Often it is said that Christians should vote Republican because of the sanctity of life issues. Apparently, the current Republican administration does not feel so strongly though after recently downgrading the value of a human life by about a million dollars. Check it out.
EPA: Your Life is Worthless
11 comments:
That's interesting. I actually think I agree with that article in some respects... like if we place too high a value on human life to the point that it causes us to cower in our houses, we're not really living anyway. I think it makes sense to have a balance, and not fall off either end of the spectrum-- neither recklessness nor smothering are good standards to live by.
That said, I don't agree that we can place a dollar value on a human life. A human is not a commodity-- our time is, and that's why we get paid to work. The only purpose of money is to buy something, and since people can't be bought or sold, there's no need for a dollar value. You don't put a price tag on an heirloom that you will never sell, so why would you put a price tag on a human being, whom you don't have the right to sell even if you wanted to?
Holy crap, I might as well have written my own blog post about it. Soooo long.
I'm baffled by the conclusion you draw from this article.
"It’s their estimate of the average value that the average American places on his life."
It isn't as if they've downgraded the value of life or that they've become cavalier about protecting it - they've guesstimated how much value people in general put on their lives.
So what?
"It isn't as if they've downgraded the value of life or that they've become cavalier about protecting it -"
That is exactly what they have done. They downgraded how much one person is worth by 1 million dollars. Rebublicans are using "culture of life" as a way to gain votes. They have had every opportunity in the world to make an impact in that direction and have continually neglected it. They have had majorities in congress and the executive branch and done nothing. Article III Section 2 of the Constitution gives the Legistlative branch the power to strip the Judicial branch of jurisdiction over an area. It was utilized for the last time in the 1860's over Reconstruction. Beyond that the current president has said time and time again that the Constitution (in his words, just a "g*d da*mn piece of paper) does not apply to him since he is the president so if he is all powerful he could also have done something.
Further being war mongerers, torturers and liars hardly fits in with any love of fellow man ideas I have ever heard of. One is entitled to any political beliefs they wish, but it is time for one group of Christians to stop thinking that all who disagree with them politically are not voting "like Jesus would." Pat Robertson calling for a world leaders assasination, Jerry Falwell claiming 9/11 was divine judgement on gays and secular humanists. Talk like that is repulsive and disgusting and I have trouble believing that God would require me to vote the way that those two said in order to be a good Christian.
We live in a fallen and dark world. Redemption won't be found in any political leader.
Ok, allow me to rephrase,
It isn't as if that article shows them downgrading the value of life.
The particular article you posted does not point out any of the things you've mentioned.
I did add a bunch, very true, but they did devalue a human by $1,000,000. That was the main thrust of the article. I didn't make a very strong point just that it seems like a human life under the party of life should be more valuable not less.
Is the EPA strictly Republican?
Have the Democrats reported that they hold a higher monetary value for the statistical human life?
Further more, the EPA is not saying that they themselves value life, or even statistical lives, at a specific amount. Perhaps the members of the EPA value lives at a far higher amount, perhaps less, they don't tell us.
All that the EPA has done is tell the public how much they value their own statistical lives.
Of course that will affect how the government values our lives, but that only makes sense.
That was sort of my point is the practical how it affects us. And the EPA is largely executive appointees. This means under the last administration (Clinton)it was valued higher. My view though was simply a passing observation. It just was interesting. Its not any concrete proof of a vast conspiracy to trick Christians into voting Republican. I just find it interesting especially with how little has been done since the Republicans in the 70's said that they were going to take care of abortion. Plus with the other things that I mentioned earlier, just throwing out some more "cover fire" for those Christians who might not vote Republican. I don't have a pony in this race as I find both these candidates to be lacking with regards to philosophy of govt. I don't know how long you have been reading my sight, but it is an ongoing theme of mine and that may be helpful in this scenario. This may help...
http://www.scottoverpeck.com/2008/07/politics-of-god-again.html
7, you are right, the gov't has no right (imho) to make decisions that would make a need for them to decide what is more valuable life or otherwise...
Right, so how does this affect us? It's not like the government is subsidizing our living based on how much we value our lives at.
As far as I know all this affects is how much money the government will spend on people in the case of natural disasters and such (my understanding of what the EPA does is a bit vague, actually), which is always going to be too much and not enough.
No, the republican party hasn't done what they've promised in regards to abortion. I really don't know if they can - people have to want them too and unfortunately there are a lot of people who don't.
On the other hand, they're not actively pushing abortion (usually) and that's worth something.
I haven't been reading your site long, I'll be sure to check out that other post.
The EPA sets up laws and regulations related to the environment and uses the value of a human life to run cost benefit analysis prior to rolling out a new regulation. From my view its awful since I believe the gov't has no right whatsoever to make decisions that can so profoundly affect our day to day lives, from the modern moral majority christian coalition type Republican stance it should be repulsive because by the EPA downgrading the human life the trade off is in favor of the environment which my understanding of Christian Republican theology is something of an enemy. Either way, though, while hardcore environmentalists are often caricatured as valuing trees and whales above people, I think that even they would be concerned when thinking about the gov't being so cavalier with life. We can all agree they don't really value life, they just value power (so they choose certain issues) when we look at both sides failure to protect the 100's of thousands of children who die every year as a result of our sanctions, the 10's of thousands of civilians and troops on both sides who die in our unneccesary wars, the people who die at the hands of dictators whom we fail to "liberate" etc. I don't think the gov't should be involved in many of the things that they are but to constantly use issues like this to come to power and really not have a philosophical commitment or understanding of the issue is horrible.
We talk of inalienable right to life endowed by our creator but apply it to so few.
Anyway, I rarely venture down this path because it can bring out the crazies so before they start commenting (or bombing clinics) I will say agree or disagree thats just fine. I argue both parties have flaws and neither side is the "Christian" (I hate it when authors use that as a verb) choice.
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