Conservativeness as Defense against social justice?

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ChangeWorkPeace said:
The conservative outlook, as proposed by some in this thread, is that if the government didn’t take as much money away and have all of these social programs, this man could depend on local charities.
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Actually, the full conservative outlook is that if the government didn’t tax so heavily, the plant might not have had to move overseas in the first place, because labor costs would be significantly lower here. Also, there would be more people hiring, so that he could get another job faster. And finally, with the social justice outlook of today, the people could depend on local programs, because we no longer have the Victorian outlook of the poor.

–Jen
 
revert_jen said:
Actually, the full conservative outlook is that if the government didn’t tax so heavily, the plant might not have had to move overseas in the first place, because labor costs would be significantly lower here.
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I certainly hope not. On the balance sheet of any company, labor costs and taxes are entirely separate.

Do you really think that corporate taxation has caused the decline of the manufacturing sector in the United States?
And finally, with the social justice outlook of today, the people could depend on local programs, because we no longer have the Victorian outlook of the poor.
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I would appreciate more support for this argument. Particularly more support on how the cultural view of the poor today would lead to more sufficient assistance from local charities than in the past. I quite often see people noting that the poor are lazy, uneducated, make poor life choices, and abuse the system with a mentality of entitlement. These comments are often used as support for decreasing the reach of social programs. These comments don’t seem to support the view that we have become an empathic and charitable race ready to help the poor without coercion.
 
revert_jen said:
Actually, the full conservative outlook is that if the government didn’t tax so heavily, the plant might not have had to move overseas in the first place, because labor costs would be significantly lower here. Also, there would be more people hiring, so that he could get another job faster. And finally, with the social justice outlook of today, the people could depend on local programs, because we no longer have the Victorian outlook of the poor.

–Jen
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Actually in most instances, it wasn’t actual labor costs.

The factor contributing to the move overseas to China was China valuing its currency at 40% less than it should have been.(still to this day) That discount exceeded the labor content of all but the most labor intensive items, such as those that involved copious amounts of sewing.

Secondly most American companies accounted for labor not just as a direct cost, but as the factor in determining overhead absorption. So an hour of labor was the direct cost and a certain portion for all overhead. When buying from overseas, it was all direct costs and we know the Chinese don’t provide any type of standard of living to their factory employees.

Also when American companies closed factories it reduced the assets of companies , increasing ROA and driving up stock prices which benefited primarily those with stock options.

Also American companies like Exxon would sell raw materials from the US to China for lower prices than they would sell to American companies. So it was impossible for American manufacturing companies ,especially plastics companies ,to compete, mostly because the deck was stacked against them.

As for taxes, the US has one of the lowest tax structures of the developed world and we spend much more on defense than any other country, so the average person gets less benefit from the taxes they pay.

Alas, most conservatives and liberals for that matter don’t seem to care that our jobs are being shipped overseas so we can support China which supports Iran, North Korea and most of the heinously oppressive regimes in Africa.And to keep it in a Catholic context, has been no friend of our faith.

Peace
 
“Conserve” and “Tradition” are cousins.

Internally, the Church must be conservative because the Church recognizes that a part of the Divine revelation exists in its tradition.
 
markbrumbaugh said:
I strongly believe in and participate with time and money, voluntary charity. And I do not have ONE DROP of liberal blood in my body. But of course that is according to my understanding of the definitions…Liberal does not mean generous, it means generous with someone else’s stuff. Conservative does not mean greedy, it means I am willing to work as hard as I want for something I desire.
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If you don’t have one drop of liberal blood in you, do you support any of Jesus’ teachings about a preference for the poor, which is the basis for most traditional liberal thinking?

Peace
 
Biggie said:
“Conserve” and “Tradition” are cousins.

Internally, the Church must be conservative because the Church recognizes that a part of the Divine revelation exists in its tradition.
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So the liberal part learned through the teachings of Jesus are overridden by the conservative parts of tradition?

Oh, by the way, abortion is a conservative concept. It is most utilized (even mandated in law) in China which is one of the most conservative countries in the world and its related and equally heinous practice of female infanticide is also practiced there as well as in other conservative and traditional countries.

Peace
 
portarica said:
So the liberal part learned through the teachings of Jesus are overridden by the conservative parts of tradition?

Oh, by the way, abortion is a conservative concept. It is most utilized (even mandated in law) in China which is one of the most conservative countries in the world and its related and equally heinous practice of female infanticide is also practiced there as well as in other conservative and traditional countries.

Peace
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Our Lord was neither liberal nor conservative. Neither liberal nor conservative can claim special sanctity. Unfortunately, the left most frequently does, since an assumed sanctity is the only rationale it can offer. I need spend no time searching the gospels for the verses where the government is made the instrument of human salvation - it’s not there.

And your second paragraph is a hoot.
 
portarica said:
Oh, by the way, abortion is a conservative concept. It is most utilized (even mandated in law) in China which is one of the most conservative countries in the world and its related and equally heinous practice of female infanticide is also practiced there as well as in other conservative and traditional countries.
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I’m pretty sure I have never heard anyone refer to a communist country as conservative. I think it is possible you have re-defined “conservative” for yourself in some way that is not generally used. Since one of the basic tenets of conservatism is to have less government control and interference in business, and one of the basic tenets of communism is that the state should control business, you would have a hard sell to convert anyone to your definition.

–Jen
 
ChangeWorkPeace said:
I would appreciate more support for this argument. Particularly more support on how the cultural view of the poor today would lead to more sufficient assistance from local charities than in the past. I quite often see people noting that the poor are lazy, uneducated, make poor life choices, and abuse the system with a mentality of entitlement. These comments are often used as support for decreasing the reach of social programs. These comments don’t seem to support the view that we have become an empathic and charitable race ready to help the poor without coercion.
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Consider the situation for the poor in medieval Europe and the situation for the poor in Victorian England.

Medieval Europe was Catholic, and there were monasteries and convents dedicated to helping those unable to help themselves, and in the feudal system those who had authority over others were expected to take care of those under them.

Victorian England was not only no longer Catholic, but steeped in so-called Enlightenment thinking and a Calvinistic Social Darwinism. The poor (and those of other races) were looked down upon as *inferior *human beings as a result of their circumstance of being poor (which was not even their fault for the most part but due to changes well beyond their control). There was even government aid: the poor houses (think Oliver Twist).

What I would say is that one problem with government aid is that we no longer see poverty. We assume that poor people get the help they need from the government, but this is not necessarily so. They get some material help from the government. they do not get the help they need which occurs person-to-person: help learning to read, help learning to budget, to buy wisely; help learning the self-discipline necessary to keep a job.

If you look at the statistics for blacks in the USA from the 1950s and the statistics now, you will see that while they may not experience the dreadful poverty they experienced then, while they may no longer be denied care at ER’s as used to happen, in every other way, they are doing very badly: more of their young men are in prison, on drugs, dead… more of their young women are single mothers, often of more than one child by more than one father, etc. I am not using this to in any way justify Jim Crow laws, but in addition to civil rights reform there was also a huge change in the way that welfare was handled. (This is the way the statistics are kept, which I don’t agree with, and is also true of many poor white people as well.)

The more I look into Catholic social justice, the more I see the flaws in American-style conservatism, which I at least appreciate because it is holding the line (somewhat) against the social issues. It is not on the Democrat side that you find people working to put in laws requiring *full *information about abortion, parental permission for abortion, etc. It is not on the conservative side that you see people working to liberalize marriage laws. So to me the conservatives are somewhat better than the liberals, but still not going in the right direction, which for me is of course a truly Catholic social justice, one including subsidiarity and supernatural solidarity.
 
Ella said:
Someone sent this to me and it’s made me think… I would love to hear your comments.

youtube.com/watch?v=AK7gI5lMB7M
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Well, Al Franken is not known for being a moderate. I find the analogies he draws in the first few minutes of the video (I didn’t really see any point in watching to the end) to be badly flawed, and strongly biased. And I think it is a bit disingenuous for a Jewish person to use Jesus to make a political point.

–Jen
 
revert_jen said:
Well, Al Franken is not known for being a moderate. I find the analogies he draws in the first few minutes of the video (I didn’t really see any point in watching to the end) to be badly flawed, and strongly biased. And I think it is a bit disingenuous for a Jewish person to use Jesus to make a political point.

–Jen
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I realize who he is but do you think you could give a response to the scenarios in the video?

I think it’s more than a political point.
 
Ella said:
Someone sent this to me and it’s made me think… I would love to hear your comments.

youtube.com/watch?v=AK7gI5lMB7M
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I think it is problematic on several counts, but the main problem is that it is a straw-man argument: setting up the other side’s argument falsely.

There are some aspects of what falls under the umbrella of conservatism in the US which definitely go against Catholic teaching, but that is not too surprising since our culture is more Protestant and secular than it is Catholic.

One could easily make a similar cartoon against liberals in the US.
 
portarica said:
Among many of the threads here about social justice, there is a theme that some how equates American political conservatism with the ability to not participate in “feeding the least” or “treating the least like they maybe Jesus in the guise of the least”.

More troubling is also the unspoken connection between this political conservatism and what makes someone an “orthodox” Catholic.

It seems to me that trotting out OT verses to counter what Jesus taught about taking care of the least, while politically conservative, is not by any stretch of the imagination, orthodox in terms of following Jesus.

Now perhaps I am mistaken about thinking that the primacy of Jesus’ teachings is what makes one an orthodox Catholic. But that may just be a bias that I have.

Any thoughts?

Peace
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The least have been fed - at least in this country. Obesity-related health problems are a huge problem for the least. There also appears to be no shortage of luxuries among the least, that the working class may forego (cell phones, dining out, cigarettes, etc.). Outside the US, the Catholic Church is the largest provider of human charity in the world.

The problem conservatives have is that the liberal interpretation of “helping the least” is establishing another government agency, which appears to keep them well fed, but ignores their spiritual heath.
 
ChangeWorkPeace said:
I would appreciate more support for this argument. Particularly more support on how the cultural view of the poor today would lead to more sufficient assistance from local charities than in the past. I quite often see people noting that the poor are lazy, uneducated, make poor life choices, and abuse the system with a mentality of entitlement. These comments are often used as support for decreasing the reach of social programs. These comments don’t seem to support the view that we have become an empathic and charitable race ready to help the poor without coercion.
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There’s no value in giving someone money to avoid the consequences of destructive behaviors without any any assistance in changing those behaviors, which affect their children (often horribly) and society as a whole.

What’s coercive about providing counsel, education and the tools to assist the recipients of charity to be independent?
 
Ella said:
I realize who he is but do you think you could give a response to the scenarios in the video?

I think it’s more than a political point.
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Frankly, I don’t see that there was much in the video that called for answer. Nobody on the conservative side is saying that people who can’t help themselves (like the lepers) should not be helped by others. OTOH, I don’t recall where in the Bible Jesus said the government should do the helping. Franken’s point was what?

–Jen
 
Ella said:
I realize who he is but do you think you could give a response to the scenarios in the video?

I think it’s more than a political point.
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Responses:
  1. Jesus preached love of neighbor, giving alms, etc. He never ever dictated what was the ideal economic model.
  2. The video begs the question. It assumes the premise it is putatively trying to proving, namely, that supply economics is anti-Christian.
He offers no clear argument as to why, but instead makes jokes that will only resonate with those who already agree with him.
  1. It does nothing to address the veracity of supply side economics.
  2. It turns a complete and total blind eye to the well documented fact that politically conservative people tend to be much more philanthropic than their antipodes.
 
Darkbloom said:
Responses:…
  1. It turns a complete and total blind eye to the well documented fact that politically conservative people tend to be much more philanthropic than their antipodes.
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Antipodes! I love it 😃
 
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