A Christian Liberal is NOT an oxymoron.

Posted by XT on August 18th, 2009 in General

There’s a debate going on at The Moderate Voice that I wish I could characterize as “robust” or “smart” or “worth reading.” But, in reality, it is none of those. It’s just a mirror image of the townhall shouting mentality where people talk past each other without ever hearing what the other is saying.

Polimom, who wrote the original post, is correct to question whether or not racism is an active part of the protest atmosphere. The idea that Americans don’t care about the poor because of slavery is simply stupid. Back when slavery was an active “institution,” there were poor people…and they were looked down upon. The idea that anyone who was poor was that way because of their own actions – i.e., that people didn’t “deserved” any help out of poverty – grew out of the simple fact of living in the middle of a land of abundance. Back when obtaining new land was as simple as moving west a bit, there may have been some truth to that, too.

But that reality is long dead and gone, if it ever truly existed. A lot of people in America right now have worked hard and gone through some advanced training, just to find out they aren’t needed in the workforce. They are the “deserving poor” because they “deserve” our help, because they are poor through no fault of their own.

Kind of like when unemployment asks if you have lost your job “through no fault of your own.” We wouldn’t want people who actually quit a job – no matter how good the reason might be – to get any help, would we?

The truth of the matter is that the “outrage” over the healthcare townhalls is entirely ginned up for political reasons. It has nothing to do with Obama being black and everything with him being a Democrat and Republicans need something, someway, somehow, to stop his momentum. Apparently, he doesn’t womanize the way that Bill Clinton did, so the GOP – and their noise-box – is going to simply attack the issue through misinformation and fear-mongering.

This doesn’t mean that the outrage expressed by people at the meetings is false. It’s real. It’s just based on misinformation. They are outraged at the wrong things. Because they believe people who don’t care what happens to them.

Of all the things it’s about, it isn’t about race. Sure, there are some idiots out there who might look at it through that lens. But they are a minority within a minority. Let’s move on to more important things.

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