Ben, this is kind of sad. You’re using Colbert to make your point? And a priest who says that the poor in our society are those who work the hardest? I’ll have to tell that to the partners at the accounting firm where I work. Their 90-hour weeks clearly make them slackers. The poor must be working 100+ at least.

Like! Zechariah 7:10 “do not oppress the widow, the orphan, the alien, or the poor;”

David, I hardly suspect that Ben is “using Colbert to make” his point. Colbert is simply satirizing the issue and it is humorous. Nobody will be citing Colbert in debates and you have to realize that it is ridiculous to suggest this.
And just because the priest used hyperbole doesn’t mean that others don’t work hard. His point is that there are people who work very hard and are still quite poor. You understand what hyperbole is, right? I could explain it if you’d like.

Thanks Joey for sparing me the explanation.
Political satire needs to be seen for what it is— rhetoric, that is helpful in pointing out a few of the weaknesses in various people’s arguments. The danger with satire is that some people will take it all seriously, or not seriously at all… and both of those responses would miss the point.
Having spent a lot of time overseas I can tell you… there are plenty of dirt poor people working physically harder and at least as many hours as those accountants…. with far less fair pay for their work. Consider for example the pay of those Nike workers in China. Even measured by culturally equivalent exchange rates and what amounts to leveling the playing field dollar for dollar in purchasing power— they are still being paid slaves wages by Nike.
BW3

If the priest had said that many of the people who work the hardest in this country are poor, I would have at least acknowledged that he had a point. However, that’s not what he said. He hearkened back to the populist ideal of the rich, idle elite reaping their ill-gotten gains off the back of the oppressed masses. I’m not convinced that happens on any kind of scale in this country any more.
You can cite China if you like, but I don’t think even the most ardent “social justice” advocates are suggesting that we have to guarantee a certain lifestyle to everyone in China. By the way, as I understand it, those “sweatshops” in China have mostly moved on to other countries. The opportunities afforded people to begin to get a taste of remuneration for their efforts and a shot at owning private property led them to demand more. They did so, their standards of living have risen dramatically, and those looking for the cheapest labor have moved on to Viet Nam and Cambodia.
The sweatshops are the initial stages of a process that European nations went through in the Industrial Revolution. Eventually, the workers became educated about the wealth their services were creating, and lobbied for higher wages and better working conditions. It’s happening in China a lot quicker than it happened in England, and that’s under a repressive government. Where people have freedom (mostly of information), workers will gravitate toward an equilibrium of fair pay for a day’s work.
But you can’t accomplish that evolution by fiat. Each nation’s workers have to figure it out for themselves, and they have to create governments that defend their rights. We can help the process along by being the best example we can be (a task at which we often fail), and making sure that workers and governments in other countries can have access to the information that makes our system work. The solution is not to dictate to other countries how they must treat their workers, or to refuse to buy their goods, thus cutting off the lifeblood of the transition to a middle class before it can take root.

David I think you have some good points here, however this line—- “He hearkened back to the populist ideal of the rich, idle elite reaping their ill-gotten gains off the back of the oppressed masses. I’m not convinced that happens on any kind of scale in this country any more” stuck out like a sore thumb. Really?
Have you spent any time with CEOs of major oil companies or big banks or major Wall Street brokerage firms? I am not just talking about ponsey schemes like those of Bernie Madoff (with the cash)? I have spent time with some of these folks, and the sense of entitlement and the lack of social conscience is often appalling. I agree the priest overstated his case a bit, but not by much. There is so much greed and graft and corruption top down in our economy its not even funny… its tragic. The saddest part, is that many of the poor are oblivious to how badly they are being ripped off.
BW3

P.S. I would just add that without consumers, including poor ones, no one would be getting rich, and the lack of realization that we are all dependent on one another for our livelihood is of mythical proportions in various cases. There is no such thing as a self-made person. We all depend on and stand on the shoulders of others, and this creates a necessity for us to see our social responsibility towards one another.

If the priest had said that many of the people who work the hardest in this country are poor, I would have at least acknowledged that he had a point. However, that’s not what he said. He hearkened back to the populist ideal of the rich, idle elite reaping their ill-gotten gains off the back of the oppressed masses. I’m not convinced that happens on any kind of scale in this country any more.
You can cite China if you like, but I don’t think even the most ardent “social justice” advocates are suggesting that we have to guarantee a certain lifestyle to everyone in China. By the way, as I understand it, those “sweatshops” in China have mostly moved on to other countries. The opportunities afforded people to begin to get a taste of remuneration for their efforts and a shot at owning private property led them to demand more. They did so, their standards of living have risen dramatically, and those looking for the cheapest labor have moved on to Viet Nam and Cambodia.
The sweatshops are the initial stages of a process that European nations went through in the Industrial Revolution. Eventually, the workers became educated about the wealth their services were creating, and lobbied for higher wages and better working conditions. It’s happening in China a lot quicker than it happened in England, and that’s under a repressive government. Where people have freedom (mostly of information), workers will gravitate toward an equilibrium of fair pay for a day’s work.
But you can’t accomplish that evolution by fiat. Each nation’s workers have to figure it out for themselves, and they have to create governments that defend their rights. We can help the process along by being the best example we can be (a task at which we often fail), and making sure that workers and governments in other countries can have access to the information that makes our system work. The solution is not to dictate to other countries how they must treat their workers, or to refuse to buy their goods, thus cutting off the lifeblood of the transition to a middle class before it can take root.

Oh, man…it killed my comment and replaced it with the old one when I refreshed the captcha code. Dang it, I’m too tired to write it all again!

Don’t worry…you didn’t miss much. Just a libertarian screed about the proper role of government, and allocation of resources in a fallen world. I’m sure you can infer the rest.

OK, here’s the basic problem I have with what’s been going on with this report. I don’t have a TV, so I don’t watch Beck, nor do I tend to listen to his radio show, so I do not know what he has been saying, nor the context of the clips that are being shown. All I can find are the same 2 clips, cut at the same exact spots. That smells like spin to me.
This is especially the case with Beck’s use of “code words” would signify to me that he is not against the basic meaning of these words, but against the organizations that tend to use them, and what those organizations mean by them. It is very true that the term “social gospel” doesn’t just mean that the gospel has social ramifications, but instead points to a particular ideology a way of defining what those ramifications are. Being against “the social gospel” doesn’t mean being against the idea that the gospel has sociological ramifications, but instead you are against a particular way of defining what those ramifications are.
It seems to me that Beck is saying the same thing about “social justice”, and that he is not against justice itself, but against the what certain groups mean be the term “social justice” and that groups that tend to use that terms tend to be socialist.
If that is the case (and that is an if since I do not know the context), then it seems to me that how people are talking about the clips would be incorrect, saying that he is meaning things that he doesn’t mean.

Whenever China is mentioned… I feel a need to hop in! I lived in China for a year and traveled fairly extensively, my heart’s in it.
The migrant worker population in China is ridiculous. The situation is so enormous that every year during the the Chinese New Year we see the largest yearly mass human migration on the planet. Much of this is the result of the Chinese migrant worker population. I had students at my school tell me how they saw their fathers maybe twice a year because he would be working in another province. These men work continuously, away from their families, and send most of the money back home.
Aside from the migrant population, they have many destitute farmers. They are allotted land by the government which they themselves do not own. At most they are allowed to rent the land to another family. My friend’s small town was supported primarily through farm activity, his home by the apple/pear orchard. When the apples begin to grow, they go out and put bags on each budding fruit individually. They harvest them manually. His father built the house he lived in. The parents’ bed was a brick box with a wooden top. The family oven was powered by methane produced from their compost heap, which was quite ingenious.
So when you say things like “It’s happening in China a lot quicker than it happened in England, and that’s under a repressive government. Where people have freedom (mostly of information), workers will gravitate toward an equilibrium of fair pay for a day’s work” I find it as lacking information. Part of social justice would be empowering these people to learn about their situation and demand better, so part of your rationale could fit the mold anyhow. And if you think it is happening faster in China than it did in England, you must be focusing your attentions on urban Shanghai and Hong Kong, because it isn’t happening much elsewhere.

FRESH,
I appreciate the information about China. My perception of the situation has certainly been formed from a distance. I wasn’t arguing that poverty has been eradicated in China by any means. I’m not sure that your observations of migrant workers and destitute farmers directly speaks to the points about sweatshops. Nobody is making any profit on the backs of those farmers – they’re just desperately poor without any means to do better. As for the migrant workers, I think that is a function of the jobs being consolidated in and around those urban areas, and people still being spread out all over the country. But i defer to your experience in that area to tell me if that’s true.
I don’t think anything you said really challenges my assertion that the concept of the sweatshop in China has evolved beyond the Dickensian oppression that used to happen in Nike factories (and many others). The workers in the profitable industries seem to be moving toward a living wage. Is that what you’ve seen, or have the articles I’ve read about it misrepresented the situation?

Bummer, can’t be viewed outside the U.S.

David,
“He hearkened back to the populist ideal of the rich, idle elite reaping their ill-gotten gains off the back of the oppressed masses. I’m not convinced that happens on any kind of scale in this country any more.”
You’re right. They don’t do it in “this country” anymore. They’ve shipped the jobs overseas. (cf. the Nike example)

I think everyone here completely missed the point. Colbert is hilarious and that clip had me rolling. Thanks Ben. I don’t have Comedy Central.

I have to apologize and take back an earlier comment. I said “He hearkened back to the populist ideal of the rich, idle elite reaping their ill-gotten gains off the back of the oppressed masses. I’m not convinced that happens on any kind of scale in this country any more.”
Of course, there is a class of rich, idle elite who reap ill-gotten gains off the back of the oppressed masses – they’re called politicians.

Clearly you haven’t spent any time with the Enron like I have David…. robber barons are alive and well.
BW3

The robber barons we should fear the most, as the founders would, live in DC and were duly elected. God help us.

This totally misses the point of Beck’s broadcast as I saw it. I am a lifetime member of the United Methodist Church and have seen it change over time becoming more and more leftist until I honestly believe that our leaders in the bureaucracy including the bishops have strong Marxist leanings. This has all come about through the term “social justice” which is being used to further all kinds of programs using the money that we send as “ministry shares”. When I heard Nancy Pelosi thank the United Methodist Church for their support of the healthcare bill, it sickened me. The church is leading the way through their so-called social justice nomenclature to send us headlong into socialism. No wonder people are voting with their feet and getting out of the UMC!

By the way, Ben, my husband and I heard you speak at the Owego Treadway in New York State sponsored by the UMC. We thoroughly enjoyed your seminar on the false claims of the DeVinci Code.