Star Member Martin Eden (5,664 posts)
10. If caring about others is antithetical to conservatism ...
... then conservatism is antithetical to the teachings of Jesus Christ.
Maybe I'm misunderstanding ME due to lack of context, but if he really believes conservative Christians don't care about others, he hasn't been around very many. A few examples:
* PP (and other abortuaries) care about pregnant women by cutting the baby out of them, cutting a few hundred dollars out of their bank accounts, and then cutting the women loose; crisis pregnancy centers counsel women against aborting, support them with counseling through their pregnancies, give baby clothes, supplies, and even furniture, and provide counseling to women who have had abortions and are having trouble dealing with the enormity of what they've done;
* In the hours after the earthquake and tsunami in Indonesia, the first westerners from the outside who came with aid were the US military, not the UN; this is well know, among conservatives at least; less well known is that the sailors and Marines found that they were not the first westerners giving aid; many westerners in that part of the world are missionaries, openly or in the form of humanitarian work; the missionaries already had in place and were distributing/using food and medical supplies and means of transportation (and some had managed to communicate the need to their support organizations in the US and elsewhere); this has been the case all over Asia (and perhaps Africa and South America), with many natural disasters in many countries (Muslim leaders in Pakistan have been so POed at this that they've demanded their government forbid aid from Christian orgs and individuals);
* Closer to my home, the largest organization in San Jose working to return the homeless back into mainstream society, helping addicts into recovery, and providing shelter for pregnant women whose families kicked them out is Cityteam, a Christian organization;
* This weekend 8 or 9 schools from Gilroy north to East Palo Alto got significant landscaping and facelift work (as well as several neighborhood, park, and suburban creeks), thanks to a local Christian organization called Beautiful Day and the several churches working with them (I suspect that quite a few cities could say the same, scaled to the size of their city and the maturity of their local orgs); Beautiful Day does this twice a year, along with occasional projects-of-opportunity.