After the Pledge of Allegiance

Jesus is out of step 

Whether or not you agree, we’re still all members of the same family, the American family. If this is so, would you deny places at the table to family members (your brothers and sisters) on Thanksgiving so that 20% of the family could claim 100% of the meal? Especially when the table is huge and the food abundant. Don’t we have a responsibility to share this abundance with all of our family members?

Ah, you say the 20% deserve their portion because they’ve earned it, and if those excluded had worked hard enough they would be sitting in their place as well? Certainly a good analogy if we were a pack of dogs. Is that what you believe we are, or should be?

By all estimates we’ve been and are the richest country the world has ever seen. Since this is the case, why do 45 million Americans lack health care, and why have we allowed our infant mortality to drift lower than that of… gasp! Cuba. Would you truly allow your own little sister or brother to die because your mother lacked sufficient access to health care? Or would you say she should have been more educated and more aware and more ruthlessly snapped and snarled her way to her portion of the bounty—even if she was disabled and unable to work?

Perhaps your America is different place than mine, where mistakes are punished and the less able are discarded like so much waste, where greed is moral and good, and where only the fittest and strong survive. Perhaps you should read your Bible, the text on which you apparently place such trust:

Matthew 9:10-12

And it came to pass, as Jesus sat at meat in the house, behold,
many publicans and sinners came and sat down with him and his
disciples.

And when the Pharisees saw it, they said unto his disciples, Why
eateth your Master with publicans and sinners?

But when Jesus heard that, he said unto them, they that be whole need not a
physician, but they that are sick.