links - mostly things to read for later

[tielan]

When you can barely keep up with the incoming flow of information.

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Cracked.com: What Helped Convince Me To Stop Being Hardcore Right Wing

I think the most notable part of this is that people are more likely to listen to people who think the same as them 90% of the time, and are only 'crazy' 10% of the time. The 2nd most notable part was that more people are watching than you think.

Right now, I really needed this article. It helps.

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Vice: What Nuclear War Would Look Like with an interview with a former Secretary of Defence.

I barely remember the Cold War - I was 12 when it ended. But I was an avid and advanced reader, so I read all the 80s YA stuff about nuclear war and the aftermath.

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Word Of A Woman: The Myth That The Church Alone Can And Should Take Care Of The Poor it's a simple question of mathematics. Church-goer giving could never cover the burden of the poor.

Frankly, I think that a large part of 'charity' is just 'beneficience giving', that is, you give it to feel superior to someone else, because you are better than them, because you are someone who has worked hard and is worthy and the beneficiary is someone who is not so worthy. It's basically an egotrip the largely depends on whether or not the giver is feeling generous and would like to grant a boon. And, yes, I give to charity, but it's a pittance compared to what I pay in a regular year of taxes. Taxes are unglamourous, pedestrian, and yet considerably more practical IMO - plus, they pay for things which are for the public good: roads and public transport, hospitals and schools, cops, and fieries. I might wish it wasn't paying for pollies' salaries, but, eh. Sometimes you just have to take the crap with the good.

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I can't remember where I found it, but there was this very excellent question asked by a Christian leader. The upshot of it went something like this:

The question should not be 'Who Is My Neighbour?' as though we're trying to work out if other people are worthy of our kindness or not. The question should be 'Am I A Good Neighbour?' because in God's eyes, everyone is worthy, and we are called to 'go and do likewise' to the Samaritan who was a neighbour to the man found beaten and near death on the road.

Jesus didn't say who the man beaten up was or whether he was worthy of the Good Samaritan's help; he said go and be like the Samaritan - ie. BE A GOOD NEIGHBOUR.

Them's fighting words.

Comments

[just_ann_now]

*waves from The Network*

'beneficience giving', that is, you give it to feel superior to someone else, because you are better than them, because you are someone who has worked hard and is worthy and the beneficiary is someone who is not so worthy. It's basically an egotrip the largely depends on whether or not the giver is feeling generous and would like to grant a boon.

OMG YES THIS

Taxes are unglamourous, pedestrian, and yet considerably more practical IMO - plus, they pay for things which are for the public good: roads and public transport, hospitals and schools, cops, and fieries. I might wish it wasn't paying for pollies' salaries, but, eh. Sometimes you just have to take the crap with the good.

Yes, this too. *applauds*

[karmageddon]

I watched two people get into about politics recently and one person prefaced what they said by saying "I am hardcore unapologetic liberal" and I just thought WHY

I think they had a lot of common ground with the person they were talking with, but they were sucked into (like a lot of people on both right and left) the idea that one opinion or another is part of their Immutable Identity and hence that are on the side of Good, so of course you can't change your view on anything if that's how you think of it. There are things in the platform of both parties that make no sense in terms of the other parts, they're there because of lobbying and big donors. So it seems very unlikely that anyone would really agree 100% with either party 100% of time.

[tielan]

I firmly believe in strong social programs paid for through taxed citizenry (and corporations/companies). It's a safety net not a handout, and yes, some people will need it for longer than others while some people won't need it at all. And some people will certainly abuse it, but that's human nature.

[tielan]

one person prefaced what they said by saying "I am hardcore unapologetic liberal" and I just thought WHY

I think we burn more bridges than we create with that kind of statement.

[beatrice_otter]

At one point, in Europe, Christian charity did pay for most "welfare" needs! Shall we look at how they did it?

1. Middle ages/early modern period: the Church was a great huge landowner, wealthier than kings. Monasteries, in particular, would own great huge tracts of land, worked by tenant farmers, and the rents from the farmers and the income from the monastery's own industry paid for a lot of things, one of which was charity (hospitals, poor relief, etc.)

2. Early modern period to 20th Century: most of the wealth and power of the church was either gone (Protestant lands) or dying (Catholic lands). The local government collected your tithe (ten percent of your income that was supposed to go the the church, effectively a tax) and gave it to the church (usually your local parish) which used it for everything from paying the clergy to feeding/nursing the poor. Also, EVERYONE paid the tithe, whether you were a Christian or not. It was most definitely a tax.

So back when the church paid for most welfare type stuff, it was able to do so because it was either richer than God or taxed people for the money to do it. (Sometimes both, depending on where and when you were.) Neither of these things is true today.