Nominating someone who doesn’t believe in government to be Vice President is like recommending someone with a flamethrower to be assistant fire chief. Would you go a surgeon who didn’t believe in medicine, or a plumber who didn’t believe in running water? Why would anyone vote for a Vice President who has said he doesn’t believe in the job?
Jim, Jim, Jim! I can’t believe you are taking this tack because if there is anyone I know who understands that the role of the church is not promote or protect itself, it is you. You believe in following Jesus as a guide to authentic living. You believe in Jesus’s way. For you, the bible and the church are tools that can be used for this purpose but are often used a clubs to beat others. In some ways, I suspect, you would agree with the statement “I don’t believe in the church or the bible.” (at least the way they are turned into idols). Then the question comes, how can you be a leader in that in which you do not believe.
Jim, I want to make clear what I’m saying: I think you are a living example of faithfulness to Jesus Christ, and I would sit at your feet and learn, and even follow you in a lot of directions. However, that is true because of your radical commitment to the truth, the whole truth and nothing but truth. You follow where the evidence (including the Spirit) lead.
I don’t know much about Paul Ryan. I understand that you have a great interest in seeing BO re-elected. However, your immediate response seems to turn negative.
My own bias are towards smaller government, and a thriving economy in which all people have meaningful vocation and compassionate care. I believe in progressive taxation, but I also believe in raising everyones’ taxes, including the poor, to begin to reduced the national debt. I believe that we need to be willing to reduce our “standards of living” so that everyone can live with dignity. I believe that the greatest threat to the poor and middle class is the national debt, which can totally devalue the value of the dollar. It can make Social Security meaningless when bread is $10 a loaf. That’s what will happen unless the national debt is handled responsively.
Walt, thanks for writing. If you go through my blogs you will see crititism of Obama as well. As far as the debt, corporate profits have never been higher. That wealth has not trickled down, but has been hoarded by a very small group of people. If the Bush tax cuts had not happened, nor the wars of Bush and Obama, nor the crimes of Wall Street, we wouldn’t have a deficit. Why should the poor pay for the sins of the rich?