Thursday, September 13, 2012

Noisy gong and clanging cymbal

The GOP platform, of course, has lots of references of God. The Dems has an embarrassing mess during their convention when someone noticed the one mention of God in the 2008 platform was removed in the 2012 platform. They had a very public moment during the convention of putting it back in.

Terrence Heath ponders an important distinction. Is it more important to use the word "God" lots of times in the platform or is it better to describe policies and programs that embody the ideals that Jesus taught, without saying the ideals came from God?

Elizabeth Warren (campaigning for the Senate seat in Massachusetts) discussed Matthew chapter 25 in her speech to the convention. The key phrase is, "If you have done it for the least of these, you have done it for me."

With that as a guide, take another look at the GOP platform as it relates to the least of these: Poor? Raise their taxes. Hungry? Gut the food stamp program. Sick? Take up your bed and just go away as health insurance for poor people is gutted.

So, back to all those references to God in the GOP platform. Check out the first few verses of 1 Corinthians, chapter 13. Yeah, that verse about being nothing but a noisy gong and clanging cymbal. And none other than the Catholic Bishops have noticed.

Paul Ryan, a Catholic, justifies it this way.
One of the primary tenants of Catholic social teaching, means don’t keep people poor, don’t make people dependent on government so that they stay stuck at their station in life. Help people get out of poverty out onto life of independence.
Jared Bernstein picked up the disconnect. How does simply dumping poor people off welfare and food stamps, in an economy already short of jobs, help them to be independent? What happens to them until they are (if they are)?

Should we take care of the poor? If so, how?

The GOP platform trumpets God. But they answer the first question with a resounding no. The Dems didn't do any trumpeting, but said yes to the first and gave a detailed answer for the second.



Speaking of parties and platforms…

Back in April, the book Do Not Ask What Good We Do: Inside the U.S. House of Representatives by Robert Draper. It documents a meeting held on the night of Obama's inauguration. At the meeting were 15 GOP representatives, though not John Boehner (who was Minority Leader at the time). The agenda: how to undermine Obama's presidency.

Old news, right? Except that one of the participants was Paul Ryan, now Veep nominee. He's been slamming Obama on how little the prez. has been able to accomplish. But Ryan has been mighty silent on his role in making sure Obama didn't accomplish much. Ryan claims he and Romney are the comeback team. A nasty claim when one considers how much Ryan made sure we need a comeback.



My friend and debate partner is disgusted with the GOP, but isn't enamored with the Dems. He thinks the Dems haven't been able to articulate a vision.

I suspect he, like I, didn't watch much (if any) of either convention. So I am relying on a post by Terrence Heath which has videos, sort of a highlight reel (though I didn't watch those either, I relied on transcripts and summaries). Heath thinks the Dems did spell out a "moral framework and a set of values" that support their proposed policies.

Julian Castro, Mayor of San Antonio -- great journeys are available no matter who you are or where you come from. But there are some things we can't do alone. Opportunity and prosperity are a group effort.

Michelle Obama -- There is still an American Dream in which through hard work one can build a decent life. Everyone's contribution matters. Everyone deserves respect. The social contract lives in the space between the extremes of "dependence" and "independence" and that is "interdependence." "We have a mutual interest in one another's well-being." We built it together.

Elizabeth Warren -- the culture of interdependence is being threatened by people rigging the system.

Heath wrote this before Obama's acceptance speech. It no doubt amplified this basic message of community.

This sounds like a pretty good vision to me.

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