John Kasich Demonstrates Why Republicans Are Imploding

As a therapist, I often say to people, “You’re saying you want contradictory things. You want a new career. But you don’t want risk. But it’s impossible to have both. Nothing good happens without risks, and risks do not always pay off.”

It’s a similar situation today with Republicans. With contradictions, that is.

On the one hand, the Gospel of Jesus Christ and the Bible are the Republicans’ central basis for government. It’s the only alternative they offer to Obama’s virtual socialism and Bernie Sanders’ full-fledged socialism.

On the other hand, Republicans claim to want “free markets,” including a reduction in government (non-defense) spending, reduced taxes and less government regulation.

But the Gospel of Jesus Christ is based on the opposite of free markets, capitalism and all the things Republicans claim to want economically.

Don’t take it from me. Take it from John Kasich. Kasich is the Republican governor of Ohio and a candidate for president.

[From breitbart.com 10-6-15] During a Tuesday appearance before the Hispanic Chamber of Commerce, Ohio governor and Republican presidential candidate John Kasich offered to buy Bibles for those of us who don’t agree with his decision to increase the welfare state. Quite famously, Governor Kasich agreed to ObamaCare’s Medicaid expansion in Ohio.  This is his latest defense:

Look at Medicaid expansion. Do you know how many people are yelling at me? I go out to events where people yell at me. You know what I tell ‘em? … I say, there’s a book. It’s got a new part and an old part; they put it together, it’s a remarkable book. If you don’t have one, I’ll buy you one. It talks about how we treat the poor. Sometimes you just have to lead.

Conservatives protest that the Bible does not support Obamacare specifically, nor socialized medicine in general.

They are correct. However, this is not what Kasich claims. Kasich says that the morality upheld by the Bible is the same as the morality underlying Obamacare in particular, and socialized medicine in general.

The purpose of socialized medicine is not to make medicine more efficient and valuable. It’s not to make medicine better for doctors nor even, ultimately, for patients.

The purpose of socialized medicine is to force everyone to help everyone else – or, as Governor Kasich would put it, “to help the poor.” Socialism is not about creating or generating wealth or prosperity. Like Jesus and the Bible, socialists look down on wealth and prosperity. Socialists want everyone to have the basics – just the basics, guaranteed from cradle to grave.

The ethical ideology of Jesus Christ in particular, and of all religions in general (including all of the Bible), is the moral code of self-sacrifice.

This is where leftists and collectivists have the Republicans beat. The Democrats know it.

Republicans will go down screaming it “ain’t so.” But they will go down, so long as they try to preach the morality of Jesus while practicing the economics of Adam Smith or the individual rights philosophy of Thomas Jefferson.

Republicans say, “Jesus, Jesus.” Democrats and socialists reply, “You want Jesus? You’ve got Jesus. Self-sacrifice and brother’s keeperism for all.”

Conservatives keep yelling, “Jesus” and merely grumble that Jesus would not like Obama, because Obama, after all, believes in gay marriage.

That might be true. But they’re evading the real issue.

The real issue is the ideology that man is his brother’s keeper. While Jesus did not (to my knowledge) explicitly endorse either socialism or capitalism, Jesus left no doubt where he stood on the matter of being your brother’s keeper. He made it very clear: You are your brother’s keeper.

 

Jesus, looking at him, loved him and said, “You lack one thing; go, sell what you own, and give the money to the poor, and you will have treasure in heaven; then come, follow me.” When he heard this, he was shocked and went away grieving, for he had many possessions.

If you want to be perfect, go, sell your possessions and give to the poor, and you will have treasure in heaven.

I tell you the truth, it is hard for a rich man to enter the kingdom of heaven. Again I tell you, it is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for a rich man to enter the kingdom of heaven.

Give to everyone who begs from you; and of him who takes away your goods do not ask them again. And as you wish that men would do to you, do so to them. [Quotes from the Holy Bible]

 

Do these sound like the statements of an opponent of socialism? Or do they sound like the statements of someone sympathetic to socialism?

The only way to defend capitalism in any principled way is to reply, “No, we are not our brother’s keepers. If you want to be, you’re certainly free to do so. But you have no right to force me. Go ahead and force me, if I cannot stop you. But I’ll never concede that you’re right.”

This is the one thing that no Republican – not even Ronald Reagan – ever addressed. “Jesus equals freedom, including economic freedom.” But why defend economic freedom with Jesus, the man who said wealth is bad? It makes no sense. Go ahead and practice Christianity if you want. Give all of your possessions away. But why champion Jesus as the basis for economic freedom if that so obviously was never the case?

Contradictions cannot sustain themselves — not in reality, and not within a person’s mind or psyche. Eventually, a person either corrects his contradiction, or psychologically implodes.

For an example of the latter, look at what’s happening now in the Republican Party.

As the Republicans feud over Speakers, Trump and how best to advance religion in the realm of politics, socialism is marching full steam ahead in America, even if not everybody wants it. Obama got absolutely everything he wanted. What he could not wrestle out of the milquetoast Congress, he simply mandated via executive order. He’s still got more than another year to go. And both Bernie Sanders (overt socialist) and Hillary Clinton (a socialist with guilt ridden leftists’ money) stand ready to finish the job. Ditto for Joe Biden.

However, socialism will never be finished. It’s a social system which creates and perpetuates the very problem it condemns and blames on others. It’s internally self-sustaining and impossible to beat, unless you attack it at its ideological, core roots.

Socialism wreaks havoc everywhere it goes. It pits people against each other in the name of humanitarianism, enforcing charity at gunpoint, and reduces or levels off the standard of living for all. And when this happens, socialists blame it on capitalists and proceed to enact more socialism. The cycle never ends.

And all we get offered as an alternative? “Jesus, Jesus.” But Jesus stood for brother’s keeperism. How will you ever reconcile that with capitalism?

You can’t. John Kasich is the first Republican running for president to admit this openly. “Game over,” he’s saying. “The purpose of government is to take care of the poor.” In practice, this can only mean one thing: The purpose of government is to take goods and property from some and give to another. To spread the wealth around, from each according to his ability and to each according to his need, as both Karl Marx and Obama himself have put it.

So long as Republicans clutch to the ethics of Jesus, they are doomed to practice the economics and policies of socialism. Find one bit of evidence to prove otherwise. Name one program Republicans have curtailed or cut, ever. If anything, they strengthen the social programs and expand them beyond their opponents’ dreams.

John Kasich is every bit as wrong as Jesus, Karl Marx and Barack Obama when it comes to what morality actually is. But he’s consistent.

So when do we get a second party, a real alternative?

Only when we reject the morality of Jesus, and replace it with a morality based on self-interest, individualism and property rights.

Some complain that the Republican Party is being torn apart by people who agree with Ayn Rand’s “extreme” ideas. If only that were true. Republicans have reached this point because of the impossible contradiction reality, and their own warring pressure groups, will no longer permit them to sustain.

Republicans, if they want to rise again or perhaps emerge as a bonafide second party, would do well to actually read and think over Ayn Rand’s ideas. Because where they stand now, they are dead in the water.