Remember this line of thought started when discussing what the Holy Father said in the link above. Perhaps a better question is what do you think he meant. I took it to mean the former things you said, those things which if reported would be illegal, not that they deserve a particular wage. People exploit these workers because they know they will not go to the police.
Inconceivable. I can not give up being an American as much as I can not give up being a Catholic. Since the USA and American ideology exist and God is soveriegn over the earth and has everything planned out already, it must be part of His plan, therefore no true religion should be opposed to it.
You do realize that this is a JW stance? That identifying with a nation and showing any patriotism for it is the same as replacing christianity with another religion? I do take my country very seriously and its role in God’s plan and salvation history.
We Conservatives call those people “wrong.”
They don’t differ. Please quote the contradictions. Those articles speak for me word for word, my definitions and reasons are spelled out in them.
This is not a “short-term crisis” or just a “rough spot”. Interesting how you try to minimize the situation. This has been building for generations because of European socialism, because of the entrenched welfare state in Europe that practically wipes the butts of its people. We are reducing spending here as well, we are in “quite a bad way” too, and we don’t see any riots like we’re seeing in Europe. The American vew of the European Social model is that it is intrinsically flawed in that it encourages its people to depend on government for all their needs and wants and therefore never learn how to take care of themselves, and now that Europe is going through “austerity measures” and cutting back that dependence, the people don’t know what to do and this is the result-anarchy. European society is going to continue to disintegrate until the people one day learn to live on their own and stop depending on government. Here is what I wrote about it in another forum. Some of the words are a bit harsh, maybe even un-christian, yet I can not stop from stating the truth, no matter how difficult it is to hear it:
First off we don’t gloat over it, and American Exceptionalism doesn’t ***depend ***on it, it just is.
But the point we are making is that that is really not at all clear. That no answer naturally conforms to or contradicts orthodox christianity and the natural law. That is actually the subject of this thread, despite yours and mine debate over the merits and concepts of the nation-state, nationalism, Americanism (particularly in the conservative view), and all that.
True. They should just go back home. (And then be allowed to try to re-enter the country legally.)
The idea that America is unique is a addressed in this encyclical by Pope Leo XIII where he condemns Americanism as a heresy. We are bound by the same moral laws as everyone else, and under the same authority of our bishops and the Holy Pontiff.
ewtn.com/library/PAPALDOC/L13TESTE.HTM
Exploitation, while despicable and obviously evil, is not One of the Sins Crying Out to Heaven for Justice. That one is defrauding the poor of their earned wages. I was responding to your claim (or implication) that they have been defrauded of wages that they were told they were receiving. My response is that the law enforcement authorities should be told about wage disparities (getting a different wage for the same job/level than other employees at that company), if there are those, and paying below the legal minimum wage for that locality, and violations of labor law (such as requiring employees to work some period of the day without pay, such as not allowing breaks or lunch), and slavery, indentured servitude, etc. All of those, including fraudulent withholding of wages (beyond what is taxable) as a kind of blackmail, would constitute ‘defrauding the poor of their wages.’
Thank you. That I what I have said, and was saying. I have changed the words on occassion for the sake of sounding like a broken record. Defrauding the poor of their wages is the type of exploitation I was referring to.
It appears that Pope Leo thought that Catholics in the US were so into “Americanism,”, so believing in the uniqueness of their nation, that this even extended to the Church in America, believing it to be more “exceptional” or ***unique ***than Catholic dioceses in other countries, and even than the See of Peter itself!! :
And actually they didn’t do it then and I am not doing that now. And the document was politely accepted by the American Bishops but pretty much set-aside.
***kingdom of God ***on Earth, even if it is led and populated by fallen humans.
Where is the evidence that they are being specifically defrauded of their wages in any way defined above? Merely working for low pay is not being defrauded of wages, if the wages were known upon hiring. Lots and lots of legal residents work for amazingly low pay, thousands of them (as I said) for less pay for equally strenuous work as illegal workers are doing. Defrauding means not paying them what they have worked for, hourly wise and salary-wise as that salary was announced to them. That is a form of stealing. It has nothing to do with simply receiving a low salary, or the lowest salary the market will bear. Every employer is allowed to do that; many non-immigrants work for such ungenerous employers.
You are obviously uninformed on the issue. If there was a legal path for these people to come here, they would have. There is none, for the vast majority of them. Our immigration laws are completely insane. They are the basic cause of the problem. Until we fix the laws, no amount of enforcement is going to work. The market tends to be stronger than the government, unless the government is will to implement totalitarian policies. History teaches this to be the case.
A lot of us are - but this goes to the point raised by the OP. If the solutions we support are based on our understanding (or even misunderstanding) of the facts of the matter and we sincerely believe they are the best solution to the many problems we face, then there is nothing immoral in supporting them. That is, this is not a question of morality.
Well it is a question of morality in the aspect of using the concept of justice for the poor (via Jesus, through the bishops) to shape a many-faceted immigration reform. The solutions we propose, as Catholics, should be the ones (based – I agree with you – on FACTS) which promote justice while not creating new injustices (depriving the resident of essentials for living, or adding them to The Poor), or aggravating old injustices to the currently poor.
The objectives are moral: reform immigration law to benefit as many as possible. The means of obtaining that objective are not: Amnesty? Deportation? Build a fence? Open the borders? None of those specific approaches is inherently immoral and we may support or oppose them as we think best.
It is one thing to say that individuals are behaving immorally with the proposals they make but quite another to say that the proposals themselves have any moral content. If my motives are immoral then my support of any proposal is immoral, but if my intent is righteous then, at worst, my support of any specific proposal can only be a mistake.
You can call me immoral for saying this but I do believe that Demographics should play an important role in deciding what is best for this country. My fear is that we get too many different interests involved in the political atmosphere in this country, and it may weaken European Interests that this country currently holds. If Europe falls then so does the Vatican.
Are you seriously suggesting that any ideology existing in any country on the face of the earth at any time must be according to God’s plan and in accord with true religion? Do I really need to point out obvious counter-examples to this?
I think the JWs go a bit too far on this, but by and large I think this is one of their better points. I’m not sure why you think this is a problem–surely you are not suggesting that people who are heretics on one point cannot be at least partially correct on another.
But we have no reason from divine revelation to think that any nation other than Israel (and I don’t necessarily mean the modern nation of Israel either) has a special role in God’s plan. It is arguably blasphemous and idolatrous to make such claims without clear warrant from divine revelation. Of course God uses the United States in His providential plans, as He uses all nations. And of course the United States is a very remarkable nation which has played a very significant role (and much of the time a fairly beneficent role) in world history. But there’s simply no reason for an orthodox Christian to give any particular theological significance to the United States.
I think that historically it’s extremely weird for someone who disparages all premodern societies and places such huge importance on democracy and Enlightenment notions of individual rights to call himself a “conservative.”
Well, it’s too big a target to argue against, and too incoherent. If you’re unwilling to provide a brief summary, I can’t pursue this part of the discussion further.
Interesting how you maximize it. Your contempt for people who do not share your political views and your “privileged” position as an American is evident.
That doesn’t make any sense–all the versions of American exceptionalism listed in the articles to which you list (indeed, anything that could coherently be called “exceptionalism” in any sense) depend on comparison. If there were other countries that shared the same characteristics, America wouldn’t be “exceptional” any more. Hence you must put down other countries in order to support your ideology.
A blanket opposition to amnesty does contradict orthodox Christianity and natural law. So does the appeal to positive governmental law as an absolute. So does the claim that governments have the duty to put national interests above other considerations.
I’d like to see some documentation of this, because what I’ve observed is precisely the opposite. The most moderate attempts to give “illegals” some kind of path to citizenship are opposed by “conservatives” unequivocally and vehemently.
I haven’t seen evidence of this. The 2007 plan that required something like $20,000.00 from people making very little money was absurdly punitive and was opposed by advocacy groups. But that doesn’t support your blanket claim.
In my way of thinking, the existence of disagreement should mark the beginning of a productive discussion, not the end of it. Perhaps you consider this further evidence of my “liberalism”
But you haven’t shown that yours is true. Let’s argue the matter based on Catholic tradition, by all means.
Since you admit that there are unorthodox people within the Catholic Church, you cannot a priori dismiss the possibility that you might be one of them. You are committing the basic logical fallacy of “begging the question,” assuming your own orthodoxy and mocking me for questioning it instead of arguing the substantive point.
But you haven’t shown how it’s a misunderstanding.
Show this to be the case.
I do not think that the Catholic Church should change its doctrines. It is cmforte, not I, who disparages premodern political systems and traditional Catholicism and identifies modern democracy as an absolute good.
I agree that I may have overstated the case a bit, making explicit what is somewhat debatable and implicit. But you invented something which has absolutely no existence in Pope Leo’s letter whatsoever–a condemnation of “social welfare.”