People haven’t learned that I am usually, along with Rush Limbaugh (heh!), just a loveable little fuzzball. Sure, I love to discuss candidates and issues and policies with vigor, but when someone crosses the line and decides to make it personal, well, I generally don’t much take kindly to that, and he did:
Well Skip, I hope to God that you never have a kid that makes a mistake by getting involved with drugs, then goes to jail and has a record that follows him for life. It’s pretty cold that you’re so pompous as to endorse putting people in jail that have problems and not allowing them to sort themselves out. Likely, you’re ignorant of what it’s like to get yourself of drugs and surely you must know that jail won’t help.. In jail, people brush elbows with violent people and thus they aren’t rehabilitated for the outside. They just become worse. Jesus had love and compassion for problematic people and he wouldn’t throw them to the wolves like you apparently…
Sigh….you can imagine the response:
- You sound like Obama: "I don’t want my daughters punished with a baby" if they were to make a conscious decision to have unprotected sex. Decisions have consequences.
- You sound like a Liberal who believes that bad decisions should not have consequences – breaking that natural feedback that teaches people "don’t do that". Decisions have consequences.
- You sound like an anarchist who does not believe in one of the Pillars of Democracy – The Rule of Law. Decisions have consequences.
Actions and decisions have consequences whether you like it or not – sometimes,
really bad decisions have poor outcomes. Until the laws are changed, they are still the Law, so making the decision to break one (and it really is irrelevant whether you like the law or not) may indeed land you in jail. As the saying goes, don’t do the crime if you can’t do the time – the decision is your’s. We all know what the Law is – break it and there is a consequence. Don’t like the law? Change it. But until then, you may well reap the consequences if you cross it.
Otherwise, why bother to have laws? Picking and choosing to only obey those laws you like shows a rather immature nature.
>> Jesus had love and compassion for problematic people and he wouldn’t throw them to the wolves like you apparently
I’m not throwing anyone to any wolf; the decision is their’s to make or not – not mine. It is not rocket science – they either chose to make a decision to obey the law or disobey the law – I have no part in it at all. The difference between you and I is that I expect, however, for adults to act like adults and behave themselves. Adults understand that if they do wrong, there is a penalty – that’s what grown ups do. Obviously you wish to relax that requirement and allow adults to continue to act like children and throw responsiblity for themselves to the wind.
While Jesus does have compassion for us all (otherwise, why make the ultimate sacrifice to sanctify us from our sins in the face of absolute Holiness – God the Father?) – your words still show that you miss the meaning of the parable you first quoted. Compassion – yes; but it IS necessary to make moral judgments of right and wrong and He did so. Again, both the Pharisees and the adulterous woman had sinned against the Old Testament Law – which Jesus came to fulfill. Both the woman and the Pharisees were skirting the Law – He reminded them that indeed, there is a right and a wrong – they both had broken the Law.
To only say and concentrate only on "Jesus is about love and compassion" is to trivialize and miss the message the Old Testament sets up, the Gospels fulfill, and the New Testament brings forward.
For the record, if my either of my grown sons fell into drugs, I will continue to love them and do all that I could for them. But no, I would not seek to hide them from laws they might have broken by decisions they might have made, as I consider them adults that make their own decisions of their own free wills. Adults stand by their poor decisions; children do not.
To do otherwise would make me a hypocrite.
