Jesus was not A Liberal
He was, however, quite progressive. Lester's response to La Shawn and Michael King is on point, and goes back to the noun versus adjective problem…was Jesus liberal or was Jesus A Liberal™? The confusion is so strong, even so capable a person as Lester deals with "liberal" as a synonym for "Democratic Party Member
Oh. One more thing. When Jackson says:
The Suffragettes were liberals; those who opposed the vote for women were conservatives. Martin Luther King was a liberal; the segregationists were conservatives. He wanted to end racial discrimination; they wanted to conserve it.
...he's right. It is also true that many of the segregationists were Democrats...but don't get it twisted. Partisan preference (also known as party id) is very different from political ideology. One can be a Liberal Republican (though this is becoming a bit hard) just as one can be a Conservative Democrat (ask Zell Miller about this one).
Yeah, he's got nuance, but he called Zell Miller a Democrat.
Now, I'm sure Conservatives™ would like to claim Yeshua ben Joseph was a Conservative™. But one must look at the times and the context in which he lived.
The Pharisees didn't see him as conservative at all, did they?
Now, if I'm going to call Jesus a Conservative™…or, for that matter, a Liberal™…we're going to have to start judging everyone else outside their historical context as well. That makes all your founding fathers racist as hell rather than simply a product of their times. After all, they are one hell (oops, heck) of a lot closer to our timeframe than Yeshua is. And we'd have to update a few things, check a few political positions to see if they are in keeping with the teaching of Yeshua.
For instance, we have the famous saying, "Give a man a fish and you feed him for a day. Teach a man to fish and you feed him for life." Which of the two categories would you say this falls under?
The President's Fiscal Year 2004 Department of Labor budget calls for deep cuts to job training and employment service programs at a time of economic uncertainty, while the unemployment rate is at its highest level in eight years and millions of American families are suffering.
Unemployment insurance. The President's budget would transfer all the authority for administration of unemployment insurance from the federal government to the states, which would put unwanted fiscal pressure on the states, and threaten the unemployment benefits of American families by forcing states to choose between raising taxes, cutting benefits, or facing delays, overpayments and underpayments of benefit checks due to inadequate administrative funding.
Personal Re-employment Accounts. The Bush Administration has a new proposal to spend $3.6 billion over two years for states to create Personal Re-employment Accounts (PRA). According to the Administration, these accounts would provide up to $3,000 to unemployed workers to purchase intensive re-employment, training, and support services. It is clear that workers need greater investments in job training and in unemployed workers, but these accounts do not reach enough workers, limit flexibility for job training, and are no replacement for investments in proven job training and unemployment supports.
Many workers who need re-employment services would not receive them under the President's PRAs, including the one million workers who have run out of all of their state and federal unemployment benefits without finding a new job. Only workers eligible for unemployment insurance would have access to this program. That would mean that part-time workers, home-based workers, and many low-wage and low-skilled workers would be ineligible. If the same number of workers exhaust their state benefits over the next two years as in 2001 and 2002, then a two-year appropriation of $3.6 billion for PRAs would provide only $500 per worker. [P6: emphasis added]
The proposed PRAs would cap the amount of training and re-employment services available to dislocated workers (those using PRAs would be precluded from using other job training programs for one year after their PRAs are exhausted). There is no cap for job training under the current Workforce Investment Act (WIA). Furthermore, PRAs would purchase many services available for free under WIA.
Job training. The President's budget merges the Employment Service state grants and the Workforce Investment Act's adult training and dislocated worker program into one $3.1 billion grant. By consolidating existing programs into larger block grants and redesigning the way job training funds are allocated, the Administration threatens to reduce the amount of services available to American workers. Consolidating programs will cut job training spending by $144.4 million and serve 109,000 fewer youths.
Migrant and Seasonal Farmworkers Program. The President's budget proposes to eliminate the Migrant and Seasonal Farmworkers program for the second year in a row ($117 million in Fiscal Year 2002). The Senate provided $80 million for this initiative last year despite the President's proposal to eliminate the program, which provides assistance for America's most vulnerable workers - migrant and seasonal workers.
Youth Opportunity Grants Program. President Bush eliminates Youth Opportunity Grants in the Fiscal Year 2004 budget, just as he did in last year's budget ($229 million in Fiscal Year 2002). Despite the fact that Congress rejected his plan to eliminate this program last year and provided $225 million these grants, President Bush is once again trying to cut programs designed to help youth prepare for work and receive on-the-job skills.
To me, if looks like, "Give a man a fish head…"
