{"id":4765,"date":"2011-11-09T12:12:22","date_gmt":"2011-11-09T17:12:22","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/slacktivist\/?p=4765"},"modified":"2011-11-09T12:12:22","modified_gmt":"2011-11-09T17:12:22","slug":"michele-bachmann-calls-for-guaranteed-employment-for-all","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/slacktivist\/2011\/11\/09\/michele-bachmann-calls-for-guaranteed-employment-for-all\/","title":{"rendered":"Michele Bachmann calls for guaranteed employment for all"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<\/head>

Rights come with responsibilities, my conservative friends are always saying. And they\u2019re right about that.<\/p>\n

And because they\u2019re right about that, then they must also agree with me that responsibilities come with rights.<\/p>\n

If, for example, I am responsible for keeping the sidewalk in front of my house clear of snow in the winter, then I must also have the right<\/em> to shovel that snow off of that sidewalk. It would make no sense to say that I was responsible for shoveling that snow if I were not permitted to shovel it. So the obligation entails the right to meet that obligation, otherwise any talk of such an obligation would be a perverse, Kafkaesque farce.<\/p>\n

Which brings us to 2 Thessalonians 3:10, a verse quoted recently by Rep. Michele Bachmann, R-Minn., who is seeking the Republican nomination for president. It\u2019s one part of a longer discussion<\/a> in which the author rebukes those in the early Christian community who had stopped working in anticipation of Jesus\u2019 imminent return:<\/p>\n

For even when we were with you, we gave you this command: Anyone unwilling to work should not eat.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Michele Bachmann cited this passage on Monday<\/a> as a definition of \u201cself-reliance\u201d \u2014 \u201cSelf reliance means, if anyone will not work, neither should he eat.\u201d It\u2019s true that the author of 2 Thessalonians urges Christians to \u201cearn their own living,\u201d but the modern idea of \u201cself-reliance\u201d isn\u2019t really compatible with the generally Pauline outlook of that epistle. If you told St. Paul that you were \u201cself-reliant,\u201d he\u2019d have told you that you were a blasphemous, idolatrous fool.<\/p>\n

But nevermind such quibbles, because I\u2019m too excited by the fact that, finally, four years into America\u2019s jobs crisis, we finally have a politician with national stature saying that every American who is able to work should be guaranteed<\/em> a job. Here is Bachmann bravely saying that employment is the fundamental and undeniable right<\/em> of every American who is able to work. Everyone has the responsibility to work, she said, and therefore everyone has the right to a job.<\/p>\n

I admit, Bachmann was a bit muted on the \u201ctherefore\u201d part, and she didn\u2019t provide any details about how, exactly, she would ensure full employment and guarantee a job for every American in need of one. But that has to be<\/em> what she meant. It\u2019s the only logical, non-contradictory and decent possibility for what she could have meant.<\/p>\n

Because if Bachmann was arguing that every American capable of working has a responsibility to work without also arguing that every such person has the right<\/em> to a job \u2014 a guaranteed<\/em> right to a job, right now \u2014 then that would make her a monstrous, illogical imbecile intent on cruelly punishing the jobless with contradictory obligations and prohibitions. That would make her a horrible, ignorant, despicable failure of a human being.<\/p>\n

So, obviously, that can\u2019t<\/em> be what she meant. Right?<\/p>\n<\/body><\/html>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Rights come with responsibilities, my conservative friends are always saying. And they\u2019re right about that. And because they\u2019re right about that, then they must also agree with me that responsibilities come with rights. If, for example, I am responsible for keeping the sidewalk in front of my house clear of snow in the winter, then […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":141,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[11,27,36],"class_list":["post-4765","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized","tag-bible","tag-politics","tag-work"],"yoast_head":"\nMichele Bachmann calls for guaranteed employment for all<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"Rights come with responsibilities, my conservative friends are always saying. And they're right about that. 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A former managing editor of Prism magazine, Fred worked in the parachurch nonprofit world for a decade and then for a decade in the newspaper biz. He began blogging in 2002. In 2003 he began writing a review of the best-selling Left Behind series. Eight years later he still hasn\u2019t finished reviewing the second book of that series and the experience has left him a broken shell of a man. Fred knows the difference between the possessive \u201cits\u201d and the contraction \u201cit\u2019s,\u201d and he is acutely bothered when others mistakenly confuse the two, yet he himself just kind of instinctively types the apostrophe whether or not it belongs there. Some feel this is his greatest hypocrisy, but those who know him better know better. He\u2019s guilty of much greater hypocrisies. Jesus loves Fred far more than Fred loves Jesus, but he at least has the decency to recognize the unfairness of that lopsided relationship and he has long wished that he were better at maybe kind of sort of doing something more to correct that some day. A Baptist, an amateur, a Gen-Xer, a Gemini and a Mets fan, Fred lives in Southeastern Pennsylvania with his wife and two teenage daughters. 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