear impression that Jesus grew up in a privileged, anticeptic" "fifties TV family" type setting where nothing bad ever really happens. And there is also the notion spawned by both that "even if people's sins are forgiven- - you still have to face the life long consequences of them" with the clear implication akin to Hinduism that somehow your poverty or disability or disadvantage was the result of "somebody's" sin, perhaps Adam's and therefore it's up to you to atone and suffer the consequences of whatever sin that was, and as such are not entitled to any particular consideration or sympathy from God. Hence you have the "the poor are worthless" doctrine, which Rush Limbaugh is so found of. And if you don't think Born Again Christians listen to Rush' program, I have a bridge in Brooklyn I want to sell you. Barry Goldwater quoted Nixon somewhat disparagingly as saying "I'm a conservative with a heart". Certainly these days "the era of compassionate conservative is over". In this modern time the "truely needy" are defined out of existance. I'd like to see all these "non existant" people show up at the polls next November.

Spargo eggs is some factory farm egg company in Iowa that has been accused of mistreating and over-crowing their chickens in cages, as well as various sanitary violations. But apparently nobody has complained about any tainted eggs coming out of Spargo. Of course grandpa packed in his chickens pretty tightly in cages fifty years ago on his ranch. So I’m not sure there is a problem. But yesterday Mac Donalds announced they would no longer be doing business with the company to purchast their breakfast eggs. Also Wall Mart has announced that they won’t be selling Spargo eggs any more in their supermarket section.

LA may become the winter haven for all the Occupy protestors throughout the nations as other cities kick out the squatters on city lands. So far Viragosa and the local council has said they don’t have a problem with the protestors yet. So as the weather gets colder throughout the rest of the country, we will have to see what happens. It wouldn’t bad is the whole thing were just “called off” for now.

Natale Wood’s death off a boat in Catalina has been reopened by authorities. I remember it as being late November of 1980 but they are saying that Natale died in 1981 at age 43 or something. She drowned off a boat occupied by four people and the next morning her bruised and banged up body was discovered floating. But Robert Wagner, her husband, in his book states that Natale just “went missing” and now desperate he was to find her and could do anything to bring her back. The captain of the boat has now changed his story saying he either lied or omitted relivent information in not relating a bad argument that Wagner had with Wood and then the next thing Natale was in the water, which she was deathly afraid of, and the Captain wanted to turn on the flood lights to find her and Wagner refused to let that happen. The other guy on board overheard Wagner saying that “He needed to teach her a lesson”. Now they are saying they aren’t at this time suspecting Wagner for the crime, but perhaps this just is a ruse to get him to the station & arrest him.

Of course Syria is in the throws of a Civil War and all the hopes we had for Assad’s son are long out the window. He was western educated and the US had hopes he would lead Syria twords democracy. Instead the protests have gotten so wide spread it has escalated to an all out civil war with many army troops defecting and joing the side of the rebels. Secretary of State Hillary has been talking about this but I’m not entirely sure what if any plan she has up her sleeve to deal with it. So would adding Assad's skull to the collection already in the royal hut be enough to win over the republicans? Yesterday the defeat of the balanced budget amendment was a major victory for the Obama administration. Could this mean that many Republicans are now changing their minds and looking on the economy more realistically?

The National debt has now topped fifteen trillion dollars. This means now that forty percent of the entire national debt has been rung up since July first of 2009 when Obama’s first budget that he had control over went into effect. It should be easy enough to test these numbers. This means that the national debt has risen over sixty percent in just under 29 months. If this truly is the case we do have a problem. According to Bachman, some six percent of the debt consists of interest payments. Six percent seems way higher than I would have guessed given recent interest rates. But this would mean that this year and every year interest on the national debt is at 900 billion dollars. Michelle says we could have paid this in monthly instalments starting last August without raising the debt ceiling. But I will say this- despite this statement and her views on Libya, Michelle Bachman is a more palitable candidate than Gingrich, Romney, Cain, or Perry. Of course with Newt - one Christian value he might take up is not lying in virtually every sentence. And who can get past Romney's flip flopping? We ran a flip flopper during a previous incumbent election and that didn't work out so well. Bachman has demonstrated a great deal of forthrightness and knowledge in a lot of areas, so in my oppinion, she shines above most other Republican asperents.

Newt Gingrich "looks" the most Presidential of any of the candidates, if you're dialing up central casting. Chris Matthews mentioned that Newt Gingrich was kicked out of the chairmanship by his own party in 1998. How does that give him credibility? Not only this but Gingrich along with the Heritage Foundation ensorsed not only mandentory medical insurance purchasses, but also "death panels", which appeared not to bother Newt at all years ago. Of course giving Newt's propensity to lie about everything, it took him time to own up to this. They say that Newt will especially have trouble with married evangelical women ages forty to sixty. This is too valuable a group just to kiss off. The whole bit about "I cheated because I loved my country with too much passion" explanation better retired in the general campaign. Newt along with Thomas O Neil is of course the archetect of the massive Reagan deficets that he ran up over eight years. I always thought the tea party stood for at least- - - something. But maybe I'm wrong. Maybe they stand for nothing (and will fall for anything).

Johnny Di Mira is alive, and was hiding under the counter at the Brady pub. Raphael on impulse had the idea of looking for him there after talking to Alley and came up with his “doubling back” theory. Samantha and E J believe Johnny is dead because of a report on the television station that they need to sue about for the emotional distress it’s caused so many. John Black got a lady judge up in the middle of the night to hold a hearing because it’s that important that John Black not spend another day in freedom. John was prophetic in saying that when he pled guilty than Johnny would be found safe. The very idea of holding a major trial like this just five or six weeks after an initial arrest is silly. It would never happen. First of all there has been no reference to even empaneling a jury. But this after all is fiction. So of course John Black's entire staff of attorneys deserts him with no explanation and his entire defense is left to one long young woman. It could be argued he's not even competent to stand trial having undergone much hospitalization and physical as well as brain and mental trauma. Given the certainty of a “hanging jury” being empanneled, John’s plead just short-cuts the inevitable so let’s save the tax payers some money.