Selective moral systems
This is a comment I left at the ever brilliant blog of Roy Edroso in response to a specific article he linked to. However, I think it's applicable to pretty much any article about the Tea Party or the "free market Jesus" conservatives:
Savonarola - a.k.a. the Bonfire of the Vanities guy - sincerely believed that any poverty, much less the widespread poverty that was tolerated in the Florence of his day, was incompatible with any truly Christian society. So the reforms he successfully encouraged the legislature of Florence to pass included allocating state funds toward organizations providing welfare for the poor; a 10 percent tax on all property; the abolition of all existing loans; and the founding of a government office that could offer loans at very low rates.
Of course, values change radically over time, etc., but I think when the people who saw absolutely nothing wrong with, say, burning people alive for their sex lives make you look out of touch with your religious values, then you really need to have some serious self-evaluation.
Savonarola - a.k.a. the Bonfire of the Vanities guy - sincerely believed that any poverty, much less the widespread poverty that was tolerated in the Florence of his day, was incompatible with any truly Christian society. So the reforms he successfully encouraged the legislature of Florence to pass included allocating state funds toward organizations providing welfare for the poor; a 10 percent tax on all property; the abolition of all existing loans; and the founding of a government office that could offer loans at very low rates.
Of course, values change radically over time, etc., but I think when the people who saw absolutely nothing wrong with, say, burning people alive for their sex lives make you look out of touch with your religious values, then you really need to have some serious self-evaluation.