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minkymurph
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They could start with some of the US laws I found. I think they all apply to Florida but I may be wrong.
Your pet gorilla must sit in the back seat of a car.
If you tie your pet elephant to a parking meter you must pay the same price as a car.
You cannot eat oranges in the bath on Sunday.
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ThomasJMullally
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You can be assured, if they were forced to repeal laws instead of write new laws, those are the types of laws they would repeal. E.g. they would avoid addressing the most heavily burdensome and redundant laws, like the plague…
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Zoltan_Cobalt
Guest
How about this?
Pythagoras’ Theorem: …24 words.
Lord’s Prayer: … 66 words.
Archimedes’ Principle: …67 words.
Ten Commandments: …179 words.
Gettysburg Address: …286 words.
US Declaration of Independence : …1,300 words.
US Constitution with all 27 Amendments: …7,818 words.
**EU Regulations on the Sale of CABBAGES: …26,911 words
**
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Abu
Guest
Now this poster considers himself superior to St John Paul II who affirmed categorically his support for the market economy:
‘If by “capitalism” is meant an economic system which recognizes the fundamental and positive role of business, the market, private property and the resulting responsibility for the means of production, as well as free human creativity in the economic sector, then the answer is certainly in the affirmative, even though it would perhaps be more appropriate to speak of a “business economy”, “market economy” or simply “free economy”.’ Centesimus Annus #42, 1991].
Now the revered Fr James V Schall, S.J., is maligned as having a “twisted viewpoint”. But, “O what a tangled web we weave when first we practice to deceive” (Sir Walter Scott), as Mullally has to himself.
But there’s more – also ridiculing that other great giant in the faith Pope Emeritus Benedict XVI who he knows has emphatically reaffirmed in Caritas et Veritate, 2009, #36:
“Society does not have to protect itself from the market, as if the development of the latter were ipso facto to entail the death of authentically human relations. Admittedly, the market can be a negative force, not because it is so by nature, but because a certain ideology can make it so. It must be remembered that the market does not exist in the pure state. It is shaped by the cultural configurations which define it and give it direction. Economy and finance, as instruments, can be used badly when those at the helm are motivated by purely selfish ends. Instruments that are good in themselves can thereby be transformed into harmful ones. But it is man’s darkened reason that produces these consequences, not the instrument per se. Therefore it is not the instrument that must be called to account, but individuals, their moral conscience and their personal and social responsibility.”
All of the giants in faith and reason, from Pope St John Paul II, Pope Emeritus Benedict XVI, and the priests who have studied and know Catholic social teaching, such as Fr Schall, and Fr Robert A. Sirico, are pictured as “twisted”, an innuendo which is beautifully and starkly exposed by William James’ truism that “those who think they are thinking are merely rearranging their prejudices,” so applicable to Mullally.
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minkymurph
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That is so funny.
Reminds of the Thoburn case - highly significant in constitutional law as it confirmed the supremacy of EU over UK domestic law. Reams of pages as the Lords discussed the Magna Carta, Henry VIII clauses, the sovereignty of Parliament and whether certain laws had been repealed or not. The essence of it was whether a guy in a market could use imperial scales, which he had had confiscated, because they weren’t metric and not accurate. Some bags of mushrooms were over or under weight. :tsktsk:
When I go to the market a guy those a handful of mushrooms in a bag and says, ‘givvis 50p luv and there’s and extra couple for luck.’
A while ago I also heard the European Parliament were engaged in intense discussions as to whether Jaffa Cakes were cakes or biscuits because if they are biscuits, they go in a higher tax bracket. They would also have to move them to another aisle in the supermarket.
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Zoltan_Cobalt
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…and people wonder why we “wacko” Capitalists want to reduce the size of government…That is so funny.
Reminds of the Thoburn case - highly significant in constitutional law as it confirmed the supremacy of EU over UK domestic law. Reams of pages as the Lords discussed the Magna Carta, Henry VIII clauses, the sovereignty of Parliament and whether certain laws had been repealed or not. The essence of it was whether a guy in a market could use imperial scales, which he had had confiscated, because they weren’t metric and not accurate. Some bags of mushrooms were over or under weight. :tsktsk:
When I go to the market a guy those a handful of mushrooms in a bag and says, ‘givvis 50p luv and there’s and extra couple for luck.’
A while ago I also heard the European Parliament were engaged in intense discussions as to whether Jaffa Cakes were cakes or biscuits because if they are biscuits, they go in a higher tax bracket. They would also have to move them to another aisle in the supermarket.
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minkymurph
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I don’t think people dispute the size of the government - rather what the government should do.
There are 1.5 million people in the north of Ireland. There are currently 108 elected to the NI Assembly and we have something like 500 local councilors and they still can’t run the place.
There are 500 members of the House of Lords. Someone point out the US Senate manages with 100. There is also a Scottish Parliament, a Welsh Parliament and the European Parliament. You think you have problems?
I can recall going into a new shop that opened in my town. We were greeting by two very enthusiastic staff. One had a badge that said, ‘manager,’ (complete with huge bunch of keys) the other had a badge that said, ‘assistant manager.’ (smaller bunch of keys) There were no other staff. Who were they managing?
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Jerurussia
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Peter has condemned laissez-fair anything goes capitalism and communism as twin Mammonites, radical materialism as exemplified in capitalist communist china. RADICAL MATERIALISM IS THE ROOT OF ALL EVIL!
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ThomasJMullally
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Simply click the following link Abu, and learn from the Holy See’s own transcript including another 61 sections of John Paul II’s brilliant Encyclical, in addition to #42 which it seems is the only one supporting your position: vatican.va/holy_father/john_paul_ii/encyclicals/documents/hf_jp-ii_enc_01051991_centesimus-annus_en.html
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ThomasJMullally
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Aha-- you remind me of the saddest part about Marx and Engels et al who were recognized as the primary counter to capitalism for 150 years. As atheists and materialists too, they were even worse than the capitalists they were seeking to overthrow. Meanwhile, our Church was driven back to an inferior position of authority to both of these Mammonites. Now Communism has been vanquished, and there is only one Mammonite to go… Praise God! (P.S. China is really a fascist state at this point.)Peter has condemned laissez-fair anything goes capitalism and communism as twin Mammonites, radical materialism as exemplified in capitalist communist china. RADICAL MATERIALISM IS THE ROOT OF ALL EVIL!
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Abu
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It is only with the development of the economic laws of cause and effect by the Catholic Late Scholastics based on faith and reason which enabled the enrichment of untold millions from the poverty before the enterprises that came with the “Industrial Revolution”.
The world’s next great leap forward
Towards the end of poverty
Nearly 1 billion people have been taken out of extreme poverty in 20 years. The world should aim to do the same again
Jun 1st 2013
“Much of world poverty has in fact been reduced or alleviated, as a recent essay in The Economist has shown. Christians often seem not to know that this change has happened or why it happened.”
“….the world has lately been making extraordinary progress in lifting people out of extreme poverty. Between 1990 and 2010, their number fell by half as a share of the total population in developing countries, from 43% to 21%—a reduction of almost 1 billion people.”
tinyurl.com/ldjt6go
Apart from the developing demographic winter with below replacement birthrates virtually worldwide, the sensible solution to poverty is Christianity which “holds that the poor qua poor have as good a chance of reaching beatitude as the rich qua rich, probably a better one. Unless this end is understood, no amount of discussion of wealth and poverty in this world will make much difference. But when the question of the poor does arise, as it should, the main question should not be identification with it, but what really alleviates their condition.” [Fr James A Schall, S.J.]
catholicworldreport.com/Item/2503/do_christians_love_poverty.aspx
The world’s next great leap forward
Towards the end of poverty
Nearly 1 billion people have been taken out of extreme poverty in 20 years. The world should aim to do the same again
Jun 1st 2013
“Much of world poverty has in fact been reduced or alleviated, as a recent essay in The Economist has shown. Christians often seem not to know that this change has happened or why it happened.”
“….the world has lately been making extraordinary progress in lifting people out of extreme poverty. Between 1990 and 2010, their number fell by half as a share of the total population in developing countries, from 43% to 21%—a reduction of almost 1 billion people.”
tinyurl.com/ldjt6go
Apart from the developing demographic winter with below replacement birthrates virtually worldwide, the sensible solution to poverty is Christianity which “holds that the poor qua poor have as good a chance of reaching beatitude as the rich qua rich, probably a better one. Unless this end is understood, no amount of discussion of wealth and poverty in this world will make much difference. But when the question of the poor does arise, as it should, the main question should not be identification with it, but what really alleviates their condition.” [Fr James A Schall, S.J.]
catholicworldreport.com/Item/2503/do_christians_love_poverty.aspx
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ThomasJMullally
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OK, Father Schall is making a positive statement here e.g. that poverty is spiritual as well as material. Great! Similarly, if we go back to the sin of “sloth”… the Catholic interpretation of sloth is based mostly upon spiritual, not physical, sloth. These are the “talents” which must not be squandered.
My concern with blaming the poor for their state (which many have no ambition to ever change in any event, and this is not any sort of sin), is that we somehow think that their God-given reflectiveness, love of play, etc, also known as “laziness”, is somehow evil in itself.
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Abu
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Accepting that some “poor” should forever live off of others, when they have the capacity to help themselves, is condemned emphatically by St Paul himself who mandated: “If anyone will not work, neither shall he eat.” (See 2 Thess 3:6-15).
It is misuse of wealth, and lack of love that creates problems, not the great vocation of the entrepreneur who creates wealth and jobs. The proof is in the parable of the talents in which Jesus lauds the servant who has multiplied talents – “For to everyone who has, more will be given, and he will have abundance; but from him who does not have, even what he has will be taken away. And cast the unprofitable servant into the outer darkness. There will be weeping and gnashing of teeth.” (Mt 25: 14-30).
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ThomasJMullally
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Abu
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St Augustine taught that wickedness was not inherent in commerce that price was a function not simply of the seller’s costs, but also of the buyer’s wants, and it was up to the individual to live righteously. Politics I, 1254]. Thus legitimacy was acquired by merchants, and the deep involvement of the Church in the birth of free enterprise. [Stephen P Bensch, *Historiography: Medieval European and Mediterranean Slavery 1998, p 231; Cf. Stark, The Victory of Reason, Random House, 2005, p 57,58, 254].
Socialism has been condemned in Encyclicals by Popes Leo XIII and Pius XI and its disastrous effects were a major factor in the demise of the Soviet Union.
As is clear, there has been no condemnation of free enterprise similar to the denunciation of socialism because “unbridled capitalism” has never existed in any society or country as a political/economic system like socialism, but in the minds and actions of those people described as “the inhumanity of employers and the unbridled greed of competitors” (Rerum Novarum, # 6).
Leo XIII asserts: “…the socialists, working on the poor man’s envy of the rich, are striving to do away with private property, and contend that individual possessions should become the common property of all, to be administered by the State or by municipal bodies.” Rerum Novarum, #4]. Similarly St John Paul II condemns socialism for precisely this among other errors, in Centesimus Annus, making a frank acknowledgement that socialism has failed on its own terms as witnessed by events in Eastern Europe.
Of course free enterprise is not based on greed; that is a false assumption. Free enterprise is based on the fundamental and positive role of business, the market, private property and the resulting responsibility for the means of production, as well as free human creativity in the economic sector. People can be greedy. Many are, many are not.
No economic laws encourage “hoarding of wealth” and greed – some PEOPLE hoard wealth, some people are greedy. No wealth can be created until it is produced – that’s why the Catholic Late Scholastic system works so well to enable everyone to produce some wealth and to do with it as they choose through free-will. Economic laws are based on the principles of human action – of cause and effect involving God-given reason.
Just as Jesus did not mollycoddle anyone, and constantly values the domain of work as does St Paul, as St John Paul II points out – so the value of free enterprise in supporting and encouraging work and overcoming poverty, is unsurpassed – hence the reduction in the poor.
Socialism has been condemned in Encyclicals by Popes Leo XIII and Pius XI and its disastrous effects were a major factor in the demise of the Soviet Union.
As is clear, there has been no condemnation of free enterprise similar to the denunciation of socialism because “unbridled capitalism” has never existed in any society or country as a political/economic system like socialism, but in the minds and actions of those people described as “the inhumanity of employers and the unbridled greed of competitors” (Rerum Novarum, # 6).
Leo XIII asserts: “…the socialists, working on the poor man’s envy of the rich, are striving to do away with private property, and contend that individual possessions should become the common property of all, to be administered by the State or by municipal bodies.” Rerum Novarum, #4]. Similarly St John Paul II condemns socialism for precisely this among other errors, in Centesimus Annus, making a frank acknowledgement that socialism has failed on its own terms as witnessed by events in Eastern Europe.
Of course free enterprise is not based on greed; that is a false assumption. Free enterprise is based on the fundamental and positive role of business, the market, private property and the resulting responsibility for the means of production, as well as free human creativity in the economic sector. People can be greedy. Many are, many are not.
No economic laws encourage “hoarding of wealth” and greed – some PEOPLE hoard wealth, some people are greedy. No wealth can be created until it is produced – that’s why the Catholic Late Scholastic system works so well to enable everyone to produce some wealth and to do with it as they choose through free-will. Economic laws are based on the principles of human action – of cause and effect involving God-given reason.
Just as Jesus did not mollycoddle anyone, and constantly values the domain of work as does St Paul, as St John Paul II points out – so the value of free enterprise in supporting and encouraging work and overcoming poverty, is unsurpassed – hence the reduction in the poor.
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clem456
Guest
“The market does not exist in the pure state.” What does the Pope mean here?
A fundamental truth of Christianity is the dignity, --and responsibility–, of the human person. Christ is a divine person who takes on a human nature. Individuals who run businesses or make political decisions are human persons. A human being is not born a capitalist or communist person. In the pure state, they are simply a person, created by God with a free will. Morality fundamentally resides in the person, not some inhuman structure.
A political or economic structure is composed of persons, who make decisions.
Has anyone thought to consider why the Church itself does not make pronouncements on specific economic systems???
Consider this statement in CENTESIMUS ANNUS
The Catholic Church does not do politics, economics, or science. Period. It exists for the salvation of human souls.
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Abu
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That is why She teaches** the principles **of worthy human endeavour whether in politics, economics, or science.
No other attitude to work has been so confirmed as in "Christ’s Parable of the Talents which most strikingly acknowledges Christ’s respect for the work of business, as does the Parable of the Dishonest Steward – the steward is dishonest, “but the nature of his work is not. In fact by praising his shrewdness, Christ admires his opportunism. While the steward abuses the trust his master extends to him, it must be recognised that the nature of the work that is entrusted to him is fundamentally good. The sin of the steward is his misuse of his master’s business, not the work of business itself.” Entrepreneurship in the Catholic Tradition, Fr Anthony G Percy, Lexington Books, 2010, p 47].
“We can this affirm unambiguously that Jesus Christ ‘looks with love on upon human work’ and that the work of the merchant – the businessman or the entrepreneur – is one of the ‘different forms’ of work that is affirmed. The parable of the talents makes this clear by its reference to money, trading, risk taking and banking.”
Entrepreneurship in the Catholic Tradition, Fr Anthony G Percy, Lexington Books, 2010, p 48-49].
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ThomasJMullally
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Correct-- when John Paul II was speaking to systemic problems in 1991, he was holding to task his constituents and the world’s leaders. You are still tiptoeing carefully around his scathing critiques of capitalism in its real form, throughout the Encyclical: vatican.va/holy_father/john_paul_ii/encyclicals/documents/hf_jp-ii_enc_01051991_centesimus-annus_en.html . At the same time he was not blaming any individuals for horrible results, but only pleading with them to act, moving forward, with the caring and compassion of the Lord. (Incidentally, in 23 years, his pleas have been resoundingly spurned by world leaders, including our own.)
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ThomasJMullally
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No one on this thread is advocating socialism. Socialism is not the polar opposite to capitalism, it is but capitalism’s half-brother. And it is not capitalism’s only alternative. (Socialism and communism were defined by atheists, and informed even more so than capitalism, by materialism.)
The alternatives are taking shape as we speak-- I very much like the Distributism referred to me on this thread!
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