“He will turn the hearts of the fathers to the children, LEST I COME & STRIKE THE EARTH WITH A CURSE”

Oftentimes, people who are opposed to socialism — or the expansion of government in general — get (falsely) accused of “not caring about the poor”. I can’t speak for everyone, but compassion for the poor is one of my chief motivators for opposing the idea that government is the solution to everything. The best motivator, of course, is that the Messianic Statism of the left AND right is idolotrous and an affront to King Jesus’ claims.

However, I have often said that if there was no other reason, we sould oppose socialistic programs to “help the poor” precisely because it harms, impoverishes & enslaves the very people it sets out to help. The bloody ground of the 20th Century screams out against the idea of “government compassion”. Modern history is one long, multinational object lesson in how Messianic, Utopian, tax-funded goverment “solutions” actually create much worse problems. It impoverishes millions, destroys families, advances immorality, hinders faith, and even directly kills many.

A basic rule of economics is that if you want an oversupply of anything, subsidize it. It’s true in the agricultural realm ( the only agricultural crops that we ever have a significant oversupply of in the US are the five that we subsizie the most heavily in some form : cotton, corn, soybeans, wheat, rice).
This is seen more clearly in the realm of the welfare state. Since Lyndon Johnson’s “Great Society” began with the lofty goal of using tax dollars to “end poverty in our time” there has been enough money spent on government poverty fighting programs to buy all the assets of the Fortune 500 & every acre of tillable farmland in North America — and we have MORE people below the poverty level than we did when the programs began **
A pretty poor track record.

Yesterday, I saw a living picture of the harm we have done in creating multigenerational, fatherless, government dependant families over the last 40 years.

I was in a store in a little town in North Mississippi & two young females were having a conversation while I was in line. I knew one of the girls — the mother of four children with three fathers, none of whom she’s been married to. (It was a white girl & a black girl, so this cuts across racial lines).
The unmarried mother of four told the other female : “This place don’t pay enough, I need to find me a man to take care of me.”
The other girl responded, “Girl, you don’t need no man, the government will take care of you. . .”
Then she began to explain to her all the ways the government would provide for her and why she didn’t “need no man.”
May God have mercy and may we remember that it is not the fault of these girls, “liberal” politicians, or even the decadent culture we live in (even though they all conspired to create & expand this problem), but rather the fault lies at the feet of the Church.
May we repent of our apathay & lack of love for Christ, His Gospel, and those hurt by a culture that hs rejected His kind rule.

When His gospel runs freely through His Word, His Spirit, and the love of His people lives & nations are transformed & the “pretenders to the throne” retreat in fear.

** These figures are from Economist Walter Williams and he published this about 8 years ago, so the numbers are likely WAAAY worse now