7 ms·
Silicon Valley pastor decries hypocrisy of area's rich liberals
- cobookman 8y ago"The city had also made it hard for the church to provide meals for the homeless by requiring costly permits, he said." Is that true?
- sp332 8y agoThis article doesn't mention those permits in particular but shows how opposed people at that council meeting were to even letting the church continue to host events. http://padailypost.com/2018/05/15/pastor-slams-palo-alto-in-unholy-tweets/ http://padailypost.com/2018/05/15/pastor-slams-palo-alto-in-...
- dpeck 8y agoI don't know SV municipalities specifically, but I'd guess its probably true http://www.newsweek.com/illegal-feed-criminalizing-homeless-america-782861 http://www.newsweek.com/illegal-feed-criminalizing-homeless-... Its been enforced haphazardly in Atlanta over the last couple of years.
- peterwwillis 8y agoYep. In Tampa, Food Not Bombs was arrested for not getting a permit for "having an event on public land". http://www.sacbee.com/news/nation-world/national/article125306029.html http://www.sacbee.com/news/nation-world/national/article1253... even though they've been feeding the homeless there for 10 years. The real cause for the crackdown appears to be when there's some event going on in the city, like football championships, where visibility on the city's homeless problem could be problematic for politicians. In Orlando, Food Not Bombs also gets arrested for feeding the homeless. http://www.orlandosentinel.com/news/crime/os-homeless-feedings-arrests-20110601-story.html http://www.orlandosentinel.com/news/crime/os-homeless-feedin... It was illegal in Fort Lauderdale, until the police arrested a 90 year old man for feeding the homeless. https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/post-nation/wp/2014/12/03/after-90-year-old-is-arrested-florida-judge-halts-law-that-restricts-feeding-the-homeless/?utm_term=.29b78183eadc https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/post-nation/wp/2014/12/0... It's probably still illegal, though.
- neaden 8y agoHis critiques, while vulgar seem pretty fair and I hope he finds a new position somewhere.
- coleifer 8y agoI'm saddened that he felt compelled to resign. The Gospel advocates poverty, whether you take that in the literal sense or whether you take it to mean humility, I imagine the stark divide visible in SV would probably be pretty hard to understand.
- HarryHirsch 8y agoYou'd rather say the Church advocates the responsible use of wealth.
- coleifer 8y agoNot quite. I don't know what the church is nor can I speak about it's motivation. I'm speaking about the gospel. Matthew 19:23 specifically: Then said Jesus unto his disciples, Verily I say unto you, That a rich man shall hardly enter into the kingdom of heaven. It's a rare thing for Jesus to make a pronouncement like that in the text. Which leads me to believe it's an important part of his teaching.
- drdeca 8y agoI think that 19:23-26 may be more clear than 23 by itself? Also, out of curiosity, what translation is that?
- otoburb 8y ago>>Also, out of curiosity, what translation is that? First returned Google result in Firefox private mode[1] indicates this wording is specific to the King James Version (KJV). [1] http://biblehub.com/kjv/matthew/19-23.htm http://biblehub.com/kjv/matthew/19-23.htm
- deleted 8y ago[deleted]
- lawlessone 8y agoHe's not wrong.
- justherefortart 8y agoWhile I'm not a religious person, this is a man whose convictions I can respect. Keep fighting the good fight Gregory, this evil atheist is on your side :-)
- lawlessone 8y agoHe seems like the kind of religious person i wish i seen more of in the world.
- HillaryBriss 8y agothey tend to get de-funded, weeded out (and sometimes worse, though i hear such methods as permanent exile, public stockades, stoning and crucifixion are not allowed in Palo Alto at this time.)
- justaman 8y agoHe is more common than you think.
- justherefortart 8y agoI live in the Bible Belt, so not very common here. Reminds me of "liberal" SF/Bay Area. Everyone talks the talk, but no one walks the walk. It's quite sad really.
- jnbiche 8y agoIf you live near any urban area in the Bible Belt, it is more common than you think. Granted, if you're in a small town or rural area, you're absolutely right.
- deweller 8y agoPastors deal with so much frustration every day. Working with people in any job is messy and can be very draining. In the context of a church, working with people is significantly messier and more draining. Pastors burn out all the time. But it is still sad to see. If you attend a church or know a pastor, just know that they are probably dealing with a lot of stuff you don't know about.
- rectang 8y agoApparently the pastor has had difficulty growing his congregation. I wonder how many people there are in Palo Alto who partake in charitable activities but not when they're affiliated with organized religion.
- jnbiche 8y agoHe may have been a bit profane, but he's not wrong. Rich and upper-middle class liberals, particularly in places like the Bay area, need to take a serious look inward.
- psychometry 8y agoIt's easy to resolve this discrepancy when you realize these people are not actually liberal or progressive.
- lykr0n 8y agoRegressive Left.
- vowelless 8y agoNo True Scotsman fallacy? I personally give the respect to people to refer them as they would like to be identified. If a Muslim jihadi says he is a jihadi, I respect his self identification and call him that. Similarly, I respect these people's self identification as liberal or progressive.
- simonsarris 8y agoClaiming someone's actions don't line up with their words is not a no-true-Scotsman scenario. I think he's simply alleging that their revealed preferences do not line up with their stated preferences.
- vowelless 8y agoI think what you describe is pretty much exactly the no true Scotsman fallacy. [Delete rest of comment, not relevant]
- vertex-four 8y agoIt is not fallacious to have defined criteria for membership of a group - the fallacy is to create new criteria on a whim in response to criticism.
- deleted 8y ago[deleted]
- dnautics 8y ago> Claiming someone's actions don't line up with their words is not a no-true-Scotsman scenario. No, but claiming someone isn't truly in a category to defend the category from the hypocrisy of the individual is, because it ignores the possibility that the category lends itself to hypocrisy.
- dapf73 8y agoPeople should just move out of the area and find a better for themselves. Whining has never solved anything for anyone, and, when successful, end up in "socialist" revolutions that turn the country into a shithole. (Venezuelan here, and I don't like Trump, by the way)
- olavk 8y agoIt is the homeless people who should stop whining and move away? Or the priest who wanted to help them?
- bluetomcat 8y agoLarge SV companies have nowadays become cash-making media machines of a gargantuan scale, acquiring that cash from all over the world for a service of questionable value, and investing it back in a relatively small area while providing only a few tens of thousands of jobs there. This distribution of capital creates a huge imbalance, no matter how "liberal" the stakeholders are.
- coleifer 8y agoMy sense from reading was that he was upset by what he perceived to be hypocrisy on the part of the wealthy. In that they talked the talk about charity and making the world better, but their actions spoke differently. So liberal words, liberal values being expressed, but pure greed when it mattered.
- bluetomcat 8y agoIf they really cared for the poor, they would diversify their investments both geographically and across many sectors of the real economy in order to restructure it for better efficiency. What they do instead is that they boost their PR image and invest it in the "next big thing" like driverless cars, augmented reality, etc., and these endeavours often fail in a few years time, effectively wasting the capital and disproportionally enriching the selected few.
- haney 8y agoReminds me of one of my favorite Biden quotes, “Don’t tell me what you value. Show me your budget, and I’ll tell you what you value.”
- HillaryBriss 8y agogood quote. the "it's hard for a rich man to enter heaven" sentiment rewritten in modern language. i don't have access to their balance sheets and P&L statements, but nowadays i assume most of our well-respected thought-leaders, entertainers, politicians and other public figures are fundamentally fakes and frauds, continually perfecting their SJW cover stories. and i think they do it as much to fool themselves as to fool the rest of us.
- kizer 8y agoGood for him. Thankfully I'll be living in placid Seattle where the kind liberals are, surrounded by beautiful nature and a society grounded in a cannabis induced peace.
- metalliqaz 8y agowat
- kraig911 8y agoWhy did he resign though? Because he felt bad about he tweeted?
- metalliqaz 8y agoSounds like he was forced out, because of his "offensive" comments.
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- VikingCoder 8y agoHas anyone else read "The Golden Age" by John C. Wright? I'm really fascinated by the idea of the College of Hortation. I think Wright actually sees it as sinister, but I thought it was a good idea. Rough idea: Make all laws extremely libertarian, and then have a voluntary group people join that does things liberals say they want (free healthcare with progressive membership dues, etc.) Except in his book, if you weren't a member, no one would do business with you - because it was against the terms of membership, and almost everyone was a member. So then those people who rejected society could, but they couldn't trade with almost anyone.
- Spooky23 8y agoThe world is a little upside down at the moment. Most of the "liberal" folks today are really old-style chamber of commerce republicans with a different flavor of conformity. More accepting of old social taboos, and we've replace suits with khaki. Religion is defined in the popular consciousness as regressive right-wing fire and brimstone types, with a helping of swarmy prosperity ministry. The success of the political parties of polarizing folks on wedge issues like abortion is incredible and dangerous. The catholic church I grew up in, for all its faults, was basically the backbone of the social services sector in my region. Now many of the holy-roller types are so aggressive about pro-life activity they are supporting GOP candidates. That's leading to more political rally nonsense, less service like food pantries, helping the aging & sick, etc.
- RSZC 8y agohttps://www.cityofpaloalto.org/civicax/filebank/documents/65063 https://www.cityofpaloalto.org/civicax/filebank/documents/65... The posts in question
- forgottenpass 8y ago>Gregory Stevens has a public Twitter account. I thought some of his troubling recent tweets should come to the attention of Palo Alto city leaders and the residents of Palo Alto. [] >Should this type of person and the organization he represents oversee a Palo Alto Community Center? Haha, wow. Can you get more stereotypical Silicon Valley than running to the nearest authority figure because you don't like someone's opinions and choice of (not even that) strong language?
- m0llusk 8y agoNow gamify this so people can get quick gratification and level up and that might actually work.
- watwut 8y ago"Jesus was a homeless Jew who said it was harder for a rich man to enter the Kingdom of Heaven than for a camel to get through the eye of a needle" Ok, I agree, but that seem to be unusual take for American nominations. At least my impression was that they did not tend to preach help to poor, rather the opposite. Did I had wrong impression or is this take really the minority one?
- TangoTrotFox 8y agoAssuming you mean religious denominations. If so, then yeah you have the wrong impression. Churches tend to be extremely involved in helping the poor. They're regularly involved in clothing drives, food banks, christmas gift drives, feeding the homeless, etc. You might be conflating it with American politicians who wear religion on their sleeve. Religious Americans make up a huge and disproportionate chunk of voters. This includes the traditional religious conservatives as well as a diverse group of WASP (white anglo-saxon protestant) types, but also black and Hispanic voters who are also largely religious. This is the reason for absurd pandering like Hillary Clinton stating that her favorite book was the bible. Religion, in theory, is a great thing since it encourages people to follow an [ideally] positive value system and gives people a way to meet and organize things. In practice the value systems are often pretty screwy, and the whole divine imperative turns plenty of people into self righteous assholes. In many ways modern notions of social justice are turning into a new religion and suffering the exact same problems. This is why we can't have anything nice!
- mattnewport 8y agoI think you have the wrong impression. Studies repeatedly find that religious Americans give significantly more to charity than non religious Americans, e.g. https://www.philanthropy.com/article/Religious-Americans-Give-More/153973 https://www.philanthropy.com/article/Religious-Americans-Giv...
- jnwatson 8y agoSorry, if you remove donations to their own churches, the unchurched do better. http://www.patheos.com/blogs/friendlyatheist/2013/11/28/are-religious-people-really-more-generous-than-atheists-a-new-study-puts-that-myth-to-rest/ http://www.patheos.com/blogs/friendlyatheist/2013/11/28/are-...
- deleted 8y ago[deleted]
- Karishma1234 8y agoPeople complaining about how other people should be spending their money. Huh.
- almost_usual 8y agoLess about how someone spends their money and more about their ideals. These people are fake and only value wealth. Their values are weak and mold to where the money is. The same people would be racists or bigots a 100-150+ years ago because they would be wealthier with those values. It's socially damaging to be those things today and actually impedes wealth so of course they believe they are "socially liberal". Including blue collar workers in their community or network of friends does not grow their wealth. They provide no benefit to these people's social worth in their eyes so they are exiled from the community.
- Karishma1234 8y agoThe entire Christianity and Catholic church has been the biggest examples of bigotry, racial, hatred and unimaginable violence. A Pastor should not engage in this type of virtue signalling. When you create wealth you are already helping poor people and blue collar workers. Who do you think mows Mark Zuck's lawn ?
- almost_usual 8y ago"The entire Christianity and Catholic church has been the biggest examples of bigotry, racial, hatred and unimaginable violence." True but why? Most of this was rooted in power and wealth. The Catholic Church is one of the most wealthy empires ever to have existed. Why do you think they became bigots, and racially radicalized? They wanted power, exclusiveness, and wealth. Legitimizing servitude and slavery through religion made them incredibly powerful. "A Pastor should not engage in this type of virtue signalling."" Like everything else religion is evolving, this Church is LGBT friendly. As someone who has a gay family member who attends an LGBT church these things do exist. "When you create wealth you are already helping poor people and blue collar workers. Who do you think mows Mark Zuck's lawn ?" That's fine, as long as you pay them enough to live near where they work in a house that isn't a shanty or ghetto. We don't need modern age indentured servants in the United States. I'm assuming you identify with the Republican party? My only interest is if you identified as being "Liberal" because you definitely aren't.
- sctb 8y agoPreviously: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17112771 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17112771.
- myrandomcomment 8y agoMy wife and I moved out of PA / Menlo partly because of this. Shallow people, spoiled children and the rude entitled behavior of almost everyone. Each year at my kids school they had a gift tree with cards with things the kids on the other side of the 101 (East PA) wanted. 99% of it was shoes. They just wanted a shoes. Every year we would take a few cards and wait for others to do the same. Every year at the end there where still cards on the tree and my wife and I would take every last one. How f'ing hard is it for someone to do this? Why the hell would there be anything left?!? I never understood that until I realized it would take time out of their schedule to have to do this. Sure people gave money, but god forbid they had to do any work.
- Balgair 8y agoA lot of commenters are saying that Pastor Stevens is right, and that more should be done. I encourage all people to volunteer and to try to make our world a better place, not just through donations, but through labor as well. The joys and rewards of volunteering and helping others are innumerable and ever growing; even The Economist of all magazines thinks so too [https://www.economist.com/node/8023307 https://www.economist.com/node/8023307]. If you see that your world is not what you want it to be, please consider volunteering. Here are some organizations I have worked with and can vouch for: http://www.bacbsa.org/contact/48588 http://www.bacbsa.org/contact/48588 https://www.bgcp.org/ https://www.bgcp.org/ If you know of other organizations in need of volunteers, please reply for others to see too.
- mudil 8y agoThis hypocritical behavior goes all the way to the top. AL Gore, for example, routinely flies on a private jet to various functions throughout the world. Compare this to Mahatma Gandhi who was barefoot and not in the Rolls Royce.
- cmurf 8y agoRecently I was in a late 1800's home in Denver. From the outside it doesn't look mansion-like huge, but it was huge. It had over a dozen rooms, and long since renovated "servant's quarters". Hindsight isn't really 20/20, is it? I look back on that era and think how blatantly racist and classist it was. But in contrast to today's segregation based on race and class, all we've done is move the servants out of the homes they serve, put them on public transit, and make them live 50 miles away. It's just feudalism vs a kind of neo-feudalism. And meritocracy in practice is different than meritocracy as an ideal. Perhaps Vulcans have the extreme discipline required to actually adhere to a strict system of merit. But humans do not. Anyone in a meritocratic environment lowers the ladder to friends and family, people they like, which immediately corrupts the meritocracy. Meritocracy in practice corrupts itself, the very thing the ideal proclaims to avoid. And even the ideal version pretty much pre-supposes that those without merit, without wealth, don't really deserve anything other than what they have (or don't have), there isn't anything to do about it, and it might even be immoral to intervene. The book of Job, and numerous stories of Christ in the New Testament are very critical of wealth and merit. And that's probably why the message doesn't go over very well anywhere with institutional power and wealth, be it the Pharisees, or Silicon Valley's wealthy (and regardless of whether they're liberal or conservative).
- deleted 8y ago[deleted]