Now then: Mr. Beck. I do confess to feeling uncharitable towards him. His “entertainment” makes cruel judgements, is polarizing, and I believe has led many a conservative to stray from helping those who work with the poor; “Socialism! Communism!” blah blah blah. And yes, the comments about “Social Justice” in Church truly did put me over the edge. That was the final straw. And then, that’s not good for me, so I haven’t chimed in much on this subject.
I sometimes think we, on CAF are speaking different languages, or different versions of English, perhaps. I am going to confess that I have only seen or heard Beck a few times. I will say he is excessively oratorical in his presentation.
But I have not, at least personally, seen the man express what I would call “cruel judgments”. Polarizing, yes. But there’s plenty of that going on right now I do not exclude myself from that judgment.
You believe he has caused many a “conservative” to “stray” from helping the poor. In what way has he done that? Who has given less because of him? When has he ever told us to snap our own pocketbooks shut against the needy? By arguing against the growth of government control of our lives? By arguing against taking money from our neighbor instead of ourselves, to give it to whatever causes strike us as socially just? It seems to me excessive government encorachment into human life is what his message is. Every Pope since and including Leo XIII has said the very same thing. I agree that calling out “socialism” or “communism” is often excessive; in here as it is on radio. But doing that sort of thing is hardly peculiar to Beck.
One of the posters compared being Republican to being ungodly, as if to be a Republican is inherently unchristian or unCatholic. What pope has said that? Where is that in the Catechism? Are people really reacting to what Republicans have in their hearts, or are they reacting to what they think is in Republican hearts? By “social justice”, I am truly asking, what do those who condemn Beck mean in practical terms?
I was raised Democrat. I held office in the party. So did my wife. At a point, the party ran off and left us when it became dedicated to abortion. But it wasn’t just that, and I apply this to Republicans and Democrats and “social justice” promoters equally. I am appalled that nobody, absolutely nobody, including people in this forum, raises his/her voice for the neediest of all in this country; the disabled needy who don’t have 40 quarters of withheld income, who are somehow expected to subsist on about $600/month; sometimes less. Who is their champion? I don’t see one. No Democrat. No Republican. No priest or preacher or organization that promotes “social justice” that I have ever heard. Yet those are precisely the people the popes have told us most clearly should be the very first who should be the recipients of our largesse; perhaps of our substance. Where are the “social justice” people with that?
Are we talking moral principles here or political ideologies? Does anybody know what Beck thinks about the people on SSI? Maybe I should write to him and find out. His address must be somewhere accessible. And what if he says “yes,that would be my first priority”? Would anyone change his mind about Beck, or would they condemn him still because he opposes government health insurance subsidies for the middle class and uses oratorical techniques to deliver the message of that opposition?
Who is the champion for those elderly who have to go totally broke to get nursing care? (Their spouses too, or nearly so) Certainly not this congress or this president or the Republicans or any “social justice” organization information I have ever seen. I talked to a lady today who has MS, yet is trying to take care of her husband who is in the advanced stages of Alzheimer’s. Is there “social justice” for her, perhaps? If so, the proponents are not out there on any horizon I can see. And yet her need is so much more severe than that of someone earning $60,000 who wants somebody making $90,000 to help him pay for his health insurance. But no champion for the lady with MS.
I’ll admit, I get furious with those dioceses, and catholic organizations who do all this promoting of “social justice” in a political way, and yet do they build nursing homes and make efforts to staff them with people (and I know they exist) who would work for much less in order to ensure decent care for the old, the sick and the afllicted without first requiring that they impoverish themselves and their spouses? No sir, they do not.
I read not long ago of a nun, very big in a supposedly Catholic organization active in promoting Obama. Very big on “social justice”. She controls funds amounting to over a billion dollars. Her mission, as she sees it (outside of elections) and, indeed, exercises it, is to spend money suing government agencies and corporations to make them do this or that, or to refrain from this or from that. Force, force, force. No funding of nursing homes, though.
Is this social justice, then? We ignore the truly needy; the desperately ill and the desperately poor, yet we sue the government to force them to spend money taken by force from taxpayers, in ways we think are socially just?
Maybe I don’t understand Beck at all. Maybe I don’t understand what people really mean when they go on and on about social justice and how terrible people are who (despite perhaps being personally generous in ways they don’t see) are wary of government domination of lives in the very same way the popes have been.
Possibly I need a translation book.
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