Contentions of absolute truth in Ingredient Eight:

(Participant Cards)

• No matter who tells you differently, the “haves” and the “have-nots” will never get along. 

• There is a reason the rich want to hold onto their money. There is a reason why poor people want more money. 

• These are inconvenient truths that nobody wants to talk about because it opens up issues that are very hard. 

• Although we make a great effort to help our fellow Americans who are in need and fall upon hard times, we have come up short.  

• We have come to expect doing what we can- but never enough -as the American way of life.

• If we followed the natural law, we would seek to moderate disparities in life experience until we can achieve some acceptable happy medium, a more balanced approach.

•  We can have a merit-based economy and still be compassionate to the poor.

• It's not our laws that are broken; it’s the detachment from our moral duties.

(All Together) 

• Poverty in America is not someone else's problem; it is all of our problem.

• Sacrificing for others, whom we don’t even know, is a pathway, not a burden.

Quotations to discuss: 

• “Courage is not only one of the great virtues. It is the form of all virtue at its testing point.” C.S Lewis

• “Do unto others as you would have them do unto you."  Bible: Matthew 7:12 and Luke 6:31

• "A people that values its privileges above its principles soon loses both." Dwight Eisenhower

Further discussion:

• How do we bridge the divides so that people live with less resentment and anger toward one another? Could a shared underlying belief system rooted in our shared human nature possibly contribute? Can general morality training courses like this one provide improvement in this area?  

• Has our society become less moral? Less giving? Less compassionate? Is it possible that we can bridge the great divide between rich and poor with less government? 

Resources:

• 5000 Year Leap. Cleon Skousen. Explains the founders’ intent and recognition that free markets and maximum liberty require a moral people or only a few wind up with the benefits.

• Poverty By America: Matthew Desmond