Enemy of the State

On the news tonight I heard a story about how the Lt. Governor of South Carolina Andre Bauer compared children on free and reduced lunches and other entitlement programs to "stray animals" who do nothing but reproduce. This statement in and of itself is abhorrent to the point of nausea, but what truly disturbs me is some of the comments I read on these news websites and Mr. Bauer's Facebook page that are in complete agreement.

I am the first one to agree that there is a lot of corruption and fraud in entitlement programs. I have experienced first hand people who receive numerous benefits, but find the money to drive nice cars and have big screen TVs. It makes me angry because I struggle to make ends meet and usually there is more month than there is money. But I am also blessed to have family who support me and my wife while the money is tight. I don't have any problem with people getting help who need it. These programs come from a good idea that no person should go hungry in this country, but they still do. I also understand the frustration as a pastor in trying to help those who really need it while not getting defrauded by those seeking money for nothing. Here again, it makes me angry.

All that being said, there is nothing that justifies comparing any human being to a stray animal. This only serves to dehumanize these children. What does the Lt. Governor suggest we do? Allow these people to starve. As revolting as this statement and the ensuing comments are, I think this line of thinking is a symptom of a bigger problem. There are those politicians and pundits who wish to make an enemy of the poor, especially for the middle class. All the problems facing the middle class is caused by poor persons and their entitlement programs. Most of these politicians are neither poor or middle class and never have been and yet they claim to understand the plight of the average American. They are the ones filling the heads of the middle class with images of the welfare queen drawing a check. While there are cases of entitlement fraud, let me be clear, THE POOR ARE NOT YOUR ENEMY. The poor are not the ones oppressing you, they are not the ones wasting your tax money on frivolous earmarks, i.e. the bridge to nowhere. In fact, you could be safe in assuming that the real enemy are the ones trying to convince you that the poor are the enemy. It is the wealthy who downsize and lay off to gain year end bonuses or make their stocks go up a few points. It is the banks who asked for grace in the form of a government bailout, that kind of sounds like entitlement to me, and yet offer no grace to those being foreclosed or to the small businesses struggle to keep their heads above water. However, the rich are not the enemy. The real enemy is that sense of entitlement within ourselves that cause us to see ourselves as better and higher than our neighbor. It is that monster within us that causes us to agree with such egregious statements as the one from Lt. Governor Bauer.

For those of us who call ourselves persons of faith this is of great importance. We are called by God to care for the poor, the widow, and the orphan. Does this mean we should just throw money at the problem? No, part of helping the poor is offering a means for those persons to gain financial independence. However, we do need to remember what Martin Luther King, Jr. said, "it is a cruel jest to say to a bootless man that he ought to lift himself by his own bootstraps." There is a balance to be formed and care to be taken. These are human beings created in the image of God and not stray animals to be shooed off the porch.

America's Pastime

Baseball has long been haled as America's Pastime. "It is our game" said someone whose name is long forgotten. As the Boys of Summer finish their Spring Training and prepare to begin another wonderful, beautiful season I argue that baseball is no longer the favorite pastime of Americans. It has been replaced, not by football, basketball, or even NASCAR. Instead, the blame game is now America's Pastime.

The recent economic downfall continues to breed a target rich environment for anyone wanted to blame their troubles on someone else. Millions of people have lost jobs, savings, 401ks, etc and they want vindication and vengeance. They want to lay their frustrations at the feet of someone or something in order to assuage their own anguish. The latest scapegoats are a group of employees of AIG who received contractually obligated bonuses for services rendered. The media have virtually tarred and feathered these people and now the politicians want their pound of flesh by retroactively placing heavy taxes on these bonuses, which is unconstitutional by any standard. Is it justice, or just another round of the blame game? This is nothing more than a lame attempt to shift the anger of the American people from Congress to someone...anyone else. It is smoke and mirrors, a cheap parlor trick. The Federal government sat idly by for decades and did nothing to prevent this crisis and allowed Wall Street to act unchallenged and unchecked and only now when the American people are at their doorstep with the proverbial torch and pitchfork do they act. Republicans blame President Obama "socialist" tendencies while their Democratic counterparts blame former President Bush. Both sides blame Wall Street while it is the people on Main Street who suffer.

It is high time that we put aside the blame game and seek real and honest solutions to our problems. Republicans do not have the answers and neither do the Democrats, but perhaps the solution lies in the middle of the aisle. One of the greatest aspects of this country has always been its ability and willingness to compromise. Compromise saw us through difficult times before and it is the only way to work through this problem. However, this mentality does not create good ratings for Fox News or MSNBC and this mentality does not win elections. Therefore I doubt it will ever happen. Great republics fall when they fail to compromise. We are teetering on the edge. Will we fall? God only knows.