# Paul Ryan steals lunch (story) **URL:** \ **Category:** Politics & Elections\ **Created:** [March 7, 2014, 2:57pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/paul-ryan-steals-lunch-story/683111 "2014-03-07T14:57:43Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 9
**Author:** ![CJJ](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/ecc23a/32.png) [@CJJ](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/CJJ)\ **Post date:** [March 14, 2014, 9:24pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/paul-ryan-steals-lunch-story/683111/161 "2014-03-14T21:24:53Z")
> [@Bricker](#): > > Deut 24:19-22: > > Sure. But notice the lack of, “…and as you do these things, so shall you form a government to force your neighbor to do likewise.” > > Charity that comes from a personal desire to help is what God speaks of here, not the creation of a framework of laws which compel it. Compelled charity is no charity at all. And it does NOT amount to obeying God’s abjurations. To be fair to **Bricker** this is a common (though not universal) theological interpretation of biblical passages like this. You may disagree with it, but it supported by a respected body of theology A similar “personal vs. social” interpretation of bible verses–here specifically Matthew 25–was [briefly discussed](http://www.ethicsdaily.com/house-members-cite-jesus-in-farm-bill-debate-one-favors-food-stamp-cuts-accepts-farm-subsides-cms-20826) in the House last summer during the debate over cuts to SNAP benefits. This is Rep. Juan Vargas (D-CA): > [@](#): > > “And he says how you treat the least among us, the least of our brothers, that’s how you treat him. And interestingly, the very first thing he says, ‘For I was hungry and you gave me to eat.’ The first thing, right off the bat … For those of you who do follow Jesus, as I do, I hope you will go back and read that,” said the congressman. > > “Mr. Vargas, I, too, am a follower of Christ. Jesus Christ is my personal savior. I read Matthew 25 to speak to me as an individual. I don’t read it to speak to the United States government. So I take a little bit of umbrage with you on that,” said Rep. Mike Conaway (R-Texas), a Southern Baptist, in an irenic tone. > > Later in the hearing, Rep. Stephen Fincher (R-Tenn.) responded to Vargas. > > “Being a Christian, as am I, Mr. Vargas, the Bible says lots of things … Matthew 26:11 – ‘the poor will always be with us.’ And then I looked at 2 Thessalonians 3:10 … 'the one who is unwilling to work shall not eat…Jesus made it very clear that we have a duty and an obligation as Christians and citizens of this country to take care of each other,” he said, suggesting an individualistic approach to following Jesus’ teaching on care for the poor. ---
**Author:** ![RTFirefly](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/c77e96/32.png) [@RTFirefly](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/RTFirefly)\ **Post date:** [March 15, 2014, 1:09am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/paul-ryan-steals-lunch-story/683111/162 "2014-03-15T01:09:43Z")
Of course, Rep. Fincher’s quoting of Scripture gets us back to the root issue: Fincher says if you don’t work, you don’t eat - but he’s not going to make it possible for you to work, either. Which amounts to a sentence of starvation. God’s love in action! :mad: And that’s the thing here: the problem I have with the Republicans (and with Bricker’s defense of them) isn’t rooted in their objection to any particular remedy to our national inability (unwillingness, really - we _could_ do this) to provide gainful employment, and its consequences in the lives of millions - it’s that _they reject every last remedy that might actually help_ anyone fight their way out of poverty. The problem is there aren’t enough jobs, and too many of the jobs there are, aren’t enough to live off of. But the **only** remedy that’s OK with them is to ‘motivate’ people to seek work that largely isn’t there. Yeah, that’s evil. I don’t mind saying so. And I don’t give a shit if it irritates **Bricker** to hear a spade called a spade. And another major aspect of this tragedy is, we’ve got tons of work that needs doing. That building in Harlem that blew up, with that 127 year old gas main - well, that 127 year old gas main isn’t exactly an outlier in the older parts of our country in terms of infrastructure that’s gone way past its time, and of course every local government defers maintenance and repair first when budgets get tight, and adds it in last when good times return. So a lot more of it needs doing than ever gets done. People that need work, work that needs doing - seems like a natural match. The Republicans are against that too. But if you don’t work, you don’t eat. That’s evil. How can it be anything else? ---
**Author:** ![RTFirefly](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/c77e96/32.png) [@RTFirefly](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/RTFirefly)\ **Post date:** [March 15, 2014, 1:21am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/paul-ryan-steals-lunch-story/683111/163 "2014-03-15T01:21:27Z")
And of course, there’s always that mystery question: how come those lazy bums in the inner city weren’t so lazy back in 1999, or even 2007? Oh yeah, that’s right: _there were jobs_. Funny how when people _could_ get jobs and earn money, they _did_. Guess eight years of the Clintons was good for this nation’s moral fiber after all, despite what the GOP was saying at the time. But now there aren’t any jobs to find, so it’s all their fault, it’s because they’re lazy. ---
**Author:** ![RTFirefly](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/c77e96/32.png) [@RTFirefly](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/RTFirefly)\ **Post date:** [March 15, 2014, 1:29am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/paul-ryan-steals-lunch-story/683111/164 "2014-03-15T01:29:02Z")
And it doesn’t seem like poverty [has that much to do with the inner city](http://www.balloon-juice.com/2014/03/14/better-than-ezra/) anyway. Seems like it’s all the Republican-dominated parts of the country that have lost their moral fiber. By their own words, they condemn themselves. With the help of some hard facts from the lazy gummint bureaucrats. 😃 ---
**Author:** ![Voyager](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/voyager/32/133_2.png) [@Voyager](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Voyager)\ **Post date:** [March 17, 2014, 7:12pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/paul-ryan-steals-lunch-story/683111/165 "2014-03-17T19:12:16Z")
The Times had an interesting column yesterday about how the British said exactly the same thing about Ryan’s Irish ancestors (don’t give them food during the potato famine, they’ll just get dependent) as Ryan is saying now about the poor. ---
**Author:** ![Johnny\_L.A](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/johnny_l.a/32/1084_2.png) [@Johnny\_L.A](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Johnny_L.A)\ **Post date:** [March 17, 2014, 7:20pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/paul-ryan-steals-lunch-story/683111/166 "2014-03-17T19:20:21Z")
[Is this it](http://www.nytimes.com/2014/03/16/opinion/sunday/paul-ryans-irish-amnesia.html?_r=0)? ---
**Author:** ![Gyrate](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/gyrate/32/3588_2.png) [@Gyrate](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Gyrate)\ **Post date:** [March 18, 2014, 10:11am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/paul-ryan-steals-lunch-story/683111/167 "2014-03-18T10:11:23Z")
Clearly the answer is for the poor to emigrate to a new nation across the ocean, a land of opportunity where a man can work all the land he can seize and hold, a land called - Somalia! ---
**Author:** ![RTFirefly](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/c77e96/32.png) [@RTFirefly](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/RTFirefly)\ **Post date:** [March 18, 2014, 12:36pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/paul-ryan-steals-lunch-story/683111/168 "2014-03-18T12:36:33Z")
Somalia sounds like a libertarian paradise, doesn’t it? And a Second Amendment paradise, too. A well-armed society, which I’m sure is a _very_ polite society, amirite? 😉 ---
**Author:** ![SenorBeef](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/senorbeef/32/2220_2.png) [@SenorBeef](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/SenorBeef)\ **Post date:** [March 18, 2014, 12:42pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/paul-ryan-steals-lunch-story/683111/169 "2014-03-18T12:42:12Z")
Somalia has no real government, and no real protection for property rights. No real courts, no real police force, no real lots of shit that libertarians recognize as necessary. Whatever their faults, the liberal meme of implying Somalia is a libertarian’s ideal society is juvenile. ---
**Author:** ![iiandyiiii](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/iiandyiiii/32/7924_2.png) [@iiandyiiii](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/iiandyiiii)\ **Post date:** [March 18, 2014, 12:44pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/paul-ryan-steals-lunch-story/683111/170 "2014-03-18T12:44:02Z")
> [@SenorBeef](#): > > Somalia has no real government, and no real protection for property rights. No real courts, no real police force, no real lots of shit that libertarians recognize as necessary. Whatever their faults, the liberal meme of implying Somalia is a libertarian’s ideal society is juvenile. It’s hyperbole, but I think it’s used because Somalia appears to be the closest place on earth that’s at all close to what libertarians desire with regards to government. If you disagree, is there another place on earth that is closer? ---
**Author:** ![Gyrate](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/gyrate/32/3588_2.png) [@Gyrate](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Gyrate)\ **Post date:** [March 18, 2014, 12:45pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/paul-ryan-steals-lunch-story/683111/171 "2014-03-18T12:45:53Z")
You got a better place to send all the poor people? ---
**Author:** ![SenorBeef](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/senorbeef/32/2220_2.png) [@SenorBeef](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/SenorBeef)\ **Post date:** [March 18, 2014, 12:48pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/paul-ryan-steals-lunch-story/683111/172 "2014-03-18T12:48:10Z")
Libertarianism isn’t anarchism, and Somalia isn’t even what organized anarchists are looking for. There are dozens of countries with functional governments, protection of natural rights, existence of property rights, police forces, and court systems that are closer to the libertarian ideal than Somalia. Relatively economically free nations in the west differ from the libertarian ideal in degree, whereas Somalia is fundamentally missing components required for libertarianism to function. ---
**Author:** ![RTFirefly](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/c77e96/32.png) [@RTFirefly](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/RTFirefly)\ **Post date:** [March 18, 2014, 1:56pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/paul-ryan-steals-lunch-story/683111/173 "2014-03-18T13:56:26Z")
> [@SenorBeef](#): > > Relatively economically free nations in the west differ from the libertarian ideal in degree, whereas Somalia is fundamentally missing components required for libertarianism to function. Then the thing for libertarians to do would be move over there and set up their own government - not for the whole country, of course, but just for that part that they wished to occupy. An anarchic environment is, at the very least, an opportunity for libertarians to put their theories to the test, because there’s effectively no pre-existing government to stop them from doing so. ---
**Author:** ![RTFirefly](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/c77e96/32.png) [@RTFirefly](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/RTFirefly)\ **Post date:** [March 18, 2014, 2:06pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/paul-ryan-steals-lunch-story/683111/174 "2014-03-18T14:06:04Z")
Getting back to Paul Ryan, another thing is that the whole bit about lazy inner-city blahs living off of welfare for generations is about 20 years out of date. Welfare reform, 1996, TANF, and all that. A policymaker who’s supposedly serious about wrestling with the problem of poverty who doesn’t know this already should be laughed out of the room, especially one whose argument is that the big problem is dependency on public handouts. Someone making that argument should at least know the basics of what the handouts are and how they work. ---
**Author:** ![Boyo\_Jim](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/87869e/32.png) [@Boyo\_Jim](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Boyo_Jim)\ **Post date:** [March 18, 2014, 2:41pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/paul-ryan-steals-lunch-story/683111/175 "2014-03-18T14:41:40Z")
> [@RTFirefly](#): > > Getting back to Paul Ryan, another thing is that the whole bit about lazy inner-city blahs living off of welfare for generations is about 20 years out of date. Welfare reform, 1996, TANF, and all that. > > A policymaker who’s supposedly serious about wrestling with the problem of poverty who doesn’t know this already should be laughed out of the room, especially one whose argument is that the big problem is dependency on public handouts. Someone making that argument should at least know the basics of what the handouts are and how they work. Yea, well all the old arguments were about lazy adults. Now we’re talking about lazy entitled children, who expect the government to feed them! ---
**Author:** ![Bricker](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/977dab/32.png) [@Bricker](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bricker)\ **Post date:** [March 18, 2014, 3:06pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/paul-ryan-steals-lunch-story/683111/176 "2014-03-18T15:06:56Z")
> [@RTFirefly](#): > > And it doesn’t seem like poverty [has that much to do with the inner city](http://www.balloon-juice.com/2014/03/14/better-than-ezra/) anyway. Seems like it’s all the Republican-dominated parts of the country that have lost their moral fiber. By their own words, they condemn themselves. With the help of some hard facts from the lazy gummint bureaucrats. 😃 That’s confusing. I drive through Pigtown and it sure SEEMS like poverty. The map shows poverty by region, not by population density. Areas of low population density that are poor areas show larger on the map than areas of high population density that are poor. And it seems to me I recall your raising the same objection several years ago, when someone posted a map showing areas that voted for the Republican as opposed to areas that voted for the Democrat: that map was awash in red, with some blue splashes here and there, and a quick look at it suggested that Republican support was wide-spread. But you – again, if I recall correctly – made the very cogent point that the picture was deceptive – that Wisconsin (to create an example) was wide open spaces with few people, while New York City was tiny with a gigantic population density. Yet on the map, NYC appeared tiny and Wisconsin huge, because the map was physical geography. Does that ring any bells with you? Doesn’t this map do the same thing? ---
**Author:** ![Shodan](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/9f8e36/32.png) [@Shodan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Shodan)\ **Post date:** [March 18, 2014, 4:31pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/paul-ryan-steals-lunch-story/683111/177 "2014-03-18T16:31:30Z")
[QUOTE=RTFirefly] As best as I can tell, God is all for taking away the property of the rich and giving it to the needy - i.e. redistributionary taxation. I would refer you to Deuteronomy 24:19-22 and Deut. 26:12-13, for instance. [/QUOTE] I assume you would agree that the other commands of the Old Testament are equally binding, and can be used to determine God’s will for government today. Right? Regards, Shodan ---
**Author:** ![elucidator](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/8edcca/32.png) [@elucidator](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/elucidator)\ **Post date:** [March 18, 2014, 4:45pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/paul-ryan-steals-lunch-story/683111/178 "2014-03-18T16:45:56Z")
Boy, he got you there, **Arty**! Hooo, doggies! ---
**Author:** ![RTFirefly](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/c77e96/32.png) [@RTFirefly](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/RTFirefly)\ **Post date:** [March 18, 2014, 5:08pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/paul-ryan-steals-lunch-story/683111/179 "2014-03-18T17:08:35Z")
> [@Shodan](#): > > I assume you would agree that the other commands of the Old Testament are equally binding, and can be used to determine God’s will for government today. Right? > > Regards, > Shodan I was talking about good and evil. If everyone in the conversation believes in God, excluding him from a conversation about what is good and what is evil seems nonsensical. I’m not sure what you’re saying I’m trying to ‘bind.’ I’m not ‘binding’ anything; I just want to call things by their right names. Contrary to Chuck Colson\*, we have the right to do what is wrong. Even governments have the right to do what is wrong: if you’re afraid to make policy that might wrong someone, you’ll likely fail to make any policy at all, because any policy will have winners and losers. I think an awareness of good and evil should strongly inform our policy choices, but you’re the only one talking about binding. \*Why Chuck Colson? Because he visited a college that I taught at, once upon a time, and gave a rousing speech whose theme, hammered in by a dozen or so repetitions, was “You cannot have the right to do what is wrong!” ---
**Author:** ![RTFirefly](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/c77e96/32.png) [@RTFirefly](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/RTFirefly)\ **Post date:** [March 18, 2014, 5:14pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/paul-ryan-steals-lunch-story/683111/180 "2014-03-18T17:14:06Z")
> [@Bricker](#): > > That’s confusing. > > I drive through Pigtown and it sure SEEMS like poverty. > > The map shows poverty by region, not by population density. Areas of low population density that are poor areas show larger on the map than areas of high population density that are poor. > > And it seems to me I recall your raising the same objection several years ago, when someone posted a map showing areas that voted for the Republican as opposed to areas that voted for the Democrat: that map was awash in red, with some blue splashes here and there, and a quick look at it suggested that Republican support was wide-spread. But you – again, if I recall correctly – made the very cogent point that the picture was deceptive – that Wisconsin (to create an example) was wide open spaces with few people, while New York City was tiny with a gigantic population density. Yet on the map, NYC appeared tiny and Wisconsin huge, because the map was physical geography. > > Does that ring any bells with you? > > Doesn’t this map do the same thing? You may be right. Tell me, did I produce evidence that demonstrated that the map was misleading, or did I just do a handwaving sort of thing? [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/paul-ryan-steals-lunch-story/683111.md?page=8) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/paul-ryan-steals-lunch-story/683111.md?page=10)