Interesting article on Tea Party Catholics

[Della]

newsmax.com/George-J-Marlin/tea-party-catholics-church/2013/12/04/id/539931

Comments?

 

[JimG]

I haven’t read the book, but there is no surprise that a Catholic case can be made for economic liberty, limited government, and subsidiarity.

A preferential option for the poor does not equate to more centralized government power.

The Catholic Church spent three fourths of a century fighting socialism and communism, with popes issuing a variety of social encyclicals condemning those systems. But a ‘market’ economy with an unfree market in which power is centralized to a few can be just as restrictive as a communist or socialist system in which economic power is centralized. Neither constitutes a free market. So I’m glad to hear someone argue for economic and religious liberty

 

[JohnMPhilomena]

Count me in.

I think we’ve created a situation where it’s easier for half the people to sit home and live on the public dole, than to go out and work.

 

[GratefulFred]

TEA Party - means Taxed Enough Already.

It has nothing to do with dislike for those on public assistance. It has everything to do with demanding that government stop spending more and more on all sorts for programs including corporate welfare.

It simply is not prudent to give a drunk another drink in hopes he will sober up. It is simply not prudent to give the government more and more tax revenue in hopes they will limit their spending to less than the amount received in taxes.

We are now $17 thousand billion dollars in debt. We are spending way, way too much. Our economy, our way of life can collapse because we allow our government to spend too much. It is a rare year indeed when the government spent less than it took in taxes. Both major parties are guilty.

The TEA Party is about FISCAL responsibility. Those addicted to Other People’s Money - OPM - smear the TEA Party with unfounded name calling as a way to avoid answering the call for fiscal responsibility.

 

[GratefulFred]

Count me in.

I think we’ve created a situation where it’s easier for half the people to sit home and live on the public dole, than to go out and work.

At a minimum wage of $8 per hour, one could earn about $16,000 a year. If that person can get $20,000 a year in government benefits, why work?

To rise above the morass of min wage jobs, one does need a decent education and developed skills that command a much better wage rate. That takes personal effort over a number of years. It takes a decent home life, not so many broken families with absent fathers.

And that takes maintaining and improving one’s relationship with God. When more people understand our primary purpose in life is to love God and others for the love of God, we would stop being so selfish and so uncaring for the children we make.

Government cannot fix the spiritual void.

Can anyone tell us what those on public assistance must do in return for that assistance? Is not one’s dignity and sense of self worth damaged when nothing in return is required?

 

[J_Peterson]

Count me in.

I think we’ve created a situation where it’s easier for half the people to sit home and live on the public dole, than to go out and work.

We’ve created a situation where working will hurt rather then help some people. Think if you are a single mother. If you make too much you lose your benefits but the pay doesn’t make up the difference. Cutting off benefits and hopeing people suddenly become more charitable is pie in the sky thinking. People will end up hungry and homeless if the tea party has their way.

 

[IrishRush]

We’ve created a situation where working will hurt rather then help some people. Think if you are a single mother. If you make too much you lose your benefits but the pay doesn’t make up the difference. Cutting off benefits and hopeing people suddenly become more charitable is pie in the sky thinking. People will end up hungry and homeless if the tea party has their way.

You’re absolutely right about the situation created by the free-flowing charity given by our government. Our society is becoming / has become one that is all about “what’s in it for me.”
But I think you’re wrong about the Tea Party. I don’t think they want to cut off benefits using a machete. I think they would go about it more carefully than that - maybe require work in exchange for the able-bodied, require that some sort of education or training be pursued, or perhaps ~and rightly so~ make sure the benefits are going to those truly in need and not to those in “want.”
You can’t judge the Tea Party by what you see in the media because our mainstream media does not give a fair portrayal. They slant it hard to the left and leave the Tea Party looking like an angry mob with flaming torches out for blood. Research their stance on your own, go to their websites, look into their real and actual ideas - not the media’s interpretation of them.

 

[april32010]

Count me in.

I think we’ve created a situation where it’s easier for half the people to sit home and live on the public dole, than to go out and work.

where are half the people on the dole ?

 

[Cricket123]

where are half the people on the dole ?

Shhh… pay no attention to the man behind the curtain.

 

[JohnMPhilomena]

10 million people on disability. We used to just care for them in our families.

We used to take care of our elderly. Now we want the government to do it with social security and medicare.

Single mothers? They used to move back home with their parents.

I’m not trying to be mean spirited. But charity should be voluntary. We’ve created a system which penalizes someone from going out to get a job.

Minimum wage jobs were not intended to be living wage jobs. They were intended for teenagers and people who want to start out earning some extra money.

Believe me, I don’t agree with the policies of the Fed making bankers rich with the Quantitative Easing ($1 trillion a year giveaway) either.

Our national debt is greater than our GDP. It’s not sustainable. Once the economy collapses, everyone will be poor.

Peace,
John

 

[JB_Dugan]

where are half the people on the dole ?

Reporter: “Your Holiness, how many people work in the Vatican?”

Pope John XXIII: “About half…”

 

[JB_Dugan]

F.Y.I.

Tea Party Creed:

We believe a government that is strong but limited secures liberty best. The letter of the Constitution defines these limitations, and when our government oversteps them, it becomes tyrannical — regardless of the party in power. This notion of limited government — Lex Rex and not Rex Lex — guided our Founders as they composed the Declaration of Independence. This established a nation guided by the rule of law, not the rule of men.

We believe the fundamental duty of the federal government is to secure the rights of its citizens. This is accomplished through a fair and robust justice system, a strong national defense, and a foreign policy that always put America’s interests first.

We believe that the Constitution of the United States is supreme law of the land, and the best instrument yet instituted by man for protecting personal liberty by establishing a limited and defined role for government. Its genius lies in its clear separation of powers at the federal level and its recognition that other non-enumerated powers reside with the states and their citizens.

**We believe that the only economic philosophy congruent with these commitments to individual liberty and limited government is free market capitalism. **Individuals contribute to this system through personal industry and initiative; government contributes by confining its regulatory activity within constitutional limits and by employing a system of taxation that is fair and comprehensible for all citizens. Entitlements and welfare schemes destroy not only personal initiative and responsibility, but also liberty and prosperity. Political freedom is inseparable from economic freedom. Thus, when the government stays within its constitutional role, America prospers

Doesn’t sound very bad to me…

 

[boldlygo]

10 million people on disability. We used to just care for them in our families.

We used to take care of our elderly. Now we want the government to do it with social security and medicare.

Single mothers? They used to move back home with their parents.

I’m not trying to be mean spirited. But charity should be voluntary. We’ve created a system which penalizes someone from going out to get a job.

Minimum wage jobs were not intended to be living wage jobs. They were intended for teenagers and people who want to start out earning some extra money.

Believe me, I don’t agree with the policies of the Fed making bankers rich with the Quantitative Easing ($1 trillion a year giveaway) either.

Our national debt is greater than our GDP. It’s not sustainable. Once the economy collapses, everyone will be poor.

Peace,
John

I’ve ‘contributed’ to Social Security for 50 years, and I’ll continue to ‘contribute’ for the foreseeable future…don’t tell me that I haven’t earned that monthly check…if the liberals weren’t spending SS funds for all sorts of originally unintended programs, SS would be solvent in perpetuity, and the ‘New Right’ wouldn’t see it as a ‘handout’…I’ve been a Conservative since before Barry Goldwater put us on the map, and this just isn’t a Conservative stance.

 

[stephe1987]

The welfare system needs to be fixed so that anyone who is not working or volunteering (hoping to get hired at the place they’re volunteering) needs to be cut off. It sounds harsh, but some people have gotten depressed or used to not working and they need that extra push. As it is now, there are some programs that will only take away the aid for the parents and they still get money for their kids… which seems okay on the surface but then you realize that a few of these “families” can move in together and just play video games all day and not contribute to society.

People on disability should be placed in jobs that are appropriate for their disability. Every human has value and can contribute in some way (unless they are bedridden). There are thrift stores that hire the mentally challenged. We could also create jobs in beautification: murals for walls, planting and watering flowers, trash pickup, etc. Just have these people do something. I think getting them up and moving will also lower the cost of healthcare because there will be less obesity and fewer people who have trouble moving because they’ve been still too long.

Any household that does not make enough to cover food and healthcare on top of their bills can receive aid from the government to cover the additional costs. The upper cap needs to be raised because they lose healthcare if they make a certain amount of money, but the amount of money isn’t enough to cover the cost of healthcare.

Some problems:

1. People aren’t caring for their own families. Whether it’s the fatherless/divorced children or the elderly who are sent off to nursing homes, families should care for each other. This will also save money because one set of bills is better than two. When families divorce they need two homes and often times one person ends up losing a significant portion of their income in child or spousal support.
2. There are too many people in the work force. We need to create more jobs in something. Because people are still working at 70 and there aren’t enough jobs for the young people. The unemployment or underemployment rate for people under 30 is very high. Even fast food jobs are hard to get. You used to be able to walk down and get a job the same day, but not anymore. A lot of places that say they’re hiring aren’t, or they do a sneaky thing where they’re always “accepting applications” which makes people think they’re going to get hired but they really aren’t. Both parents are forced to work, very few people stay home with the kids anymore.
3. Rising costs of healthcare. Some of it is avoidable (e.g. type 2 diabetes), some of it isn’t (e.g. cancer). We have an aging population where more and more people are overweight or obese. We need to encourage people to be active and healthy. Keep people able to work so they don’t need to go on disability or don’t qualify. Rationing healthcare sounds mean, but if someone isn’t even trying to improve their health (go for walks, eat less junk food, etc.), what is the point of spending thousands or hundreds of thousands of tax dollars on surgeries and medication to help them? Just like with the unemployment problem, help those who help themselves.

 

[Cojuanco]

Count me in.

I think we’ve created a situation where it’s easier for half the people to sit home and live on the public dole, than to go out and work.

Uh, sorry to burst your bubble, but most of the people on the dole would very much like to find work. But no work is forthcoming, at least not in blue collar jobs. Have you ever been to a welfare office? I have. Believe me, going on welfare is not easy. Going on food stamps is not easy. This goes double if you lose your house and no-one will take you in. The bureaucrats who work there are the epitome of the functionaries Reagan criticized. Getting a dole application past them - and I’m talking about the so called deserving cases here - felons in most states are ineligible, period - is up there with the labors of Hercules. The response times are so horrible (6 hours to get an approval hearning when that’s not supposed to happen) you have men and women standing in line in the dole queue when they’d rather be looking for work.

As for single mothers, problem is, not all single mothers have a loving family to go back to - that’s why they’re at the welfare office. In some instances, the family is dead or too poor themselves to take them in. In others, well, I know cases right out of the novel, “Push”. Others kicked them out once they found that the young woman was pregnant (usually these are Protestant households). Also, raising a kid makes it difficult in many cases to go to school, so many of them aren’t qualified for more than minimum wage jobs. Believe me, most of these people are not using food stamps or state aid to buy video games (not enough money for that). They’re using it to buy groceries, or to book a limited time in cheap motels because it’s the cheapest alternative to sleeping at the bus stop. Also, cut welfare to single mothers, and I’ll bet we’ll see the abortion rates go up.

All these proposals sound nice to those of us who live with either middle class incomes, supportive family structures, or both. But it’s more complex when you’re talking about poor people. Trust me, I’d love nothing more than to have the Church take care of all this. I bet the Church would be willing to help. But they just don’t at the moment have the resources, or the steady revenue stream that the State does.

 

[AnimalSpirits]

10 million people on disability. We used to just care for them in our families.

We used to take care of our elderly. Now we want the government to do it with social security and medicare.

Or they would, ya know, die. Look at the cost of healthcare at the moment- taking care of an elderly person without an outside bankroller (innsurance or the government) isn’t feasible for just about everyone.

 

[JB_Dugan]

Uh, sorry to burst your bubble, but most of the people on the dole would very much like to find work. But no work is forthcoming, at least not in blue collar jobs. Have you ever been to a welfare office? I have. Believe me, going on welfare is not easy. Going on food stamps is not easy. This goes double if you lose your house and no-one will take you in. The bureaucrats who work there are the epitome of the functionaries Reagan criticized. Getting a dole application past them - and I’m talking about the so called deserving cases here - felons in most states are ineligible, period - is up there with the labors of Hercules. The response times are so horrible (6 hours to get an approval hearning when that’s not supposed to happen) you have men and women standing in line in the dole queue when they’d rather be looking for work.

As for single mothers, problem is, not all single mothers have a loving family to go back to - that’s why they’re at the welfare office. In some instances, the family is dead or too poor themselves to take them in. In others, well, I know cases right out of the novel, “Push”. Others kicked them out once they found that the young woman was pregnant (usually these are Protestant households). Also, raising a kid makes it difficult in many cases to go to school, so many of them aren’t qualified for more than minimum wage jobs. Believe me, most of these people are not using food stamps or state aid to buy video games (not enough money for that). They’re using it to buy groceries, or to book a limited time in cheap motels because it’s the cheapest alternative to sleeping at the bus stop. Also, cut welfare to single mothers, and I’ll bet we’ll see the abortion rates go up.

All these proposals sound nice to those of us who live with either middle class incomes, supportive family structures, or both. But it’s more complex when you’re talking about poor people. Trust me, I’d love nothing more than to have the Church take care of all this. I bet the Church would be willing to help. But they just don’t at the moment have the resources, or the steady revenue stream that the State does.

We have spent $15 trillion “fighting” poverty since 1965 and we are currently spending $ 1 trillion a year. Yet our poverty rate today (16%) is higher than when we started (14%)!

**If there has been a War on Poverty, poverty won.
**

It is obvious that we are subsidizing and enabling a way of life. To put it bluntly, we are paying young women to have children out of wedlock. We are paying people to be unemployed. And we are paying them to remain poor.

Now that we have created the welfare state, and the culture that depends on it, it’s virtually impossible to end it and ask everyone on the dole to go cold turkey. But we can do something else. We can privatize it.

 

[Mickey_Finn]

10 million people on disability. We used to just care for them in our families. You have a problem with disabled workers?

We used to take care of our elderly. Now we want the government to do it with social security and medicare. You have a problem with a program that allows millions of Americans to live out their final years with a little dignity, and comfort?

Single mothers? They used to move back home with their parents.You would have to proivide some more details here.

I’m not trying to be mean spirited. But charity should be voluntary. We’ve created a system which penalizes someone from going out to get a job. Why would we think that just because you attack the elderly, the disabled, and unwed mothers. That you are mean spirited?

Minimum wage jobs were not intended to be living wage jobs. They were intended for teenagers and people who want to start out earning some extra money. You should tell the employers this.They seem to think it’s a fair wage for many fulltime workers.

Believe me, I don’t agree with the policies of the Fed making bankers rich with the Quantitative Easing ($1 trillion a year giveaway) either.

Our national debt is greater than our GDP. It’s not sustainable. Once the economy collapses, everyone will be poor. pointless, (and baseless) talk radio rhetoric

Peace,
John

I have to be honest, I’ve completely run out of patients with talk radio listeners, and TEA party enthusiasts. One poor fellow at deer camp had to sit quietly every night because he couldn’t stay off of the talking points.

ATB

 

[Veridical16]

The Tea Party “movement” is just a Republican Party Platform Redundancy masquerading as some sort of “third way” grassroots protest against the two parties. It’s a Conservative Pretense. It’s been that way since it was co-opted by the Koch Brothers and other bought and paid for opportunistic politicians.

The Tea Party was somewhat encouraging when it was against the Bail Outs /Obamacare in 2008/2009 , then all of a sudden it just became a voice of the more conservative wing of the Republican Party. Even then, it was still a collection of Ron Paul/Austrian school of thought participators, as a movement. (Gold Standard, Fiscal/Social Libertarianism).

I have to be honest, I’ve completely run out of patients with talk radio listeners, and TEA party enthusiasts. One poor fellow at deer camp had to sit quietly every night because he couldn’t stay off of the talking points.

ATB

This article came on the* same week *when all of Talk Radio was attacking the Pope for bashing the sacred cow of Capitalism. It is playing “good cop” to their “bad cop” ; in other words,they need to keep Catholics from re-evaluating the current Economic system and its problems today.
( Meanwhile, Fox News is still doubling down against the Pope, with another Fox Business segment by Napolitano. It is no coincidence that the News Outlets/ Newspaper publications trot out their Catholic hosts and priests to criticize the Pope if they are available; which is no different when MSNBC trots out its Catholic hosts and priests to push their disinformation. )

The Article cites Samuel Gregg as an heir to the Michael Novak school of democratic capitalism. Michael Novak is not really trustworthy, he is more politically influenced to write and defend Capitalist propaganda.

If Catholics look more into the critiques of Capitalism by Chesterton and Belloc, and principals of Distributism in Rerum Novarum, they’d be less vulnerable into being manipulated by certain publications.

the Capitalists of this age, I bet do not even care about Welfare State existing because they know They benefit from unemployment, oversupply of domestic Labor. When the Economy is in a Recession that benefits the Capitalist. And because of the exploitation of Welfare policies by the government, this extends those periods…It’s an absurdity, for Tea Partiers to support the creditor class in the end.

The Tea Party forgot that the bailouts was socialism for the banks, now they just talk about taxes and limited government and play into feeding the demagoguery against two parties.

The more Catholics distance themselves from being a “Tea Party Cathoilc” or a “Leftist Catholic” , the more liberated they’ll be from being fooled by Intellectual Salesmen, like those of the American Enterprise Institute or the Community Organizer influenced Alinsky/Cardinal Bernadine/Notre Dame University Catholics.

If you are familiar with the Americanist heresy, you can recognize a lot of the red flags within these, writings, whether the Catholic author mistakenly believes he’s correct or not.

It is whenever the said writer says the Church needs to follow American principles or dismisses the Pope’s expertise when the heresy rears its ugly head.
Americanism has played a big part in the current political ideological factionalism amongst Catholics. Hence we see a publication called “Tea Party Catholics: Committed to Economic Liberty”

Economic Liberalism has been criticized already by the Popes.

 

[freeRadical]

It is whenever the said writer says the Church needs to follow American principles or dismisses the Pope’s expertise when the heresy rears its ugly head.

Wait a sec, so now it’s heresy to criticize the pope on his economic policies? Since when is the Pope an expert on economics?