I must assume that none of Tom Williams?s friends are Republicans.?? That is because his column last week, ?So, you are a Republican? showed such little knowledge of? us.? (Click here for that column:? http://www.shorenewstoday.com/snt/news/index.php/columns/at-large/50387-at-large-with-tom-williams-g-g-so-you-are-a-republican.html)
Williams began by assuming that? ?a lot? of us Republicans come from ?traditionally Republican? families.??? He quoted statements made by four good, bad, and ugly Republican presidents in the past (Lincoln, Reagan, Eisenhower, and Nixon).? This was supposed to remind us that prominent Republicans of the past opposed war and too much military spending, and wanted to help the poor and elderly. (As if conservative Republicans today don?t.)
Because Williams and his friends are apparently not losing their doctors, paying more money and going through hell to get their health insurance, he called our opposition to ObamaCare ?silly?.??? He called our filibuster against increasing the national debt to $17 trillion ($17,000,000,000,000) ?ridiculous?.?? He claimed we oppose ?anything Obama proposes?.? This implies our opposition must be so personal and irrational, that it must be based on race.
Williams finished with the quote:? ?I buy into the Democratic Party more than the Republican Party because there are over 2,000 verses of Scripture that deal with responding to the needs of the poor?.
First, I and most ?Liberty and Prosperity? Republicans don?t come from ?traditional Republican? families.? Most of us admired Democrat John Kennedy as kids, and we were raised by parents who voted Democrat because they believed Franklin Roosevelt ended the Great Depression rather than prolong it.?? As students, we were thoroughly immersed in the culture and politics of the left.
Second, we became conservative Republicans when we grew up,? got jobs and? responsibilities, and saw how things work in the real world.?? We saw that when Democrats spent billions to end poverty and crime, we got bigger government, higher taxes, fewer jobs–and more poverty and crime.?? When Democrats spent billions to make medical care, college tuition, and flood insurance ?affordable?,? those things became too expensive for anyone but the rich.?? When ?compassionate? Democrats forced us to buy ?free and abundant? solar and wind energy, our electric bills tripled.
We had Democrat welfare programs so long, that we can?t imagine poor people surviving without them.?? But in the heart of the black neighborhoods of Atlantic City, streets are still named after Republican leaders Lincoln, Grant, Blaine, and McKinley.??? No streets are named after Democrat Presidents Wilson or Roosevelt.
Thanks to ?Boardwalk Empire? and a renewed interest in local history,? many blacks in Atlantic City now recognize how their community thrived under Republican liberty in the 1920?s?and disintegrated into crime and poverty with Democrat ?compassion? in the 1960?s.
Local historians like Turiya S.A. Raheem write of how? Atlantic City had dozens of successful black owned hotels, restaurants, nightclubs, construction companies, and other businesses in the 1920?s that continued until the 1960?s..? One of them was the cosmetic company owned by Sarah Spencer Washington, America?s first black female millionaire.?? Taxes then were so low, and most blacks and whites were so well off that an abundance of well-funded churches, private charities, and fraternal organizations generously cared for the widows, orphans, disabled, and others made poor through no fault of their own.
Most people then also read the Bible and were well aware of those verses about the needs of the poor.?? Tithes for the poor are a flat 10%, so as not to discourage the ?rich? from working and producing more to benefit everyone.?? Ruth and Leviticus tell how each farmer had to help the poor?not by giving them food, but by allowing them to work and gather their own food from portions of their fields.
Two of the Ten Commandments condemn stealing and coveting the property of others. Is breaking into my house and stealing $500 any different from voting for Democrats who tax me an extra $500 to pay for government programs that give those Democrat voters $500 benefits?
Even the radical laws of the Jubilee in Leviticus do not support ?progressive? Democrat ?redistribution? of? wealth.?? They simply guarantee freedom, land, and forgiveness of debt every 50 years for those who had bad luck or made bad choices.?? America offered this to all Americans for 350 years, and to black Americans out of the South after the Civil War.
That ended only recently when rich ?progressive? Democrats made zoning? and ?open space? laws to ?save the environment? (and protect the rich and politically connected from competition).