Progressive tenets of Jesus Christ

ZHawke wrote:
Christ was a Progressive in my opinion.

Since most progressives believe in the right to kill the unborn, I would disagree. I doubt Jesus would put a woman's "right to choose" over a baby's right to live.

TARP as a stimulus? I don't care who you are, that right there is funny. TARP was a bailout, not a stimulus program, pure and simple. A bailout, I might add, that was legislated by a Congress in which both chambers held a majority of Democrats in which the largest single payouts were to Fannie and Freddie, the GSEs that were created when LBJ wanted to get some deficit spending off the official federal ledgers to make his "Great Society" expenditures appear less costly.

No, the Bush stimulus occurred earlier in the year in the form of a direct tax rebate issued to low and middle income taxpayers (below $75K a year), business investment tax incentives and a raising of the ceiling for mortgages that could be purchased by GSEs Fannie and Freddie. Note that this legislation was also the result of a Congress where both chambers held a majority of Democrats.

And, for the record, stimulus spending is a product of the demand side economics theory, not the supply side economics theory which the left consistently either willfully distorts or fails to understand.

News flash Z, there is no such thing as "trickle down" economics, never has been. It has always been a political phrase that intentionally distorts an economic theory that those employing it either disagree with or fail to comprehend. And I'm going to go out on a limb here and suggest that the ones that don't understand it are the same ones that Gruber referenced who didn't understand that levying a tax on a business is the functional equivalent of levying a tax on individuals.

And I do support workfare, I just don't support a federal one size fits none workfare program. I know it's confusing Z, but believe it or not a program opposed at the federal level doesn't express an opposition to any such program, just the one size fits none federal ones. Does that clarify the picture for you, or is the concept still a bit fuzzy for you in a manner similar to that which prevents many from understanding supply side economics and incorrectly describing it as "trickle down" economics.

Finally, you can believe the earth is flat if you want to, that won't make it flat, or that Christ was a progressive who taught that the rich should be taxed to provide for the poor.

P, you amaze me!

First, you did not specify you were referring to the Economic Stimulus Act of 2008. That would have been helpful, but you've never been known to be that way when debating with me, have you? You'd rather I "do my own research" because you simply are above doing it yourself and providing actual verification for your assertions because when you say something, by GOD it's right!

www.taxpolicycenter.org/briefing-book/ba...ulus/individuals.cfm

I remember when we received our rebate. I also remember we kind of didn't jump up and down for joy when the amount we received was realized. Whoop-de-do would be a more accurate description of our reaction. Individual tax rebates did very little, if anything at all, to actually benefit the individual from what I've studied. So many families were already strapped financially that this rebate literally meant nothing in the overall big bucket of things.

The rest of your post on TARP and trickle down economics is noted, nothing more. That's not an admission you are correct. But, rather, my belief you are more interested in nit-picking things to death to make a point. If there is no such thing as trickle down economics, so be it. The irrefutable fact is that term is generally used by economists and a whole lot of other people to describe and be pretty much interchangeable with supply side economics and Reaganomics. That's a fact.

One final thing on your position regarding Jesus as a Progressive:

PrintSmith wrote: Finally, you can believe the earth is flat if you want to, that won't make it flat, or that Christ was a progressive who taught that the rich should be taxed to provide for the poor.

That's what you said, right? The fact you would put a qualifier on your assertion Jesus wasn't a progressive by conflating it with Jesus not teaching that the rich should be taxed to provide for the poor speaks solely to your own narrow mindedness on this subject.

Edited to add: I thought this was supposed to be an intelligent, polite discussion/debate on the Progressive Tenets of Jesus Christ. It's become pretty obvious by the tone of your last response, you no longer intend to engage in discussion/debate in that tone any longer. That's why my response here is worded the way it is. Unless we (BOTH of us) can go back to the intent of this discussion/debate and keep it civil and respectful, please consider this to be my last response to you herein.

Rick wrote:

ZHawke wrote:
Christ was a Progressive in my opinion.

Since most progressives believe in the right to kill the unborn, I would disagree. I doubt Jesus would put a woman's "right to choose" over a baby's right to live.

This topic (abortion) isn't as simple and clearcut as you apparently would have us believe by your statement. I did several searches, refined them multiple times, and could not find anywhere in any of the sites I visited where Jesus said anything whatsoever about abortion one way or the other. What I did find was a plethora of sites talking about the difficulty in coming to any conclusions about abortion based on the contents of the Bible because the Bible doesn't specifically address this issue either - at least according to what I could find.

I don't believe for one second that "most Progressives believe in the right to kill the unborn". In Biblical times, abortion, from what I've read, was practiced even during Jesus' time. There were no punishments for a woman terminating her pregnancy that I am aware of. Even in cases of miscarriage (Exodus 21:22) the "penalty" for that pregnancy ending is less for the perpetrator who causes the miscarriage than if that same perpetrator were to "strike a person mortally":

Likewise, Exodus 21 draws a clear demarcation between the killing of a person and the killing of a fetus:

Exodus 21:12 reads:

Whoever strikes a person mortally shall be put to death. If it was not premeditated, but came about by an act of God, then I will appoint for you a place to which the killer may flee.

But Exodus 21:22 reads:

When people who are fighting injure a pregnant woman so that there is a miscarriage, and yet no further harm follows, the one responsible shall be fined what the woman's husband demands, paying as much as the judges determine.

civilliberty.about.com/od/abortion/f/bible_abortion.htm

I'm not saying abortion is "right". Neither am I saying abortion is "wrong". I'm merely pointing out this issue isn't cut and dried, even Biblically speaking.

I even did a search on "what would Jesus say about abortion" to see if there are some out there who might be willing to interject their own thought on this. Very few actually went that far. Most of the hits were with regard to what the Bible says about it.

I believe Jesus, who taught love and forgiveness, would be more forgiving of someone who chooses to abort a fetus, just as he was forgiving of the woman who committed adultery and told her to go and sin no more. To forgive, rather than to condemn, seemed to me to be Jesus' mantra.