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Look, ya'll know I can get as complicated as anyone. But I really don't have to. Case in point:
On Wednesday, digby wrote a piece, "Compassionate Conservatism" in which she quote extensively from an interchange on unemployment insurance between Elliot Spitzer and Ralph Reed, which she intro's by reminding us:
You all recall that Ralph Reed was the head of the Christian Coalition for many years and is still considered a leader of the Christian Right, fully forgiven for all his sins.
And you'll also recall that Elliot Spitzer is an immoral libertine who had to be run out of politics for sleeping with a prostitute. Here' the tail end of the quoted interchange:
SPITZER: It's impossible to get a job out there. You cannot say to those folks -- we should not as a society say, we won't give you enough money to put food on the table for your kids. And the threshold that you're talking about, everybody agrees there should be a threshold. And you know what? We can set it when unemployment gets below 7 percent, 6 percent, 5 percent -- pick a number that we can agree upon that makes sense but not when it's 9.6 percent, or realistically, 16, 17, 18 percent.
This is simply not humane to say to people we won't give you food -- money for food and yet we're giving a tax break to millionaires. That's not the society I believe the United States represents.
REED: Well, that's the problem with making fiscal policy based on the misplaced compassion that doesn't work. The empirical evidence, Eliot, is very clear, which is that people are more likely to reenter the workforce and find a real job that carries with it dignity, self support and no longer being dependent upon the government when those unemployment benefits run out.
That's the empirical evidence.
And then digby says:
The empirical evidence that there are no jobs is simply not relevant to Reed, who evidently truly believes that the long term unemployed are all malingering cheats who need to be "motivated" and that government has no business being compassionate. It's a perfect example of the moral depravity and selfishness of the Christian Right. Meanwhile, it's the horrible (Jewish) commie libertine who's arguing for compassion for his fellow Americans --- as Jesus would surely do.
But this is surely far too intellectual. And far too secular, too.
So, what I want to know is where in the Bible does a poor man come to Jesus, asking what he needs to do to be saved, and Jesus tells him: sell yourself and all your family and all your descendents-to-be into slavery, and take all the money you get and give it to Pharaoh for a tax break.
Just show me one place in the Bible where it says that, and I'll sign up for the GOP economic program--BAM!--just like that.
Otherwise? Not so much.
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