Travis Rowley: Conservative Hypocrisy - The Liberal Escape
Saturday, October 26, 2013
With all the ignorance one should now expect, it is with reliable repetition that we view liberals mocking Republicans – members of a political party with a reputation for housing the “Christian Right” – for their hypocritical disdain for the poor and sick.
This is how progressives are trained to deal with people who confront them with superior notions of limited government, people opposed to the existence of a welfare state – by employing a charge of hypocrisy that may irritate the observing masses, placing Republicans under suspicion of some ulterior motive.
Why don’t these Christians want to help the poor?
We already know that leftists crutch their inferior arguments by relying on charges of racism and cruelty against conservatives. Just as common, however, is this charge of hypocrisy – which serves the same purpose.
To answer this attack, conservatives should learn to first point out that a charge of hypocrisy is not a sufficient replacement for making one’s own case regarding a specific policy.
The next time a progressive gleefully points out that a priest was found guilty of child molestation, or that a family-values Republican was caught cheating on his wife, there should always be someone there to remind him that the hypocrisy of a conservative – someone who actually admits to moral standards and truths – is hardly a strong justification for liberal policy; that the Right’s hypocrisy is not the Left’s virtue.
If a Christian preacher speaks to his congregation each week of the evils of murder, rape and theft, but is suddenly found to be guilty of all three misdeeds himself, who would then decide that the preacher’s ideas must have been flawed?
This type of logic is the best way to remind everyone that – no matter how many pedophile priests progressives manage to locate – it is still incumbent upon progressives to formulate actual arguments.
This type of logic is also the best way to illustrate the fact that the Left’s obsession with conservatives’ personal shortcomings is the pathetic byproduct of their own internalized insecurity regarding their own ideology – and their inability to defend it.
Real Christianity
Of course, by virtue of being a liberal, liberals – people who are typically caught mocking the entire notion of religion – are entirely misinformed when it comes to anything that has to do with Christianity. I mean, it would be much easier to have a conversation with liberals if they hovered anywhere close to actual Christian philosophy, rather than carrying on with some pop-culture media perception of a naive middle-aged couple who’s supposed to be nice to everyone – no matter what.
Aren’t you Christian!?
Perhaps the most egregious Biblical perversion by the Religious Left is its claim that Jesus of Nazareth was a socialist. Criticizing Bill O’Reilly’s new book Killing Jesus, Notre Dame Professor of the New Testament Candida Moss said, “There’s no mention of the free healthcare offered by Jesus and his followers or the insistence that the wealthy give away their possessions.”
And in a 2006 radio interview, President Obama’s spiritual advisor Jim Wallis was asked if he was “calling for the redistribution of wealth in society?” Wallis replied, “Absolutely, without any hesitation. That's what the Gospel is all about.”
Wallis and Moss are, of course, never harassed for ignoring the sacred “separation between church and state.”
More to the point, neither of them can actually point to a Gospel passage in which Jesus or His apostles preach about the holiness of surrendering one’s wealth to man-made power structures. Neither of them can point to a passage in which Jesus condemned people who resisted attempts by others to invade and confiscate their property.
Still, liberals remain convinced that the only people in Heaven are the cooperative peasants of the Soviet Union.
If liberals wish to continue lying to themselves, that is one thing. But they should be stopped in their tracks whenever they attempt to convince others that taxation is akin to charity; that the same moral dimension exists when something is taken, and when something is freely given; that government coercion is Christian love.
There is no hypocrisy on the part of Christian Republicans. It’s just that liberals falsely associate socialism with philanthropy, rather than with its true nature – which is force. And true Christians understand that tyranny is an insult to the Christian life.
Travis Rowley (TravisRowley.com) is the author of The RI Republican: An Indictment of the Rhode Island Left.
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