Are traditional Americans now radicals? part 2

So I'm having this nice discussion with two republican coworkers.  At first it was a boring discussion for me, because everything that was said I agreed with.  It was "preaching to the choir" stuff.  But then the doctor said, "Catering to the extremes of both parties is how you lose elections."

I said, "Woah!"  

He looked at me funny, as I said, "Catering to the extremes is how you win elections. Catering to the middle is how you lose elections."  

He said, "Give me one example." 

I said, "I will give you many, "Gerald R. Ford, George Herbert Walker Bush, Bob Dole, John McCainn, and Mitt Romney."

He said, "What about them."

"They all catered to the center and lost. Ronald Reagan and Bush catered to conservatives, and they won. Obama catered the extremes in his party in 2012, he ran as an all out socialist who didn't call himself one, and he won.  You win by catering to what you call extremes."

He said, "What do you mean what I call extremes?"

I said, "The democratic party has moved so far to the left and has had so much success that the republican establishment felt the need to follow suit.  So both the democratic party and republican establishment has moved so far left that they make traditional Americans seem radical. So I say I'm a conservative republican, and you associate that with radical."  

He said nothing, only looked at me as though I was the radical; the idiot.

I said, "That's why democrats can get away with saying that republicans cater to their guns and their religion. That's why they call republicans dogmatic people who just hang out with people they agree with. They try to cling all republicans to the radicals on the far right, the people who are the mainstream but are treated as outsiders and radicals. And that's how Donald Trump is gaining so much momentum, because he is saying all the things we "'radicals' have been thinking but haven't had the nerve to say.  He is saying the truths that liberal republicans and democrats now refer to as 'controversial.'  That's why, when I'm watching the today show, and a guest says that 'guns don't kill, people do,' Matt Lauer says, 'My controversial guest...  To that I say, 'When did telling the truth become 'controversial?'  It became controversial the moment traditional Americans were viewed as radicals."

He said,"Evidence please!"

"Nearly every president, both democrat and republican, all the way to John F. Kennedy, with the exception of Teddy Roosevelt, FDR, and Woodrow Wilson, were conservatives in the sense, although they weren't called conservatives they were called liberals, or what we now refer to as classical liberals.  They were all traditional Americans who toted Bibles, guns, and defended liberties tooth and nail."

He was mad.  Here I was debating a fellow republican, just stating the truth, and he was mad. However, he wanted to continue the discussion, but duty called. 

Traditional Americans now seen as radicals?

I had a good thought in a blog post the other day that deserves a post of its own.  I said, "The republican establishment and the democratic party has moved so far to the left that it makes traditional Americans look radical."

Think of that.  We are the people who love God, hold on to our Bibles and our guns, love and respect our Constitution, don't want laws or actions taken that take away our liberties, and we have morals and values and principles that are unchanging.  Yes, we are dogmatic.

When I'm debating my liberal friends, both in the republican and democratic parties, they now just say these things when they disagree with me.  They have the president on their side, so they have no reason to hide the fact that they are socialist.  But they don't say I'm a traditional American, because they think they are.

This explains why we have a partisan divide in this country more so than anything Mitt Romney says.  We have a partisan divide because the two parties representing us have gone radical; have gone socialist.

The irony of this is that it was socialistic type governments that the founding fathers escaped by coming to America.  It was totalitarian dictatorships and monarchies that they yearned to run from.  Liberals have succeeded in not teaching this, so the millennials have not learned it.

Because conservatism is not taught, liberalism is the logical default.  This, my fellow readers, is why socialism is accepted today in this country more so than ever before.  It's because traditional Americans are now called radicals and what they say is said to be controversial.

Obamacare: Making healthcare unaffordable

Okay, so what is the state of Obamacare? I can tell you from a personal standpoint that it doesn't look good if you are typical U.S. citizen with a family. Our premiums have doubled, and the deductibles we now have to pay are so high we can't even use insurance. It's a pretty sad state.

The cost of my albuterol inhaler increased from $10 for three inhalers ten years ago to $90 for three inhalers today.  It's to the point that I don't even use my inhalers unless I leave the house. When I'm home, and when I'm working, I use nebulizer solution. Obamacare is part of the problem here, but another problem is the Montreal protocol, where politicians decided the ozone was more important than asthmatics breathing better. But that's a discussion for another day.

This is not a criticism of the place I work for at all.  Businesses have to do what they need to do to stay in business.  The reason that the cost of healthcare has gone up so much is because of the people who decided it was "a big deal" to pass the Affordable Care Act, also known as Obamacare. It's either raise premiums and deductibles, cut benefits, or close up shop.

It was not supposed to raise our prices. We were told our premiums wouldn't go up. But they have. In Santa Cruz, it is reported that insurance premiums have increased 85%. "Elkhart Teachers Face Double-Digit Hike in Health Insurance Premiums."

The alternative is to have benefits slashed, which is occurring. For instance, the Teamsters Union, which has supported democratic candidates for years, has had no choice but to slash recipient's benefits.  And you have teachers who are seeing their healthcare premiums skyrocket as well.

This was not supposed to happen.  Not to mention that 9% of Americans are still uninsured.  The whole point of Obamacare was to make sure everyone had insurance.  Most people are opting to pay the penalty because Obamacare is too expensive for them, or because they have decided that they are healthy and the risk is worth it.  Besides, the risk is worth it, because, if they need insurance, they can't get turned down anyway, so why pay health insurance when you have little mouths to feed.  Kids get welfare, so they're taken care of.

Yeah, my point is, this whole thing is a disaster.  Liberals see things that aren't ideal, they try to fix them to make them better, and everything gets worse.  That's what has happened to education in the U.S. and now it's happening to healthcare.

My liberal friends will still argue with me and tell me that it's all working great.  But the evidence is never on their side. So when I pose these and other facts, they say that I'm a dogmatic right wing radical who only reads things I agree with. That's Saul Alinsky rule #7, by the way.

This goes back to the point Rush Limbaugh made in 2008: I hope he fails.  Look, his healthcare agenda has passed, and now healthcare is worse.

But, if you look at it another way, Obamacare is succeeding in wrecking our healthcare system to the point, that perhaps some day soon, people are going to beg Uncle Sam for universal healthcare to save the day. The law is making healthcare unaffordable.

That, so they say, was the whole point of Obamacare in the first place: it was never meant to succeed the way we think. Everything that is currently occurring, the rising cost of premiums, the rising cost of deductibles, is all in the cards. When we can't afford healthcare we'll come crawling to Uncle Sam begging for universal healthcare.

A perfect example is what's going on in Colorado.  The Obamacare exchange there is close to going bankrupt, and so the state legislature there has proposed scrapping it for a statewide single payer system. The cost, they say, would be $25 million (although we know it would be much higher than that).

This is all in the name of "free healthcare."  Like when Obamacare was passed, everyone thought it would mean free healthcare. So these legislators in Colorado think a single payer would give free healthcare to everyone. The only problem is that the people who are working, which amounts to fewer citizens every day, have to flip the bill.

Romney clueless about state of nation, or traditional republicans seen as radicals?

It appears that Mitt Romney still hasn't figured out why he lost two bids for the White House. He still hasn't figured why 12 million republicans stayed home rather than vote for him.

He is now chanting that the “extremes within our respective parties are having a louder and louder voice and demanding more attention” and “immediate action” as opposed to more “collaborative action.”

He said: “There was a time when we all got the news with the same facts, if you will,” he said. “We had three networks we watched for the evening news. Most of us got newspapers. Everybody in the middle class got a newspaper, so we got the same facts whether we agreed or not with them.”

So, essentially he thought it was a good idea that we got all our news from one source, which was the New York Times. Basically, all the three networks did was restate what was in the New York Times that morning, and that's what was referred to as news.

So he blames the lack of getting our news from one source for the partisan divide?

I was always taught to make sure "you get your news from more than one source." And what do you consider facts? You can hear a news report on Fox News, CNN, and MSNBC, and have it spun a different way by each of them. Is that bad? I don't think so. It assures that all voices are heard.

It's a lot better than getting the same spin, the same lies, the same bias, from every news source.

Regardless, he (Romney) thinks that the fact people today only listen to news from outlets they agree with is the cause of many republicans and democrats moving to the extremes of their respective parties, meaning conservatives and socialists.

“And I think that divisiveness is one of the things that has led to Washington having such a hard time getting things done,” he said.

First of all, I don't think Washington is having a hard time of getting anything done, and that's part of the problem. Look, they passed Obamacare without getting one republican vote. Obama got rid of the 1994 welfare reform bill signed by Bill Clinton with one stroke of his pen. He also reformed immigration, and changed Obamacare, with his pen.

So what do you need Congress for? What do you need compromise for when you can just get what you want by one stroke of the pen anyway.

What does he mean we aren't getting anything done? Obama has got pretty much everything he wanted, either through Congress or his own pen. Republicans have done nothing to stop him. He has gotten everything he wanted, and all the while people have gotten their news from all sorts of new media outlets, blogs, etc.

I think the reason for the partisan divide is because the left has moved so far to the extremes toward socialism that traditional Americans appear to be in the extremes as well. Worded another way, conservatives are your traditional Americans, and the left has moved so far to the left that traditional Americans appear to be in the extremes.

It's not that republicans have moved to the right, it's that democrats have moved to the left, and the republican establishment has walked right along with them. And traditional Americans are pissed off to see their country go kapoot because everything the left touches gets worse. That's how men like Donald Trump and Ben Carson have gained so much steam on the republican side.

Romney fails to understand that "not getting things done" is the purpose of our government. Our constitution explicitely says that Congress shall not make laws that take away natural rights. It's not the job of Congress to solve problems; it's not the job of Congress to get things done. That is the job of individuals. The people is where the solutions come from. The job of the government is to get out of the way -- to get obstacles out of the way -- as to allow individuals to prosper.

The purpose of Washington is to come up with ideas that help best allow the country to run, not to advance the left wing agenda. Mitt Romney apparently is clueless of these facts, and that's why republicans never got excited about him. He wants to go back to the days when liberals had a monopoly of the news.

Related Reading:

• Breitbart.com: Mitt Romney: Demise of Media

What is social justice?

It seems we are forced to do a lot of things we don't want to do, and it's always in the name of "social justice." So what is social justice, and how does it effect us as individuals?

Well, to begin with, social justice is not about individuals, it is about society as a whole. To understand it, we first need a definition, so hear goes.

Social Justice:  Sacrificing personal or individual liberties and justice for the benefit of the whole of society.

Let me put it this way: Social Justice teaches the opposite of what the Bible teaches. The Bible, the Gospel, preaches rule of man or individual rights. It preaches individual choices and taking accountability for the individual choices we make. This is what lead up to capitalism, and is how Christianity has lead to a capitalistic system of government.

Social Justices is the opposite of this.  Social Justice teaches that, if you are better than someone else, then you have to have something taken from you to make you equal to everyone else.  If you are worse than everyone else, then you are given something that you did not earn to make you equal.

So, social justice is taking from those who have, giving to those who have not, in order so that all people are equal.  The problem with this is that if everyone is equal, there can be no rich and no poor.  If there are no rich, then there is nothing to shoot for.

In essence, everyone is poor.

Since everyone is taken care of regardless of effort, then no one makes an effort improve things.  The bottom line here is that everyone remains poor.  There is plenty of supply (such as food), but no one willing to pick it.  This is one of the reasons the former Soviet Union failed, because no one was willing to do any of the work.

Under the American version social justice (aptly called either progressivism or liberalism), if you earn more than "your fair share," your taxes are raised to make you equal.  If you make less than your fair share, social justice programs will help make you equal.  Social justice programs include welfare, social security, healthcare, and so forth.

They also include regulations to make sure you comply with the will of whatever modern fad is ongoing, such as regulations to prevent global warming. This is another excuse they use to raise your taxes, which is essentially what regulations are.

Yet since average working people are now poor, taxes are raised on the rich even higher so they continue to pay their fair share.  Yet they find ways to dodge taxes, or they themselves run out of money and become equal citizens.

Now, since there are fewer rich people, or (ideally) no rich people, this means that a euphoric world has been created where everyone is equal.  The aspect of this that so many on the left fail to understand is that if there are no rich people, than everyone is poor.  If everyone is equal, everyone is poor.

So, since there are no rich people, and the people are now all equally poor, there isn't enough money to sustain the system.  So it all comes tumbling down.

This is the fear of the people who oppose social justice.  It is the reason the Bible preaches individualism, because social justice fails every time.  In fact, Social Justice is only a happier term for socialism, liberalism, progressivism, and fascism.

The ideal goal of social justice is to create an ideal world, a euphoric world, where everyone works, everyone has a working wage, everyone has healthcare, everyone is taken care of in every way you can think of.  Yet it is never obtainable and never sustainable.  It is a system that fails every time it has been tried.

So, social justice is a system where those who have sacrifice what they earn for the benefit of the society as a whole.  But there is another aspect of social justice, and this is the sacrificing of individual justice for the good of the whole.  A quintessential example of this is the 2015 Baltimore Race Riots following the death of a black man in police custody.

In order to quell the riots, in order to generate peace, in order to create calm, Al Sharpton called for a Nationalization of the police force (social justice).  Less than 24 hours later, Baltimore Mayor, Stephanie Rawlings-Blake, threw the book at the police officers involved, indicting them on every charge they could think of.

The justice system is thereby ignored, and the individual rights of these men are sacrificed, for the good of society as a whole.  It does not matter if these men, these police officers, were guilty or innocent.  Their liberties are sacrificed for the good of the whole.

And it's obvious these charges were made based on social justice, because the legal system was not followed.  For Ferguson, Michael Brown was shot on August 9, 2014.  A grand jury took 108 days to review the case before returning a no indictment.  Eric Garner died on July 17, 2014, and a grand jury took 140 days to get a ruling against indicting. Freddie Gray died April 19, 2015, and he was indicted by Mayor Mosby without even consulting a grand jury, in less than 24 hours after receiving police department investigation results.

Is this justice? Or social justice?  Justice means the system of laws is followed to assure individual rights are not violated.  Social justice means personal rights take a back seat to good of society.

To me this system of social justice doesn't even sound good on the surface.  Yet because social justice sounds good on the surface, many people fall for it.

Further reading:

• Glenn Beck: What is social justice?

Economy worse today than Great Depression

There is a neat article at Zero Hedge blog called "Why this feels like a depression for most people" by Jim Quinn from the Burning Platform Blog.  He said that even though there are no soup lines, the statistics confirm that we are presently living through economic hardships that are far worse than the Great Depression.

Surely we must consider there were fewer people in the U.S. during the great depression, but these statistics are overwhelming regardless.  Consider.

• There were 12.8 million Americans unemployed during the Great Depression. These were the men pictured in those soup lines. This is estimated, because the Department of Labor did not keep official unemployment numbers until 1940. That comes to 24.9% of the Labor Force. 
• Today, there are 46 million Americans unemployed. This is the U3 number that is reported, which comes to 5.1% of the Labor Force.  It does not include the people who have stopped looking for work, so it actually makes the economy look better than it really is.
• Today, there are 94 million people not working or not participating in the Labor Force, this is the highest this number has been (or the lowest labor force participation rate) since 1977. This is the U6 unemployment number, which comes to about 14%. It includes all the working age people who are currently not working.  
• Those 94 million not looking for work are not starving; they have become official dependents of the government
• 94 million not looking for work, 8 million officially called unemployed, equals 40% of the population not working. 
• Sixty-two percent of the labor force is working; 38% not working
• Today, there are 123 million households in America and 23 million of them are on food stamps. Therefore 19% of all households in America require food stamp assistance to survive. So food stamps have replaced soup lines, so they are not seen.  We do not see hungry people in the U.S. today, so we do not know how bad the economy really is. 
• In 1933, there were approximately 126 million Americans living in 30 million households.  
• In 1933 there were no food stamps
• In 1933 there was no welfare
• In 1933 if you did not work you didn't eat
• In 1933 there was no incentive to stay at home and collect welfare, because if you didn't work you didn't eat.  You see, people did not give up looking for work, because they needed to feed themselves and their families.  
• In 1933 people didn't become dependents of the state
• In 2015, greater than 109,631,000 live in households receiving federal welfare benefits, according to the Census Bureau. That equals 35.4 percent of all 309,467,000 people living in the U.S.
• In 1933, you had to work, you had to walk to and stand in, soup lines to receive charity
• In 2015, you can be among the 94 million not working and have a roof over your head, have a cell phone, a car, your home is probably air-conditioned, and you're eating as much as you want.
• Daily Caller: "Fifty-one percent of working Americans make less than $30,000 a year." This data from the Social Security Administration. That's $2,500 a month before taxes. That is just above the federal poverty level for a family of five. "The new numbers come from the National Wage Index, which SSA updates each year based on reported wages subject to the federal income tax." So half the folks who are working don't have any disposable income, and therefore are unable to propel the economy.

Then you can add the following, and it gets even worse.

• Open borders so anyone can get in, legal or not
• Our borders are flooded with low skilled, low educated people who cannot command any kind of a decent wage because they're not qualified, and most qualify for entitlements that we pay for
• People who work are paying for it, whether they want to or not.
• Government controlling what kids learn, and not parents. It's called Common Core, although most schools won't call it that because 54% of Americans hate Common Core.  It's faceless bureaucrats in Washington deciding what kids should learn instead of parents. 
• We are $18 trillion in debt
• We are printing money left and right and dumping it into the stock market (called quantitative easing) to maintain the stock market bubble that is going to pop some day
• We are paying people not to work

What these statistics show, other than that we are in a depression, is that liberals like Obama are buying votes. That's why we have 94 million people not working and they are all eating; they are all living comfortably off the government, and that's why these numbers keep getting worse; that's why so many people vote for liberal democrats, and why Bernie Sanders even has credibility in the democratic party despite publicly claiming to be a socialist who hates capitalism. That's why Obama got elected two times. He, in essence, bought votes with our money. That's what FDR did too.

And don't get me wrong, I do want to help the needy. I'm all for charity.  However, the best way to help the poor is not by giving them something for nothing.  The poor must work for what they receive. We need to put them to work if they receive assistance.  We need to make the poor uncomfortable so they have an incentive to keep looking for work.  

Look, these statistics show that, even adjusting for the population increase, current abysmal economic statistics are far worse than during the Great Depression.  We have more people not working, and more people not looking for work.  And it isn't getting better, won't get better, by creating more programs that take from those who work to create more government programs that give to people who quit looking for work; who have no incentive to look for work.  

Related Links.

• ZeroHedge: Why This Feels Like A Depression For Most People
• ZeroHedge: Record 94 Million Americans Not In The Labor Force; Participation Rate Lowest Since 1977
• Millennials Are Coming of Age in a Depression -- They Just Don't Know It
• Ed Source: Poll shows most parents hate common core

My opinion regarding Indigenous People Day

People must not lose sight of the fact that, while despite the faults of Columbus, and despite the fact that other people probably discovered the New World before Columbus, it was Columbus who discovered it for the civilized world. In this way, if not for Columbus, America as we know it today might not exist.

It is for this reason that Columbus Day was founded. It's fine to celebrate Indigenous people, but we must not lose the scope of the significant discovery of Columbus.

Holidays are, in essence, days to celebrate, to give thanks to, and, perhaps most important, to make sure we do not forget, all those who are responsible for what we have here in this great nation. On the 4th of July, we celebrate our founding, on Thanksgiving and Christmas and Easter we celebrate God and Jesus, and on Memorial Day we honor those who fought to protect our freedom. Columbus day is a celebration of the man who discovered the world that made the American dream possible.

Think of it this way: most citizens of America today are indigenous; we are all native to America; we were all born here and have lived her our entire lives. So, if you look at it that way, indigenous people, if that's what you choose to call it, is a selfish holiday where we celebrate ourselves. That, to me, is the antithesis of what a holiday is meant to be for. If you want to celebrate American Indians, then create a day called "Indian Day." I would have no problem with that at all.

Look at is it this way: We cannot just assume that America was created out of thin air. We must never just assume the freedom and liberty we enjoy in America and around the world was created out of thin air. Because the moment that we forget, the moment that we assume that it always has and always will be there, is the moment that it will all be taken away.

And that is kind of what's happening in our schools today, as kids are not being taught about our founding fathers, about Columbus, and about Thanksgiving day, as we once were.  And so they do not learn what made America great. They do not learn about American Exceptionalism, that 90% of people born before America were born under totalitarian dictatorships and monarchies and only the select few were able to prosper. America made it so everyone could prosper.

So what made America? What made America great? Who, or what, made American Exceptionalism? You see, these are things we must know, or we will lose it.  Our founding fathers knew about this. Most of our leaders prior to the 1960s new this, and so that is why we celebrate holidays the way we do. They were not just created as PR stunts to make the economy boom. They were created so we didn't forget; so kids didn't forget how we were made; how the U.S. was made.

Why is America so special? Why is it so prosperous? Why do people want to come here? How did it happen? Who made it possible? How did we get so free?

We must constantly teach our children the answers to these questions, and we must constantly remind ourselves of the answers. And it's for this reason that Columbus Day is so important. For instance, Columbus discovered America for the modern world, not the native Americans. The native Americans (the Indians) were great, but for other reasons. The Indians did not make America; the Indians did not create American Exceptionalism.

Is Pope Francis A Socialist?

The pope says that if you do not give some of what you need, then you are not faithful. If you do not give up some of the money you need, you are not being charitable.  If you are not living like the poor, you are not charitable.  If you are not equal to everyone else, you are not faithful.  If you are not socialist, you are not faithful.  If you are not faithful, you will not living like Jesus.  If you are not living like Jesus, you are not getting to heaven?

Is that not what he is saying?

In other words, he is saying, or so it would seem, that you either need to be poor, or you are not faithful. Seriously, this is what he said. Here, listen to his own words as reported by the  National Catholic Reporter:

Focusing on poverty and sacrificing for the poor are the heart of the Gospel, not signs of Furthermore, if Christians don't dig deep and generously open up their wallets, they do not have 'genuine faith.'

Essentially what he is saying here is that, if you do not open your wallets to the poor, you cannot be faithful. He is saying that you must support big government programs or you are not faithful. So, essentially he is saying that conservatives, like you and me, cannot be faithful.  That is a stretch, to say the least.

The article went further.

He said people often hear, "Oh, this priest speaks about poverty too much, this bishop talks about poverty, this Christian, this sister talk about poverty. Well, they're a bit communist, aren't they?  But "poverty is precisely at the heart of the Gospel. If we were to remove poverty from the Gospel, people would understand nothing about Jesus' message," he said, according to Vatican Radio.Being fully Christian means being rich in spirit, faith, the Word, wisdom and zeal -- things that Jesus has taught and offered all people, he said. Make sure, however, that this huge amount of "wealth in the heart" also impacts the wallet, he said, because "when the faith doesn't reach your pockets, it is not a genuine faith." Pope Francis said the "theology of poverty" is based on the fact that Jesus -- in his divine richness -- became poor; he lowered himself and sacrificed himself to save humanity. The beatitude "Blessed are the poor in spirit" means "letting oneself be enriched by the poverty of Christ and not wanting to be rich with those riches that are not from Christ," he said. Christian giving goes beyond plain charity, which is good, but isn't the "Christian poverty" believers are called to embrace, he said. "Christian poverty is: I give to the poor what is mine, not the excess, but also what is necessary" for one's own well-being. Christians do this because they know that sacrificing in such a way enriches them, he said. "And why does the poor person enrich me? Because Jesus said that he himself is in the poor."  When people strip themselves of the material, "Jesus works within" them and they are enriched; when people give to the poor, Jesus is also working in the poor, "in order to enrich me when I do this," the pope said.

This pretty much defines socialism to a tee.  Socialism means that you take from the rich and give to the poor. It's using the IRS to force people to give to the poor.  The pope is calling this charity. Although, it's not charity, it's welfare; it's socialism; it's communism.

But the pope is saying that Jesus supported communism.  He is saying that you cannot just give your disposable income to charity, you have to give some of what you need. In other words, he is saying that all of us must live in poverty; we must all be poor.

And, if you think of it, that's essentially what socialism is.  The goal of socialism or liberalism or progresivism or whatever you want to call it is to create a euphoric world where everyone makes the same amount of money; we are all equal.

And, if everyone were equal, if there were not rich people, by default, would not that mean that we are all poor.  In essence, socialism is the government Jesus preached, as socialism means that we are all equally poor.

Is this what the pope is implying.  Is this why he hates capitalism?  Is this why the left refers to anyone who lives above their means as evil, greedy, rich people? It would seem so.  And so, I think we are safe to say that our pope, Pope Francis, is indeed a socialist.

Further reading:

• Articulating ideas: What is charity?
• Articulating ideas:  Pope wrong about capitalism
• Breitbart.com: John Kasich Rips ObamaCare Critics For Not Understanding the Bible
• National Catholic Reporter: Concern for poor sign of Gospel, not red flag communism

Myth Buster: Welfare is charity

There is little doubt that the Bible teaches one to give freely to those in need. I have written about it on this blog, and it's called charity. However, there are political and religious figures of late who seem to confuse charity with welfare.

The most recent to fall victim to this was Ohio governor and republican presidential candidate John Kasich. He has been a supporter of Obamacare, and has even allowed for Obamacare welfare expansion in Ohio. 

On October 10, 2015, at an appearance before the Hispanic Chamber of Commerce, he responded to his critics:

"Look at Medicaid expansion. Do you know how many people are yelling at me? I go out to events where people yell at me. You know what I tell 'em? ... I say, there's a book. It's got a new part and an old part; they put it together, it's a remarkable book. If you don't have one, I'll buy you one. It talks about how we treat the poor. Sometimes you just have to lead."

So, essentially he said that welfare is charity. He is saying that you should be willing to give of your well earned money to the government because the government is doing with your money what the Bible preaches, and that is to give it to those in need.

But he is wrong. To understand this, let's look at a couple definitions.

• Charity:  Giving freely to those in need some of what you have. 
• Welfare. The government mandating that you give some of what you earn to others in need.

You see, charity is when you give by your own choice, and welfare is you give because you have to. So welfare, by definition, is not charity. 

Still, there are those, like Kasich, who want you to think welfare is charity. This is how they get large corporations to agree to support big government programs.  This is how get people who work so hard for their money to support the expansion of government.

This is how you get 52% of Catholics to support characters like Bernie Sanders.

Look, Pope Francis has used the myth that charity is welfare to justify his calls in support of government regulations to prevent man made global warming and to help the poor. In response to critics, he said, via the National Catholic Reporter, that...

Focusing on poverty and sacrificing for the poor are the heart of the Gospel, not signs of communism.

The truth is, when God created Israel, he did not tell the people to give money to the Romans. What he did was tell people to leave some of their crops so that the hungry could work to get them. The Bible preached we should help the poor, but that the poor should work for what they get.  In other words, the Bible preached that if you don't work you do not eat.

In this way, the Bible preached charity, not welfare. 

Further reading:

• Articulating ideas: What is charity?
• Articulating ideas:  Pope wrong about capitalism
• Breitbart.com: John Kasich Rips ObamaCare Critics For Not Understanding the Bible
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