Tag Archives: Politics

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Paul A. Rahe calls the Catholic church to account on fiscal policy

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Practicing Catholic Paul A. Rahe explains why he thinks that the Catholic Church made a mistake by supporting Obamacare.

Excerpt:

In the 1930s, the majority of the  bishops, priests, and nuns sold their souls to the devil, and they did so with the best of intentions. In their concern for the suffering of those out of work and destitute, they wholeheartedly embraced the New Deal. They gloried in the fact that Franklin Delano Roosevelt made Frances Perkins – a devout Anglo-Catholic laywoman who belonged to the Episcopalian Church but retreated on occasion to a Catholic convent – Secretary of Labor and the first member of her sex to be awarded a cabinet post. And they welcomed Social Security – which was her handiwork. They did not stop to ponder whether public provision in this regard would subvert the moral principle that children are responsible for the well-being of their parents. They did not stop to consider whether this measure would reduce the incentives for procreation and nourish the temptation to think of sexual intercourse as an indoor sport. They did not stop to think.

In the process, the leaders of the American Catholic Church fell prey to a conceit that had long before ensnared a great many mainstream Protestants in the United States – the notion that public provision is somehow akin to charity – and so they fostered state paternalism and undermined what they professed to teach: that charity is an individual responsibility and that it is appropriate that the laity join together under the leadership of the Church to alleviate the suffering of the poor. In its place, they helped establish the Machiavellian principle that underpins modern liberalism – the notion that it is our Christian duty to confiscate other people’s money and redistribute it.

At every turn in American politics since that time, you will find the hierarchy assisting the Democratic Party and promoting the growth of the administrative entitlements state. At no point have its members evidenced any concern for sustaining limited government and protecting the rights of individuals. It did not cross the minds of these prelates that the liberty of conscience which they had grown to cherish is part of a larger package – that the paternalistic state, which recognizes no legitimate limits on its power and scope, that they had embraced would someday turn on the Church and seek to dictate whom it chose to teach its doctrines and how, more generally, it would conduct its affairs.

I would submit that the bishops, nuns, and priests now screaming bloody murder have gotten what they asked for. The weapon that Barack Obama has directed at the Church was fashioned to a considerable degree by Catholic churchmen. They welcomed Obamacare. They encouraged Senators and Congressmen who professed to be Catholics to vote for it.

Now, when I think of Catholics, I think of fiscal conservatives like Jay Richards, Robert Scirocco and Jennifer Roback Morse. There are Catholics who understand the relationship between fiscal policy and religious liberty. But many lay Catholics who listen to the bishops, nuns and priests don’t understand how fiscal policy relates to religious liberty. And I think that this is a good opportunity for lay Catholics to consider the fact that the church can sometimes be wrong – because they can be too liberal not because they are conservative! Imagine that. Sometimes, it’s not a good idea to just take the word of “experts” on some matters. It’s better to puzzle things out for ourselves by reading the Bible and studying things like economics, and then deciding how to reconcile the goals of the Bible with the way the world works. I think that it’s the case that we can help the poor by keeping government small, and by letting individuals and families have more freedom – not less.

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Why do the most educated conservatives sometimes doubt scientific consensus?

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On some issues, I do doubt the scientific establishment: 1) Darwinism and 2) global warming. Why? Because I think that in those two areas, science takes a back seat to ideology. Specifically, the ideologies of naturalism and socialism. And I’m not alone. Many the most informed conservatives also doubt the pontifications of the scientific establishment.

Reason magazine explains:

The link in the [Instapundit] gloss above goes to a story in the excellent Inside Higher Ed (a must-read for anyone interested in post-secondary education issues, IMO). Here’s the lede of the piece:

Just over 34 percent of conservatives had confidence in science as an institution in 2010, representing a long-term decline from 48 percent in 1974, according to a paper being published today in American Sociological Review.

The paper in ASR draws on attitudes as reflected in the General Social Survey, a “long-term study asking people various demographic and self-identification questions (including political identity) and for their attitudes on certain groups, including confidence in certain institutions.” The author of the paper, a post-doc at University of North Carolina, says:

Less-educated conservatives didn’t change their attitudes about science in recent decades. It is better-educated conservatives who have done so, the paper says.

In the paper, Gauchat calls this a “key finding,” in part because it challenges “the deficit model, which predicts that individuals with higher levels of education will possess greater trust in science, by showing that educated conservatives uniquely experienced the decline in trust.”

[The wording of the key question in the survey]…stresses attitudes toward “the people running these institutions.” It doesn’t ask whether you think science has changed. It’s specifically asking about the folks wearing literal and figurative lab coats who are running joints like the National Science Foundation, testifying before Congress, appearing on The Tonight Show while forecasting famine up the ying-yang and praising coercive population control measures, and who often end up being totally wrong about everything.

If it’s “educated conservatives” who have lost faith in scientists, a fully plausible possible explanation is simply that they recognize what libertarians and crypto-libertarians ranging from Thomas Szasz to Michel Foucault have been pointing out since the early 1960s in works starting with The Myth of Mental Illness and The Birth of the Clinic: That much if not all of what passes for dispassionate scientific discourse is hugely implicated in power struggles that have little or nothing to do with disinterested, true-for-all-times-and-all-places Truths with capital Ts.

So what the most educated conservatives are disagreeing about is not testable, repeatable, observable science.  It’s the politicization of science by the scientific establishment that conservatives are skeptical about. For example, in cases of outright fraud like “archaeoraptor” and “Climategate“, where fake research is used to prop up a philosophy, i.e. – naturalism and socialism respectively.

It doesn’t help when the scientific establishment responds to skepticism with stuff like this: (links removed)

A whole slew of new “research” on conservatives’ and global warming skeptics’ “brains” has hit the academic circuit.

First off, environment and sociology Prof. Kari Norgaard’s new study claims skeptics of man-made global warming fears should be “treated” for their skepticism. The study compares skepticism to man-made climate fears to the struggle against racism and slavery.

Prof. Norgaard’s concept of “treating” those who do not follow the current day’s political or social orthodoxy is, frighteningly, not new. A quick look at the 20th century totalitarian super states reveals many similar impulses.

It’s even more chilling that there is a whole new movement afoot by the promoters of man-made global warming theory to intimidate climate skepticsby using new brain “research.”

Other researchers have attempted to tie conservatism (which is identified with the highest number of climate skeptics) to “low brainpower.”

Some global warming promoters claim it is essentially “unethical” to be a skeptic.

That’s not the evidence we are looking for.

News

Obama makes fifth attempt to reduce tax deduction for charity

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From the Heritage Foundation.

Excerpt:

Once again, President Barack Obama has proposed lowering the income tax deduction for charitable giving. In his proposed budget for fiscal year 2013, the President calls for reducing the charitable deduction rate from 35 percent to 28 percent for those in the top tax bracket (individuals making $200,000 or more or families making $250,000 or more). By decreasing the value of itemized tax deductions for higher-income taxpayers, Obama’s proposal would weaken the incentive for the wealthy to give to organizations that help the poor.

President Obama has tried this before. Not once, not twice, not three times, but on four previous occasions, he has put forward a plan to lower the deduction rate for wealthy donors (twice in previous budget proposals and twice in funding proposals for other priorities, including Obamacare).

As The Heritage Foundation has previously noted, the President’s plan would likely dampen charitable giving at a time when nonprofits have been forced to do more with less. The greatest impact would probably hit organizations like hospitals and educational institutions that depend on large gifts from wealthy donors. While these donors make up only a small percentage of total American households, they contribute almost half of the donations claimed each year as charitable deductions.

How far would Obama’s proposal cause total itemized contributions to fall? Experts predict up to $5.6 billion each year.

Why would a socialist like Obama want to discourage people from giving to charity? Well, socialists want to increase the amount of dependency that people in need have on the government, so that the government can control them. When people in need have options, they don’t have to care as much about the opinions of the people who help them. But when the government squeezes charities out by cutting off their donations, then the people in need have to choose government. And what do you suppose happens at election time? A whole bunch of people in need vote for their savior – big government. This is not good.

People in need should be able to get help from their families, neighbors and charities, in that order. We don’t want this becoming political – i.e. “vote for me or you don’t eat”. It should also be noted that when government takes over the task of helping the poor, the Christian church loses its influence. Do we really want Christians to lose influence at a time when millions of unborn children are being murdered and the family is being redefined by liberal social engineers?