Honestly, this is of a piece with the type of things that drove me away from the church, beginning the move toward becoming an ex-Christian.  Because I still remember what I was taught growing up in church, and because the ideals of that still mean something to me, I find this type of thing nauseating–literally nauseating.

Warren seems to be working hard at setting himself up to be last in line in Heaven.  But how he can possibly think he is behaving in a Christ-like manner is beyond me.  Is Warren a fraud through-and-through, or has he just been corrupted by wealth and fame?

This is a really silly thing on which to base an entire blog post; it’s obvious from the context that he was referring to income taxes.  It would be like saying that candidate Barack Obama lied when he said he visited 57 states.

“The poor are freeloaders who have it so much easier than we do,” is a
lie that rich people have been repeating to one another for thousands of
years, and I don’t believe that Rick Warren is the first one actually
dumb enough to really believe it.

I actually hope that he’s dumb enough to believe it, instead of deliberately lying to help one of the political parties. I had this impression that he was different from the Jerry Falwells and Pat Robertsons in that he wouldn’t blame 9/11 on abortionists and gays and feminists. Silly me.

Don’t try to compare Warren’s inflammatory demagoguery with Obama’s stupid slip of the tongue. Whether he meant all taxes or income taxes is irrelevant, because the statement works either way as an incitement to hate and resent the poor.

It really does not matter whether he’s referring to income taxes or not. The statement has no purpose except as a base slur on non-rich people (not even poor people as such, since he’s talking about a whole half of the population).

You’re just pushing the question up a level – why should federal income taxes be treated as more significant than sales taxes, payroll taxes, and all the other ways in which the various levels of government take money from rich and poor alike?

You’re just pushing the question up a level – why should federal income taxes be treated as more significant than sales taxes, payroll taxes, and all the other ways in which the various levels of government take money from rich and poor alike?

Rick Warren has never had an easy relationship with the truth.

http://wakingupnow.com/blog/rick-warrens-holiday-lie 

It is a tweet. It is 140 characters long. It is not like Fred took this from a long essay regarding federal income taxes. There is no “context” that can make this lie a truth. 

Why would whether or not I pay taxes have any bearing on my opinions on raising taxes on someone else?

If I’m getting taxed for 50% of my income, I’m just as likely to selfishly say
“Yeah, tax the hell out of that other guy.” Probably even more likely.

The funny (sob, sob) thing is that Rick Warren draws a half a mil a year in salary. 

I’ve heard so many people sing his praises because he gives away royalties from his book… it’s as though Jesus never told the story about the widow’s mite. I refuse to listen to anything said by people who get rich while purporting to tell other people what God is like. It’s not so much “the blind leading the blind” as it is “the blind making mud pies out of their own turds and then convincing the hoi polloi to eat them.”

We Americans are – almost all of us – all rich (globally and historically speaking). It’s time we start acknowledging the whole camel, eye-of-needle thing, and look for our leaders in the rare places where money doesn’t reign supreme. 

That said, I once again don’t agree with you that people who say these sorts of things are deliberately lying. I think stupidity and an endless campaign of devoted self-deception is a much more likely explanation. 

I once again don’t agree with you that people who say these sorts of things are deliberately lying.

In my case, I didn’t make a blanket statement like that. I postulated that someone as influential as Warren may be deliberately lying because his words have tremendous influence and he seems to be politically partisan.

I once again don’t agree with you that people who say these sorts of things are deliberately lying.

In my case, I didn’t make a blanket statement like that. I postulated that someone as influential as Warren may be deliberately lying because his words have tremendous influence and he seems to be politically partisan.

Sadly, I’m not surprised that Warren thinks this. I’m just surprised that he was stupid enough to say it publicly.

Sadly, I’m not surprised that Warren thinks this. I’m just surprised that he was stupid enough to say it publicly.

It took me a moment to realize what was meant – because when I hear “don’t pay taxes” I think “corrupt super-rich executives”. 

*He was bearing false witness. He was bearing witness that he knew to be false.*

And there will not now nor ever in future be a single consequence to his lying. Except that he will gain more followers.

He’s probably thinking that “those people” don’t pay any taxes.  Because everyone knows that “those people” are freeloaders.

I think “Multinational Corporation”.
Remember, if you paid anything in US Federal Income Taxes last year, you paid more then General Electric.
But I bet you didn’t make anywhere near as much as they did, though.

Funny how guys like Warren never seem to feel resentful of the super rich who pay no income taxes or no corporate taxes (like General Electric) thanks to loopholes. Just hatred for low income people who pay a higher percentage of their income in taxes but a lower overall dollar amount than a “hardworking, real Amurcan” like himself. Though that is debatable in his case since he gets so many breaks for being the head of a religious organization.

Is he planning to run for office? He used to go around lying and saying that he wasn’t interested in politics, but a statement like that is definitely political and definitely not Christian.

“It’s time we start acknowledging the whole camel, eye-of-needle thing…”

We already have. Why do you think tour guides in Israel have to keep pointing out that there was never a gate known by that name?

A few weeks ago at my boyfriend’s church the preacher said half of American’s receive a check from the government. (I can’t remember if he specified federal or not.) I was spent the rest of the sermon trying to figure out how you get to that kind of number. And being a sermon, I couldn’t exactly ask for clarification.

don’t you dare try to suggest that property owners don’t pass that cost along to their renters

When I was living in Minnesota some years back, I used to get an annual notice from my landlord specifying how much of my apartment rent was going toward the property tax of the building I lived in. I assume this was solely due to a law that required it, because I could deduct part of the amount from my state income tax.

It’s funny, because both halves of the statement are demonstrably untrue- look at the Tea Party, which is largely comprised of people who not only do not earn enough to pay meaningful income tax, but often actually collect Social Security on disability and so forth. And they _hate_ taxes.

I seriously wish people were more selfish about seeing taxes that won’t affect them raised- otherwise they wouldn’t be so easily sold on, say, eliminating the estate tax. 

By all means, argue that Warren’s statement was “inflammatory demagoguery” and “an incitement to hate and resent the poor.”

A primary point of the post was that Warren had deliberately told a factual lie.

The Purpose-Driven Lie
 
Stupid or evil? Both. That’s such an old lie, told so often by old liars and debunked so frequently that Warren can’t have believed it unless he had spent the previous three decades somewhere with no television, no radio, no newspapers and no Bibles.
 
The nasty lie he told was not a faux pas, or an innocent bit of misinformation.
 
First of all, he knew it was not true.
 
He was bearing false witness. He was bearing witness that he knew to be false.

etc., etc.

But he wasn’t lying.  He expressed himself poorly.  

No reasonable person can believe that Obama claimed to have visited 57 states.  It’s obvious from the context that he meant 47 states. 

Similarly, no reasonable person can believe that Warren was suggesting that poor people don’t pay sales taxes on their purchases, gas taxes on their fuel consumption, etc.  Moreover, the current national debate is on raising federal income taxes — particularly for the top wage earners — not sales taxes or gas taxes.  In that context, it’s obvious that Warren was referring to federal income taxes.

By all means, argue that Warren’s statement was “inflammatory demagoguery” and “an incitement to hate and resent the poor.”

A primary point of the post was that Warren had deliberately told a factual lie.

The Purpose-Driven Lie
 
Stupid or evil? Both. That’s such an old lie, told so often by old liars and debunked so frequently that Warren can’t have believed it unless he had spent the previous three decades somewhere with no television, no radio, no newspapers and no Bibles.
 
The nasty lie he told was not a faux pas, or an innocent bit of misinformation.
 
First of all, he knew it was not true.
 
He was bearing false witness. He was bearing witness that he knew to be false.

etc., etc.

But he wasn’t lying.  He expressed himself poorly.  

No reasonable person can believe that Obama claimed to have visited 57 states.  It’s obvious from the context that he meant 47 states. 

Similarly, no reasonable person can believe that Warren was suggesting that poor people don’t pay sales taxes on their purchases, gas taxes on their fuel consumption, etc.  Moreover, the current national debate is on raising federal income taxes — particularly for the top wage earners — not sales taxes or gas taxes.  In that context, it’s obvious that Warren was referring to federal income taxes.

He’s sorry if you all thought what he wrote was mean. There, all better now.

 This is a really silly thing on which to base an entire blog post; it’s obvious from the context that he was referring to federal income taxes.  It would be like saying that candidate Barack Obama lied when he said he visited 57 states.  

Assuming that he was strictly referring to federal income taxes he was still lying. It’s deceptive to say that half of the population doesn’t pay any federal income taxes. It’s also not true that people who pay no federal income taxes are the only people who think we have to raise revenue in order to deal with the federal budget.

 This is a really silly thing on which to base an entire blog post; it’s obvious from the context that he was referring to federal income taxes.  It would be like saying that candidate Barack Obama lied when he said he visited 57 states.  

Assuming that he was strictly referring to federal income taxes he was still lying. It’s deceptive to say that half of the population doesn’t pay any federal income taxes. It’s also not true that people who pay no federal income taxes are the only people who think we have to raise revenue in order to deal with the federal budget.

 This is a really silly thing on which to base an entire blog post; it’s obvious from the context that he was referring to federal income taxes.  It would be like saying that candidate Barack Obama lied when he said he visited 57 states.  

Assuming that he was strictly referring to federal income taxes he was still lying. It’s deceptive to say that half of the population doesn’t pay any federal income taxes. It’s also not true that people who pay no federal income taxes are the only people who think we have to raise revenue in order to deal with the federal budget.

Why would the rich resent the poor?  I don’t know, but maybe I have an idea, because I’ve resented people I had no business resenting before.  I’ve been filled with bitter resentment for the people who fed me, the people who protected me, the people who educated me, and the people who showed me I could do anything I set my mind to BECAUSE they did all those things.   Because this was during times of my life when more than anything else, I wanted to forget about all of my goals and obligations and just lay in bed all day, and I couldn’t do that, because I had no excuse, because of everything everyone had done for me.

Why would the rich resent the poor?  I don’t know, but maybe I have an idea, because I’ve resented people I had no business resenting before.  I’ve been filled with bitter resentment for the people who fed me, the people who protected me, the people who educated me, and the people who showed me I could do anything I set my mind to BECAUSE they did all those things.   Because this was during times of my life when more than anything else, I wanted to forget about all of my goals and obligations and just lay in bed all day, and I couldn’t do that, because I had no excuse, because of everything everyone had done for me.

Yes, God forbid we should hold a public figure accountable for the things he says in public.

Also? How the fuck do you know that Warren wasn’t deliberately lying? It’s *not* that obvious from context. Yeah, reasonable people know better–but Warren and his followers have proven themselves to be anything but reasonable, over and over and over again. Why the hell should we give them the benefit of the doubt? 

Yes, God forbid we should hold a public figure accountable for the things he says in public.

Also? How the fuck do you know that Warren wasn’t deliberately lying? It’s *not* that obvious from context. Yeah, reasonable people know better–but Warren and his followers have proven themselves to be anything but reasonable, over and over and over again. Why the hell should we give them the benefit of the doubt? 

Yes, God forbid we should hold a public figure accountable for the things he says in public.

Also? How the fuck do you know that Warren wasn’t deliberately lying? It’s *not* that obvious from context. Yeah, reasonable people know better–but Warren and his followers have proven themselves to be anything but reasonable, over and over and over again. Why the hell should we give them the benefit of the doubt? 

Yes, God forbid we should hold a public figure accountable for the things he says in public.

Also? How the fuck do you know that Warren wasn’t deliberately lying? It’s *not* that obvious from context. Yeah, reasonable people know better–but Warren and his followers have proven themselves to be anything but reasonable, over and over and over again. Why the hell should we give them the benefit of the doubt? 

What I resent are the people who pay no taxes by trying to “cheat” the system out of collecting them.  I simply want to see them pay their share as honestly as I try to pay mine. 

Also: bugger off, you corporate-apologist pedantic little drone.

Also: bugger off, you corporate-apologist pedantic little drone.

Similarly, no reasonable person can believe that Warren was
suggesting that poor people don’t pay sales taxes on their purchases,
gas taxes on their fuel consumption, etc.

But plenty of Republicans try to get people to forget about them and/or treat them as though they somehow don’t count as “real” taxes – just like they do with illegal immigrants. Rick Warren almost certainly knew that those other taxes existed, but he was betting on his audience either not knowing or being made to forget. I’d still call that lying.

“So they’re happy for tax rates to be raised on the other half that DOES pay any taxes.”

Actually, I’m pretty sure they’d be happier if they simply got paid enough to share the income tax burden, Pastor Warren, but guys like you also whine whenever the minimum wage is raised even slightly.

If you feel like you’re paying too much income tax, there’s an easy solution for your pain.

> If I’m getting taxed for 50% of my income, I’m just as likely to selfishly say
> “Yeah, tax the hell out of that other guy.” Probably even more likely.

And this is one of the most pervasive lies about the American tax structure that the Poor Rich People bandy about.  “Being taxed on” 50% of one’s income (or an even higher percentage, back in *other* Republican presidents’ days), is actually an overly-simplified statement and does NOT mean that one pays half of one’s income IN taxes and keeps the other half.  Our system uses progressive tax brackets, in an attempt to balance out the income tax burden on its citizens.  (Or that was the intent, at any rate.)

“When implementing a progressive tax with increasing percentage rates, the percentage of tax of each dollar increases as the total revenue (or income) increases. For example, a tax of 15% on all income earned up to $50,000, plus a tax of 25% on each dollar earned between $50,001 and $100,000, plus a tax of 34% of all income earned above $100,000. The United States currently uses increasing percentage rates in the form of tax brackets.” source, the ever-helpful Wikipedia, lol….  And our tax bracket structure is actually more complicated than that.

So in the cases of these deceptive Poor Rich People who publicly bemoan those “lucky poor” who pay “so much less in taxes,” they’re usually just using the percentage of the highest tax bracket that they pay as a comparison, and not the total percentage of all their income.  And one must never overlook just how much of their actual income is hidden away in offshore accounts, tax breaks, tax shelters, etc. etc. ad nauseum.

This has struck me for some time as one of Fred’s odder traits: the repeated refusal to believe that people find cognitive dissonance as easy to exercise (consciously or not) as they do.

I have no trouble believing that Warren can believe this. He just may never have thought about it critically without taking it as an axiom. People like thinking of themselves as the underdog (i.e., virtuous), and that draws their attention to their own problems. They note that lower classes lack the particular problems they have and fail to put this in the perspective of the privileges which vastly outweigh those problems (my understanding is that the human mind isn’t very good at perspective and scale). Self-righteous indignation ensues. If you observe that Their desires are in opposition to yours, that feeds back into the underdog effect, especially because the poor outnumber the wealthy.

The whole thing rests on a foundation of self-righteousness. And that foundation is stable, often stabler than reason.

Warren’s tweet was 127 characters; he could have used up to 13 more. Adding the word “income” before tax only uses 6. There really is no excuse for that omission except to mislead, and I think you know it.

The current national debate is on raising federal income taxes — particularly for the top wage earners — not sales taxes or gas taxes.

In that context, it’s obvious that Warren was referring to federal income taxes.
 

You want to talk context? Go ahead and look at who else has used that exact quote. (“Half of Americans pay no taxes”) You’ll see that phrase is spoken exclusively by Republicans, always in the context of arguing for tax breaks for the wealthy.

The current national debate is not about just raising federal income taxes. The current debate is about the relative importance of cutting spending versus raising revenue. (which includes not only raising marginal income tax rates, but also closing loopholes in the tax code, changing the corporate and capital gains tax rates, and other elements)  

Saying “half of America pays no taxes” implies very, very clearly that revenue could and should be raised by taxing the “half that pays no taxes” rather than raising the rates on those who “do pay taxes”. No reasonable person could infer anything different from that statement.

Also, is it strictly speaking true that tax rates are going to be raised on everyone who pays taxes (more than half or no)? I thought rates were only going up on incomes over $250k.

HALF of America pays NO taxes. Zero. So they’re happy for tax rates to be raised on the other half that DOES pay any taxes.

I took this tweet to a character-counting app, and it has 123 characters – Warren had plenty of room left to insert “income” in the phrase “NO taxes”. And yet, somehow, he completely neglected to include a single word that would indicate he was talking about one specific type of tax rather than all taxes in general. And not a single one of his other tweets for the last few days contains a reference to taxes, income or otherwise. 

Similarly, no reasonable person can believe that Warren was
suggesting that poor people don’t pay sales taxes on their purchases,
gas taxes on their fuel consumption, etc.

I would say no reasonable person could believe that Warren wasn’t blatantly lying and deliberately claiming exactly that.

So, it seems, the one thing we can take from this exchange is that neither of us considers the other a reasonable person.

Similarly, no reasonable person can believe that Warren was
suggesting that poor people don’t pay sales taxes on their purchases,
gas taxes on their fuel consumption, etc.

I would say no reasonable person could believe that Warren wasn’t blatantly lying and deliberately claiming exactly that.

So, it seems, the one thing we can take from this exchange is that neither of us considers the other a reasonable person.

Also, is it strictly speaking true that tax rates are going to be raised
on everyone who pays taxes (more than half or no)? I thought rates were
only going up on incomes over $250k.

This is, I believe, the inferred point of Fred’s argument.  By deliberately leaving out this clarification, one can make it seem like it’s all about everyone’s taxes being raised.  It ignites the Fear And Resentment response, which drowns out the other side’s reason-based arguments and rebuttals. 

Fred’s point, I believe, was about lying-by-omission and lying-by-misleading, not “lying-by-literal-flat-wording-of-statement.”

Also, is it strictly speaking true that tax rates are going to be raised
on everyone who pays taxes (more than half or no)? I thought rates were
only going up on incomes over $250k.

This is, I believe, the inferred point of Fred’s argument.  By deliberately leaving out this clarification, one can make it seem like it’s all about everyone’s taxes being raised.  It ignites the Fear And Resentment response, which drowns out the other side’s reason-based arguments and rebuttals. 

Fred’s point, I believe, was about lying-by-omission and lying-by-misleading, not “lying-by-literal-flat-wording-of-statement.”

Also, is it strictly speaking true that tax rates are going to be raised
on everyone who pays taxes (more than half or no)? I thought rates were
only going up on incomes over $250k.

This is, I believe, the inferred point of Fred’s argument.  By deliberately leaving out this clarification, one can make it seem like it’s all about everyone’s taxes being raised.  It ignites the Fear And Resentment response, which drowns out the other side’s reason-based arguments and rebuttals. 

Fred’s point, I believe, was about lying-by-omission and lying-by-misleading, not “lying-by-literal-flat-wording-of-statement.”

 It took me a moment to realize what was meant – because when I hear “don’t pay taxes” I think “corrupt super-rich executives”.  

Three words: Hedge. Fund. Managers. 

 Remember, if you paid anything in US Federal Income Taxes last year, you paid more then General Electric.
But I bet you didn’t make anywhere near as much as they did, though.  

I bet you also didn’t outsource nearly as many jobs. 

He expressed himself poorly.

The usual response when someone expresses themselves poorly or incorrectly, and it is pointed out to them is, “I’m sorry, what I meant was…” Warren has completely failed to do this. So, no.

It’s not irrelevant.  It’s the difference between a lie (which he intentionally told knowing it to be untrue, as is asserted) or a mistake.  Both are bad.  Both are indeed “incitement to hate and resent the poor.”  But it’s still unfair to call it a lie, much less an INTENTIONAL one, if it wasn’t.  I expect better from Fred.  He could have condemned the words for what they deserved to be condemned for without calling Warren a liar when it’s pretty obvious that he wasn’t even considering half the things (non-income taxes, for example) that he accuses Warren of having in mind when he said the statement.

 And being a sermon, I couldn’t exactly ask for clarification.  

Doesn’t your minister do that receiving line-style thing after the service where he stands in the back and shakes hands with people as they leave? You should totally have asked then. 

“Assuming that he was strictly referring to federal income taxes he was still lying.”

I’ll agree to this.  However, if we leave out non-income taxes, much of the support for the argument that Warren KNEW he was lying is gutted.  That’s where I think Fred went too far.

  In that context, it’s obvious that Warren was referring to federal income taxes. 

Which does not in any way change the fact that Warren is A) wrong, B) either knows that he’s wrong or is the biggest idiot ever and C) said what he did out of nasty, BS resentment of the poor. 

IOW, Rick Warren is an asshole. 

Surely, it’s obvious (and sorry for calling you Shirley).  If you can keep resentment stoked up against the others who are cheating you and/or sponging off you, you don’t have to think about your duty towards them as poor towards whom the bible enjoins you to be generous.
It’s not that you are ignoring your biblical duty – it’s that They don’t deserve the help – and be sure you don’t try and think your way through the noise of your own self-righteousness.

He does but it’s my boyfriend’s pastor at his home church, really small community, very conservative…I mostly keep my mouth shut.

 He does but it’s my boyfriend’s pastor at his home church, really small community, very conservative…I mostly keep my mouth shut.  

I totally understand. I go to church strictly to keep the peace in my family (left to my own devices I’d never step foot in a church again) and my BIL is the minister. It’s a wonder I haven’t bitten the tip of my tongue right off. 

It took me a moment to realize what was meant – because when I hear
“don’t pay taxes” I think “corrupt super-rich executives”.

Yup! I was somewhat shocked when Fred started railing on the guy – not recognising the name “Rick Warren”, I’d completely assumed that his tweet was referring to the rich who dodge taxes through loopholes and careful asset management. The “50%” figure seemed odd, but I didn’t really think about it, since it sounded like the kind of largely hyperbolic number people make up on the spot to illustrate their points. Took me a minute before the thought occured that Warren was talking about the poor, and even then, my first thought was “Well, hang on, that can’t be what he meant. That would be a really silly thing to say.”

Even simpler: taxES? It’s fairly common to say “tax” for income tax, but I’ve never heard anyone refer to a single tax as “taxes”. And really, why would they? It’s plural, so you only use it when you’re talking about more than one.

 It’s not irrelevant.  It’s the difference between a lie (which he intentionally told knowing it to be untrue, as is asserted) or a mistake.  Both are bad.  Both are indeed “incitement to hate and resent the poor.”  But it’s still unfair to call it a lie, much less an INTENTIONAL one, if it wasn’t.  I expect better from Fred.  He could have condemned the words for what they deserved to be condemned for without calling Warren a liar when it’s pretty obvious that he wasn’t even considering half the things (non-income taxes, for example) that he accuses Warren of having in mind when he said the statement.  

So your position is that Fred can’t call anyone a liar until he develops super powers and can read minds? The fact that all the available evidence indicates that Warren’s statement was a lie is irrelevant. Because calling someone a liar when they say untrue things in public and then make a non-apology apology is worse than being untruthful in service of stirring up resentment against the weakest and most vulnerable in order to benefit the rich and comfortable. 

I guess we’ll just have to agree to disagree on this issue. 

IOW, Rick Warren is an asshole.

Rick Warren is regurgitating blatant right-wing political propaganda to his followers, bashing on the poor in defiance of his God and his religion in order to score points with the ideologues who idolize him, but as long as we assume he didn’t mean what he said, he’s not lying. And if a few tens of thousands of those followers forward his unfortunate wording on verbatim, well, that’s hardly Warren’s fault. So Fred is totally off-base.

You want to talk context? Go ahead and look at who else has used that exact quote. (“Half of Americans pay no taxes”) You’ll see that phrase is spoken exclusively by Republicans, always in the context of arguing for tax breaks for the wealthy.

This.

Why is this on Warren’s mind?  Because he’s hearing it again and again, and it reinforces his worldview.  So he says it too.

Oh, and I’d like to award one shiny (ok slightly tarnished) internet to our host for the title of this post!

Oh, and I’d like to award one shiny (ok slightly tarnished) internet to our host for the title of this post!

I think Uncle Max has it right. Somewhere in the back of a dark closet in Warren’s brain is the knowledge that he is not doing right by the least of these his brethren and sistern. He would do fine if his conscience (yes, I do believe that he has one) didn’t keep reminding him that it’s there, but it does, so he tells it and himself and everyone else that Those People don’t deserve his compassion, much less that he actually do something to help them. This just makes the secret shame bigger, of course, so he says it again, louder.

(It’s probably time I aired out my own closets.)

Lori pegged it. This is not much different from worrying more about accusations of bigotry than instances of bigotry. Warren’s words are heard all over the world and influence millions of people. To treat Fred’s point as a matter of whether Warren’s reputation is defamed is to show an appalling lack of perspective.

So your position is that Fred can’t call anyone a liar until he develops super powers and can read minds?

“Intent:  It’s Fucking MAGIC!”

Of all the many and varied derangements of the Republicans, I find “Poor Envy” to be one of the more laughable.  I know it’s BS, I’m pretty sure THEY know it’s BS.  But they keep going with it anyway.

Funny how guys like Warren never seem to feel resentful of the super rich who pay no income taxes or no corporate taxes (like General Electric) thanks to loopholes.

Of course not.  If the super rich and the corporations were taxed then how could they put that money to good use employing those greedy peasants who are never satisfied with the minimum wage and try to unionize every chance they get?  The poor should be grateful for what the rich so graciously bestow upon them and leave all of the decision making to their betters because we all know that one’s wealth is directly correlated with one’s intelligence and social value. 

Yeah, I’m not pissed off at all.  I’m getting ready to start grad school in the fall and I have no idea how the hell I’m going to pay for either it or for living away from home.  When rich people start complaining about being rich it bothers me to say the least.

Fred didn’t just call Warren a liar; he called him a Sodomite.  :-p

As others have mentioned, though, context is everything – and given the vast quantity of comments like Warren’s floating around out there, I have rapidly lost patience (and I imagine Fred has, as well) with this sort of slander against the poor.  So, while Rick Warren and his church are hardly the worst of Christianity, I’m happy to see his comment jumped on as the idiotic and hateful thing it is.

They pay payroll taxes and sales taxes and gas taxes and property taxes.

Not to mention, if they’re working, they’re likely paying federal income taxes, too.  They’re just getting those taxes refunded the following year.

Hey, Fred, are you connected with Rick Warren at all?  Can you ask him these questions personally? (Do you tweet?)

They pay payroll taxes and sales taxes and gas taxes and property taxes.

Not to mention, if they’re working, they’re likely paying federal income taxes, too.  They’re just getting those taxes refunded the following year.

Hey, Fred, are you connected with Rick Warren at all?  Can you ask him these questions personally? (Do you tweet?)

NO ONE in the U.S. gets taxes for 50% of their income. The highest income tax rate in the US currently is 35% for income $372,951 and above.  And that’s the marginal tax rate, so income below that amount isn’t taxed at that rate.  The person earning $372,952 is only paying 35% taxes on $2.

Add an Internet for Ayesiegh, too!

A friend of mine on Comic Book Resources tweeted Rick Warren about this – and got a rather amusing response: http://forums.comicbookresources.com/showpost.php?p=13539353&postcount=3001

Not exactly would you’d hope for though.

He “favorited” a Tweet calling him out for being a hypocrite? Oops. 

He “favorited” a Tweet calling him out for being a hypocrite? Oops. 

Lori, I think that was Warren’s “ironic” way of saying, “See, I love you, even though you’re my enemy!”

I’m so sick of this stupid vs. evil thing, like we should give him a pass for lying because he was just too damn lazy to bother with the truth.  That doesn’t make it better.

So, it seems, the one thing we can take from this exchange is that neither of us considers the other a reasonable person.

Kish, meet aunursa (torture-apologist, anti-poor, Tea Party member in GREAT standing although he denies it).  aunursa, meet Kish.

Sorry for piling onto this so late, but I can’t post here from work and this gave me a severe, near-terminal case of Siwoti’s Disease*.

Let’s say that he is talking about income tax and only income tax.

He is then saying, “The system is imbalanced because the poor do not pay income tax.”

Is this true, even remotely? Do you know what percentage of their income you would need to tax in order to balance the budget? Do you know how much more you’d have to tax the top 5% to make up that same amount?

Actually, in US English we say “taxes” for income tax. We also talk about sports when we mean just one. (“Do you participate in sports?” “Yes. Basketball.”) However, no matter how much we study math, we only get one of those.

Sadly, Rick Warren is a USAmerican. 

 Lori, I think that was Warren’s “ironic” way of saying, “See, I love you, even though you’re my enemy!”  

If so that’s Exhibit B for “Warren is an asshole”, Exhibit A being the original Tweet. 

Also, not matter how many there are it’s a drug raid, not a drugs raid. 

I just read a book set in DC written by a Brit who got that and several other USian-isms wrong. (In the US no bank keeps pot plants in the lobby. Potted plants, yes. Pot plants, no, no definitely not. Not even in Humbolt County, Ca)

Someone needs to Tweet this to Warren:

http://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2011/07/the-chart-that-should-accompany-all-discussions-of-the-debt-ceiling/242484/

How do you get to 50%?  The top 2010 federal marginal income tax rate is 35%.  http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Income_tax_in_the_United_States#Year_2010_income_brackets_and_tax_rates

Actually, Mr. Clark called Warren worse than a Sodomite.

See: But at least Sodom didn’t actively turn her power against the poor and needy

 It’s still a lie.
You pay income taxes through withholding, even if you’re being paid minimum wage and work part time. That you’ll get them back is true, but you have to file a tax return to do so. And you won’t have had the use of that money, or gotten interest on it if you saved it, or anything else that you could have done with it during that year if you hadn’t been paying income tax.

Sounds interesting for the mistakes alone. What book?

Yes, renters too — don’t you dare try to suggest that property
owners don’t pass that cost along to their renters and try to pretend
that landlords are somehow more put-upon than those lucky-duckies that
rent from them.

They don’t, because they can’t. They’re already charging every last penny they can – to be exact, whatever they think maximizes their revenue stream. And the same goes to every other business.

This meme comes up every now and then when some corp or another has been caught red-handed, and it’s the time to decide punishment (which usually is a fine). You always get people who say you shouldn’t give any kind of fine, because the corporation just passes it on to its customers, and that’s simply false. I really wish it would simply die; our corporate overlords are already far enough above law.

Now, property owners might use a tax hike as an excuse to rise the rent, but that’s just that: an excuse, which also serves lobbying/extortion purposes.

Note that property taxes do affect rents in an indirect way, by making renting less profitable so there’s less competition.

Well, that’s obviously wrong. I know they’re popular, but no way HALF of America is composed of large corporations and religious institutions.

That is what happens when they repeat the Republican talking points so many times that the words change. Like a game of gossip, or some call it telephone.

Half of American households changes to half of Americans. Income tax changes to taxes.
That sounds even worse and gives those who choose an opportunity to slurp from the delicious chum bucket of OUTRAGE!
Against who?
Over sixty million children under sixteen pay no taxes, unless they buy something, of course.
Over two million prison inmates pay no taxes, unless they buy something.
Over seven hundred thousand homeless people pay no taxes, unless they buy something.

Quite likely Warren is a goat. May God have mercy on him.

Here is a fantastic example of the kind of social policy that Rick Warren tweeted oh-so-selflessly in support of.  (I posted it in the wrong thread, so I’m reposting it here.  ****Warning: language**):

[The old lady at the prescription counter] was getting three prescriptions. The total was $6.00. This puzzled the old lady. She had never paid anything before, and even this seemingly small amount was obviously causing her consternation. The cashier checked with the pharmacist, who said that there had been a minor change to her plan, and now she had to pay a little for the scrips, a buck-fifty, three bucks. She apologized and put aside the couple of other things she was going to purchase to pay for the medicine.[....]At this point, any Americans earning above, say, to be generous, $500,000 a year who don’t believe that they should be paying more in taxes are just goddamned greedy assholes who deserve a real Marxist revolution to take it all away. They have benefited from a country that generously gave them decades of low taxes in the hopes that they would help make this a better place. They fucked it up, and it’s time to give back.[....]Back at the pharmacy, the old woman walked away from the counter, putting back the cheap socks and orange juice she was going to buy, leaving with her prescriptions, her sacrifice far from shared.   (The Rude Pundit).

To quote someone else, we are ruled by sociopaths.

But it’s still unfair to call it a lie, much less an INTENTIONAL one, if it wasn’t.

It is untrue. Anyone with a brain knows it is untrue. Rick Warren has a brain. Rick Warren therefore knows it is untrue.
 Saying that which you know to be untrue makes it a lie. He is a liar. He lied.

You’d actually be hard pressed to find someone who was not the beneficiary of some federal spending… it is just for those of us middle class and above they skip the check-writing part (unless you get a tax refund). We’ve fooled ourselves into thinking we aren’t beneficiaries by structuring the tax code so those expenditures are invisible and we can keep on pretending only the poor are recipients of the largess…

Unless of course the preacher including Social Security, which, depending on the demographics of the church, could be literally true — the ~half who is 65+ does get a monthly check. 

I don’t think that this statement is necessarily in conflict with his theology as befuddling as that is to “social justice” Christians and non-Christians familiar with the gospels. The contingent of “Christians” that believe in the Gospel of Wealth are consistent in their disdain for the poor if they are apparently negligent in their reading/interpretation of the Bible and even as they do work on behalf of the poor. It isn’t that big of a leap to go from “what I have is a blessing” to “what I have is a blessing because God deems I am good” to “those who are no so blessed must not have been deemed good.”

NO ONE in the U.S. gets taxes for 50% of their income. The highest income tax rate in the US currently is 35% for income $372,951 and above.  And that’s the marginal tax rate, so income below that amount isn’t taxed at that rate.  The person earning $372,952 is only paying 35% taxes on $2.

Yeah, I’m in the top 20% of income earners (thanks, free education!), and higher than that on the scale of tax payers because of my age and lack of children, *and* our income tax rates are mich higher than yours, and I paid 30% of my income in tax last year.

 Sounds interesting for the mistakes alone. What book?  

A Simple Act of Violence by RJ Ellroy

I wouldn’t have noticed the incorrect US usage so much if I had enjoyed the book more, but it really didn’t work for me so every little thing stuck out like a sore thumb. 

“You’d actually be hard pressed to find someone who was not the beneficiary of some federal spending…”

I don’t really disagree with you. I work for in state government, mostly on federally funded research, so my paycheck is essentially a ‘check federal government’ and literally one from my state’s government. If you start looking at all the businesses that sell to the government, you have even more people indirectly benefiting from government spending than probably directly benefit.  But Bro. P. was using this as an example of what’s wrong with America, how far we have fallen, etc. (and then using that as a launching point for a call for a great revival) And I have a serious problem with lumping military members, government employees, federal and military retirees, contractors, vendors,… in with the “undeserving” people who benefit for entitlement programs. Please note that I don’t think the elderly, children, poor, jobless, homeless, and/or disabled are undeserving of our help (or the retirement and insurance programs they paid into trusting it would be there when they needed it), but the implication in this usage was/is that we hard working Americans are supporting the other half.

That comment was not original to Warren; it was written by somebody else as a Republican talking point. Therefore, for him to tweet it, does mean he’s telling and passing on a lie. It was meant to have political repercussions, to make the poor the object of derision, scorn and hatred.  Unfortunately for Warren, I’d bet that there are a lot of rich people who have very good tax lawyers who get them down to zero income taxes through loop holes, deductions and such. He should be ashamed of himself… although we know he won’t be.

I think a lot of people who are arguing “He isn’t lying, he meant something else” or “he’s experiencing cognitive dissonance” are overlooking two principles that Fred is using, although he hasn’t stated them explicitly so they aren’t immediately obvious. One is the “Intent is not magic” principle: if Warren’s tweet has the effect of promulgating a falsehood about the poor, then it has that effect regardless of his intent or meaning, especially considering how inexplicably influential he is. The other is personal responsibility, the real kind — we are responsible for what we do. Cognitive dissonance takes WORK. It takes EFFORT. In order to ignore the evident, obvious facts, I have to be aware of what those facts are and actively avoid listening to them, and find ways to handwave and explain them away when I can’t ignore them. All of this is something I am doing, and I am responsible for it. Saying something false because of cognitive dissonance is lying.

Dash:

Sounds interesting for the mistakes alone. What book?

Lori:

A Simple Act of Violence by RJ Ellory

I wouldn’t have
noticed the incorrect US usage so much if I had enjoyed the book more,
but it really didn’t work for me so every little thing stuck out like a
sore thumb.

Ah, so it is interesting for the mistakes alone!

I go to church on Mother’s Day and Father’s Day (and occasionally Easter and Christmas, but never if they’re doing a sunrise service), and that’s it. After my mom and dad pass away, I do not anticipate ever setting foot in a church again except for a wedding or a funeral.

A slip of the tongue and a deliberate misstatement are two entirely different things. People who promote the idea that those who are exempt from federal income tax pay NO TAXES are not making a misstatement- they’re lying to promote a political agenda. So either he’s a liar or he’s incredibly stupid and ill informed- take your pick.

 Ah, so it is interesting for the mistakes alone!  

Well, it’s gotten some good reviews so someone liked it for more than the language oddities. That person simply wasn’t me. 

Not to mention the fact that the average person with an income of over $400,000 last year had an effective tax rate of just 15%.

Fred – love  your stuff and you are right about Warren.  One caveat, you implied that we clergy don’t pay property taxes which is not correct (unless we live in a church owned home).  We get a housing allowance that is not subject to income taxes.

That is exactly what I thought!

That is exactly what I thought!

At first, I thought he was referring to the giant corporations that don’t pay taxes, but then I realized that those at the top of the giant corporations definitely don’t make up 50% of the population.  So, indeed, the was speaking of the poor.  Weren’t Jesus and his followers poor?  Didn’t they give up everything and live on the gifts of society to spread the “gospel”?  Jesus was a Jew.  Jews are commanded to give a percentage of our crops (now incomes) to the poor to make their lives better.  Ghandi’s comment is never to relevant as today – I like your Christ, but your Christians are so unlike your Christ.

I’m not a fan because of his views on other social issues, but I always thought Rick Warren, unlike many other evangelical megachurch leaders, was an ultra-advocate for the poor, in part because he reportedly tithes 90% of his royalty income to and lives on 10%. I wondered if his tweet could have been misinterpreted and maybe was a jab on the rich.  But that’s probably just Pollyanna thinking.

And in the book of Jeremiah we are told not to be evil surmising.  In my opinion, that means not to assume bad motives of others.  This ascerbic article totally overblows a poorly written and unkind sounding tweet.  That’s all, unless you can read Warren’s mind, know Warren’s heart and see fit to raise yourself to sit in judgement of him.

OK.. if you want, I will think the best of Warren.

He is too stupid to be allowed to operate electrical equipment without adult supervision. That is the kindest interpretation.

You’ve got to be kidding me! I’m no Rick Warren fan (probably one of the few that REFUSED to read his books!) but, you’re comments are ignorant and just plain moronic – not to mention that they suffer from the type of prejudicial perspective that you accuse Warren of in reverse! Your comments suffer from a lack of awareness of economic realities that provide jobs in the first place created by the small businessman – or are they evil too? 

When I read or hear comments such as the one Rick Warren tweeted, I usually assume they refer to the very wealthy, who control most of the money, and who pay, in proportion to their income, the lowest amount in taxes. It is enlightening to be reminded that in the context of this current debate, the same kind of comments are actually a slam on the poorest people.

You know, if even I can recognize a concern troll, the concern troll is doing a very poor job of concern trolling.

Misreading the entire article: are you real or just another concern troll?

If you are referring to my post, it only qualifies as a CT if you miss the whole point — -which I think that Fred Clarke does. It is a bandwagon rant. Concern for the poor and displaced is pre-eminent for Jesus followers – for sure – but, this was not the point of Warren’s statement. The blog and the sympathizers of the “cause” are simply way off base. See my post above again. I have a bleeding heart too. I really do! But, I also believe in economic realities that will bring economic justice to those who want to work but cannot because of oppressive systems. I would advocate that taxes (of most sorts) are just that – oppressive – and stifle the abilities of the small businessperson to create both product and work which will further a given communities resource base – and hence jobs! What don’t you get? I’m with you on the poor. Just disagree about how to go about it I guess. The Church has abdicated it’s responsibility in lieu of ‘governmental responsibility’. 

Define ‘taxes of most sorts’. Also, explain how tax increases only on the wealthy and on megacorps will affect the small business owner (defined as ‘small profits’, not as ‘small number of owners’) and her ability to hire people. Also, explain how we’re to keep the friendless and familyless and non-churchgoing among the poor and elderly from fucking STARVING TO DEATH without ‘oppressive’ payroll taxes.

Again I say: concern troll.

Ellie: First, I share your awareness of those struggling just to eat. I actually work with some on most days! What I mean by “taxes of most sorts” is that taxes that actually go to helping the poor (since the horse is out of the barn already by using the government to achieve this) I support. The taxes that merely go toward waste and abuse or, those which inhibit economic growth are inappropriate. I believe that the Church has abdicated her responsibility to those in need by the government creating an alternative. Like it or not, businesses limit themselves toward the end of growth if they cannot afford to pay their bills. Conversely, if they are freed from unnecessary burdens (most sorts of taxes) they will grow and create work for people as they do so. Finally, if Jesus followers are in fact living out both love for God and love for others, it won’t be an “us/them” mentality but an “us” mentality. The latter thereby includes what you describe as the “friendless and familyness and non-churchgoing among the poor and elderly”. In fact, I would argue that they would come first in God’s Kingdom. 

Yesterday, I happened upon someone who was very outraged over the fact that “The top 10% of earners pay 70% of the taxes and 50% pay NO taxes! How is that fair???”

I, of course, agreed whole-heartedly with him. How could it be fair that the people who have 90% of the money only pay 70% of the taxes? Surely they should be paying 90% of them.

Damn, I can’t check off the ‘waste, fraud, and abuse’ bingo square.

Don’t use ‘God’s Kingdom’ arguments with me. I’m an atheist.

Megacorps and wealthy citizens are drowning in money. Yet they’re not hiring people. The money isn’t even doing any good sitting in the bank, because the banks aren’t lending. I say take the money from them and give it to people who’ll spend it and businesses who’ll hire with it. There’s a word for that…what’s that word….starts with a T…

 If you are referring to my post, it only qualifies as a CT if you miss the whole point — -which I think that Fred Clarke does. It is a bandwagon rant. Concern for the poor and displaced is pre-eminent for Jesus followers – for sure – but, this was not the point of Warren’s statement. The blog and the sympathizers of the “cause” are simply way off base. See my post above again.  

Oh, we read your post and we got your point. That’s exactly why Ellie said you were being a concern troll. Rick Warren is not the put upon victim here. Fred is not off base or picking on Warren and neither is anyone else. 

 I have a bleeding heart too. I really do! But, I also believe in economic realities that will bring economic justice to those who want to work but cannot because of oppressive systems. I would advocate that taxes (of most sorts) are just that – oppressive – and stifle the abilities of the small businessperson to create both product and work which will further a given communities resource base – and hence jobs! What don’t you get? 

This part of your statement actually isn’t concern trolling, it’s just inaccurate. Our current tax rates are not oppressive. They’re the lowest they’ve been in this country in decades and they’re ridiculously low compared to most other advanced economies. Small businesses* are not being stifled by taxation. They’re being stifled by lack of demand, which is caused by high unemployment which is not and never will be alleviated by cutting taxes. Your conception of how how business growth relates to unemployment is backwards, or at least starting in the wrong place. 

I’m with you on the poor. Just disagree about how to go about it I guess. The Church has abdicated it’s responsibility in lieu of ‘governmental responsibility’.  

Fred has already written many times about the layers of responsibility involved in caring for the poor. It not and can not be the sole responsibility of the church. That has never worked. It never will work. It is intellectually dishonest to claim to care about the poor and then advocate for leaving their care to the churches. 

*Please note: I used small business strictly for the sake of argument. I strongly object to the way the term “small business” is being used in the current economic debate because it’s essentially a false construct. In the 80s and 90s the Right used a mythical idea of small or family farms to manipulate the discourse. That stopped working so now we’re getting a mythical version of the small business that bears very little relationship to actual small business or the needs of the people who run them.

I am sure the Pastor was referring to federal and state  income tax. Have not read any “nitpic
king” about the tax statement, that has been well known all over the network.
Ease up Mr. Clark

Ever noticed how when someone says “I care about the plight of the poor and underprivilged,” the next thing they say is almost always “But here is why I’m going to actively oppose anything that could possibly help them.”?

There’s this weird idea that the church has abdicated its responsibility to the poor, because of the government, and the solution is “If we get the government out of it, the church will have NO CHOICE but to step up” ignoring the fact that we’ve got ample historical proof that they do indeed have a choice: they can just *not* step up. And the poor will die. And no one gets hurt but the poor.

Ever noticed how when someone says “I care about the plight of the poor and underprivilged,” the next thing they say is almost always “But here is why I’m going to actively oppose anything that could possibly help them.”?

There’s this weird idea that the church has abdicated its responsibility to the poor, because of the government, and the solution is “If we get the government out of it, the church will have NO CHOICE but to step up” ignoring the fact that we’ve got ample historical proof that they do indeed have a choice: they can just *not* step up. And the poor will die. And no one gets hurt but the poor.

Oh look, another concern troll. 

Because we didn’t already discuss the issue of what Warren really meant. Fred was not nitpicking. Warren’s fans can whine for him all they want, but that still won’t make Fred’s observations wrong. 

Many of you have hastily judged (or probably pre-judged) a man who: donates all of his publishing royayties to charity; reverse tithes (gives 90% of his income); paid back all the salary his church ever paid him; and ahs launced successful local and international efforts to address  poverty, disease, lack of education, etc.

Pastor Rick may have mispoken; you have misjudged.  I’d rather be guilty of the former. 

Many of you have hastily judged (or probably pre-judged) a man who: donates all of his publishing royayties to charity; reverse tithes (gives 90% of his income); paid back all the salary his church ever paid him; and ahs launced successful local and international efforts to address  poverty, disease, lack of education, etc.

Pastor Rick may have mispoken; you have misjudged.  I’d rather be guilty of the former. 

Pastor Rick may have mispoken; you have misjudged.  I’d rather be guilty of the former.

I’d rather be guilty of the thing that doesn’t involve siding with the strong against the weak. 

I’d rather be guilty of the thing that doesn’t involve sticking the screws to those who are already screwed.

I’d rather be guilty of the thing that doesn’t imply that it’s the rich who have it hard and the poor who are the lucky duckies.

But that’s just me.

Pastor Rick may have mispoken; you have misjudged.  I’d rather be guilty of the former.

I’d rather be guilty of the thing that doesn’t involve siding with the strong against the weak. 

I’d rather be guilty of the thing that doesn’t involve sticking the screws to those who are already screwed.

I’d rather be guilty of the thing that doesn’t imply that it’s the rich who have it hard and the poor who are the lucky duckies.

But that’s just me.

Many of you have hastily judged (or probably pre-judged) a man who: donates all of his publishing royayties to charity; reverse tithes (gives 90% of his income); paid back all the salary his church ever paid him; and ahs launced successful local and international efforts to address  poverty, disease, lack of education, etc. 

I said this before, but you’ve obviously not read the thread so I’ll say it again. Warren gives away a great deal of money, but there is no amount of charity that buys anyone, especially a very rich man like Warren, the right to talk smack about the poor. Especially not a very rich man who claims to follow the teachers in of Christ. 

 Pastor Rick may have mispoken; you have misjudged.  I’d rather be guilty of the former.  

Rick Warren did not misspeak. His non-apology apology makes that perfectly clear. 

We haven’t misjudged (see above).

You presumably haven’t misspoken, and it may not be totally accurate to say that you’ve misjudged. What you have done is take the said of the powerful against the weak. If you think that speaks well of you, you should reconsider. 

Many of you have hastily judged (or probably pre-judged) a man who: donates all of his publishing royayties to charity; reverse tithes (gives 90% of his income); paid back all the salary his church ever paid him; and ahs launced successful local and international efforts to address  poverty, disease, lack of education, etc. 

I said this before, but you’ve obviously not read the thread so I’ll say it again. Warren gives away a great deal of money, but there is no amount of charity that buys anyone, especially a very rich man like Warren, the right to talk smack about the poor. Especially not a very rich man who claims to follow the teachers in of Christ. 

 Pastor Rick may have mispoken; you have misjudged.  I’d rather be guilty of the former.  

Rick Warren did not misspeak. His non-apology apology makes that perfectly clear. 

We haven’t misjudged (see above).

You presumably haven’t misspoken, and it may not be totally accurate to say that you’ve misjudged. What you have done is take the said of the powerful against the weak. If you think that speaks well of you, you should reconsider. 

Did someone unleash Warren’s flying monkeys? It seems really odd that we’ve gotten this sudden influx of drive-by concern trolls. 

Be fair. At least one of them isn’t a drive-by.

 Be fair. At least one of them isn’t a drive-by.  

True. Let me rephrase: Did someone unleash Warren’s flying monkeys? It seems really odd that we’ve gotten this sudden influx of drive-by concern trolls to join that one who isn’t a drive-by.

 If you are referring to my post, it only qualifies as a CT if you miss the whole point — -which I think that Fred Clarke does. It is a bandwagon rant. Concern for the poor and displaced is pre-eminent for Jesus followers – for sure – but, this was not the point of Warren’s statement. The blog and the sympathizers of the “cause” are simply way off base. See my post above again.  ”Oh, we read your post and we got your point. That’s exactly why Ellie said you were being a concern troll. Rick Warren is not the put upon victim here. Fred is not off base or picking on Warren and neither is anyone else.”I really don’t have any care or concern for Rick Warren on this. I dislike him for other reasons. I could care less if Rick was a victim. I’m speaking to the issues. Let’s stay to them. Concern Troll? You make me laugh. I see, you can talk all you want but I can’t? Privileged BS if you ask me.  I have a bleeding heart too. I really do! But, I also believe in economic realities that will bring economic justice to those who want to work but cannot because of oppressive systems. I would advocate that taxes (of most sorts) are just that – oppressive – and stifle the abilities of the small businessperson to create both product and work which will further a given communities resource base – and hence jobs! What don’t you get? This part of your statement actually isn’t concern trolling, it’s just inaccurate. Our current tax rates are not oppressive. They’re the lowest they’ve been in this country in decades and they’re ridiculously low compared to most other advanced economies. Small businesses* are not being stifled by taxation. They’re being stifled by lack of demand, which is caused by high unemployment which is not and never will be alleviated by cutting taxes. Your conception of how how business growth relates to unemployment is backwards, or at least starting in the wrong place. 

Inaccurate? You obviously don’t currently or possibly have you ever run a business. Other “advanced economies”? Right. It’s approaches like your Robin Hood ideas that have caused many of the current economic issues — that, and the greed from the wealthy. You assume that all companies are greedy. I don’t think so. But maybe that’s where we differ…..that and on what is oppressive and not. In one sense – a relative one – you are correct. We have a relatively low tax rate now. However, it is the threat of Robin Hood coming that is one (not the only one) of the ingredients which stifle companies growing. Regarding lack of demand: Yes, it is lack of demand. Lack of demand is from a lack of jobs (high unemployment as you correctly point out). Lack of jobs is from businesses who are afraid to invest. There has been a rebooting of the economy from people strung out on credit. Rebuilding is risky. Why risk if one fears their legs will be cut off by higher taxes? 

“Fred has already written many times about the layers of responsibility involved in caring for the poor. It is not and can not be the sole responsibility of the church. That has never worked. It never will work. It is intellectually dishonest to claim to care about the poor and then advocate for leaving their care to the churches. “”*Please note: I used small business strictly for the sake of argument. I strongly object to the way the term “small business” is being used in the current economic debate because it’s essentially a false construct. In the 80s and 90s the Right used a mythical idea of small or family farms to manipulate the discourse. That stopped working so now we’re getting a mythical version of the small business that bears very little relationship to actual small business or the needs of the people who run them.”

I must confess I haven’t read Fred’s other writings that you refer to. If you read my posts, I agree that we need to maintain what we have (and clean it up from fraud and waste). Just because something hasn’t worked in the past doesn’t mean that it can’t in the future. Clean water in Africa was only a dream for years. Micro loans which incentivize locally owned economic endeavors were non-existent. The involvement of the US/Bono/World Vision et al has made huge headway here. Yes, there is still a long way to go but it is significant progress. Same with AIDS….. Much of this has come from non-profit involvement without taxation. It can work. However, in the meantime as I have noted, we cannot abandon the poor.

Re “small businesses” and the way the term is abused in the current debate, I think there is some validity to that. However, that notwithstanding, small businesses make up the majority of this economy and they are not hiring – not only due to lack of demand but also due to fear of the unknown with respect to governmental policy which treats them like they are doing something wrong for their industriousness.

Ellie, for the sake of this discussion I could care less whether you are an atheist, mass murderer, Muslim or a right wing facist. It has nothing to do with what I have said. God’s Kingdom arguments can be said to have practical value for all – whether or not you agree with the source or description thereof. You are entitled to your views (obviously) regarding taking from the wealthy and giving to the poor. To the extent that they do abuse people in their policies and practices, I would agree. On the other hand we don’t live in a perfect world. So, the discussion is what is the best way to incentivize businesses to hire. Re the banks, you are so very correct! However, that is also due to uncertainty of governmental policy with respect to potential and probable taxation. Furthermore, the only reason they have the surplus now (which they “should” be lending) is due to a stupid governmental policy (the “bailouts”) which favored the huge corporations. The results of that (whether or not they are “paid back” are a delay in the rebooting necessary. 

I’d also be curious to your response to this question: If an individual is wealthy and gives an enormous amount of money away to “good causes” (let’s assume for the sake of argument that we both agree what a “good cause” is), should they give ALL of their money away? It seems to be what you are suggesting (I may be wrong). If they do that they would only add to the problem by winding up in the same situation that those who don’t have any money are — and then would become dependent on others? Or, would you say that they could continue to sustain the source of their wealth (assuming the source is one which is moral) in order to continue giving generously?

I’m going to be honest Anonymous, I’m not going to read your post in response to mine. The formatting issues are making it really difficult and past performance leads me to believe that the pay off won’t be enough to warrant the effort.

I’m with Lori: your formatting sucks. Disqus likes HTML; try that.

God’s Kingdom arguments have no value for anyone who does not believe in God’s Kingdom.

Warren Buffett is trying to give away his entire fortune. It’s not working. Not because he’s not generous. Because he has accumulated so much wealth that his fortune is self-sustaining.

I’m not asking anyone to give away so much that they become one of the given-to, or indeed so much that they drop to the second decile. What I want is to have considerably less concentration of wealth.

 I’m not asking anyone to give away so much that they become one of the given-to, or indeed so much that they drop to the second decile. What I want is to have considerably less concentration of wealth. 

I would also like for rich people to be a lot less nasty and evil about the poor. Of course as Fred’s most recent post clearly shows, that’s not gonna happen. In the face of persistent asshatery on the part of the haves I really don’t see any way other than government programs paid for by taxation to care for the have nots in even a marginally acceptable fashion. 

What I want is to have considerably less concentration of wealth.

Most of the trolls talking about how put-upon the people with lots of money (and seven-figure incomes) are, seem to think also that the distribution of wealth in this country is far more even than it actually is. 20 percent of the population holds more than 80 percent of the wealth. (see http://sociology.ucsc.edu/whorulesamerica/power/wealth.html )

Some people clearly don’t understand how unequal the wealth distribution in the US has become in recent decades. People’s assessment of their own class is notoriously bad. However, I think there’s another major issue. Many people have been trained to think that the current wealth distribution is just the way things are. Someone (Daughter I think) brought this up WRT the way be talk about “wealth redistribution”. The assumption is that current wealth distribution is the natural and inevitable result of free market forces and that therefore anything that changes it is some sort of commie plot. No part of that is true, but good luck getting people to understand that. 

Well, they don’t understand tax brackets, which are not exactly rocket science and which they’ve been dealing with for years.
I think education is perhaps too dumbed down, when people refuse to think twice about something when they’re being told it’s wrong. (Personal theory: it’s because they taught us to use our brains in the 60s (more or less, sort of, et cetera), and got hippies and street demonstrators, and it scared the establishment types so much they decided ignorance was easier to handle and reversed course.)

 Well, they don’t understand tax brackets, which are not exactly rocket science and which they’ve been dealing with for years.

This would be funny if it wasn’t so painfully true. I’ve thought for a while that everyone should have to do their taxes one year doing all the separate calculations themselves instead of just reading off the tax tables, because you’re right that way too many people don’t understand brackets at all. That’s just sad, especially since we have at least a third fewer than we ought to, so it’s not as “complicated” as it should be.  

 
I think education is perhaps too dumbed down, when people refuse to think twice about something when they’re being told it’s wrong. 

If we ever knew how to teach critical thinking skills en masse we’ve totally lost the knack. One of the great ironies of my life is that I learned most of my basic critical thinking skills from my dad. Irony#1: he taught me the skills that lead me to walk away from virtually all of his most cherished beliefs. Irony#2: he’s such a Right Wing fundamentalist that he hasn’t applied those skills to any of his own believes in decades. 

Strangely enough, my life has the same irony. Except it’s more my mom than my dad.

My sympathies. IME living this particular irony really blows. 

Taxes should be raised.  On EVERYONE. 

E-v-e-r-y-b-o-d-y should pay, even if it’s just a little. 

Enough demagoguery: not all poor are the proverbial ”deserving” poor.

Evidently, the blogger does not know any “poor” people, or he would not extend a blanket to cover all low income people as deserving a handout. 

Yes, the rich should pay more, but the “poor” should pay something.  It is a matter of fairness.  I studied and work, work, work.  Others did drugs, dropped out, went to jail.  Why should I be forced to support their lifestyle?

I earn about thirteen hundred dollars a month after taxes. I do not earn enough to live anywhere but my parents’ home. Where, pray tell, am I to find the money to pay any more in taxes?

Meanwhile there are corporations handing out many millions to their CEOs and billions to their shareholders–Apple has more money than the US government at the moment–and there are millionaires and billionaires who are sitting on the money they could be using to hire many many people, or that banks could be but aren’t loaning to businesses that would then hire many many people. They can pay a great deal more in taxes without breaking a sweat.

Taxes should be raised.  On EVERYONE. 

I am a university graduate who has been looking for a job, without success, for two years. How exactly do you envision my paying taxes in the name of “fairness?”  (I might also point out that I, like the rest of America’s poor, do pay sales tax when I scrape enough together to buy something I need.)

It is a matter of fairness.  I studied and work, work, work.  Others did drugs, dropped out, went to jail.  Why should I be forced to support their lifestyle?

What would you suggest that would be “fair?”  Would starving to death be an appropriate payment?  Would living on the streets be a good form of restitution?  Should the poor or addicted go without healthcare or drug treatment programs? 

How about those who deal with poverty and mental illness?  The ones who need expensive medications but are unable to hold down a job due to their illness, or those who need medication to acquire and hold down a job but cannot get that medication until they have a job that pays health insurance?  What would you do for them? 

What about people who work minimum wage jobs, sometimes multiple jobs, but still can’t afford to care for themselves or their families because minimum wage is less than a living wage?

Try compassion instead of resentment.  Be glad that you have the money to pay taxes.  I wish I did.

Where do I begin…

First, the lawbreaking you describe knows no income bracket.

Second, and this is the whole point of Fred’s column, the poor do pay taxes even in cases when they don’t pay income taxes. No one is claiming that poor people should be exempt from paying anything. The issue here is that the people at the bottom and in the middle are already paying too much relative to their incomes, and the people at the top are paying far too little relative to theirs.

Third, no one is arguing for poor people to receive a “handout,” and it’s offensive to describe tax cuts for the poor that way, unless you also describe the tax breaks for corporations the same way. In this context, using terms like “work, work, work” and “handout” sound too much like dog whistles.

There are some days when I feel like I’m being unfair to those on the Right. I wonder if I’ve allowed hardship and struggle to make me so bitter that I can no longer see the good in people who vote differently than I do. I worry that I’m failing as a human being because I can’t give the benefit of the doubt more freely. 

And then Fred writes a post about having compassion for the poor and we’re visited by a parade of selfish, resentful, mean-spirited, small-hearted, judgmental, fact-challenged asshats and I realize that all things considered it’s a wonder I’m not angrier.  

Ever noticed how when someone says “I care about the plight of
the poor and underprivilged,” the next thing they say is almost always
“But here is why I’m going to actively oppose anything that could
possibly help them.”?

Why does that remind me of Palin and Bachmann describing themselves as feminists? At first glance, they seem to think of themselves as feminists simply
because they’re active in a field (politics) that was a boys’ club for
many years. Sometimes they talk as if they believe that all women should be mothers regardless of what they do outside the home.

 I have to assume you’re talking about income taxes, since ‘the poor’ pay sales taxes and gas taxes and property taxes (even if it’s indirectly). They pay income taxes too, through withholding, even if they get all the money back later. (It’s money they don’t have for that year, too.) Unemployment compensation is also taxable, and so is Social Security income over a certain amount.

Exxon and GE paid no taxes on their US revenue for last year. They can afford to pay a lot more.

And I see a magazine cover like the one on the most recent issue of Time, where they make it sound like men and women spend equal amounts of time on housework, and the implication that it’s equality for realz. Which has been shown in repeated studies (including, I believe, the one they’re writing about) to be wrong.

 Exxon and GE paid no taxes on their US revenue for last year. They can afford to pay a lot more.  

Goldman Sachs & AIG both played a huge part in nearly tanking the global economy and pushing us into the worst recession in decades. A recession that has widened income inequality, destroyed the futures of untold numbers of people and shows no sign of ending any time soon. The only reason either company still exists is that they received enormous welfare payments. Much of that welfare money was given as bonuses to the very people whose fraud nearly broke us. 

Funny how Working mother and wife doesn’t seem bothered by that either. It’s so much easy to kick the weak than it is to stand up to the powerful. 

You can give the benefit of the doubt without just accepting whatever they say. It’s one thing to demonize someone without even listening to what they have to say, but you didn’t do that here. You read their comments and reached a conclusion based on what they say. There’s nothing even slightly shameful or inhuman about that; if we can’t judge people on what they say and what they do, then we can’t make decisions at all.

 Well, Goldman Sachs used their money to buy the Treasury Department. They probably think it was a good deal. For them.

The crap going on in Congress makes me hope that the guy with the scythe doesn’t waste too much time coming for us. Those idjits are buying into the ‘supercommittee with special powers’ idea like they’re all expecting to be on it. (Six members, 3 Ds and 3 Rs, from each house. They get to decide what gets cut and by how much, and there will be NO amendments or changes to the bills they write, and only limited ‘debate’. I’ve been calling it the ‘State Central Committee’, or sometimes the ‘Politburo’.)

You missed a lot that was going on before that.
These are people who showed up out of the blue, made comments insulting Fred, our host, or his writing, made it very clear they weren’t interested in anything we have to say, and some of them flounced out the door. No actual interest in what’s being said, no engagement of any kind with the community, and a very clear expectation that we should agree with them ‘because they said so’.
It’s a lot more complicated than that, in our world, and ‘because I said so’ is not an argument to be used on anyone over the age of consent.

Double-Standard-
Funny how Fred Clark the author of the piece can spend so much space directly accusing Rick Warren of being a deliberate liar (numerous times) and going so far as naming his piece a defamatory “Purpose Driven LIE”. Very creative piece to get a lot of people to bring out the pitchforks and torches.

So when Fred Clark makes an error and stupidly says it, then apologizes, would he agree we should jump on him like a pack of wild dogs and rip him to shreds inviting the others for a taste of blood?

When apologies and conciliatory remarks are offered by another human being should they be accepted or declined based on what ones personal political, religious views are?  Or shouldn’t we in the spirit of humanness and peace accept the apology and move on?
Which one would go more for peace?

I found the article to be childish, self-serving and inciteful, but if Fred Clark were to come and say “Wow, I think I went a little overboard here and I’m sorry.” 
I’d like to think I would forgive him.

To Fred Clark- Have you ever said or done anything stupid to offend your wife or partner?
Would you rather they accept your conciliatory remarks and apologies or rip you to shreds?

To the ones who jumped on Fred’s bandwagon- Maybe you checked your facts and maybe you didn’t (I didn’t). But how many of you jumped on without checking when you smelled the blood in the water?

How does anyone know either one purposely lied or not? Even if the facts are wrong.

Aunursa said very well  ”But he wasn’t lying.  He expressed himself poorly.  

No reasonable person can believe that Obama claimed to have visited 57 states.  It’s obvious from the context that he meant 47 states.  ”

Guys like Warren? How do you know what he’s like, I don’t.
What about people like DCFem?
Or guys like Mike?

Whenever “those people” are invoked, something stinks, doesn’t it.

No idea what you’re talking about when you don’t quote. FYI.

 Well, Goldman Sachs used their money to buy the Treasury Department. They probably think it was a good deal. For them.

To be fair, GS didn’t use bail out money to buy Treasury. That sale went through long ago. The bail out of GS, but especially of AIG (a huge chunk of AIG’s bail out money was used to pay GS) was the pay off on that investment. 

 
The crap going on in Congress makes me hope that the guy with the scythe doesn’t waste too much time coming for us. Those idjits are buying into the ‘supercommittee with special powers’ idea like they’re all expecting to be on it. (Six members, 3 Ds and 3 Rs, from each house. They get to decide what gets cut and by how much, and there will be NO amendments or changes to the bills they write, and only limited ‘debate’. I’ve been calling it the ‘State Central Committee’, or sometimes the ‘Politburo’.)  

This whole supercommittee thing is just infuriating on so many levels. The one that’s really dancing on my last good nerve is that it’s being pushed by the same people who scream “unconstitutional” about ever damn thing they don’t like. Show me something, anything in the Constitution that says that the US can be run by some cross-Congress “supercommittee”. WTF?

Oh look, yet another concern troll.Warren flying monkey, swooping in to make points that we’ve already discussed in order to protect the honor of a rich, powerful man who can take care of himself. One of these days I have got to get myself some of these minions. They seem like they could come in handy. 

Excellent analysis. Thank you for standing up for the poor. I am just starting to follow Dr. Lamb and, so far, I am very impressed.

Pastor David M. Fryson, Esq.

I did read all that, and I wasn’t talking about the way they were behaving. I was trying to make the point that the commenter Lori — or anyone else here, actually — doesn’t have to feel bad for even a second for not liking Rick Warren’s comments or the people who dropped in to spew the same weak talking points in support of him. There’s nothing wrong with disliking or criticizing someone who isn’t interested in the discussion, who isn’t interested in engaging, or who relies on the “because I said so” argument. Again, if you can’t judge people like that (Rick Warren or his followers) by what they say (here or anywhere else) or what they do, you can’t judge them at all.

You got that right. I’ve been using ‘unconstitutional’, too.
Unfortunately, it looks to be what we’re going to be stuck with. This is one of those times when I fell like ignoring the government and pretending none of what they’ve done this year has happened.

That wasn’t what you said.
You swooped in, made derogatory comments about one of the regulars here, and you’re unhappy when you get called on bad behavior?

I was watching the local ABC affiliate (WFAA) here in Dallas and they had two people arguing about the slashing of entitlement programs. The conservative Christian (that’s how they described him) argued that the government has no business in helping the poor and that it should be left up to the churches because they do a better job of it. When he got to the part where he said that the Preamble of the Constitution, where it says for “the general welfare,” doesn’t mean a welfare-state…I had to leave the room. My grandmother was watching it and she doesn’t like it when I get angry and start dropping the f-word. I’m guessing the guy was only against welfare for the poor and not for corporations since he never mentioned ending entitlements to them.

Some days (the way things are going it’s becoming every day) I feel like I’ve been sucked into Bizarro World. I seriously want to grab these people by the ears, shake them, while yelling “What the fuck is wrong with you?!”  

Oh, yeah.
They seem to be able to believe two contradictory things at the same time, without ‘splody heads. That they have zero evidence that their political theories work doesn’t bother them either. (In fact, I’d say all the evidence points the other directions: help the poor, feed the hungry, clothe the naked, and make sure the disabled can be part of society, and you won’t have so many people who think that overthrowing the government might be a good idea.)

Fred, What your article forgets to state is the actual number of how many people don’t pay taxes in the US (yes, we all pay sales and property tax – but i think it’s clear he means income tax).

I do hear, and intuitively believe that the 50% is not true… but if we want to fight a lie, we best do that with the truth, not with an ad hominem attack on the one saying and/or believing that lie.

I was answering the whole tone of the blogpost and many of the replies.
I find it hard to believe, that you don’t know what I am talking about if you have read the post or replies. We are not in a courtroom.
I’m not calling you a liar, I just find it hard to believe…. or perhaps a little disingenuous
Just now after reading the title of his Blog
I find the byline on Fred Clark’s blog inconsistent with the spirit of his post.
“Knock, breathe, shine, and seek to mend”

 That wasn’t what you said.
You swooped in, made derogatory comments about one of the regulars here, and you’re unhappy when you get called on bad behavior?  

I didn’t take Abdul Jah’s post as a criticism of me. I understood and appreciated what he was trying to say. I’m still frustrated that all this crap makes it so difficult for me to think well of others, but as he said the only thing we have to go on is what people say and do. And what a lot of people are saying and doing so really nasty crap. 

 I’m not calling you a liar, I just find it hard to believe…. or perhaps a little disingenuous
Just now after reading the title of his Blog
I find the byline on Fred Clark’s blog inconsistent with the spirit of his post.
“Knock, breathe, shine, and seek to mend”  

Did you send a message to Rick Warren chastising him for speaking ill of the poor and powerless? If not, I find your comments here more than a little disingenuous. 

Why is it so terrible for Fred to judge Warren based on Warren’s very own words, but it’s OK for Warren to speak falsely about the poor? The fact that you’re more worried about Warren’s feelings and reputation than you are about the content of what he actually said does not speak well of you. Especially since Warren has an audience thousands of times the size of Fred’s. 

As for ”Knock, breathe, shine, and seek to mend”,  our situation isn’t going to get better, IOW nothing will be mended, as long as people are able to attack the weak in order to benefit the powerful without facing any consequences for it. 

Ultimately it doesn’t matter whether Warren meant all taxes or just income taxes. His message is the same either way – he’s claiming that the poor are living off everyone else and that we should hate and resent them for it.

You really got all that out of his tweet?
“HALF of America pays NO taxes. Zero. So they’re happy for tax rates to be raised on the other half that DOES pay any taxes.”

I must be missing something.
I’m not defending his statement, nor condemning. 

How did Warren’s tweet attack the weak?
“HALF of America pays NO taxes. Zero. So they’re happy for tax rates to be raised on the other half that DOES pay any taxes.”
It seems people are making something that isn’t their to crow about their own agenda.

I don’t need to defend Warren his own good works in the world defend him.

You don’t see the demagoguery of his tweet? There are a hell of a lot of people who would read that and think, “They don’t pay anything and they want to raise MY taxes? Those freeloading bastards!”

You don’t see the demagoguery of his tweet? There are a hell of a lot of people who would read that and think, “They don’t pay anything and they want to raise MY taxes? Those freeloading bastards!”

I didn’t take Abdul Jah’s post as a criticism of me.

Agreed. I also didn’t read it that way. 

You really got all that out of his tweet?
“HALF of America pays NO taxes. Zero. So they’re happy for tax rates to be raised on the other half that DOES pay any taxes.”

I must be missing something.
I’m not defending his statement, nor condemning.

The statement that half of America pays no taxes is typically used as a prelude to statements along the lines of “So of course they’re fine with increasing the taxes on the top tax rate.  They’re not the ones who are going to be suffering for that sort of increase.” This statement completely ignores the fact that people who pay no taxes are paying no taxes because they are ALREADY SUFFERING FINANCIAL HARDSHIP. It also implies precisely what Tonio said: “The poor are freeloading on your back; don’t you just hate the fact that your taxes are going to have to go up to take care of Those People.”

The 140 characters of the tweet-verse don’t allow for nuance in specific, so many people use a sort of Darkmok and Jalad at Tanagra short-hand. By referencing statements made in the past, Warren is either buying into the class of statement and all that goes with it, or he doesn’t actually realize what he’s saying.

If the latter is true, this his apology should have been a lot more sincere and apologetic. 

I was answering the whole tone of the blogpost and many of the replies.

…

tone

…

I could swear there’s a name for this kind of argument, but I just can’t remember what it might have been…

Good words? He has a record of promoting homophobia in California (Proposition and Uganda.

Hey. You can’t pin Uganda’s death penalty for homosexuals on Rick Warren. He was just exercising his freedom of speech.

Next you’ll tell me that people whipping up anti-Semitic sentiment in 1930′s Germany were somehow responsible for the Holocaust.

He needs to do a lot more good works and a lot less talking about what the poor pay in taxes, because he doesn’t know what poor is. (Far too much of his information seems to come from the Republicans.)

yes, we all pay sales and property tax – but i think it’s clear he means income tax

It isn’t clear. In fact, it’s part of the lie. Because the key point of the lie *is* the part where it tries to trick the audience into forgetting that sales tax and payroll tax exist, trick them into forgetting that social security contributions exist. Make them think of tax only in terms of the income tax, and therefore make them think that the true thing — a large percentage of people are so poor that their income tax liability is zero — implies an untrue thing — that those lucky poor people are unfairly weaseling out of the tax obligations so unfairly foist on the audience. The like *is* the part where they make you think that people who have no income tax liability don’t pay tax.

You really got all that out of his tweet?
“HALF of America pays NO taxes. Zero. So they’re happy for tax rates to be raised on the other half that DOES pay any taxes.”
I must be missing something.  

It’s not that you’re missing something. It’s that you’re adding something (the idea that he’s only talking about federal income tax) in order to pretend that he didn’t say what he actually said. 

When Warren received negative feedback for that Tweet he didn’t clarify that he had only meant federal income tax (and even if he had that would still be both untrue and demagoguery against the poor). Instead he gave the worst sort of non-apology apology. 

I’m not defending his statement, nor condemning. 

Yes, you are. By pretending that he wasn’t being dishonest about the poor you’re defending him from being called to account for what he actually said. 

 I don’t need to defend Warren his own good works in the world defend him.  

 
And yet here you are, concerning trolling for him. You’re faith in the sufficiency of Warren’s good deeds is apparently not as strong as you’d like to claim. 

Also, for the 3rd time—there is no amount of money that anyone can give to charity that buys them a free pass to resent and talk smack about the poor. 

I apologize if what I’m about to say has already been covered, I did some skimming so I may have missed it.

Anyone who says that giving money to business will get them to hire has no idea how a business is run. Businesses hire and expand when there is enough demand to require additional employees. If you run a shoe store and your employees spend most of their time sitting on their butts it doesn’t matter if the government gives you a million dollars, you will not hire. On the other hand if the government gave those million dollars to a few thousand people then you may indeed have to hire someone new because suddenly you’re selling more.

Give money to the poor, the businesses get it in the end but at least the poor will have shoes.

(BTW – I’m not the author Fred)  A lot of the wealth in this country has dissappeared in this recession.  For those of us who might be in the above category you described, annual income alone is not a perfect measure of wealth.  For example, during this recession, our investments lost a great deal of value, which we can write off somewhat but was the bulk of our retirement.  Our homes also lost value, property taxes went up, business taxes went up, medical insurance for our employees went up over 25%, tuition went up, fuel went up and profit went down so we had to layoff employess.  We are trying our best to keep the employees we do have and pay our obligations.  My wife and I get all the bills, risk, headaches and little vacation, so we earn our money many times over.  Now, how much of OUR income do YOU think is FAIR for US to keep?  

And when you answer that question, please specifically describe how you arrive at your definition of “fairness” because some of the income inequalities people complain about about are statisically squewed by illegal immigration numbers.  And I would ask then, how much of our income should be redistributed to those who have entered the country illegally?  For how long and to what unstoppable multiplier?

lori and ellie – is this blog your substitute for therapy?

This is a really silly thing on which to base an entire comment on a blog post; no, it’s not obvious from the context that he was referring to federal income taxes.  ”It would be like saying that candidate Barack Obama lied when he said he visited 57 states.”  When are you people gonna give up that horse-shit.  I don’t care that you lack the shame to be embarrassed by it but more importantly, I find it annoying. 

I assume he knows that poor people pay sales taxes etc.  He was lying to his congregation to whip up resentment against the poor.  Just like Jesus would do, right?

“There are a hell of a lot of people who would read that and think, “They don’t pay anything and they want to raise MY taxes? Those freeloading bastards!”"

Who are those whole lot of people besides the ones that want to USE it to spin their own particular agenda?

Fred’s question to Rick Warren “Why do you resent people who have far, far less than you have?”
Exactly which part of the tweet and or retraction says that he resents the poor?

HALF of America pays NO taxes. Zero. So they’re happy for tax rates to be raised on the other half that DOES pay any taxes.

It seems a whole lot of words are being seen inside of those twenty-five words.
Is that because he’s wealthy? and resented.
Is that because he’s famous? and resented.
Is that because he’s done many things that others say should be done but don’t actually do it?
So they turn and bite him to cover their own lack of…… (A very human trait)
Is it the swine turning and trampling the one who casts the pearls?

Perhaps we all need to ask ourselves why, if he resents the poor, are we not in that light checking  our own attitudes  towards the poor and the rich? Should we despise the rich?
Let our stands be known, fantastic, let our voices be heard. 
Let a rallying cry for the poor be louder than the condemning of the one who condemns?

Tearing apart the ones who don’t measure up to our own standard of opinion politically or socially may not help the problem.

Maybe you aren’t a Christian? I think Fred the blogger was addressing the hypocrisy of many Christians. If you aren’t a Christian then you aren’t obligated to that standard of morality.

I also think your resentment against “illegal immigrants” is weird. Are they less human because they were born somewhere else?

Well, that Jesus fellow was known to have strong opinions on the subject.

Who are those whole lot of people besides the ones that want to USE it to spin their own particular agenda?

I know about a dozen of them. They aren’t politicians or commentators, but they deeply resent poor people and non-whites.

Perhaps we all need to ask ourselves why, if he resents the poor, are we not in that light checking  our own attitudes  towards the poor and the rich? Should we despise the rich?

One doesn’t have to advocate despising anyone to see that the equivalence you offer is a false one. Rich and powerful people probably don’t care if others despise them, because it doesn’t affect how much money or power they have. But despising the poor is what directly leads to policies that hurt the poor and create more poor people. It’s related to the principle that satire aimed at the powerless is cruel. Despising the poor is almost like despising people with catastrophic illnesses.

no, there’s a difference in that obama knows there are only 50 states.

what part of the points raised should rick warren be ignorant of, considering e also holds a Doctor of Ministry degree from Fuller Theological Seminary. somewhere in his education, he had to have studied (at minimum) the Beatitudes and most likely, pretty intense education in ALL the Gospels.

you don’t have to give up your belief in Christ OR church because of what you’ve been taught or don’t like what’s being taught…i found a very good home in the United Church of Christ, whose beliefs are in alignment with my philosophy of social justice and the dignity of ALL people.

“It’s a vicious lie, contemptuous of the weak, haughty and detestable, arrogant, overfed and unconcerned. This was the sin of your sister Sodom: she and her daughters had pride, excess of food, and prosperous ease, but did not aid the poor and the needy. ”

HOW REFRESHING!!! to see the sodom story used CORRECTLY!

Churches don’t pay property tax.

You know what just amazes me about taxes? That people don’t know the top rate is 33% now and was 91% in the fifties.

Amazingly, the US economy did not collapse under all that onerous taxation.

At least not on the property used only for religious purposes. The other stuff, however, may be paying taxes. (Renting out your hall probably doesn’t qualify for a tax exemption.)

Warren has always been vehemently homophobic. Why did you believe he was any different than Falwell and Robertson? Saying hateful things in a “nicer” tone of voice doesn’t make them any less hateful.

When they rent they do, and the average church in America is under 50 people and renting . It’s only the large ones that ever get any press, much of it bad.
Many if not most of these average churches in America have an unpaid Pastor working a full-time job and supplementing the lack in the ministry and the needs of people with their own income. These are the unseen troops. Unfortunately the bad-press from the Big Ones leaks down. On a per capita (per individuals that get real help) basis the small churches actually do more work, ie helping the poor, teaching that leads to actual discipleship, and makes other teachers leaders etc.

I was in that trench(war) for 11 years.

Valid point. I had thought that the only major difference was that Warren isn’t known for saying that victims of natural disasters and terrorist attacks were basically asking for it.

When they rent they do, and the average church in America is under 50 people and renting .

Huh? Most of the churches in my community are in established denominations with permanent structures. There are a handful of independent churches in warehouse-type buildings, and a few that rent school gyms on Sundays.

Most of the churches in my community are in established denominations
with permanent structures. There are a handful of independent churches
in warehouse-type buildings, and a few that rent school gyms on Sundays.

The local UUs rent from the local Jews.

There are a lot of storefront churches in my area, and I have to assume they have leases, since they don’t appear to own the buildings they’re in.

My original question was about the contention that “the average church in America is under 50 people and renting.” To me, that suggests that mainstream denominations have declined drastically as to represent a small minority of Christianity, or else those denominations have taken to renting storefronts instead of planting churches. Am I misreading the quote?

My original question was about the contention that “the average church in America is under 50 people and renting.” To me, that suggests that mainstream denominations have declined drastically as to represent a small minority of Christianity, or else those denominations have taken to renting storefronts instead of planting churches. Am I misreading the quote?

It’s possible that, while there are a lot of large churches, there are also many, many tinier congregations. I know that the church my family attended when I was a child was extremely small (I think it was just our family and the pastor’s family — maybe 15 people in all) and the space was rented out by the hour at the local community center. We were both made up of Liberian immigrants so this might be atypical.

Does anyone know of any surveys or studies on church sizes in the US?

USA Churches (http://www.usachurches.org) lists 1727 “small churches,”  3018 “medium churches,” 816 “Large Churches” and 448 Mega-Churches. Sizes are less than 50; between 50 and 300, between 300 and 2000 and over 2000.

The Harford Research Site (http://hirr.hartsem.edu/index.html) “estimates there are roughly 335,000 religious congregations in the
United States.  Of those, about 300,000 are Protestant and other
Christian churches, and 22,000 are Catholic and Orthodox churches. 
Non-Christian religious congregations are estimated at about 12,000.”

Again according to HIRR, the majority of congregations in the U.S. are small — around 75 active participants is the median.  However these represent only about 11% of church-goers.  Fifty percent of church-goers attend a church that places in the top 10% of congregants (350 or more people).

So, it really boils down to what you’re measuring — people? Or buildings?

I appreciate the research. I didn’t intend to measure buildings, just congregations. Interesting stat. From my experience though a very high percentage (75% Maybe, just an estimate) of members in small congregations are actually involved in the work of the church in the community. Also from what I’ve read, most people that feel they have received a calling into the ministry were in a small church.

Also, worth considering is that some Mega churches were small churches at one time i.e. Rick Warren’s Saddleback

Thanks for the research. I was really focusing on the “renting” part. To me, that implies not just a small congregation but an independent one that is relatively new. I’ve never heard of a Catholic or Episcopalian or Methodist congregation renting space for services, but it’s not impossible. In my community, the dates on the headstones in those congregations’ cemeteries go back two and three centuries, and many of their living descendants still attend services at those churches. By contrast, the oldest independent congregation here with its own building is probably 40 to 50 years old. Here, the growth of Baptist and independent churches seems to correlate with the growth of the community’s military base and with the rise of the bedroom community phenomenon.

But the most richy rich people do not pay according to brackets. Much of their income, not counting that they are able to hide in loopholes, comes in the the form of capital gains or S corporation dividends, etc., which get taxed less than income from actual work. This is why Warren Buffet pays a lower percentage of tax than some of his employees.

“Fred’s point, I believe, was about lying-by-omission and
lying-by-misleading, not “lying-by-literal-flat-wording-of-statement.”"

You mean  a half truth….