Ann Coulter is a mystery to me. For the most part, I think it would be safe to say that I disagree with just about everything she's ever said, but there are moments that she sometimes makes sense. This morning she wrote on her website about...wait for it...wait for it.... how liberals are ruining the world. Wow, what a novel idea Ann, I don't think anyone has ever done that... Could you do it some more? Ok, return from sarcasm, she writes about how one of the largest problems with our medical system is how much doctor's have to pay in malpractice insurance in fear of being sued. And surprisingly, I agree with her. (My skin is trying to crawl off my body for saying I agree with Ann Coulter) I understand that these people are doctors, and that there are certain extenuating circumstances in which they need to be sued for blatant malpractice, but at the same time, when is our country ever going to stop trying to earn that quick buck at someone else's expense? Because it really isn't at someONE else's expense, it's at everyone's expense. The more people sue, the more doctor's have to spend on malpractice insurance, and the more everyone has to pay just to go see the doctor. So in this one sentence, I agree with her.... (shudder) Coulter says...
"Doctors graduate at the top of their classes at college and then spend nearly a decade in grueling work at medical schools. Most doctors don't make a dime until they're in their early 30s, just in time to start paying off their six-figure student loans by saving people's lives. They have 10 times the IQ of trial lawyers and 1,000 times the character. Yeah, let's go after those guys. On to nuns next!"
How about on to the ministers next Ann, ever remember us? We have comparable amounts of student loans and most of us don't start school until after we're 30, because our culture doesn't support people who are going to follow their heart and their calling simply because no one understands why you would want to work and never make a dime. We don't listen to our calling because we grow up in a consumerist society that doesn't support that, because our calling won't make us rich. So we work in corporate america, and when we finally decide to follow God's calling on our life, we end up NEVER making a dime because whatever we make goes to those same student loans to put us through school. (Or at least those of us who aren't out to work at a mega-church with theology which disgraces God and God's will for justice of all, and a mega-church which is disgracing the radical political message of Jesus' life)
Ann, have you ever heard of a liberal minister? Oh that's right, someone, actually a very close, long time friend, told me once that they don't exist. Again, my skin is crawling off my body... I AM A LIBERAL MINISTER. I EXIST. So how can you say Ann, that the church of liberalism is Godless? Granted, I haven't read your book Ann, because I refuse to give you any of my limited disposable income, I'd rather buy crack cocaine, but I would just like to respond to the title of your book.... The church of liberalism.... is "the church." Jesus' message was a radical message of love, which calls on us to respond to God's calling on our life, not the calling most of us hear of our capitalist society. God calls us to fight for and stand in solidarity with those in the margins of society. The individualism that conservatism is calling our society to live in, is killing us. The church of liberalism is one of community, which is what we are called to live in. We are not called to live as a group of individuals who claim community simply because of proximity, but we are called, by God, in our liberalism and all, to live in community, and I believe that is what this dreaded word, liberalism is calling us to do. So how is liberalism Godless? Capitalism is supporting this growth in modernity and individualism, and it is killing us.
Larry Rasmussen says...
“More precisely, [modernity] remains powerful and active though badly hurt, like a wounded giant floundering about on a series of realities we have only begun to recognize as interlinked: capitalist and socialist economies so totally out of sync with nature’s requirements for regeneration as to quietly threaten ecocide; the destruction of indigenous cultures and peoples; the breakdown of close community and organic traditions; the disintegrative effects for society, psyche, and nature of living out the image of mastery and control as the primary image for humanity itself; the development of weapons of apocalyptic destruction; the mountain of debt incurred by maintaining civilization and paying for its debris, costs far exceeding those needed to build it in the first place; the immiseration of the growing urban poor and the evacuation of many rural areas in the manner of “Appalachias”; the recognition that while different, the forms of oppression of women, many minorities, Third World, and indigenous peoples are linked and arise from forces that oppress land and nature as well; and the onset, amid self abundance itself, of frazzled nerves, addiction, stress, rootlessness, chronic fatigue, and depression as serious diseases of a scattered soul and a restless, impoverished spirit.”
Individualistic society is not serving a large portion of the population well, and something must be changed. What must be changed, is that we must commit to living in community, standing in solidarity with our sisters and brothers in the margins, and we must commit to listening to the God that calls for radical liberal change. Being a Christian, listening to the God I know exists is what calls me to be a liberal....So I ask you Ann Coulter, how is liberalism Godless?
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