I vs. We

A Christian Democrat speaks out:

Column Left - Los Cerritos Community news - November 4, 2004 Republicans & Democrats: Opposite Starting Points - by Charlie Ara, President Emeritus, Hubert H. Humphrey Democratic Club I am writing this on the day before the election. Of course, I hope Kerry will win. We will know by the time this Column Left is published. However, what I do know from my years of experience, is that Republicans and Democrats have opposite starting points. Republicans start with the individual and the Democrats start with the common good. Rugged individualism is a hallmark of the republican philosophy while social justice is a hallmark of the democratic philosophy. To put it in another way, the Republican Party is the party of like-minded individuals while the Democratic party is the party of diversity embracing a broad cross section of the commonweal. When I talk to Republicans I hear "I want my taxes to be lowered" "I have the right to own a gun"... "My country right or wrong" and other sentiments that begin with "I" or "me or my." When I talk to fellow democrats I hear "the working poor need a living wage" "the poor, the disabled, the mentally ill, the elderly, the immigrant are our concern." "we need affordable health care for all" "we need decent low-income housing in our communities." Since the Republicans, disregarding the first amendment of separation of church & state, have brought faith into politics, let’s look at opposite starting points there. From the Christian perspective, Republicans focus on the concept of "Jesus and I." From the Christian perspective, Democrats focus on the concept of that beatitude that says "Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for justice " In addition, from a Christian perspective, Democrats focus on those words in Matthew 25: "I was hungry and you gave me to eat, thirsty and you gave me to drink, sick and you visited me, in prison and you came to me, etc." Without getting into the complex issue of biblical interpretation, salvation for the Christian Republican depends on personal conversion and for the Christian Democrat salvation depends on what we have done for our fellow human being. Again, we are looking at "I versus we" as a starting point. Now, let’s look at the issue of morality. Christian Republicans see morality in sexual terms. Christian democrats see morality in terms of life after birth. For the Christian Democrat the most burning moral issue of the day is the morality of war. I do not want to oversimplify this, but the Pope and all major Protestant denominations condemned the war in Iraq on the basis that the moral conditions for a just war were not satisfied. In the seminary, I studied ethics as one of the seven parts of philosophy. One of the most basic tenets of ethics is that the end does not justify the means. As I see it, from both a rational and a faith perspective, the Democratic Party promotes the common good by its concern for the good of all while it appears to me that the Republican Party uses whatever means it can to protect the rich and to deprive the poor of their God-given rights.