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Thursday, May 14, 2015

Republicans And The Poor: The Rhetoric And The Reality

"The Hard, Central Truth Of Contemporary Conservatism"


Rep. Paul Ryan's (R-Wis.) rhetoric on poverty doesn't match his policies. "Some of his ideas on the topic are worthwhile — he's right that the Earned Income Tax Credit needs to be increased — and the fact that a major national politician has taken an interest in the topic at all is a cheering development. But for all Ryan's rhetoric on poverty, he's also the author of a series of budgets that would absolutely wreck programs for the American poor, inflicting massive human suffering on the nation's most vulnerable residents. ... It's the budget of someone who wants a smaller government, a lower deficit, no new taxes, and a gigantic army and has decided to make all those other promises work out by massively cutting programs for the poor. The simple fact of Ryan's budgets is that they prove he doesn't take poverty all that seriously, at least not when it collides with his other budgetary promises." Vox.

"Is Perfectionism A Curse? Paul Ryan Tells The Truth"

"The terrible thing about our time is precisely the ease with which theories can be put into practice.  The more perfect, the more idealistic the theories, the more dreadful is their realization.  We are at last beginning to rediscover what perhaps men knew better in very ancient times, in primitive times before utopias were thought of: that liberty is bound up with imperfection, and that limitations, imperfections, errors are not only unavoidable but also salutary. The best is not the ideal.  Where what is theoretically best is imposed on everyone as the norm, then there is no longer any room even to be good.  The best, imposed as a norm, becomes evil.”  
"Conjectures of a Guilty Bystander,” by Trappist monk, Father Thomas Merton
More Merton Quotes

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