Tea Partiers as Christians - Big Fail

Non-negotiable Core Beliefs from TeaParty.org's Dale Robertson
(Founder/President) and my comments in italics.

Illegal Aliens are illegal.
Pro-Domestic Employment is indispensable.
Stronger Military is essential.
Gun ownership is sacred.
Government must be downsized.
National Budget must be balanced.
Deficit Spending will end.
Bail-out and Stimulus Plans are illegal.
Reduce Personal Income Taxes a must.
Reduce Business Income Taxes is mandatory.
Intrusive Government Stopped.
English only is required.
Traditional Family Values are encouraged.
Common Sense Constitutional Conservative
Self-Governance is our mode of operation.

....and Yes, we are a Christian Nation!

So, let's start with the hilarious first, "Yes, we are a Christian Nation!" Well, not hilarious, just sad. Look through all of those and tell me which items would get Jesus all fired up? Nothing about universal access to health care ("when I was sick"), nothing about the unprecedented dependence on Food Stamps, not only to buy food ("when I was hungry"), but for subsistence needs ("when I was naked"), nor anything about our embarrassingly high incarceration rates for Americans ("when I was a prisoner").

But these "Christians" did include those damn illegal aliens!! The Bible is terribly draconian on aliens:
Exodus 22: Do no wrong to a man from a strange country, and do not be hard on him; for you yourselves were living in a strange country, in the land of Egypt
And Leviticus is even worse: The alien living with you must be treated as one of your native-born. Love him as yourself, for you were aliens in Egypt. I am the LORD your God.
Anyway, may as well go through the rest of his list, briefly.
Pro-domestic employment. OK, we can agree on this one. However, I expect their view is very anti-union, which the Pope, at least (he's Christian, right?) opposes.

Thus, the encyclical rises strongly to the defense of labor unions, which are still vehemently opposed by large numbers of politically conservative Catholics. The pope notes that unions "have always been encouraged and supported by the Church.

Stronger Military. How about smarter military? How abut defunding "Star Wars," and preparing for the wars we are fighting and will fight in the future: "wars" against terrorist organizations. Oh, wait, that's law enforcement and intelligence. Then how about focusing the Pentagon on human resources instead of lining the pockets of Haliburton, Blackwater, Northrup and the rest of the Military industrial complex. Eisenhower was so prescient and wise:

Every gun that is made, every warship launched, every rocket fired signifies, in the final sense, a theft from those who hunger and are not fed, those who are cold and are not clothed. This world in arms is not spending money alone. It is spending the sweat of its laborers, the genius of its scientists, the hopes of its children. The cost of one modern heavy bomber is this: a modern brick school in more than 30 cities. It is two electric power plants, each serving a town of 60,000 population. It is two fine, fully equipped hospitals. It is some fifty miles of concrete pavement. We pay for a single fighter plane with a half million bushels of wheat. We pay for a single destroyer with new homes that could have housed more than 8,000 people. This is, I repeat, the best way of life to be found on the road the world has been taking. This is not a way of life at all, in any true sense. Under the cloud of threatening war, it is humanity hanging from a cross of iron. ... Is there no other way the world may live?

Gun Ownership is sacred. Fine, this is way low on my list of issues to get exorcised about but gun rights are not unlimited. Again, I don't see this as being near the top of Jesus' list for important aspects of national governance. Also, why is it that the most heinous crimes always seem to be done with legally purchased guns?
Government must be downsized, National Budget must be balanced, Deficit Spending will end. Reduce Personal Income Taxes a must. Reduce Business Income Taxes is mandatory.
Typical right wing BS. Run up the most massive deficits in the history of the country, first under Reagan and again under Bush, then bitch about it as Democrats try to clean up the mess (Clinton for Reagan, and Obama for Bush). I'll let you all in on a little secret: Tax cuts never have, never will pay for themselves. "Supply side" economics, wherein lightening the tax burden on the wealthy so that they will supply more products and thus stimulate demand is as S-T-U-P-I-D as it sounds. Besides, investment income is taxed at such low rates already, the wealthiest in America have far lower tax rates than the rest of us! Patriots like Teddy Roosevelt would be out there railing against this injustice.
Bail-out and Stimulus Plans are illegal. Very stupid, poorly thought out, way too generous to Wall Street with not nearly enough regulatory "burden" injected in return for the favors. Did anybody else notice that the same stupid Ayn Rand- Milton Friedman stupidity that led to the S&L Bailout under Reagan-Bush I led Phil Gramm to believe they could do even more damage to the tenuous regulatory environment in place in the 90's and everything would turn out just swell - for the "Fortunate 400", and the pretty fortunate 40,000.
Intrusive Government Stopped. This is just so funny because of where I expect they see the government is being too intrusive and where I think it is too intrusive. I am one of those silly Bill of Rights types, and so I reject pretty much every intrusion into the lives of Americans that the chickens in the Bush administration thought were so vital to national security. And yet, I have been paying attention enough to realize that intrusions into the affairs of Corporate America in general, and Wall Street gambling, in particular, are vital to the stability and prosperity of the country.
English only is required. I guess this goes up above with how we treat each other and the strangers among us. I think Jesus, who spoke Aramaic, while living under Roman rule, might have a touch of sympathy for the non-English speaking.
Traditional Family Values are encouraged. This is a little tricky, in that Jesus and Christian tradition is so clearly liberal in matters of economics, social justice, immigration, etc., and yet Jesus was pretty darn tough on sexual issues. So, I'll make an offer to the Tea Partiers: You make Jesus' rule against divorce into law, help us with the big social justice issues like universal health care, reforming prisons, strengthening workers rights, and more, and then we'll go after gay marriage. Deal?
Common Sense Constitutional Conservative Self-Governance is our mode of operation. I really don't know what the heck this means, but I did find it amusing that there is another organization called "We the People" (From the Constitution - get it?) that is an ANTI-government, Tea Party type organization.
But I do think this last bit is critical: I think progressives view government as "us" (as in "We the People") and conservatives view government - when they are not in power - as them. Even when my party was not in power, I still believed government was us, but that we had failed our country by allowing the Siths to win so many elections.
So, in summary, these people who constantly complain that we are not acting as a Christian Nation, seem to completely miss the point of Christianity, the social justice mission, the generosity of heart, the embracing of the weak, the poor, the hungry the sick, the loving of those NOT like us :

If you love those who love you, what credit is that to you? Even 'sinners' love those who love them. And if you do good to those who are good to you, what credit is that to you? Even 'sinners' do that. (Luke 6)

Cheers,
---------
Update just to add this from
"...How terrible it will be for those who make unfair laws, and those who write laws that make life hard for people. They are not fair to the poor, and they rob my people of their rights. They allow people to steal from widows and to take from orphans what really belongs to them. (Is 10:1-2 NCV)"

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