Political Gastronomica

From my friend Gadi Ben-Yehuda, can someone answer this?

I seriously, not-joking, really-do-want-to-hear-your-answers don’t understand how people who profess to be conservative (and especially those who profess to be conservative Christians) can vote for Republicans. I’d love to hear answers only to these three questions (and please don’t answer with “the Democrats are worse,” this is tantamount to saying “yeah, I’m a herion addict, but at least I don’t do meth!” Yeah, OK, but you’re still a herion addict and that’s disgraceful).

1. For Fiscal Conservatives: Paul Ryan’s plan doesn’t balance the budget; it just shifts wealth from poor to rich. If you’re truly intersted in deficit reduction, why not vote Democratic, and see taxes go up on the rich, thus both to stimulate the economy and pay down debt? In short, tax cuts, especially those being peddled by the current republicans, will not enhance our GDP. Nobel Economist Paul Krugman sums it up: “real revenues per capita grew only 19 percent over the same period — better than the likely Bush performance, but still nothing exciting. In fact, it’s less than revenue growth in the period 1972-1980 (24 percent) and much less than the amazing 41 percent gain from 1992 to 2000.” How can you vote for such a fiscally irresponsible party (and again: you can’t say “Democrats are worse!” – you have other options, like not voting.)
2. For Libertarians: I honestly don’t know which should be the main sticking point for libertarians, but the underpinning of all the particulars (drug laws, blue laws, abdication of responsibility to regulate industry resulting in curtailment of liberties by unaccountable corporations) is the extension of government into our personal lives and the refusal to regulate the corporations that increasingly impinge upon our commons (water ways, air waves, landscapes) without proper recompense and often without regard even to our lives. How can you vote for a party whose ultimate policy success would see the curtailment of liberties for all but the very richest Americans?
3. For Christians: How can you vote for a party that is now literally seeking to take food away from the poorest Americans so that the very richest can amass more wealth? That is what the Republican House just voted for. That is what you will support if you vote Republican in 2012. Not to put too fine a point on this, but you will be voting expressly against Jesus’s teachings.
   • Your Christ did not say “what you do unto the most powerful of them, you do unto me.”
   • Your Christ did not advocate on behalf of the merchants in the temple.
   • Your Christ did not suffer and die on the cross for a tax cut.

   He spoke to and about the poor. He scolded the powerful and exhorted them to feed the needy, to turn their attention to the downtrodden. He did not rail against homosexuals, he did not exculpate his disciples of murder if their victims were doctors who performed abortions. How can you vote for a party that pursues policies that are in direct contravention of the teachings of your God?