The Usurper:

Should we pity the poor?

the point here, we are debating is, what is the federal governments role in all of this?

Surly the poor are to be considered, but are they a local or state or private concern? Because it seems clear that the federal government was not created to take care of poor people!

Czuch:  

The Usurper:

Should we pity the poor?

So, maybe we should pity the poor... but the real debate is, is it the established goal of our founding fathers for the federal government to pity the poor???

Czuch: But you bring up a good point. Should the poor be a local, state, federal, or private concern?

I would imagine, for those who truly pity the poor, it would be all of the above.

The Usurper:

I would imagine, for those who truly pity the poor, it would be all of the above.


Well, I would argue thats where you are wrong.

Thats the whole point!

Conservatives arent against helping the poor... we are against it being what our federal government was established to do???


Our federal government was established to police us, and give us infrastructure, and courts, and military etc....

Czuch: If we would provide as much for the infrastructure (which would mean jobs and a higher standard of living across the board) as we do for the common defense, I would have no argument. That we spend more than the rest of the world combined each year on the military budget, while the interior of our country rots, speaks volumes about our priorities. We would rather blow someone up in Iraq than help a drowning man in New Orleans.

And frankly, this term, "common defense", is a misnomer. We are certainly an aggressor nation. We are a greedy empire which wants more. "Defense" is the least of the Pentagon's, or the Federal government's, priorities. I see few if any Republicans, here or elsewhere, bemoaning this fact or taking issue with the Bush administration over it (or now, over the aggressive posture of Obama in Afghanistan).

It seems pretty clear to me that contempt outweighs compassion across the board, at home and abroad. I believe those verses apply directly to the attitudes of most Republicans, some Democrats, and some of the posters on this board.