I'm not a conservative, so maybe I shouldn't weigh in on this, but I couldn't agree more! Jettison 'em both!

On an interesting side note: Notice how much more palatable progressive issues are to the general population since Cindy Sheehan and Michael Moore have been marginalized. While sort of pop star figures in 2004, neither were to be seen in '06.

My church has a small monthly book discussion group. At the moment, we're reading Marilynne Robinson's The Death of Adam, and last night we focused on her essay on the family, where, in part, she decries the worship of the free market as a contributing force in the decline of the family (I'm not trying to hijack the discussion, really, so bear with me). One of the folks at the discussion repeatedly said that Robinson's critique was lacking because the vast majority of poor people are that way because they don't want to do better. If they (he used the word "they" quite a bit) only learned a real skill, "they" would be middle class before they knew it. He backed this up scripturally with Paul's statement in 2 Thessalonians "if you don't work, you don't eat."

Hmmm.

He also said that the poor in this country do better than the poor elsewhere, as if that is of any comfort to a family trying to live on $20,000 a year. Certainly, there are people who have no interest in trying to better themselves. But to say that if only these people would pick up a hammer or a paint brush and all would be fine is silly. I reckon that many people in this boat actually do have skills, but thanks to globalization and the off-shoring of much of our manufacturing and even some white collar work, there is no market for their skills. This, however, is apparently their fault.

It's here that Christians really need to make their stand as conservatives. Paul's admonition in Thessalonians seems to be directed not at the poor, but at church leadership. And to dismiss everything else the Bible says about the poor based on this seems to be bad theology. That's not say that Jim Wallis' "we're going to END poverty" is correct either, but we are repeatedly told to care for the poor, sick, and imprisoned. Simply casting them off because they didn't make it in our economic system isn't the sort of compassion and justice we should hold.