Yes, Paul Ryan Loves Me

Since the Republicans have brought fundamentalist religion into the political sphere, during this holiest of weeks for both Christians and Jews, I do not believe it to be inappropriate to comment on this, particularly after Paul Ryan, who claims to be a Catholic Christian, presented his federal budget in the House of Representatives, and it passed.

Ryan’s budget would gut nearly every social program that is funded by the federal budget.  These include, but are not limited to, programs that help children to have food and medical care; programs that help families over some really tough financial times brought about by asinine policies during the W and Chaney presidency; programs that help the elderly.  Since I try to keep this blog at about 600 words, there is not room to go through the budget in detail, but it would be a disaster for millions of Americans.

There is little or nothing in Ryan’s budget that would raise taxes on the wealthy, close tax loopholes that allow the obscenely rich to keep $3 T+ in overseas accounts to protect that money from being taxed, nor to stop subsidizing oil, gas, and coal industries – industries that are some of the wealthiest corporations in the history of the world.

Bible-banging federal Legislators are fond of going through the Bible and finding single verses that support their position on defunding these programs.  They insist that funding these programs are really detrimental to the people receiving the assistance because it makes the people lazy and unwilling to work.  What amazes me is that they ignore those many, many verses and chapters from both the Old and New Testaments that emphasize love, mercy, justice, and peace.

The fundamentalists in all versions of Christianity like to blame someone else for the death of Jesus.  But I like what Sr. Joan Chittester wrote in, “In Search of Belief”, pg. 119.

“Love, mercy, peace and justice—These are the apogee of human existence…  And they are no more acceptable now than then.  Call for an end to military pulverization carried out in the name of foreign policy initiatives and see what people think of you.  Call for life sentences for those on death row and see how people look at you.  Call for demilitarization in the name of human services and see how fast you’re accused of being unpatriotic.  Call for public daycare centers, wage equity, standardized promotion policies, and universal health insurance instead of abortion and see what happens then to the proclaimed concern for women’s rights.  Call for a distribution of wealth in a world where profit, power, and personal freedom are the gods of the day and see how quickly you lose your place at the tables of the rich and the powerful.  Call the Church to discuss the question of women’s ordination and see how long you are considered pious.  Or, more to the point: Cure lepers on the Sabbath, forgive adultery, refuse to bear a sword, contest systemic evil in both church and state, cure a woman with a hemorrhage of blood and see how long you last in society.  These are the things that put people on crosses.  These are the things the cross is all about.”

Paul Ryan, and the rest of the radical right-wing Republicans are forgetting one of the most germane verses in Matthew 6:24, “No one can serve two masters.  He will either hate one and love the other, or be devoted to one and despise the other.  You cannot serve God and mammon.”  (The definition of mammon is avarice or greed.)

One of my favorite courses in college was the study of John Milton, who wrote Paradise Lost.  It is a wonderful poem and Milton describes the rebellion of some of the angels against God.  In Book II he has one angel trying to convince the other angels onward in their rebellion.  Every time Paul Ryan gets up to discuss his budget, I think of the below passage:

On the other side up rose

Belial, in act more graceful and humane;

For dignity composed and high exploit:

But all was false and hollow, though his tongue

Dropped manna, and could make the worse appear

The better reason, to perplex and dash

Maturest counsels:  for his thoughts were low:

To vice industrious, but to nobler deeds

Timorous and slothful:  yet he pleased the ear,

And with persuasive accent thus began: