These guys never fail to amuse me:
House Budget Committee Chairman Paul Ryan (R-Wis.), whose budget plan recently passed the House in a party-line vote, says his faith contributed in shaping the proposal, which he says is consistent with Catholic teachings.
“A person’s faith is central to how they conduct themselves in public and in private,” Ryan said in an interview released on Tuesday by the Christian Broadcasting Network. “So to me, using my Catholic faith, we call it the social magisterium, which is how do you apply the doctrine of your teaching into your everyday life as a lay person?”
The budget, which cuts about $5 trillion more than the president’s 2013 proposal and would create a “premium support” option for future Medicare recipients, sets up an election-year contrast with Democrats on spending and the debt.
So, according to Ryan, we’ve got a budget that is equal parts Ayn Rand and Jesus, with, ho doubt, some Hayek and Burke thrown in. Fabulous. Nothing could go wrong here, amirite? Except there are some people who would disagree that this budget adheres to the religious principles Ryan thinks it does:
The bishops voiced support for moves to strengthen programs that help the poor and vulnerable, such as Pell Grants and improved workforce training and development. They also opposed moves negatively impacting poor families such as increasing the minimum rent that can be charged to families receiving housing assistance and a proposal to eliminate funding for the DC Opportunity Scholarship Program. The bishops also made the case for protecting programs that help the poor internationally.
“As pastors, we see every day the human consequences of budget choices. Our Catholic community defends the unborn, feeds the hungry, shelters the homeless, educates the young, and cares for the sick, both at home and abroad. We help poor families rise above crushing poverty, resettle refugees fleeing conflict and persecution, and reach out to communities devastated by wars, natural disasters and famines,” the bishops wrote. “The moral measure of this budget debate is not which party wins or which powerful interests prevail, but rather how those who are jobless, hungry, homeless or poor are treated. Their voices are too often missing in these debates, but they have the most compelling moral claim on our consciences and our common resources.”
But, as we all know, the wingnuts only listen to the men in funny hats when it comes to their fetus fetish and any and all panty-sniffing/contraceptives ventures. When it comes to war, the death penalty, and taking care of the poor and the less fortunate, well screw all that. What the hell did Jesus know about Welfare, anyway?
chopper
of course, fucking the poor is right in line with the teachings of Supply Side Jesus.
Martin
Ryan doesn’t add the Hayek and Burke. Those are honorariums applied by the Village. You can aspire to them, but never invoke them yourself. That’s an immediate disqualification of down and loss of 5 WSJ op-eds.
BGinCHI
If Jesus had wanted the meek to inherit anything, he would have mentioned it.
rlrr
Objectivism and Christianity are fundamentally incompatible…
Jim, Foolish Literalist
To be fair, the bishops are a lot easier to her when they start screaming about other people’s sex lives as opposed to clucking their tongues about the poor.
Martin
@BGinCHI: Ah, you’re an originalist then. Good call. It does make things simpler. Just ask Thomas.
Svensker
So, wait. Ryan was raised Catholic? But he’s a Randian Atheist now?
So why is he lying about his Christian/Catholic faith?
BGinCHI
@Martin: I have my doubts about that Thomas dude. Very shifty. And don’t even get me started on Timothy.
David Koch
I wish Rachel Maddow would do a long expose on how Ryan worships Ayn Rand, an atheist who hated God, who said the basis of Christianity “is a monstrous idea”, and that Jesus’ teachings were “immoral”.
Can you imagine if a Democrat worshiped such a person, let alone someone in the leadership of the party. The corporate media would never stop bringing it up to crucifying all Democrats.
Richard
Sadly, it’s become very clear in recent months that those bishops put those admirable priorities well behind their war on women.
Given a choice between helping the poor and denying access to birth control, it’s obvious that they’ve chosen the latter and are in bed with the GOP.
The only good about it is that the stink they are raising won’t go away and the issue won’t stop being a boat anchor around the GOP’s neck.
danimal
@rlrr: If I were advising Obama, I’d tell him to run against Ayn Rand (especially since I believe Romney/Ryan is going to be the GOP ticket). That attack would twist the GOP in knots.
jl
@Jim, Foolish Literalist: They are not easier to hear (I assume you meant ‘hear’ not ‘her’) for me, since for most of them, the hypocrisy still shines through. They will write a letter and go away quietly, until it comes to going apeshit over sex, in which case they will make a big public stink, make invidious public comments about office holders, remove coverage for women’s reproductive health (that they were fine with or didn’t bother to notice until it was convenient for pushing a conservative political agenda).
Deeds, not words, was a watchword of the the J man and the early Christians. And hypocrisy was considered one of the worse sins, rather than a smart tactical move in the ongoing dogma and power wars.
BGinCHI
@Svensker: I predict Romney’s new campaign message will be “I got rich because I’m a Mormon,” and the 27% will instantly get them some Moroni love.
MacKenna
Is Paul Ryan Mitt’s VP choice?
Bubblegum Tate
Would somebody PLEASE PLEASE PLEASE ask Paul Ryan about Ayn Rand’s hatred of religion and force him to reconcile his Ayn-n-Jebus bullshit on the national stage?
Mark S.
Jesus loved everybody, including rich people. Ryan is just trying to do the same, especially the rich people part.
cathyx
This quote by Stephen Colbert fits nicely here:
If this is going to be a Christian nation that doesn’t help the poor, either we’ve got to pretend that Jesus was just as selfish as we are, or we’ve got to acknowledge that he commanded us to love the poor and serve the needy without condition and then admit that we just don’t want to do it.” ~ Stephen Colbert
wasabi gasp
Never doubt the ho.
BGinCHI
Even Jesus would not forgive the part in Ryan’s hair.
PeakVT
U R doin it rong, Paulie.
bemused
Interesting how he can juggle his Catholic faith and his Rand adoration at the same time. He should ask his priest about that sometime.
Culture of Truth
defends the unborn, feeds the hunglalalalalalalalal I can’t hear you
Mark S.
Pastor Rick Warren:
And that’s why the Bible tells us to not care about the poor.
Loneoak
The Catholic bishops might have a little more moral pressure to apply to the GOP budget if they hadn’t made it damned clear to anyone paying attention that they are a wholly owned subsidiary of the party.
Gus diZerega
@Martin: And those who drop their names today mostly demonstrate they never read them or that their reading comprehension level is that of a Tennessee Republican reading Darwin. Hayek, for example, supported a guaranteed annual wage whether you worked or not.
comrade scott's agenda of rage
@Jim, Foolish Literalist:
Fixed.
Brachiator
This would be a hack budget even if it had some Salma Hayek and Brooke Burke thrown in.
Might Ryan be doing a little church whispering to evangelicals and others that he would be a peachy keen VP candidate? Cause he is Catholic and, you know, not Mormon?
Chris
Which wouldn’t be so bad if the people in funny hats actually punished them for it, but they don’t. They’ll put out documents and the occasional statement talking about how they like the poor and we should help the poor and it’s not nice that Republicans are being mean to the poor.
But you can forget about any support from the bishops when it comes to actually crafting policy that supports the poor, as we found out during the health care debate.
Not all Catholic institutions in the U.S. are bad. But as far as the bishops go, they’re just an arm of the Republican Party.
fasteddie9318
@Jim, Foolish Literalist: I’m glad somebody pointed this out. The meek whispers you get from the funny hat boytoy brigade about issues of social justice are easily ignored, as opposed to the shrieking they do when it comes to what’s happening in a woman’s uterus, or any initiative that might possibly approach treating queers more or less as human beings. Good Catholics like Ricky will die on Contraception Hill, but when it comes to the poor, not so much.
David Koch
@danimal: This.
jl
@fasteddie9318: Oops, I misinterpreted J, FL’s comment. I agree with his comment. Another case, for most of the bishops, of hypocrites condemning themselves out of their own mouths.
General Stuck
Yea, right. This is the sekrit wink and nod for tax cuts . Or, what one priest said to other priest, get yer own boy to bugger, this one is mine
the Conster (f/k/a Cat Lady)
The Granny Starver (R) was on Morning Ho this am, and of the approximately 1 minute I could stand to listen to his quick talking stream of bullshit, it’s clear even Mika can make him squirm. He’s going to be in a world of hurt if he’s the VP, because he can’t answer a single question straightforwardly about what programs he would cut. He keeps saying the word “reform”. That’s not going to work during the general and outside of Faux.
pragmatism
@bemused: @rlrr: Young Conor tried to tackle this dilly of a pickle last year. He starts out saying, “of course they aren’t compatible.” But…since the mean old libruls were “attacking” the Ayn/Jesus connection, he channels the illegitimate child of the Mustache of Understanding and Bobo and talks about a friend of his that is a fireman who is a great man who thinks that they are compatible and says that because neither the bible nor AS are infallible, they don’t contradict each other.
Fucking hell.
http://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2011/06/must-christian-voters-choose-between-ayn-rand-and-jesus/239944/
Ash Can
I’m just sure that all those bishops who have suddenly decided to play hardball in enforcing Church policies on contraception and gay marriage are going to start falling over themselves, any minute now, to put the word out to deny Ryan communion for his clearly-expressed anti-Catholic policies. Yep, any minute now…
::crickets::
the fugitive uterus
there is NOTHING, i repeat, NOTHING remotely Christian about the Ryan budget. Where are the liberal Protestants?
General Stuck
Often they do moi, as well. For this particular gem of tea tardian priest approved goody good bullshit made me vomit, a little, in my mouth. And begs the question, “where can we locate the eggs hatching these soul less creatures, and then go full Lootennit Ripley on them with a hammer.
the fugitive uterus
btw, teen pregnancies are at an all time low. This is horrible! Are these young ladies practicing birth control? Are they going to hell? What about their partners?
cathyx
@the fugitive uterus: I’ll swear that the reason that conservatives want to do away with birth control is that then they will know if their daughters are having sex.
ET
There have been a whole host of TV preachers, “religious” politicians who despite their avowed faith do not make their faith “central to how they conduct themselves in public and in private,” They may say they do, but their actions are often completely opposite of that. And in my world actions speak louder than words and their actions tell everyone more about them than they realize.
Comrade Dread
Oh, no, the GOP still listens to the church on matters of money, they just listen to the church of Mammon.
General Stuck
Also known as Russian Roolette at the CircusCircus Casssino on Wall Street Vegas. Every senior gets a Deer Hunter DVD and improved burial benny.
bemused
@pragmatism:
Thanks for the link. Astonishing. Such hypocrisy. People can justify anything to do exactly what they want to do.
Mike E
OT Anybody ever catch Joyce Meyer on the TotalChristianTeevee? Every once in awhile I linger on this channel on my way to some other network (sorta like a shortstop touches 2nd base to complete a double play).
She preaches actual teachings of Jesus, like helping others, and calls out so-called prosperity gospel types. Commendable considering what usually passes as theology from that camp.
Also, she’s big into calling out personality disorder types too. Narcissism is the turd in our punchbowl o’ life, imho.
As well.
BDeevDad
@Mark S.: I love this quote from Rick Warren?
So stop giving to the poor. Jesus H. Christ!
nellcote
Is this for real? Color me finally shocked.
Heliopause
Let’s go back to Jesus for a moment. Fact is, the early followers of this character were somewhat convinced that worldly matters such as budgeting weren’t terribly important. That goes for the Bishops’ position as well as that of Ryan, by the way. The idea of improving the social order through the budgetary decisions of secular authorities would have seemed preposterous to them. In short, anybody who tells you that they are setting U.S. federal budget priorities according to the precepts of Jesus, regardless of whether it’s Ryan or the Bishops, is making shit up.
Delia
@the fugitive uterus:
In the Democratic Party, pointing out that Ayn Rand and Christianity are totally incompatible.
@pragmatism: That Conor piece? He’s the perfect embodiment of Colbert’s onscreen character. He describes his fictional fireman buddy: “It’s just what he felt to be true.” The perfect example of truthiness.
PurpleGirl
@bemused: I think it’s time the bishops thought about an excommunication — his. Rand and Jesus are irreconcilable. He should be forced to choose.
mclaren
The interesting fact, philosophically, is that Ayn Rand is 100% diametrically opposed to Jesus’ teachings. If you look at what Jesus said, it’s classic hardcore hippie stuff: give away all your possessions, help the poor, be humble, and so forth.
Ayn Rand, by contrast, is pure Neitzsche: “The Virtue of Selfishness,” crush the weak, grab everything you can any way you can.
It’s amazing that people can spout both of these belief systems without even realizing that they’re completely contradictory. It’s like someone who claims to be a “devout fascist communist” or “an unapologetic jingoist bigoted America-first devotee of multiracial inclusionary nonjudgmentalism.” These things do not go together.
Delia
@mclaren:
Rand is worse than Nietzsche. Nietzsche at least had the virtue of being inconsistent, and renounced the most dreadful of his associates, like Wagner and his virulently anti-Semitic sister. The cults that grew up around him were not of his personal making. Unlike Rand, who reveled in them.
Chris
@mclaren:
Ayn Rand is the role model they want to follow, Jesus Christ is the role model they know they should follow.
So they find ways to rationalize their Randism in Christian terms – e.g, of course we should help the poor, but because capitalism is the most efficient thing ever, the best way to help the poor is to be selfish! And they cling to those rationalizations even more tightly than to their religious beliefs, because if they ever accepted that they might be wrong about laissez-faire capitalism, they’d have to face the fact that they’re actually being very shitty Christians.
El Cid
Rather than an informed perspective, I’d just like to say that I fucking hate these fucks.