Investor's Business Daily, March 13th, 2007
Public Discourse: John Edwards says Jesus would be "appalled" at our selfishness and our waging war "when it's not necessary." But then, in 2004, he said a Kerry-Edwards victory would mean the lame would walk.
In a recent interview with the Web site Beliefnet.com, Edwards said: "I think that Jesus would be disappointed in our ignoring the plight of those around us who are suffering and our focus on our own short-term needs."
Someone should remind the candidate that Americans give as much, if not more, to charity per capita than any people on this planet, as documented in the recent book by Arthur Brooks, "Who Really Cares." Americans also donate their time -- some $150 billion worth annually (calculated at a rate of about $18 an hour).
The U.S. is the most giving nation in the history of mankind, both at the governmental and individual level. We helped rebuild Europe and Japan after World War II and helped protect them afterwards. We are the world's good Samaritan not only in terms of money but also in the judicious use of our power.
When a raging tsunami devastated much of south and east Asia in 2004, it was U.S. carrier groups and other vessels, as well as American aircraft, that provided desperately needed logistical support. In addition to U.S. government aid, Americans poured their compassion and their dollars into the coffers of such relief agencies as CARE and the Red Cross.
Back in 2004, Jan Egeland, U.N. undersecretary-general for humanitarian affairs, said the U.S. was "stingy" in foreign aid development because it gave only 0.14% of its GDP to foreign aid compared with his native Norway's 0.92%. Of course, ours was a smaller piece of a pie 50 times larger, and it was easy for Norway to give a bigger share with U.S. taxpayers defending that country.
Edwards no doubt had the devastation of Hurricane Katrina in mind when he made his remarks, just as he did in the New Orleans photo-op that launched his latest candidacy. If relief efforts were slow and inefficient, it was due mainly to the malfeasance of local officials and government bureaucrats, not to the selfishness of the American people.
On the foreign stage, we wonder if Jesus would applaud standing idly by while Saddam Hussein stuffed critics into tree shredders, buried countrymen in mass graves and waged war on his neighbors, using chemical and biological weapons on both.
We are reminded of the Psalm: "Those of you who love God must hate evil" -- evil such as the one that flew planes into the World Trade Center and that develops nukes to annihilate Israel and even one day an American city.
All that's necessary for evil to triumph is for enough good men to do nothing. John Edwards, John Murtha, et al. would have us do nothing and encourage the evil that threatens us.
Liberals such as Edwards have also used religion to support the Kyoto Protocol and the destruction of embryos for use in embryonic stem cell research. A group called the Evangelical Environmental Network, which brought us the "What Would Jesus Drive?" campaign, said we should sign Kyoto because God gave man stewardship of Earth, and that we're not doing a good job.
And let's not forget that it was Edwards who proclaimed in 2004: "When John Kerry is president, people like Christopher Reeve are going to get up out of their wheelchair and walk again."
We wonder what would have happened if Jerry Falwell or Pat Robertson had said that about George Bush. When Bush said he was motivated by his faith, he was roundly criticized as seeking an evangelical theocracy.
Liberals like to say it's the Christian right that wants to impose its values, and they never fail to remind us of the "separation of church and state," a phrase that appears nowhere in the U.S. Constitution. But they are not shy about invoking religion, even the name of the Prince of Peace, when it comes to their own pet causes -- from global warming to stem cell research and from foreign policy to domestic spending.
Copyright 2007 Investor's Business Daily, Inc.
