Our fellow citizens are now getting a sample of North Carolina's demagogic Democrat in vestments, and our friends on the left are gobbling up his sermons of greed and envy.
Rev. William Barber rose to recognition in NC when he organized and led the "Moral Monday" protest marches against the Republican legislature. This was done immediately after the GOP took control of state government for the first time in more than a century. While the array of NC progressive groups coordinated their "Blueprint NC" strategy to sue, protest, and smear Republicans in an attempt to block them from getting anything done.
Barber's rise was made possible by the decimation of the NC Democratic Party, which had been rocked by repeated scandals leading up to the 2010 election. The party needed an interim leader, and the Moral Monday marches provided that - along with an outlet for choreographed screams for leftism. It got constant media coverage as progressives coordinated their own arrests for disrupting the legislature.
Barber's message was attractive to Democrats who are tired of being cast as rejecting God and Christianity for the ephemeral hedonism of the pleasurable. It's a particularly sensitive topic for liberals, as I learned when attending a Better Angels event in Henderson County a few years ago. They really don't like the idea that they are not religious or Christian.
Enter, Reverend Barber - who provides them a patina of Biblical support for collectivism.
Selling their view of government to conservatives relies heavily on an infrastructure of moral superiority - which is undermined by the fact that conservatives tend to be more religious than liberals. Barber helps them do that and feel good about it - by calling the Bible and the Constitution socialism.
No, socialism is not Christian. Jesus wasn't a socialist.
No, the US Constitution is not socialist.
But notice the applause Barber gets in stating these things.
Naturally, the same folks clapping for this message are the very same ones who scream about "separation of church and state" - as they did in the "Moral Monday" protests. See, it's acceptable when the left uses religion and Christianity to expand government. But if you use religion and Christianity to argue against abortion, you'll be accused of committing treason against the Constitutional separation of church and state -- which doesn't actually appear in the Constitution.
To collectivists, everything is viewed through the collective. So, people making individual decisions to help their fellow human beings is not really part of the equation except as an "Oh, yeah - and charity, OF COURSE" tacked onto any discussion about how to alleviate poverty. It's easy to call upon someone else to help. It's much harder to provide that assistance yourself -- to voluntarily sacrifice your own comforts and wealth for the benefit of another when nobody else is matching your efforts.
To collectivists, everyone must be forced to participate. This robs participants of the altruism, the meaning, and the value of acting individually and voluntarily. It's truly an insidious ideology made all the more contemptible when cloaked in religiosity.
By the way, new research shows "the poorest 20% of Americans consume more goods and services than the national averages for all people in most affluent countries." The American free market capitalist economic system has created greater wealth and higher standards of living than any society on the face of the planet.
Ever.
If we're truly trying to alleviate poverty, we should pursue the methods that work best to do so.
Here is Barber's entire speech, if you care to watch: