Some months ago, noxious Chronicle metro/state editorialist and gossip columnist Rick Casey let slip some interesting observations to the Harris County Democratic Party that promptly showed up on their weblog.
In his most recent column, Casey actually expands on that strange theme that we never expected would appear anywhere but partisan lefty blogs:
Listen to a televised preacher this Sunday or go to a megachurch.
The best of the megachurches are great centers of private charity. They are raising vast sums and sending out great armies of volunteers to help with this disaster.
But in many of them you will regularly hear that God wants you to be rich. If you just give yourself up to Jesus, he will reward you not just with spiritual wealth but with monetary wealth as well.
That sounds like a harmless message, but it holds a dark implication.
If you are poor, it is because you are not in God’s favor. You lack faith.
It’s not that these people don’t deserve our charity when their need is dire. God wants us to save the sinners. It’s that when we think of our community, they’re not in it.
So, Casey’s suggesting that that the ethos of mean conservative Christian types (and adherents of certain megachurches that don’t even display a cross during their services) who often argue in favor of limited government somehow is responsible for the fact that an Act of God took out New Orleans and that government failed the poorest of the poor in that community?
Nice.
Of course, Casey doesn’t consider why New Orleans fared so poorly despite all of the government spending that has taken place over the years, nor does he consider that local government mostly failed that community. To look into those matters — and to point fingers at that area’s corrupt (perhaps even dysfunctional in this case) political culture — is probably considered “beyond the pale” by Casey and those who think like him at the moment.
Better sickly to twist the tragedy into a way to blame Christian conservatives who favor limited government. (Incidentally, Casey seems to be confusing arguments for limited government with arguments for anarcho-capitalism. They aren’t the same). Because that’s not beyond the pale on the Chronicle metro/state pages apparently.
Sadly, Casey continues to detract from a metro/state page that has otherwise been improving significantly. The newspaper really should consider moving him to the editorial page, where at least he’d be at home with the Chronicle‘s regular lefty editorial cranks.
