grumpy Pharisees

So a leading Democrat thought it was OK that the IRS went after the Tea Party and other conservative groups because they were “admittedly racist”, which is a calumny in itself but it shows a scary propensity of fascists and socialists and all kinds of “ist’s”, and that is demonizing whoever disagrees with you.  This Democrat brought the religious angle in by calling these groups akin to the Taliban.  That brings up another odious attribute and that is telling people to do something that they are unwilling to do themselves.  Kind of like congress forcing us into the health care quagmire and exempting themselves and their buddies.  People who told other people to do stuff and weren’t willing to do it themselves used to be called Pharisees.  They are described in Matthew 24

“They tie up heavy, cumbersome loads and put them on other people’s shoulders, but they themselves are not willing to lift a finger to move them.”

It is noteworthy that the most vehement words ever written by Paul or written in the same religious context, directed against the intrusion of the Christianized Pharisaism into the church, against man who, though they apparently denied not a single positive tenant of Paul’s teaching, nevertheless made man once more the religious center of gravity. Jesus and Paul are at one in their anathema on all such. Galatians 16 to 9; 512