But the Quakers’ official doctrine of absolute pacifism has often made their political involvements problematic across 300 years of American history. During the French & Indian War, the young Colonel George Washington had to incarcerate Quakers on the Virginia frontier who were helping the natives even when colonists were being massacred and scalped. In the wonderful movie “Friendly Persuasion,” Gary Cooper portrays a dignified Pennsylvania Quaker who at first resists a call to arms during the Civil War but eventually takes up his rifle against invading Confederates.

There are only about 70,000 Quakers in the U.S. today, but thanks to their long history, activism and wealth, Quaker influence exceeds their actual numbers. The American Friends Service Committee  (AFSC) is the primary political mouthpiece for Quakers. It was founded during World War I to promote peaceful alternatives to military service along with humanitarian works around the world.

Like other American religious institutions, AFSC was radicalized during the1960’s. Today, it earnestly recycles the Religious Left’s most common political mantras.

For example, it took AFSC only a few minutes to respond irritably to the August 28 announcement that the U.S. poverty rate has declined. In typical fashion, AFSC transformed good news into bad, immediately announcing that the Iraq War is perpetuating American poverty.

If only the U.S. would withdraw from Iraq, there would be no more poverty in America!

Claiming that the U.S. spends $720 million a day on the Iraq War, the AFSC breathlessly insisted that this money could instead fund:

• 95,364 Head Start places for Children or
• 12,478 elementary school teachers or
• 163,525 people with health care or
• 34,904 four year college scholarships or
• 6,482 families with homes

Naturally, the AFSC assumes that the federal government, despite 218 years of contrary evidence, would be the most efficient and effective provider of education, health care and housing.

It should also be noted that the AFSC calculation on Iraq War costs, totaled at $1 trillion across 4 years, is padded with estimates on how much the U.S. will spend in the future on Iraq War veterans’ health costs and pensions, along with additional interest on the national debt.

Unmentioned by the AFSC is that even with this inflated number, the Iraq War has consumed only about 2 percent of American gross national product across four years. That total U.S. federal spending equals about 20 percent of U.S. wealth across these years does not particularly trouble AFSC, which assumes that all big government is good, except for the military.

"For $720 million, we could provide over 400,000 children with health care, or over a million children with free school lunches," AFSC chief Joyce Miller asserted. "America's shameful poverty rate should lead everyone to ask ourselves how we want to spend our tax dollars - on war or on education, health care, job training, affordable housing, and the like."

Quakers have not always been renowned for theological precision. But the Christian Scriptures specifically assign military and police powers to the secular state. The biblical support for a limitless welfare state was not miraculously discovered until about 19 centuries after the last apostle had expired.

Reluctantly, AFSC admitted that the U.S. poverty rate declined from 2005 to 2006, and now stands at 12.3 percent of the U.S. population. Also unmentioned by AFSC was that even this figure includes many well-heeled Americans, especially the elderly, who live on considerable assets but have little recorded income.

The expanding U.S. economy, in which 5 percent of the world’s population generates 20 to 30 percent of the world’s wealth, is the economic machine that continuously lifts millions up out of poverty, here and around the globe. But in the dreary corridors of the Religious Left, there is a chronic perception of only misery and scarcity. The poor are always getting poorer and the rich are getting richer! If this were really true, there was greater economic justice in ancient Egypt or Babylon than there is today.

But the AFSC, rather than celebrating the expansion of wealth, and the advancement of previously impoverished Americans, prefers to see racial and economic oppression.

"The impact of race, ethnicity and gender is extremely disturbing," darkly observed AFSC “economic justice” spokeswoman Roberta Spivek notes. "Although the Hispanic poverty rate declined about one percent, Blacks and non-white Hispanics are about three times more likely than whites to be poor."

In fairness, the AFSC admitted that race is not the only indicator of poverty. "Being a single mother also has an alarming effect," Spivek observed. "More than 28% of female-headed families with no husband present are in poverty, compared to about 5% are married-couple families." But AFSC preferred not to comment further on this revealing data, ignoring the social science of the last 40 years showing that increased illegitimacy and divorce fuel poverty. Such a reference would disrupt AFSC’s thesis that the Iraq War is actually keeping people poor.

"Reducing poverty is not rocket science," the AFSC’s Miller insisted. "We can go a long way by investing in education, health care, housing and job training; increasing the earned income and child tax credits; transforming minimum wages into living wages; protecting workers' rights to organize; and strengthening the safety net after six years of Bush administration attacks."

Naturally, AFSC failed to note that social spending under the Bush Administration has in fact increased enormously. But no increase will ever be sufficient for the Religious Left until big government consumes or controls all national wealth.

Spivek simplistically insisted: “It's a question of redirecting our resources away from war and tax breaks for the highest-income households, toward the common good."

Quakers historically have been so celebrated for their industriousness and wealth generation that Max Weber famously highlighted their economic success in his landmark “The Protestant Ethic and the Spirit of Capitalism.” Quaker peasants were persecuted and imprisoned in 17^th century England. Once freed from government persecution, they prospered in both Britain and America. No government delivered them from poverty. No war ever kept them in poverty.

Seemingly, AFSC believes that what worked for the Quakers is impossible for other less successful Americans. Even the chronically smiling Quaker Oats Man really knows better.