(Sorry about the barnyard language of the Leftists, but such is their usual mode of expression.)
Dave Griffey at Daffey Thoughts gives us a few examples;
So this came to my attention, from Mark Shea’s Twitter page:
Here was Scott Eric Alt’s initial Twitter post:
So that we know it’s not some strange thing Scott Eric Alt pulled out of the air – the equating Biden’s student loan debt proposal to the Gospel message – can be seen here:
And just to make sure it’s not all about equating policy to religion, we have a bold activist stating that as one who paid off his debts, he’s thrilled that people’s lives will be forever changed by Biden’s actions. Apparently there will be no negative side effects because, well, none of these brilliant commenters seem aware that there is anything but perfection with Biden’s proposal:
There is much that is obviously wrong with all this. The equating of a dashed off political policy to the Gospel is something right wing Christians were once accused of doing. And if they did it, it was wrong. As it is wrong now. But the point is, all they are doing is defending Biden. That’s what all of this is about. Nothing more, nothing less. Everything else is irrelevant.
That they elevated a controversial – from all sides – policy to the equivalent of the Christian message shows why they shouldn’t be trusted to speak to things of the Faith. That they clearly don’t care about who might be hurt by this shows why none of them should be listened to regarding the needs of the hurting. That they seem oblivious to the many criticisms of Biden’s proposal from all sides shows why they shouldn’t be listened to about politics.
Facts, data, context, and basic mature and reasoned approach to the subject are as far from these posts as east is from the west. Which is why, unless you conform to their particular brand of same-think, they probably shouldn’t be listened to at all.
Oh, and have I mentioned I wouldn’t do Twitter if my life depended on it? If you need a reason, just look at the sampling above. I could get better from kindergarteners on a playground.
Go here to comment. Most Leftists believe in Scripture about as much as they believe in arguing in good faith. They would reverse their arguments tomorrow if it were necessary in their crusade against conservatives.
Shea gets sillier by the year, by the month and seemingly by the day. Good grief. You want to compare telling people they don’t have to pay a loan to having sins forgiven, then attribute that to your favorite democrat president? “Jesus paid it all” goes the old Protestant hymn. So why isn’t Biden offering to pay mortgages and car loans?
Luke 22:25 gives a better description of Biden and his ilk: The kings of the Gentiles lord it over them; and those in authority over them are called benefactors.”
Matt Walsh is just stating the truth.
If Jeff Tiedritch is so happy to fund others education expenses than he and ilk should be happy to fund the killing of innocent children as well.
Not every one is happy about it.
Buying votes like this is criminal activity, imho. Keep the illegal immigration train going to Virginia and New York….please.
Gotta love Texas.
Is he pardoning the fees for future students? And if so for his long? Are the professors going to then teach for free?
*for how long
0.o
Jesus paid the debt.
He didn’t have someone else pay it.
If Joe wanted to spend his own money, instead of mine, I wouldn’t mind!
Hillaire Belloc’s remark that you come to a point where you have to destroy the debt or destroy the debtor is salient here. We have bankruptcy courts to do that. Biden didn’t recommend we expand the circumstances under which student loans could be discharged in bankruptcy (the circumstances being few consequent to legislation sponsored by …. Joe Biden). He just pretends to cancel debts he has no authority to cancel and does so without regard to the circumstances of the debtors in question and without regard to the moral hazard or the effect on risk premia going forward. Note, what the student loan market might benefit from is rigorous underwriting, which Biden’s measure does not promote at all.
Hillaire Belloc’s remark that you come to a point where you have to destroy the debt or destroy the debtor
Demonstrating yet again the rank ignorance of Belloc on anything to do with economics.
“Is he pardoning the fees for future students? And if so for his long? Are the professors going to then teach for free?”
Many of the professors are part time and have no benefits. The universities are building their foundations. It is said that Harvard has more money than the USA.
Demonstrating yet again the rank ignorance of Belloc on anything to do with economics.
That’s not a statement on economics.
Deamanding the taxpayer pay for college loans that youngsters irresponsibly took out is like demanding my brother divide his inheritance with me. It’s NOT like Christ volunteering to forgive us the debt of our sins.
Luke 12:13-21
13 Someone in the crowd said to him, “Teacher, tell my brother to divide the family inheritance with me.” 14 But he said to him, “Friend, who set me to be a judge or arbitrator over you?” 15 And he said to them, “Take care! Be on your guard against all kinds of greed; for one’s life does not consist in the abundance of possessions.” 16 Then he told them a parable: “The land of a rich man produced abundantly. 17 And he thought to himself, ‘What should I do, for I have no place to store my crops?’ 18 Then he said, ‘I will do this: I will pull down my barns and build larger ones, and there I will store all my grain and my goods. 19 And I will say to my soul, Soul, you have ample goods laid up for many years; relax, eat, drink, be merry.’ 20 But God said to him, ‘You fool! This very night your life is being demanded of you. And the things you have prepared, whose will they be?’ 21 So it is with those who store up treasures for themselves but are not rich toward God.”
True.
My concern is that it is good to struggle/pay back loans/eat ramen for years/not be able to take vacations etc.
What we have is those who can’t afford health insurance let alone a vacation are now being strapped w someone else’s debt all the while most, not all, are sipping their star bucks and haven’t tried to cut back the non-essentials in their lives.
On top of, higher education is gross and not worth the paper the degrees are printed on (just heard examples of engineers being hired at Nuclear plant that are absolutely worthless- don’t know anything).
And my final objection is anytime you involve the govt, it’s like having a loan w 30 or 40% interest.
I’m all for helping people. But some help is letting them struggle some.
But I admit as expensive as college is, what is 10k really going to do other than pay for books?
I think we should focus on trade schools but that is another story.
If they didn’t want this to smack of partisan bribery, they should have offered those who have worked hard and paid off their loans the ability to have a tax credit.
But it didn’t get debated, did it. Which is the main problem.
I’m all for helping.
This was not carried out in a partisan way.
And Shea, kiss my grits.
I got blocked on Twitter last year by Shea. So, I don’t have to read his tweets. I have probably been blocked by Mark Shea more than anyone on the Internet. That might come in handy as my Get Out of Hell Free card at judgment.
“That’s not a statement on economics.”
It certainly was. It was part of his idiocy that a modern society could be run without banks and interest.
Greg, 😂
We are assured our sufferings in this world will not go unnoticed. Shea is a bully w a stick. That’s all his he, a school yard bully. He got me blocked from being able to comment on NCR(register) although I see he is no longer a contributor. I used to be more careful in what/how I say things to boot.
I’m so saddened that Eden has gone over to his “side” 😞.
This came across my desk. Assuming it is true, things are quite the mess, are they not?
.
https://www.washingtonexaminer.com/opinion/long-term-con-obamacare-was-paid-for-by-nationalizing-student-loans
It was part of his idiocy that a modern society could be run without banks and interest.
No, that wasn’t the point of the remark or the thesis of that particular essay. I’m not sure there are any essays of his which take the position you’re attributing to him.
Mrs. Osprey is correct: “On top of, higher education is gross and not worth the paper the degrees are printed on (just heard examples of engineers being hired at Nuclear plant that are absolutely worthless- don’t know anything).”
I have worked (as most of you already know) in nuclear power since 1976 when I was a reactor operator on a nuclear submarine. I am a certified nuclear training instructor. I have taught everything from basic algebra, geometry & trigonometry to physics, reactor theory, heat transfer & fluid flow, and metallurgy, to instrumentation & controls, to BWR & PWR plant systems. I don’t have a college degree and I thank God I don’t, seeing those useless, worthless credentialed engineers from college or university who don’t know their nether regions from a hole in the ground. And if one of them is LGBTQ, the person is forever privileged & protected no matter how incompetent. Now don’t get me wrong. We got some fantastic engineers at Neutrons ‘R Us (my employer) who are superbly competent, but usually those are the ones from the nuclear Navy or from the commercial nuclear power industry with dozens of years of experience. But these millennial nit wits? With a few notable exceptions, most are useless and worthless.
PS, my first job as Reactor Operator on what we affectionately call “the Old Bone” was cleaning the bilges in Engineroom Forward where the feedwater regulating valves, the coolant charging pumps and the Steam Generator Level Control System were located. I got to memorize every valve, every pump, every pipe and every cable in that room. And when I had completed that, I got to go clean Engineroom Middle Level, then Upper Level to repeat the process until I was trusted to sit at the Reactor Plant Control Panel in Manuevering. Now that was an education.
He wrote about it all the time Art:
https://oldthunderbelloc.blogspot.com/2014/01/on-usury.html
Pardon the colorful words.
Hillarious Belloc knows his shit and his Marx Shay’s shit are not congruent with one microscopic iota of reality.
I know a poor student debtor. It took him like seven years to get a BS and when he got a good position, he immediately blew it up in a haze of weed smoke and booze. Not that there’s anything wrong with that.
His parents co-signed the loans and unbeknownst to the Warden gave the Warden as a reference. So, for years we were getting calls to pay up – collectors will try anything.
BTW. His parents could pay but they’re liberals and have no scruples. Plus, they vacay in Europe every Summer and hold millions in portfolio investments.
Outside debtors’ prison and leg breakers from the mafia it’s the lenders and their owners that eventually get destroyed when too many loans default.
Look it up. Apparently [the Corporation’s lawyers taught us to always write ‘apparently’] one of the major unintended consequences of one of Obama’s major national shit sandwiches – THE ACA – was nationalizing student lending. Ergo, the threatened-species US taxpayer gets pole axed by this budget-busting, inflationary, illegal and unconstitutional vote buying scam.
Bartender, pour me another double!
I don’t know what’s controversial about a Catholic writing an essay against the sin of usury.
It’s also not as though Belloc’s position came out of nowhere either; read question 78 in book II part 2 of the Summa. And of course the sinful nature of at least SOME loans is undeniable to anyone who has read the Bible.
You might say that Belloc goes too far, or that he doesn’t properly take into account things like the degradation of the value of money through inflation. But his position isn’t obviously wrong from a Catholic perspective.
And in any case it’s not like even Belloc says that all debt is illicit, he even gives an example of a licit loan which is paid back beyond the original value of the loan in that essay (someone taking out a loan to purchase equipment to develop a mine, in exchange for the lender getting paid part of the value of the mine.)
I don’t know what’s controversial about a Catholic writing an essay against the sin of usury.
Because Belloc’s take is economic idiocy, par for the course for the man who helped invent Distributism, the economic system for people who know nothing about economics. The history of usury as a theory in the Church is a history of a war against reality which caused popes to employ Jewish financiers in the Middle Ages, because an economic system without interest bearing loans is an absurdity. Belloc’s take on the question owed much more to the French radicalism of the day, his paternal heritage was always a baleful one, than the teachings of the Church which by the last century had long come to terms with interest bearing loans. I will say one thing about Belloc: he had a better understanding of economics than Chesterton, which is rather like saying that someone is a better dancer than a lame goat with Parkinsons. (Don, tell us what you really think!)
There is a great deal that I admire about both Belloc and Chesterton, but when it came to economics they were barking mad.
Wild, isn’t it? Shea’s understanding of sin includes opposition to student debt cancellation but excludes opposition to pro-life legislation. In his maladjusted mind, supporting legalized infanticide is less of a crime than not paying off other people’s debts.
Funnily enough, I support student debt cancellation, but it has to be subsidized through a tax on woke corporations, the ultra-wealthy, and university endowments. And the university bureaucracy needs to be gutted. All those administrators and diversity czars have gotta go.
Either way, canceling student loan debt is a better use of public funds than any component of our current foreign aid regime. I’d rather give that money to some broke twenty-five-year-old art student than, say, folks like Zelensky. America first.
True economy is based on love, truth and sacrifice.
The personal space of all sovereign personhood, that is the soul of man, assumed in human nature by Jesus Christ in the Hypostatic Union must be engaged in true economy in truth and trust.
The buyer and the vendor enter into a sacred covenant wherein the buyer receives from the vendor the means to survive and prosper, the gift of life and love in a trust worthy of God.
The vendor receives from the buyer the true value of goods, a gift in good will that will bring about the survival and prosperity of the vendor.
Giver and receiver act in good faith before almighty God, the Supreme Giver of Life with respect for the sovereign personhood of each and every other sovereign person made in the image and likeness of the Supreme Sovereign Being, the Creator, Redeemer and Divine Provider of all.
Cheating, swindling, gouging, flim flam and the like have no place in economy, even not in citizenship and statesmanship.
Jack Phillips of Masterpiece Bake Shop had every right of a free man to refuse entrance of sodomites into his sacred sovereign space to contract and covenant a gay wedding cake. Self-defense of his sovereign soul is his birthright as a child of God.
$135,000.00 fined of Aaron and Melissa Klein of Melissa’s Sweet Cakes destroyed their livelihood and their ability to provide for their four children for their sanctioning of sodomy. As have Baronelle Stutzman and the many proprieters of legitimate businesses and livelihoods who are suffering lawsuits and all evil contrary to the good will for the common good absolutely required for citizenship in a sovereign nation, the United States of America.
The Eighth Amenment to the Constitution for the United States of America reads: “Excessive bail shall not be required, nor excessive fines imposed, nor cruel and unusual punishments inflicted.”
Faith is a gift from God. Religion is man’s response to the gift of Faith from God. The government is instituted to guarantee the freedom to practice our response to the gift of Faith from God. Citizens are not slaves, nor are they subjects. Citizens are sovereign persons who are constituents who constitute and institute their Constitutional Republic, one nation under God, The United States of America. IN GOD WE TRUST
Self-defense is the natural, civil right of all free men.
Mary De Voe
I’ve heard people say similar things in terms of usury, i.e. that the Church had too broad of definition for most of its history.
What I never hear after that is what should actually constitute usury. It’s clear that usury is a sin from the Bible, whether that is from the law of the jubilee year, the frequent exhortations from the profits about the exploitation of the poor through loans and other means, Jesus’s parables of the dishonest steward and the unforgiving slave, etc. So if the understanding of usury as interest on unproductive loans is incorrect, what is the correct interpretation? The closest I’ve ever heard is “it’s when the interest is too high,” but even then I’ve never heard specific examples of what numbers would push interest into the usury range.
So if the understanding of usury as interest on unproductive loans is incorrect, what is the correct interpretation?
That the Bible is a book of religion and not an economics text book? Less snarkily, under US law the states have the ability to ban high interest rates as defined by the state legislatures.
https://www.americanbar.org/groups/litigation/committees/commercial-business/practice/2022/what-litigators-should-know-about-usury-laws/