Interesting that you deflected from acknowledging or addressing the corrupt and evil nature of “social program” politicians themselves (left or right, I might add) and chose to double down in defending or at least justifying them and their programs. Can corrupt people really implement truly good programs?
Likewise that you would attempt to use the sayings of Jesus to do so. A lot of people jump to false conclusions because they don’t take the whole bible account into consideration, and that's what you've done in claiming Jesus supported taxes. Actually, he no more supported the Jews paying taxes to Caesar than he advocated the legal death penalty on the adulterous woman! What was happening in both cases was that they were trying to trap Jesus and he outsmarted them in dilemmas they couldn’t escape from.
One thing to keep in mind is, there is no “Caesar” in America, or at least there isn’t supposed to be. So, who would “Caesar” represent, legitimately, in America? Do you mean your corrupt politicians? I would say the Constitution, because it is the supreme law of the land.
Now, notice that Jesus said render unto God what is God’s. He didn’t say, “also render unto Caesar what is God’s.” The point is this:
“In the Tribute Episode, Jesus' response is
subtly seditious. The first-century audience would have immediately apprehended what it meant to render unto God the things that are God's. They would have known that the things of God and Caesar were mutually exclusive.
No Jewish listener would have mistaken Jesus' response as an endorsement of paying Caesar's taxes. To the contrary, His audience would have understood that Jesus thought the tribute was illicit.
Indeed, opposition to the tribute was one of the charges the authorities levied at His trial, "They brought charges against him, saying, “We found this man misleading our people; he opposes the payment of taxes to Caesar and maintains that he is the Messiah, a king.'" To the Roman audience, however, the pronouncement of rendering unto Caesar what is Caesar's sounds benign, almost supportive. It is, however,
one of many vignettes of covert political protest contained in the Gospels. In short, the Tribute Episode is a subtle form of sedition. When viewed in this context, no one can say that the Episode supports the payment of taxes.”
https://www.lewrockwell.com/2010/03/jeffrey-f-barr/render-unto-caesar-amostmisunderstood-newtestamentpassage/So, you misinterpret Jesus by interpreting him through the lens of the oppressors, just as the Romans would have.
Our Constitution (the closest thing to "our Caesar") does not grant our politicians the right or authority to redistribute wealth. Here’s a good site that exposes how corrupt politicians have taken on more authority than they have been granted as far as Constitutionally legitimate taxes go-
http://www.originalintent.org/edu/docs/Constitutional%20Issues%20of%20Taxation.pdfAnd this article doesn’t even delve into the fact that the 16th amendment was never legally ratified: because they show how fraudulent it is, it doesn’t have to in the scope of that writing. So, to correct myself, all taxes aren’t necessarily theft, but these types of unconstitutional taxes, imposed by corrupt politicians, most certainly are.
I believe Jesus was the most moral person ever, and leftists fall far short of what Jesus set as moral standards in many areas. Jesus and the apostles expressed the sentiment that Christians, as Christians (meaning not as good Romans) were to be charitable to the poor, and that what we do unto others, we do unto Christ himself. In other words, charity is one of the things that belongs to God, and thus is to be rendered to God, NOT to Caesar.
Notice what Jesus said here:
“25He said to them, "The kings of the nations
lord it over them, and those who have authority over them are called
'benefactors.' 26But
not so with you. But one who is the greater among you, let him become as the younger, and one who is governing, as one who serves. 27For who is greater, one who sits at the table, or one who serves? Isn't it he who sits at the table? But I am in the midst of you as one who serves.” Luke 22:25-27.
Jesus condemned and forbade Christians lording it over others under the guise of being a “benefactor”, meaning one who pretends to care for their subjects...by ruling over them (oppressing them) while at the same time bestowing beneficial niceties in order to outwardly appear magnanimous! This is something the denarii represented that Jesus said belonged to Caesar, as the Lew Rockwell article explains.
Therefore, for politicians to take what belongs to God, and assume authority and power for themselves that was not granted to them by our Constitution, is both contrary to Christ, and Constitutionally unethical. This state of being “overlords in the guise of beneficiaries” are the types of “beneficial” things you are justifying “forced social program politicians” for!
Next, the only time and place where Jesus got physically violent, was in the face of corrupt men who perverted the temple tax and made merchandise of the people. I’m sure Jesus would feel the same about today’s politicians who enslave and make merchandise of the people they were elected to serve, not “lord it over.”
Furthermore, Jesus said he came to set people free, so we know that he was against slavery, in particular mental slavery because he said truth would set free. More on this later under Toqueville...
Yet another thing that Jesus said that works to condemn hypocritical leaders is when he said “the Pharisees sat in Moses seat, therefore do what they say but don’t do after their works.” Boy, the list of politician’s actions falling in this category would be long. Just some examples:
https://www.propublica.org/article/do-as-we-say-congress-says-then-does-what-it-wantshttps://www.forbes.com/sites/kylesmith/2011/06/01/insider-trading-rules-that-dont-apply-to-congress/#79d76bef6167I can’t and won’t ever justify politicians that so align with just about everything Jesus identifies as evil. Of course, he wasn’t the only one.
Alexis du Toqueville pointed out something Americans used to know:
“It's not an endlessly expanding list of rights — the 'right' to education, the 'right' to health care, the 'right' to food and housing.
That's not freedom, that's dependency. Those aren't rights,
those are the rations of slavery — hay and a barn for human cattle.”
Alexis de Tocqueville,
https://www.goodreads.com/author/quotes/465.Alexis_de_TocquevilleThis is the category your forced social programs falls under: rations of slavery, and of course the rations themselves have positive appeal, but the mask the evil character of the enslavement.
This “rations of slavery” also explains in realistic terms the left’s insatiable desire for more and more “rights”, which are actually just these “rations of slavery” and, at one and the same time reinforce the left’s mentality that citizens are their slaves to financially plunder at will, while themselves are the “benefactors”, they can feel good about themselves and so overlook their inhumanity to man.
Another Toqueville quote gleaned from the same site is quite eye-opening to me:
“[Under the absolute sway of one man the body was attacked in order to subdue the soul; but the soul escaped the blows which were directed against it and rose proudly superior.]
Tyranny in democratic republics does not proceed in the same way, however. It ignores the body and goes straight for the soul. The master no longer says: You will think as I do or die. He says: You are free not to think as I do. You may keep your life, your property, and everything else. But from this day forth you shall be as a stranger among us. You will retain your civic privileges, but they will be of no use to you. For if you seek the votes of your fellow citizens, they will withhold them, and if you seek only their esteem, they will feign to refuse even that. You will remain among men, but you will forfeit your rights to humanity. When you approach your fellow creatures, they will shun you as one who is impure. And even those who believe in your innocence will abandon you, lest they, too, be shunned in turn. Go in peace, I will not take your life, but the life I leave you with is worse than death.”
Alexis de Tocqueville
In other words, this explains why the left hates and discourages free speech if it goes against their ideology. This explains why the big techs are censoring conservative voices, and colleges are denying conservative speakers- it is certainly the “tyranny in democratic republics.”
So when you are supporting and justifying, what certainly looks to me like, the corrupt politicians of big government to be the “benefactors” of “forced social programs”, you are very much supporting emotional and financial slavery of the subjects. This is oh so contrary to Jesus’ overall message of setting captives free.
Another voice crying foul of forced social programs like welfare, is what these programs have done in destroying strong family units with a father and mother in the home.
https://www.quora.com/Thomas-Sowell-says-welfare-caused-black-America-to-degenerate-since-the-1960s-rather-than-endemic-racism-Is-this-trueAnother point from the Bible: Have you read where John the Baptist said, “Do violence to no man”? “The Greek word was the exact equivalent of the Latin concutere (whence our "concussion"), and was applied to the violence which was used by irregular troops to extort money or provisions.” So, in fact, John the Baptist, Jesus’ forerunner, forbid his followers from forcibly extracting money.
I never said you couldn't come up with some benefits and some success stories. That is the nature of benefactors; even slave owners could come up with slaves who worked themselves out from under it, and even some that were happy with their masters.
The point is, at what cost? For leftists, the cost of their "forced social programs" includes the loss or denigrating of liberties that are guaranteed by our Constitution that leftists and RINO's, and other professional politicians love to abrogate and negate seemingly every chance they get, all the while they are getting richer and richer and ever more powerful... while making themselves immune to the same mandates. I can't understand how anyone would look to these types of people for "solutions" to social ills!
Maybe you and I aren’t as similar after all. It seems to me you think corrupt people can engineer socially redemptive programs, while I, following the framers of the Constitution, and Jesus’ view of corrupt leaders, believe the less control by those same politicians the better.
Interesting that you deflected from acknowledging ... (