Comments on: Obama: Government should fund faith-based programs

By: José

José — Tue, 08 Jul 2008 21:53:41 +0000

Good grief, Caleb, we haven’t always agreed. I’m sure you were wrong about something at one time!

By: Caleb Powers

Caleb Powers — Tue, 08 Jul 2008 20:23:17 +0000

My God, I find myself agreeing with David and disagreeing with Jose. I suppose, Jose, that, having participated in my first round of election fraud when I was eight years old and having gone downhill since, the thing that I know and understand about politics first and foremost is that it’s all corrupt. All of it. Per se. Absolutely.

Of course, that doesn’t keep me from being a socialist, which I suppose makes me an eternal optimist that the system can work. But I think that its chances of working are seriously compromised when some of the people we get to help with social programs have a bigger agenda somewhere else, such as the propogation of their particular religious beliefs.

And, I do have a philosophical objection to it. I don’t know whether my view of the first amendment comports with that of David, or of Jose, but to me it means that church and state ought to be separated at all costs. If private groups want to do good works, great. If the government wants to do good works, great. But they shouldn’t do them together. And, by the same token, the government ought to keep its hands off religion.

By: José

José — Mon, 07 Jul 2008 21:54:01 +0000

Well, fellas, are you rejecting this based on principle or on practice? Although I’m a big proponent of separation of church and state when it comes to sharing power, it’s not such a big issue in regards to cooperation towards shared goals. But there are a LOT of conditions, and that’s where the “practice” part comes in. If the funds are used only for service missions that are nondiscriminatory. If the funds are distributed fairly, without regard to favoritism of one religion or sect over another. If the funds are managed openly to prevent graft and such. Of course if it turns out that such a partnership is unworkable then sure, we shouldn’t pursue it. But sometimes government programs do a really good job. Maybe I’m just not as pessimistic as you boys.

Or maybe I just don’t have this reflex to reject government involvement out of hand. I hear a lot of folks bad mouth government programs, and sometimes they cite real facts and verifable examples of wasteful and ineffective efforts. But when they bash government, there’s often the unstated assumption that the private sector always operates more efficiently and fairly. That just ain’t so. Look around you–Enron and MCI/Worldcom and the mortgage industry collapse, to name just a few. The problem isn’t government, it’s corruption and mismanagement. It can happen anywhere, and it is preventable.

By: David Duke

David Duke — Mon, 07 Jul 2008 18:56:17 +0000

As much as I would like to disagree with Jose and Caleb [ ], I just have to agree with them on their points, especially Caleb. The only thing I disagree about with Jose is that it wouldn’t have made a differene who was president, if it was run by government it would have been screwed up. I know that our church welfare program needs no help from the goverment and somehow we use it efficiently, fairly and effectively from local to international matters.

While Caleb and I probably disagree on the exact reasoning of this particular clause of the 1st amendment, on this at least we agree.

Having worked for the Health and Welfare Department of the great state of Idaho, I know that the bureaucratic foolishness there only messed things up. I worked with 300 plus families during my time there and I can count on one hand the families that ever “got off the system.”

By: Caleb Powers

Caleb Powers — Thu, 03 Jul 2008 18:08:35 +0000

I don’t agree with “faith based” programs no matter whose faith they’re based on. The right wing used its faith based programs to pay off the right wing religious leaders that supported it, and now the left wing wants to do the same thing. As a left winger myself, I naturally want to believe, as Jose suggests, that we’d do a better job than those pesky Republicans, and that it would all turn out like a good episode of The West Wing. But, deep in my heart, I know we wouldn’t; it would just turn out to be payoffs to the liberal religious leaders for their support. And, because anything liberal is generally held up for public ridicule in our society today, the first headline would be about some program somewhere that questioned the inerrent truth of scripture or some such, and then we’re off to the races, discussing theology, not public policy.

The first amendment exists for a very good reason: Religion and government don’t mix.

By: José

José — Wed, 02 Jul 2008 23:30:18 +0000

It surprises me that this story hasn’t received more discussion and comment, both pro and con.

Like so many other policies over the last few years, the Faith Based Initiative is a good idea in theory but not when managed by President Bush and team. One gets the sense that it was merely a way to reward friends on the Religious Right by channeling them taxpayer dollars. Perhaps this program would be both fair and productive under a different leadership.