Jesus: "The Spirit of the Lord is upon me, because he has anointed me to bring good news to the poor" (Luke 4:18).
Jewish Wisdom: "By insulting the poor, you insult your Creator. . . . the Lord blesses everyone who freely gives food to poor" (Proverbs 17:5; 22:9).
South Carolina Lt. Governor Andre Bauer: "My grandmother was not a highly educated woman, but she told me as a small child to quit feeding stray animals. You know why? Because they breed! You're facilitating the problem if you give an animal or a person ample food supply. They will reproduce, especially ones that don't think too much further than that."
Check out Leonard Pitts, Jr.'s editorial on this subject, http://www.chron.com/disp/story.mpl/editorial/outlook/6846275.html Maybe it's time for those that live in poverty to unite "to organize their votes, raise their voices, push their issues into the public discourse. In America, one is invisible and powerless only so long as one chooses to be." That was Dr. King's last project. Maybe it's time for those of us that have never lived in poverty to help them.
ReplyDeleteCould not agree more, Dean. Wonder if the Lt. Gov. is a member of a church?
ReplyDeleteBauer : “You see, for the first time in the history of this country, we've got more people voting for a living than we do working for a living,” he said. - Hyperbole? Hope we are not there yet.
ReplyDeleteBauer : “I can show you a bar graph where free and reduced lunch has the worst test scores in the state of South Carolina,” adding, “You show me the school that has the highest free and reduced lunch and I'll show you the worst test scores, folks. It's there, period. So how do you fix it? Well you say, ‘Look, if you receive goods or services from the government then you owe something back.'” - True or False?
I can't imagine a much more crass and heartless thing to say... it's one thing to criticize programs for creating dependency, but to suggest that the poor should starve to death like animals?
ReplyDeletechand -- I didn't know lunches were taking tests. Bauer's obviously full of hyperbole (and a lot of something else, maybe hot air). Bauer's comments are nothing but showmanship... but we can expect nothing less of a South Carolinian.
What Bauer describes re students are the affects long-term poverty on hope and human capacity. If it weren't for the lunch program, the outcomes would be even worse. Anyone who works in this space understands this and will be offended by what Bauer says.
ReplyDeleteBy the way, if I were Bauer's pastor, I'd repent in sack cloth and ashes. Anyone know if he is a member of a church?
ReplyDeleteAny approach that perpetuates poverty needs rethinking.
ReplyDeleteI would guess that the city of Dallas has ordinancies against feeding large numbers of ferrel or stray animals. Is this heartless or wise?
When you propose a poverty push into public discourse, do you want growing or receding numbers of poor people?
That's "feral," c hand.
ReplyDeleteAnd you are, as Bauer did, equating people with animals. If you really believe this, why not take it a step further? When the deer population gets too large, we just issue more licenses and hunt them back to sustainable levels. Do you think we should do the same with people who don't have enough to eat?
If you can't distinguish between people and animals ... well, I don't know where to begin to help you with that. But one really should think these things through to a logical conclusion before speaking.
c hand, your comments are beyond preposterous! I can't believe you really believe what you suggest here.
ReplyDeleteThe state of Texas via its Dept of Ag has a free and reduced cost, in-school meal program for the children of poor households--over 85% of DISD students qualify. We have a similar contract for the summer months and we served 142 summer children's program sites last year--distributing 500K meals. The depth, the scope and the scale of poverty in America's cities is beyond what the average person understands, you included, obviously. Without this benefit thousands of children and their parents would be hungry.
Your concluding question is absurd. Of course, everyone wants the number of the poor to decline and go completely away.
Your opening remarks that carry on the foolishness of Bauer are offensive beyond words and don't deserve anyone's attention.
Larry - maybe you shouldn't believe what you assume. Do you REALLY think Bauer wants people to starve? That is a reckless accusation.
ReplyDeleteThe point - People are not stray animals, and they should not be treated as such.
I understood you to have said the same thing in the past.
Larry, what do you think of Obama using the public school system to recruit for his Alinsky inspired movement to help bring about his agenda for Socialism for the United States of America? I'm speaking of his recruiting for Organizing for America (formerly Obama for America)The recruiting form can be seen at: AtlasShrugs.com
ReplyDeleteAlso I assume you have checked out the fiscal budget for 2011 for our country. If you ran CDM like that how long would you be in business?
It's amazing how blind some would choose to be about the problem of poverty. We have two teens living in our house/community right now, and it's pretty obvious how hopeless and destructive their environment can be (one is pregnant). We're slowly trying to deconstruct a whole lifetime of this, but when you deal with people one on one, you begin to imagine yourself in their shoes and realize how easy your own life seems.
ReplyDeleteChris -- the government is not a business. If my parents ran our family like a business, I would have been aborted or thrown out at birth, because I was a financial liability. I'm thankful my parents saw a little more in me. Maybe we as a society should stop seeing the poor as a liability, too.
Too much debt can ruin a business, a home or a country.
ReplyDeleteOn any given day any one of us could find some public figure saying something that qualifies as stupid. I just find it a bit interesting that on this blog the only folks who get pointed out are people from the "right." I remember when John Edwards could do no wrong. Seems to me that with a new book out about him that he deserves some space too. Until today I had never even heard of Bauer and do not agree with what he said, but again where is the outrage when the "left" misspeaks or acts the fool?
ReplyDeleteRC
RC is back with yet another unproductive, comment about being offended because someone criticized a guy with an R next to his name. Do your own homework, don't ask others to figure out who offends you and why.
ReplyDeleteJohn Edwards had an affair and did some stupid things to his wife... is that really subject material for this blog? I don't recall Larry taking space to bash other political leaders for their marital affairs.
Maybe if people on "the right" actually said things about poverty (without calling poor people animals), they would be brought up on this blog, but apparently the right is too busy obstructing legislation and attending Tea Parties.
Anon, I don't recall saying anywhere that I was offended, and I am not. You say that I am back. I have never left except to travel to Africa for a two week medical mission trip to some very, very poor villages in Ghana, West Africa. I used Jon Edwards as an example because it is a fresh news story and Edwards has had a lot to say about the poor, and turned out to be a joke. I have read Larry's blog for close to five years and even though I am a conservative I have often offered very positive comments, and respect Larry for his willingness to allow his blog to be a free for all. My point was rather simple. I believe that people on the "left" seem to get a pass when they say or do stupid things.
ReplyDeleteRC as in Richard Corum.
К слову, лучший способ защитить себя от назойливых телефонных звонков - приобрести Подавитель сотовых телефонов
ReplyDeleteRC, I think you know that my focus here is policy and poverty. John Edwards made terrible persona mistakes and jeprodized his mission. However, Edwards never espoused a policy that cut off the poor or compared them to animals. The one thing that Edwards and President Clinton did do to hurt the poor was to cause the public to dismiss their very valid messages relative to low-income persons and communities.
ReplyDeleteand since this blog and CDM does have a basis in a specific faith system - Christianity - i would add to the conversation about people on either side of the aisle having good policy and bad morals - that if God can speak through Balaam's ass, God can speak through anyone . . . meaning, just because a person embarrasses him or herself, does not mean that anything they said, did, or believed is somehow less valid or worth less . . . . working on behalf of helping those in need goes to the core of the teachings of Jesus (though, admittedly, Baur, C Hand, Rush, or Glen)
ReplyDeleteAny approach that maintains generation after generation after generation inside "hopeless despair", is one worthy of the moral preening of John Edwards.
ReplyDeleteIf someone had attributed this to Adolf Hitler, I would have believed it.
ReplyDeletec hand:
ReplyDeleteYou are just assuming the argument you're trying to make - that all of our anti-poverty programs actually make things worse, not better. Where is your evidence for this? That people are still in poverty? That is no evidence of anything. ("The poor you shall always have with you." - spoken 2,000 years ago)
I would posit that without our (somewhat meager) anti-poverty measures already in place people would actually be starving and we would have 100's, instead of 10's, of thousands of homeless people in the richest country on earth. For geopolitical, as well as humanitarian, reasons, I'm glad we at least make the effort.
How do you measure the success of anti-poverty programs? Counting the people that no longer access the "programs" is a much more moral measurement of success than counting the number maintained inside them. Yes?
ReplyDeleteNOBODY wants people to starve in America, it's an empty accusation.
From what I have read, John Edwards didn't give a rats rear end about the poor. He went out of his way to avoid them. What he espoused was strictly for political gain.
ReplyDeleteAnti-poverty programs don't exist in a vacuum. You can't just count heads every so often to see if they "succeed." If the society/system continues to create or maintain poverty, every time you get someone out someone else will take their place. So, "no," that approach to measuring success cannot ever be accurate.
ReplyDelete