As you can probably tell, I don’t normally struggle with making my opinion known. But the last few days I’ve been so overwhelmed by the crap that the GOP is spewing that, well, I went into “outrage overload.” It’s an epidemic amongst thinking Americans everywhere.
But after reading Eleanor Tomczyk of How The Hell Did I End Up Here, I was reminded of someone I knew slightly when I worked at a law school in my younger days.
Mark was member of the “Lawyers for Christ” group while at law school, and was known as a deeply devout, incredibly pleasant guy. We weren’t close friends, but he was a nice guy.
Well, Mark is now a Federal Judge! It’s pretty cool, isn’t it? I mean when folks you know make good?
One night when Mark was in DC, I was invited to a dinner of some of his law school classmates who were also friends of mine. I came away in shock. Because this good man who had been the bible studies leader at law school, the number one Christian sharing his beliefs and values, well, Mark had changed.
“I went back home and studied my soul, studied my bible,” Mark said. “And I came away knowing that Christianity, in fact, all the beliefs Jesus preached on, well, they’re based on property rights. In fact, Jesus preached property rights.”
Huh?
Yes, Mark, the man who had believed that Jesus preached love, preached helping the poor, preached paying Caesar what is Caesar’s now had, well, a different line of thinking. One that was way more compatible with his expanding wallet, waistband and increasing prominence as a fat-cat GOP member.
Holy Shit.
Available for $3.95 from Zazzle.com. It’s their picture.
Or should I say “Holy Bullshit”?
Stephen Colbert on Jesus and Our Christian Nation
“If this is going to be a Christian nation that doesn’t help the poor, either we have to pretend that Jesus is just as selfish as we are or we’ve got to acknowledge that he commanded us to love the poor and serve the needy without condition. And then admit that we just don’t want to do it.” – Stephen Colbert
Mark, Federal Judge Mark, that is, went with Stephen’s first option – choosing to believe that Jesus was just as selfish.
Me, I believe that Jesus would be a liberal Democrat. Because the difference in the parties can be summed up one way:
Democrats believe in helping the poor;
Republicans believe in helping themselves.
* * * * *
Thanks to Eleanor Tomczyk of How The Hell Did I End Up Here for reminding me of this conversation and for her incredibly eloquent post on this subject: A Warning to Mittens and the Gang. Eleanor included Colbert’s comment, which I must say, I think of often.
FiftyFourandAHalf 