MK put a post up last week which made me think about an article Stu and I posted in August 2007. The conversation last week touched on how the Catholic Church actually preaches more of Democratic talking points when it comes to social issues
(as long as you remove the whole kill anyone that is a burden to someone else, the removal of anything God in public and the anything goes lifestyle).
All this said, here is part of that post from 2007 that I think addresses this issue nicely:
The leftist side believes in Choice. Just as long as that Choice doesn’t contradict the leftist side. Understand?
I think my favorite leftist example of this is the concept of charity. They want everyone to give until it hurts. What if you want to give to a Crisis Pregnancy Center? Well, then you shouldn’t give. The charity must be okayed by the liberals, so you will be correct in your choice.
The liberals seem to be pushing for a socialistic government. They want property and wealth to be controlled by (them). You can’t tax the rich enough and you can’t give the poor enough. But there are serious problems with this. The rich get angry that they are doing all the work while the poor become addicted to the handouts.
An example would be how the Catholic Church loves the socialistic ideals, but then get confused when these governments begin to turn against their teachings. When it is the government that is controlling the concept of right and wrong we become subject to someone else’s opinion of morality and the Church is left behind. The people become the children to the parental government. Our lives are now controlled by someone else who makes all the decisions for us…..
Even in our so-called capitalist society, we are seeing the downfall of the socialistic idea of how to help the poor. We are not helping them by giving them food stamps, free housing and money without asking for anything in return……
“When you give a man a fish you feed him for a day, but when you teach a man to fish you feed him for a lifetime.”….
Basically we think that the Democratic way of thinking on social issues is in line with Catholic teaching, but is it really? The talking points themselves are very close to what Christianity is all about but their answers on how to resolve problems within those talking points are not. What is more important? Asking the right questions or how those questions are answered?
2 Thessalonians 3:6-12
We instruct you, brothers, in the name of (our) Lord Jesus Christ,to shun any brother who conducts himself in a disorderly way and not according to the tradition they received from us.
For you know how one must imitate us. For we did not act in a disorderly way among you, nor did we eat food received free from anyone. On the contrary, in toil and drudgery, night and day we worked, so as not to burden any of you.
Not that we do not have the right. Rather, we wanted to present ourselves as a model for you, so that you might imitate us.
In fact, when we were with you, we instructed you that if anyone was unwilling to work, neither should that one eat.
(This, of course, does not include the people who physically cannot work or who want to work but cannot find work.)
The answers on Democratic social issues seems to be ‘give it to them free’ or
‘anything goes’. This is not in line with Catholic teachings.
On the one hand we have one group of people that want to help people no matter what with no questions asked. And on the other hand we have a group of people that say help those who help themselves and put limitations on that help. Which ideology has already been proven to work? MK had the perfect answer for that:
Blacks and American Indians are perfect examples of how people become crippled when “given” and asked for nothing back. It sends the message “We know you aren’t capable of taking care of yourselves…we have NO expectations for you…you are just so much flotsam and we need to keep you in your “pen”…”
They are the only two groups of people that I can think of that have never risen above their “station”…Irish, Italian, German, Indian, Pakistani…all of these came to America with little or nothing and got NO help from the government…they would have been MORTIFIED to go on the “dole”…and yet inch by inch, they assimilated and became part of the American Backbone…why haven’t the black or American Indians done the same? Because they have been broken by the government! Hand up? Good. Hand out? Not so much.
Some blacks HAVE managed to crawl out of their holes, but not as many as should have given the amount of time that has passed and all the “breaks” they have been given.
Face it. The Democrat party has been bad since Franklin and Eleanor and Company poisoned it. The chances of it being rehabilitated in our lifetime are slim. As imperfect as the GOP is, it is comparatively still an arena of some decency.
Do people forget Democrats played a fairly large role in instituting TANF- the strictest and most penalizing welfare system the U.S. has ever had?
You mean the one that Bill Clinton was basically forced to sign? That was a Republican congress in 1996… and in 2005 when it was signed again. Senatorial and Congressional Democrats tried to stop it, both times. I remember the debates and what the democratic party said. It was moderate (last of the conservative) democrats that were willing to override a presidential veto… So Clinton negotiated some and agreed to sign the bill.
So no it wasn’t a democrats idea. It came from Tommy Thompson’s work as govern of Wisconsin. Which Newt Gingrich pushed a good way to reduce the welfare state..
Dan –
The Dems have been complaining about that for years. In the 1980′s they complained really hard about it and called it a “cranky conservative” ideology. That is until the public came out in complete support of it – then is miraculously changed to a good idea – but they managed to stall it until 1996.
You can read about it in an article from the University of Chicago. They make it very clear who it was that supported the bill.
http://www.ssa.uchicago.edu/news/Helping%20the%20poor%20_Economist.pdf
Republicans drew up the new rules after winning control of Congress for the first time in over 40 years. And in August 1996,
having promised during his 1992 presidential campaign to “end welfare as we know it”, Bill Clinton signed a law that required
the states to push welfare recipients into jobs—an approach popularly known as “workfare”.
Samuel,
First, welcome and thanks for adding your opinion….
Second, I think FDR began the entitlement state, though the democrats are not alone in that regard. The GOP and Dem’s have both become fairly corrupt. I am not an advocate for third-parties and consensus governments. I actually wish both parties would go back to the idea of doing what is best for the country and not themselves or their party. It is one of the reason I wish we had term limits for all political offices; especially congress and the supreme court.
Everyone,
Say hi to Samuel…he’s a friend of mine…we’ve spent many an hour outside of clinics praying…
Hi Sam! Welcome, welcome, welcome!
Hi Sam!