There is a
mantra in Louisiana politics in the literal
sense of that word – ‘a word or sound that is believed to have a special
spiritual power’. It typically goes
something like this: ‘Poverty is the
cause of all evil in our State; education and jobs will eradicate poverty,
which will eradicate evil.’
Hunter
Lundy, one of the candidates for governor, put his own spin on The Mantra in
an interview:
“We can have all of the economic
opportunity, and yet we still only have a mean income of $43,000 in Louisiana.
Why? It’s because of generational poverty,” he said. “Sixty percent of our
children go to public school just to get a meal. This has to be addressed. You
can’t ignore the elephant in the room.”
Poverty can be fixed through education, he
said.
“I want to move to the community school
system where we bring education down to the lowest level possible,” he said.
“Ninety-five percent of our parishes and our people in this state have common
sense and a good moral compass. We have leadership that can lead. We do not
need to run education out of Baton Rouge.”
Louisianans
and their politicians will, with little doubt, repeat The Mantra ad nauseum
this election season, but there is a problem:
It isn’t
true.
Poverty
isn’t the root of all our problems. The
decline of Christianity is. I will try
to illustrate this from two different angles.
First,
consider my Pa-Paw. He grew up dirt poor
in southern Arkansas. That is not an
exaggeration. He plowed the fields
behind a mule in his bare feet and attended a one-room school house during the
years of the Great Depression. And yet,
amazingly, after WWII (in which he fought), he was somehow able to overcome the
hindrances of his dreaded early poverty and start a successful business in
north Louisiana that continues today, long after he passed away. Many other Southern boys have/had similar
stories.
According to
The Mantra, however, this should have been impossible without a college
educated, professional teacher squawking at him inside a shiny, brand-new
school building with all the latest technology.
Second,
think about Christian monasteries, where the monks and nuns live in voluntary
poverty. According to The Mantra
(poverty leads inevitably to evil), these places should be the amongst the
vilest dens of criminality. But history
shows us over and over again the exact opposite: that the monasteries are actually amongst the
best places in the world to live, attracting pilgrims from the ends of the
earth to experience the other-worldly hospitality, love, joy, etc., that exist
there.
How can
these things be?
In my
Pa-Paw’s case, he had a loving, intact family that raised him according to
Christian ways.
In the case
of the monasteries, it is similar: The
Gospel is the law that reigns over all matters.
Poverty is
irrelevant. The state of the soul is
what matters for the well-being of people.
Handing a welfare check to someone who is irreligious, or sitting him in
a vo-tech class, won’t do him a lick of good in the long run because he feels
no responsibility toward God or man to live in a decent manner.
Our
politicians have to publicly recognize this; they must cease to be politicians
and become instead Christian statesmen, who will make the promotion of
Christianity a major part of their ‘agendas’ to be implemented after being
elected. Instead of The Mantra, they
need to repeat the basics of the Christian Faith and formulate policies in
accord with them:
. . .
The rest is
at https://thehayride.com/2023/08/garlington-poverty-is-not-the-problem/.
--
Holy Ælfred the Great, King of England, South Patron, pray for us
sinners at the Souð, unworthy though we are!
Anathema to the Union!
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