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Title: Minnesota Governor: “Our Economy Cannot Expand Based on White, B+, MinMinnesota Governor: “Our Economy Cannot Expand Based on White, B+, Minnesota-born Citizens.”nesota-born Citizens.”
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VDare
URL Source: http://www.vdare.com/posts/minnesot ... -citizens-nesota-born-citizens
Published: Oct 19, 2015
Author: Steve Sailer
Post Date: 2015-10-19 16:42:38 by nativist nationalist
Keywords: None
Views: 2506
Comments: 31
From the St. Cloud (Minnesota) Times: Dayton blunt in MN forum: Anyone who can’t accept immigrants ‘should find another state’ By Vicki Ikeogu / St. Cloud Times on Oct 13, 2015 at 9:32 p.m. ST. CLOUD — Harsh words and heartfelt sentiment were exchanged by community members and local officials on racial issues in Central Minnesota at the St. Cloud NAACP Community Conversation with Gov. Mark Dayton. Who is Mark Dayton? From Wikipedia: Mark Brandt Dayton (born January 26, 1947) is an American politician and the current and 40th Governor of Minnesota, serving since 2011.[1] He was previously a United States Senator for Minnesota from 2001 to 2007, and the Minnesota State Auditor from 1991 to 1995. He is a member of the Minnesota Democratic–Farmer–Labor Party (DFL), which affiliates with the national Democratic Party. A native of Minnesota, Dayton is the great-grandson of businessman George Dayton, the founder of Dayton’s, a department store that later became the Target Corporation. He embarked on a career in teaching and social work in New York City and Boston after graduating from Yale University in 1969.[2] During the 1970s, he served as a legislative aide to U.S. Senator Walter Mondale and Minnesota Governor Rudy Perpich. In 1978, Dayton was appointed the Minnesota Economic Development Commissioner and married Alida Rockefeller Messinger, a member of the Rockefeller family.[2] Back to the St. Cloud Times: From the start of the event, Dayton bluntly stated his opinions on the racial tension in St. Cloud and across the state in regards to immigration. “Look around you. This is Minnesota,” Dayton said. “Minnesota is not like it was 30, 50 years ago. … This is Minnesota and you have every right to be here. And anybody who cannot accept your right to be here, and this is Minnesota, should find another state.” Dayton said he was aware of some of the racial issues happening in the St. Cloud area and urged participants to take a stand against what he described as “unacceptable, un-Minnesotan, illegal and immoral” behavior. “If you are that intolerant, if you are that much of a racist or a bigot, then find another state. Find a state where the minority population is 1 percent or whatever. Gov. Dayton did not provide a list of such states. Even Bernie Sanders’ Vermont is well above that level. “It’s not that in Minnesota. It’s not going to be again. It’s not going to be that in St. Cloud, or Rochester or Worthington,” Dayton said. Anderson suspects many of the issues of racial intolerance in St. Cloud have stemmed from those outside the community. “A lot of the tensions that we have in the community are stirred up by people who aren’t stakeholders. They’re not from here. They don’t care what happens here. And they are usually incorrect,” Anderson said. Outside agitators! But those comments did not stop several in the audience from questioning how the governor, Knoblach and Kleis are spending tax dollars on new immigrants, particularly those of East African descent. Dayton said many organizations are providing assistance to those who are arriving in Minnesota. But he said the key reason many immigrants choose to come to Minnesota is because of the jobs Minnesota provides. “Our economy cannot expand based on white, B+, Minnesota-born citizens. We don’t have enough,” Dayton said. And don’t get the Governor of Minnesota started on white, C+, Minnesota-born citizens. Why are they even allowed to exist? (I mean other than to to consume a lot of crap sold by the Dayton-Rockefeller family businesses, Target and ExxonMobil?) But seriously, how can Target sell more toilet paper without Minnesota taxpayers paying to import the surplus population of the Mad Max zones of the Horn of Africa? Think about it! Haven’t you studied demographics! Poster Comment: Mark Brandt Dayton (born January 26, 1947) Another one of these late 1940's postwar baby boomer A-holes, the generation that screwed America. Look what they've done in the White House. These guys are awful.
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Begin Trace Mode for Comment # 28.
#1. To: nativist nationalist (#0)
This has always been the case - but in the past the immigrants that revitalized America's economy were Europeans fleeing a continent at war for almost 200 years. These days Europeans never had it so good - why would they leave their welfare state to come to the USA which does not even grant them mandatory 3 weeks vacation. So America is stuck with importing Third World peoples.
And now, a harsh dose of the truth: the Catholic church condemned contraception as a sin because it directly opposes the first commandment God gave to man: be fruitful and multiply. Contraception decouples reproduction from sex, allowing men and women to pursue sexual pleasure without the concomitant and inevitable birth rate. Because we don't yet have an economy that uniformly provides food and shelter - the basics of life - at a comfortable level - people have always chosen to have fewer children than they would if they had as much sex as they wanted. But before effective contraception, people gave in and had sex enough that they had more children than perhaps they really would have preferred to have, but still, they had many. With contraception, people had all of the sex, without the risk of children, and they have a LOT fewer children. Trouble is, for a civilization to survive, there have to be a lot of children. For old people eventually have to retire, and children have to be taught. Our economic system is not generous enough in the basics to sustain families at the size that is needed for ease, so people make the choice to have fewer children than the society needs. For people to maximize the quality of their own lives, our economic structure is such that people cannot have enough children for the SOCIETY to survive. And so, simply put, the society is dying on the vine because of contraception. Nobody is willing to admit it. Nobody is willing to admit that sexual freedom and personal reproductive control MEANS that the country's population will die out and be replaced by immigrants. Because that's precisely what it does mean. Nobody is willing to admit that an aging white majority cannot hold the line on anything - not culture, not law, not economics, not religion, not anything - because the aging and lack of children means inevitable minority status. White America and Europe are going the way of the Etruscans. We cannot overcome our vices, and so we shall be replaced in the land. It's inevitable.
I differ here. You can't burden down people with 5-10 kids. You will wear people out. How can a father be with his kids to teach them if he is working 2 jobs and is never home? We do not live in an agrarian society anymore. Look at China. They have gone wild with making children and now you have to have governments permission to have even one child! Humans can not live like viruses. Its not good for anything or anyone.
You can redistribute wealth sufficiently to make it work. If you won't, then whites will die out, Latinos will move in an burgeon, and they will redistribute the wealth. Either way, the wealth gets redistributed so that families can grow and prosper. The only question is whether they will be your own kind of families, or theirs. I myself don't care what color the families are, just that they win. And they will.
If you won't, then whites will die out, Latinos will move in an burgeon, and they will redistribute the wealth. Either way, the wealth gets redistributed so that families can grow and prosper. The only question is whether they will be your own kind of families, or theirs. So you hate slavery but you are ok of making people slaves of the state? You make no sense? Why is okay to steal/confiscate other peoples property and give it to people who have not earned it? Then if a man works his but off to earn extra so he can move his family out of the ghetto you are whiling to punish him for his hard work while rewarding someone who has screwed his way into wealth. You are killing me!!! How is any of this Christian??????????????????????????????????? This kinda Christianity is reminiscent of the Christian Crusades. Where you force goodness at the hand of a sword. I would think Christ would be appalled by this action under his name. The Christ I know and love is all about lead by example not force!
I'm pretty sure (and Vic will correct me if I'm wrong) that he envisions a Christian centered political system where everyone is housed, clothed, fed, and all their basic needs are taken care of. I'm not Catholic myself, but "social justice" is I believe a tenet of that faith. It all sounds good on the surface. The problem is - any worldly, government system is run by humans. Not God. Humans - with all their sins, shortcomings and especially corruptions. Socialism (as Vic envisions it) is nothing new. It has been tried (and failed) for years and years. We even had a period of time where The Church ran things. That didn't turn out so well, either. IF (big if) one could establish a government run by Jesus Christ Himself (which would be a benevolent dictatorship), THEN (and only then) would socialism work. But the Scripture I've quoted many times - "My Kingdom is not of this world" (John 18:36) is as relevant now as when Christ spoke it to Pilate. It's a tough truth, but it's the way it is.
Pretty much, yes, but with nuance. It isn't that it is the government's job to house, clothe, feed and take care of everybody's basic needs. People are to do that for themselves. Government (properly understood) includes the Church, and government's role is to provide the backstop where individuals fail for whatever reason. It is individuals' and families' jobs to take care of their own needs, but when they can't, or don't, then it is government's job to provide relief to ensure that nobody goes homeless, naked or hungry. Democrats cynically exploit "It's for the children", and yet, rightly understood, it IS for the children, especially. For children are born helpless and naked. They need clothes, food, shelter and medicine, and they cannot provide one penny of that cost. They are the recipients of pure gifts for a decade and a half. Now, that burden is the primary responsibility of parents, and then grandparents and extended family, but where that fails, the responsibility for all of that cost, to fill all of those needs, for every child, falls squarely on the government. Moreover, if we do not want children born in poverty and broken homes to be wards of the state their entire lives, we have to educate them, ALL of them. W Bush was right when he proclaimed the goal of NO child left behind. No means NO, none, every single child needs a robust education - how else will he be able to take care of himself when he is an adult? The problem isn't the objective, it was the way that W went going about doing it. During the working years, the problems people face in a free market capitalist system are unemployment due to globalization, workplace illness, and crippling disease that make work impossible. Most people during their working and child- rearing years do not have the margin of excess to provide against disaster. Once again family and government have to stand there as a backstop: Worker's Comp, Unemployment Insurance, Disability benefits, and Medicaid in the event of real medical disaster and impoverishment. Are these programs imperfect? Of course! You are correct that men are men, not angels, and there will always be corruption and inefficiency. That is no argument for striking the colors and not doing what is necessary. It means that we have to accept the bitter pill that these social safety nets will be much more expensive than they ought to be, and far less efficient. And we're going to have to pay for it, and we're going to resent the corruption and inefficiency - the weaknesses of man. That does not mean, though, that we give up and let people starve, go naked and homeless. No. We bite the bullet and soldier on through the grim reality. Then comes old age and exhaustion, the inability of working, and final illness. Once again, family and government must provide the safety net. No man is an island. No man stands alone. And it is not a good or Christian objective to envision men as islands who OUGHT to stand alone. Men are social creatures. God made us, and when God set up the laws of the one state he ruled directly, he established a system of mandatory wealth redistribution and social obligation that forced the care for the weak upon the whole of society. It was never voluntary under God's law. The claim that "all charity is voluntary" is a lie. God made it mandatory, and Jesus made it clear that those who defy God's law and his own teaching on this matter end up in the flames just like other murderers. I hear it expounded over and over again that charity is voluntary. There certainly IS voluntary charity, but God imposed MANDATORY wealth redistribution, through the government, for poverty relief: that is what the tithe was. It's a lie to say that God did not: He did, and that's the law. It's God's law, and it certainly is necessary. And for my part I'm tired of arguing with Christians who ought to know better. It seems that some men refuse to get the word. You talk with them for awhile, but in the end their resistance cannot prevail. If they won't agree, they will be compelled, just as those who cheated the tithe were then punished with a double fine: the tithe for poverty relief was a mandatory government tax imposed by God - and those who did not pay it were punished as criminals and had double the amount extracted from them by force. That was God's justice, and it still is: the Law has not decayed. We have to have poverty relief. It's commanded by God. It's not voluntary. We would need LESS of it if men were angels, looked after themselves better, and if their families did, and if friends, and employers and churches did - but they don't: men are fallible. And therefore, as always since Israel, the government provides the final stopgap, through taxes, imposed by force, and those who do not agree are forced, rightly, to pay double - punished for breaking the laws of God and man aimed at fulfilling this necessary purpose. I don't like the punitive aspect, but I will not tolerate the argument that it is against God's law. The double fine for refusing to pay the poverty relief tithe is God's law, God's law is still in force and will be until the end of the world, it is not voluntary, it never was, and it is a lie to say that it is. Liars are thrown into hell by Christ at judgment: Christ himself said that twice on the last two pages of Scripture. Christians who oppose poverty relief through government taxes are directly defying God. They should shut up and submit to the superior intelligence and will of their master in Heaven. And they should stop lying about what God said. All of that said, it is certainly legitimate to lament human sin, weakness, stupidity, and greed, and lust, all of which make poverty relief much more expensive and difficult than it ought to be. As far as "socialism" goes - you said "Socialism (as Vic envisions it) is nothing new. It has been tried (and failed) for years and years." This is false on many levels. First, I do not envision socialism. I see ancient Israel, and the tithe, and the Law of God. That is not socialism. It is Divine Law. To argue against it is to say that God was hopelessly naïve and that we should ignore him, because it won't work. The Christian who takes that approach should, then, say nothing about human sexual sin either, because people are always going to ignore those laws. Gay marriage? Refusal to pay the tithe for poverty relief? All the same thing: human weakness on parade. You advocate surrendering to the weakness to save money and conserve power in those who handle money better. God says you cannot serve him and money, so I say no, we partially redistribute that money, because WE HAVE TO, if we don't want to go to Hell, and live in a world surrounded by horrific suffering. As far as "it never works", this is complete nonsense. We have had Social Security and Workers Comp since before World War II. Are we a failed state? Did we lose the war and crumble? We have Medicare before Reagan. So was Reagan a failure because he could not get out from under Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid, Workers Comp, the Veteran's Administration and Universal Public Education? No, he wasn't. States work JUST FINE with this social safety net that you have chosen to call "socialism". You abuse the English language when you do that. Socialism means that the means of production themselves: the farms, the factories, the banks, the mines, etc., are all owned by the government. That is not the case anywhere in the West. Social welfare is a tithe system: the government, through taxes, redistributes SOME private wealth to make sure that nobody goes naked, hungry, homeless, without medicine, and without an education. The private economy provides MOST of all of those things, but the government fills in the rest. That's not socialism. It's nothing like socialism. It is very much like what God established in the Commonwealth of Israel when he ruled it directly. As far as "all failed" - this is completely false. The first nation to establish Social Security was Germany. Bismarck invented it, in the 19th Century. Germany became Europe's powerhouse, and still is, since then. France, England, Holland, Scandinavia, Italy - all of Western Europe - also Australia, Canada, America, New Zealand, Japan, South Korea: every one of the top economies in the world with the highest standards of living has a strong social welfare state. Indeed, the universal public education, the health care, and the social security are KEYS to the stability that unlock human potential, so that everybody isn't in a defensive crouch his or her entire life. The "socialist" model I prefer has been tried and tried again, and it ALWAYS SUCCEEDS. ALL of the successful nations have it. The unsuccessful nations are the ones that LACK some piece of it. Nations FAIL when they become militaristic. Warfare is expensive, and it always fails in the end. All of the Empires are gone except for the American, and our empire is what is bankrupting us. Large militaries are a pure waste of money, and the empires they gain for their possessors are always cost losers. Britain and France once divided the world between them, and the drain of empire was continuous. It wasn't until they gave up their empires and their huge military establishments that they reached their present levels of social development BECAUSE that money wasted on soldiers - the world's most expensive welfare queens - was instead reinvested in the society. What always fails is militarism and empire building. "Socialism" without that always succeeds, because what you call "socialism" - a social safety net paid through wealth redistribution via taxation - is the system that God ordained. It has divine favor and divine wisdom behind it - no matter how mad that makes you, it is the system that God laid out in the Bible for Israel. REAL socialism, which is the state owning everything, does not work. No reason to expect it to. And God didn't set out that system. Hate on God's plan as much as you want to, but you cannot change reality. Social welfare states are the only successful ones. You are precisely wrong, 100% out, in your thinking. And let me guess, you think the military is worthwhile, but the social safety net is useless. You have it precisely backwards. Over time, militaristic states all lag, are all ignorant, and all fail. Social welfare states are the ones that advance. This is very much in keeping with the commandments of God, to peace and to support for the poor. It's the way it is. America has made many unwise choices. But we can always repent and change. It starts with each individual. How you kick at the goad!
You need to clarify "includes the Church." The Founders did not set up a state- church (my study of history shows they feared it). And my Christianity tells me that - while Christ stated he did not come to abolish The Law (Matt. 5:17a) but to fulfill it - if you read on to Matt 5:20 He uses the term "kingdom of Heaven. (I take it that Kingdom of Heaven differs from any Earthly kingdom. In other words, everything He stated up to that point is a requirement to enter Heaven. I believe where you and I part company is in our understanding of what the Advent of Christ actually meant/means. In the OT, The Law was established as a way for man to reconcile with God (after original sin). But The Law was "top down" i.e. rules were imposed. Christ was not doing away with that - but He was fulfilling it. Man could not keep The Law - and Israel failed miserably. By the time Christ arrived, Israel existed only as a Roman colony. Christ fulfilled the Law (and reconciled us to God) in a better way - the law, to the extent it is imposed, is not "top down" but "bottom up." When one accepts Christ, his/her heart is changed. We're not ORDERED to help those less fortunate - we DO IT FREELY. Yes. In Israel. Thousands of years ago. Jesus made several things clear. And while "good works" definitely play a part (Read the book of James), the chief requirement for entering "The Kingdom of Heaven" is found in John 14:6. If this were not so - if it took accepting Christ AND good works, then what He said to the thief on the Cross would have been a lie. (Luke 23:43) Lie is a strong word - let's just say "difference of opinion." I've already stated that the Kingdom of Israel no longer exists. Let's not confuse the Kingdom of Israel with the Kingdom of Heaven. Christ did not confuse the two - neither should we. So everything you say that government should do is fine - it's your opinion and you are entitled to it. But you ARE NOT entitled to put the imprimatur of God on what you say, when it is so clear in Scripture that Jesus came to save INDIVIDUALS through FAITH IN HIM - not through their governments. Just curious - can you cite a New Testament verse for that? OK You're actually making my case for me. Can government "cure" selfishness? No. It can confiscate wealth, but only a "heart change" (like what occurs when one accepts Christ) can "cure" it. Can government "cure" a murderer? No. It can incarcerate him (and it should), but it cannot change his murderous heart. Yet there have been countless cases where murderers have been changed. St. Paul himself likely participated in the murder of early Christians - if not directly. Yet once he met the risen Lord, his murderous heart was changed. You forgot to add Zero-care to your list. No, we're not "a failed state." Not yet, anyway. But give it time. Why are you afraid of the word "socialism?" It's just a word. Tell me - when "The State" tells a fast food chain what it must pay its workers - who owns the chain? (I'm not arguing pro or con of minimum wage - just posing a question) Or when a homeowner can be evicted FROM HIS OWN HOME for non-payment of taxes, who in reality owns the home? (again, not arguing pros or cons of property taxes - just posing a question. Again, the Kingdom of (ancient) Israel. Are these nations you cite - like ancient Israel - theocracies? Always succeeds? So these nations have been around (in their present form of gov't) always? And it is interesting you cited Germany - given its rather checkered history. I actually agree with you - I would prefer that militaristic spending be limited to defensive. But my point of view is ridiculed as "isolationist" - and so the "progressives" of the last century (chiefly the Roosevelts - Teddy then FDR) thought that interfering in other countries internal affairs was a good idea. I repeat - we ARE NOT a theocracy Ancient Israel, again When did I say I hated God's plan? I just don't confuse the government of man with the Kingdom of Heaven Depends on how one defines success. I've already addressed the military question, and I never said the poor should not be cared for. I just refuse to put "God's stamp of approval" on a government system that so corrupt and immoral. Always - today is the day of salvation (2 Cor 6:2) Amen
#29. To: Rufus T Firefly (#28)
I can't answer you now, because I promised A K A Stone that I would not write anything more here until I have had the chance to present the Scriptures on the points we've discussed, stone by stone to him, and in order. I am going to private mail you something, though.
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#2. To: Pericles (#1)
#4. To: Vicomte13 (#2)
And now, a harsh dose of the truth: the Catholic church condemned contraception as a sin because it directly opposes the first commandment God gave to man: be fruitful and multiply.
#5. To: Justified (#4)
#6. To: Vicomte13 (#5)
You can redistribute wealth sufficiently to make it work.
#11. To: Justified, Vicomte13 (#6)
You make no sense
#18. To: Rufus T Firefly (#11)
I'm pretty sure (and Vic will correct me if I'm wrong) that he envisions a Christian centered political system where everyone is housed, clothed, fed, and all their basic needs are taken care of.
#28. To: Vicomte13 (#18)
It isn't that it is the government's job to house, clothe, feed and take care of everybody's basic needs. People are to do that for themselves. Government (properly understood) includes the Church, and government's role is to provide the backstop where individuals fail for whatever reason.
It is individuals' and families' jobs to take care of their own needs, but when they can't, or don't, then it is government's job to provide relief to ensure that nobody goes homeless, naked or hungry.
Democrats cynically exploit "It's for the children", and yet, rightly understood, it IS for the children, especially. For children are born helpless and naked. They need clothes, food, shelter and medicine, and they cannot provide one penny of that cost. They are the recipients of pure gifts for a decade and a half. Now, that burden is the primary responsibility of parents, and then grandparents and extended family, but where that fails, the responsibility for all of that cost, to fill all of those needs, for every child, falls squarely on the government.
Moreover, if we do not want children born in poverty and broken homes to be wards of the state their entire lives, we have to educate them, ALL of them. W Bush was right when he proclaimed the goal of NO child left behind. No means NO, none, every single child needs a robust education - how else will he be able to take care of himself when he is an adult? The problem isn't the objective, it was the way that W went going about doing it.
During the working years, the problems people face in a free market capitalist system are unemployment due to globalization, workplace illness, and crippling disease that make work impossible. Most people during their working and child- rearing years do not have the margin of excess to provide against disaster. Once again family and government have to stand there as a backstop: Worker's Comp, Unemployment Insurance, Disability benefits, and Medicaid in the event of real medical disaster and impoverishment.
Are these programs imperfect? Of course! You are correct that men are men, not angels, and there will always be corruption and inefficiency. That is no argument for striking the colors and not doing what is necessary. It means that we have to accept the bitter pill that these social safety nets will be much more expensive than they ought to be, and far less efficient. And we're going to have to pay for it, and we're going to resent the corruption and inefficiency - the weaknesses of man. That does not mean, though, that we give up and let people starve, go naked and homeless. No. We bite the bullet and soldier on through the grim reality.
Then comes old age and exhaustion, the inability of working, and final illness. Once again, family and government must provide the safety net. No man is an island. No man stands alone. And it is not a good or Christian objective to envision men as islands who OUGHT to stand alone. Men are social creatures.
God made us, and when God set up the laws of the one state he ruled directly, he established a system of mandatory wealth redistribution and social obligation that forced the care for the weak upon the whole of society. It was never voluntary under God's law. The claim that "all charity is voluntary" is a lie. God made it mandatory,
and Jesus made it clear that those who defy God's law and his own teaching on this matter end up in the flames just like other murderers.
I hear it expounded over and over again that charity is voluntary. There certainly IS voluntary charity, but God imposed MANDATORY wealth redistribution, through the government, for poverty relief: that is what the tithe was. It's a lie to say that God did not: He did, and that's the law.
It's God's law, and it certainly is necessary. And for my part I'm tired of arguing with Christians who ought to know better. It seems that some men refuse to get the word. You talk with them for awhile, but in the end their resistance cannot prevail. If they won't agree, they will be compelled, just as those who cheated the tithe were then punished with a double fine: the tithe for poverty relief was a mandatory government tax imposed by God - and those who did not pay it were punished as criminals and had double the amount extracted from them by force. That was God's justice, and it still is: the Law has not decayed. We have to have poverty relief. It's commanded by God. It's not voluntary. We would need LESS of it if men were angels, looked after themselves better, and if their families did, and if friends, and employers and churches did - but they don't: men are fallible. And therefore, as always since Israel, the government provides the final stopgap, through taxes, imposed by force, and those who do not agree are forced, rightly, to pay double - punished for breaking the laws of God and man aimed at fulfilling this necessary purpose.
Again I cannot help but think you are confusing the Old Testament with the New. There is government. And there is Church. In our denomination, we can vote on pastors (some denominations cannot). And I can vote for government officials. But they are two, distinct entities. WE ARE NO LONGER UNDER OLD TESTATMENT LAW. I don't like the punitive aspect, but I will not tolerate the argument that it is against God's law. The double fine for refusing to pay the poverty relief tithe is God's law, God's law is still in force and will be until the end of the world, it is not voluntary, it never was, and it is a lie to say that it is. Liars are thrown into hell by Christ at judgment: Christ himself said that twice on the last two pages of Scripture. Christians who oppose poverty relief through government taxes are directly defying God. They should shut up and submit to the superior intelligence and will of their master in Heaven. And they should stop lying about what God said.
All of that said, it is certainly legitimate to lament human sin, weakness, stupidity, and greed, and lust, all of which make poverty relief much more expensive and difficult than it ought to be.
As far as "socialism" goes - you said "Socialism (as Vic envisions it) is nothing new. It has been tried (and failed) for years and years."
This is false on many levels. First, I do not envision socialism. I see ancient Israel, and the tithe, and the Law of God.
That is not socialism. It is Divine Law. To argue against it is to say that God was hopelessly naïve and that we should ignore him, because it won't work. The Christian who takes that approach should, then, say nothing about human sexual sin either, because people are always going to ignore those laws. Gay marriage? Refusal to pay the tithe for poverty relief? All the same thing: human weakness on parade. You advocate surrendering to the weakness to save money and conserve power in those who handle money better. God says you cannot serve him and money, so I say no, we partially redistribute that money, because WE HAVE TO, if we don't want to go to Hell, and live in a world surrounded by horrific suffering.
As far as "it never works", this is complete nonsense. We have had Social Security and Workers Comp since before World War II. Are we a failed state? Did we lose the war and crumble? We have Medicare before Reagan. So was Reagan a failure because he could not get out from under Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid, Workers Comp, the Veteran's Administration and Universal Public Education? No, he wasn't.
States work JUST FINE with this social safety net that you have chosen to call "socialism". You abuse the English language when you do that. Socialism means that the means of production themselves: the farms, the factories, the banks, the mines, etc., are all owned by the government. That is not the case anywhere in the West.
Social welfare is a tithe system: the government, through taxes, redistributes SOME private wealth to make sure that nobody goes naked, hungry, homeless, without medicine, and without an education. The private economy provides MOST of all of those things, but the government fills in the rest. That's not socialism. It's nothing like socialism. It is very much like what God established in the Commonwealth of Israel when he ruled it directly.
As far as "all failed" - this is completely false. The first nation to establish Social Security was Germany. Bismarck invented it, in the 19th Century. Germany became Europe's powerhouse, and still is, since then. France, England, Holland, Scandinavia, Italy - all of Western Europe - also Australia, Canada, America, New Zealand, Japan, South Korea: every one of the top economies in the world with the highest standards of living has a strong social welfare state. Indeed, the universal public education, the health care, and the social security are KEYS to the stability that unlock human potential, so that everybody isn't in a defensive crouch his or her entire life.
The "socialist" model I prefer has been tried and tried again, and it ALWAYS SUCCEEDS. ALL of the successful nations have it. The unsuccessful nations are the ones that LACK some piece of it.
Nations FAIL when they become militaristic. Warfare is expensive, and it always fails in the end. All of the Empires are gone except for the American, and our empire is what is bankrupting us. Large militaries are a pure waste of money,
and the empires they gain for their possessors are always cost losers. Britain and France once divided the world between them, and the drain of empire was continuous. It wasn't until they gave up their empires and their huge military establishments that they reached their present levels of social development BECAUSE that money wasted on soldiers - the world's most expensive welfare queens - was instead reinvested in the society.
What always fails is militarism and empire building. "Socialism" without that always succeeds, because what you call "socialism" - a social safety net paid through wealth redistribution via taxation - is the system that God ordained.
It has divine favor and divine wisdom behind it - no matter how mad that makes you, it is the system that God laid out in the Bible for Israel.
REAL socialism, which is the state owning everything, does not work. No reason to expect it to. And God didn't set out that system.
Hate on God's plan as much as you want to, but you cannot change reality.
Social welfare states are the only successful ones. You are precisely wrong, 100% out, in your thinking.
And let me guess, you think the military is worthwhile, but the social safety net is useless. You have it precisely backwards.
Over time, militaristic states all lag, are all ignorant, and all fail. Social welfare states are the ones that advance. This is very much in keeping with the commandments of God, to peace and to support for the poor.
It's the way it is. America has made many unwise choices. But we can always repent and change.
It starts with each individual.
Replies to Comment # 28. I believe where you and I part company is in our understanding of what the Advent of Christ actually meant/means. In the OT, The Law was established as a way for man to reconcile with God (after original sin). But The Law was "top down" i.e. rules were imposed.
End Trace Mode for Comment # 28.
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