Last updated on 2012.11.09
Sunday comes early. Following is a verbatim Facebook post from a Christian acquaintance who views storm victims from the U.S. Northeast as his enemies and wonders if maybe God would prefer he act as an instrument of vengeance for the evil those enemies have wrought on our country:
I'm feeling conflicted. I believe I should help out my fellow man when I can. My Christian ideals also tell me I should (Luke 6:28) bless those who curse you, pray for those who mistreat you -- and Love my enemies. I look inside myself and I don't know how to love my enemies. I think I can find it in me to go through the motions of trying to be kind and offering an olive branch to my enemies, but to have a heartfelt love of people in whom I can recognize as embracing evil and reveling in bad things -- I don't know how to do it.
There are good and bad people in the NorthEast, but it doesn't take much analysis of political maps to see that the NorthEast was a major factor in how we will be getting a 2nd dose of Barak Obama and his ilk. The same NorthEast that just got slammed with a hurricane and a winter storm. The same NorthEast that just threw the rest of the country an anchor, wants the rest of the country to throw them a life preserver ring! The human nature part of me isn't feeling a lot of love for them as a group. I'm barely scraping by now, and thanks to the bleak future offered by Obamatics and Trickle-down-government, I am convinced that I will be scraping by for a lot longer now. I guess my struggle in my inner turmoil is pointless since I really don't have much if any "help" to spare. Nevertheless, I want to have the right internal makeup so that if I DID have resources to spare, I wouldn't have to struggle with wanting to share them.
What does God need in my heart? How do you love those that embrace the despicable? How do you feel "love" for the willfully unlovable? I don't need answers and I'm not depressed or despairing. I'm just venting my inner conflict [links mine; Facebook comment, 2012.11.09].
As an atheist, I can't tell my acquaintance what God "needs" in his heart. I might hazard a guess and say God doesn't "need" anything.
But let me say this to Kristi Noem, Gordon Howie, Russell Olson, Charlie Hoffman, and others who may occasionally land in my "politically despicable" column: if I come upon a car wreck, and I see you need help, I'm not going to have a philosophical debate. I'll come help. We'll hash out our political differences later.
On that political field, let's hope those blue states don't latch onto my acquaintance's line of thinking. Those blue states have been subsidizing red states for years. Get New Jersey and New York making their tax largesse contingent on voting patterns, and North and South Dakota could face some serious fiscal stress.
Really? So there are NO persons in the entire northeast whom are deserving of help because they voted "correctly?"
Why would one even stop to ask if victims of natural disasters are an enemy or worthy of our help?
Cory I am thankful for the opportunity to blather my scotch infested tongue all over your very worthwhile pages of highly intellectual writings from a large and differing base of concerned citizens. Doubly thankful for your not debating whether my busted up body needs help should you be so unlucky to come across an accident with me involved.
That said Sandy helped to put a picture of our President being very Presidential and non-partisan alongside Gov. Christie in the minds of all the voters in America just before going to the polls to vote. Luck is sometimes a very good thing to have. Let us hope that those we entrust with running this great country which the world depends upon for leadership go back to Washington and actually get something done together. One of those things need to be Federal help in rebuilding all the areas on the East Coast which were damaged by Sandy.
I am sitting in an upstate NY hotel as I write this post. You know what? As I landed and deboarded in Buffalo yesterday I might just as well have been in Sioux Falls, people are people. We all love, we all feel pain, and we all need help from time to time. The helping each other as opposed to waiting for the government is actually a plank in the GOP platform. My definition for people that hold the beliefs of your guy Cory is..."hypi-Christian". I happen to like the line between church and state while others wish to rub it out.
Cory,I can't help but wonder what your acquaintance's feelings are/were about the events of 9/11/01. Did he/does he feel that President Bush is also his enemy and evil since the attacks happened while G.W. Bush was in office at the time and the attacks also took place in the Northeast even though Bush wasn't physically present in that area when the attacks happened? Or is President Bush pure of heart and soul in his opinion? After all...our nation's capitol is also located in the Northeast.
Does he have the same feeling that the victims of hurricane Katrina(or any other disaster) are just as evil and deserved what happened to them?
I'm not a religious person myself,but perhaps instead of your acquaintance questioning what his God wants in his heart,he should really really seriously look very deeply within himself to figure out if it's not he who has the problem with why he feels the need to be so hateful of others with whom he does not agree...or does his God allow him to be judge,jury,and executioner of others? Is his God not a loving and forgiving God who loves all of his "children" equally? And he should ask himself WWJD?
Is there not enough hate in this world as it is? Makes me sad.
Keep the Scotch and the steering wheel far apart, Charlie, and we'll be that much less likely to have to test my non-partisan Samaritan resolve.
As for Sandy swamping Romney, Ezra Klein says Romney's flagging was already in the chute before the hurricane. The Obama up-curve doesn't spike on Sandy. In more ways than one, layering politics on top of disaster doesn't move the ball much.
Hey, Larry! Kirk after Praxis?
Vickie: excellent comparison. No one has reported firefighters stopping to check voter registration cards on the way up the towers.
Corey I agree that it was a minor part of the curve President Obama was riding and will be studied for years to come. I will maintain though that that visual of Christie and Obama man hugging on Jersey Shore burned an image in the voting public's mind which moved the dial.
"I will maintain though that that visual of Christie and Obama man hugging on Jersey Shore burned an image in the voting public's mind which moved the dial."
I hope you don't think that's a bad thing - two leaders putting politics aside and working together to help people.
Romney certainly thought the Christie-Obama visual mattered to the election, given the inside info Team Romney leaked after that picture. As Rick notes, the Christie-Obama visual mattered as a clear response to my Facebook acquaintance: drop the personal piety drama and help.
FEMA is fumbling as we speak Cory. How can I help them? Sending money to the Salvation Army would be the best thing we can do at this point. Christie knows how to fix the problem as does every Governor in his or her own State.
Rick I stated the obvious only as in the electorate visualizing exactly what they should be doing giving a nice bump to Obama. As I stated earlier luck is a very good thing to have. I continue disagreeing with Mr. H on the value of that picture showing two very differing political powerhouses working together to bring some semblance of rational to a disaster.
That post was something else. Aside from the misinformation (Democrats invented trickle-down economics?!), it's a big hard-hearted pity-party trying to justify a desire to inflict suffering on people s/he doesn't like. It's really ugly to see somebody lay bare their soul like that.
Also, far be it from me to judge, but that person needs to bone up on the gospels if s/he wants to claim to be a Christian. In that post I'm hearing a lot of Old Testament, and not much New.
FEMA should buy out people who are stupid enough to build in swamps like Ft. Pierre and Dakota Dunes just to keep them from sniveling year after year.
@Charlie - All campaign, all the time - is NOT good governance. Something some electees (and their supporters) never do get.
My husband and young sons were in the locker room of our local wellness center and heard two older men talking about the storm with the same tone. One said "yeah - just a bunch of liberals there anyway, who cares?" If anything, your friend makes the argument for a stronger government because clearly we can't depend on the unconditional kindness and charity of strangers to help us in our time of need. I don't know what his situation is or what specific policies the president has put in place that has made his life such a struggle, but to scapegoat and turn his back on the suffering of a group of people he considers his "enemies" is chilling and says a lot more about him than it does about anyone else.
"Willfully unlovable"? Hmmm....
So... considering that I live in California, which also had a huge hand in "getting a 2nd dose of Barak Obama and his ilk", should I be preparing for a hurricane and a winter storm?
Nice job of twisting what appears to be an inner conflict of a person who does not appear to be self righteous.
Obviously Facebook is a great place to find the fodder for your blog Corey.
Between blogs, Fox, Msnbc, the pulpit, does this surprise you.? You sell with the same color themes as Rush and then put the viewer up for public evisceration.
At least this poor soul seems to be trying to understand the feelings rather than running with them just because they are his/hers.
Mike: earthquakes.
Les: It is self-righteous. It's self-aggrandizement, trying to rationalize political pettiness and selfishness as some thoughtful and pious crisis of conscience. You're falling for it.
And note, I didn't publish the speaker's name. I'm not posting to personally eviscerate anyone. I'm posting to eviscerate a harmful mindset. This post works in eliciting from Erika a similar observation, as well as a very smart comment on why we need government on top of private charity, to ensure that everyone is taken care of, not just those in favor with the rich and powerful.
Ok Rush!
Public evisceration were my words, which is what resulted.
It sounds to me like you've missed your calling. Psycho therapy might be right up your alley.
I have no doubt those charges could be lined up against any of us on occasion.
Your acquaintance needs to quit focusing on others and ask themselves what acts they are performing to cause god to continue to shun them of fortune and make them "scrape by". What moral short-comings do they have? God would certainly reward them if they were deserving of reward. Accordingly, your acquaintance should conclude that they are not worthy.
That is how this whole god thing works right? Do the things that you interpret it would desire and you hit the jackpot.
Federal funds should not be wasted on infrastructure or anything else (except see below) on land likely to be underwater as human-caused global warming helps flood those areas permanently or annually.
Except to move the people out of those areas. Putting more federal money in future swamps and lakes makes no sense.
As indicated, South Dakotans building in land likely to be flooded in the near future because of the need to flush reservoirs of silt and the results of increasingly violent, rapidly changing weather.