BenT has a Blog!!! No. 2

In regard to:

A flawed epistemology
Posted on: September 22, 2005, 10:17 am

"There will always be poor people. This is not the fault of the rich."
--Rush Limbaugh

You cloud fact with emotion, which has no affinity with fact. Both statements are true, plain and simple. But add emotion to the mix and fact comes across as callous, which again has no bearing on fact. Facts, or truths, cannot be callous any more than they can be loving. Truth isn't interested in hurt feelings, bruised sensibilities, or feel-good pats on the back. Truth only cares [if it can be said to care at all] about truth.

Could it be your dislike or disdain for all things "Limbaugh" that causes you to feel a sense of outrage at his statement? That's certainly fair, and even understandable, in as much as it is impossible to not be moved, one way or the other, by such a statement. But Limbaugh's statement is neither "Destructive" nor "Xenophobic" [I think you're reaching here]. "There will always be poor people," [Matt 26:11, Mark 14:7, John 12:8] is a simple statement of fact, not of emotion, yet nor does it allow us to shirk, or otherwise evade responsibility in caring for the poor, as best we may. We are in fact commanded to do so.

Don't allow your disdain for the speaker to cloud your reason. You're better than that.

There will always be poor people. And it is not the fault of the rich.