Issues other than abortion

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No he said taxation ok to fight wars and convict criminals. Context here is fighting poverty
 
Including miscarriage and stillbirth? These statistics are from 2013 but I’m guessing it hasn’t changed that much. Or are those not counted as death?

“The estimated number of pregnancies dropped to 6,369,000 (4,131,000 live births, 1,152,000 induced abortions, and 1,087,000 fetal losses).”

https://www.cdc.gov/nchs/products/databriefs/db136.htm
 
Outrage re all you mention begins with the outrage regarding the assaults against life in the womb. If there is no respect at the most nascent stages of life it naturally follows that respect will be lost in all other aspects of human dignity.
 
Aquinas11 said:
No he said taxation ok to fight wars and convict criminals. Context here is fighting poverty
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Wesley Coopersmith, the author of the article, does indeed imply that taxation is only for fighting wars and convicting criminals, but he is misinterpreting that Aquinas quote. Context is important, so let’s look only at Aquinas’s words and see the context.

The quote, “whether in wars against enemies or in punishing civilian criminals” is taken from “On Law, Morality, and Politics” , Eighth Article, “Can One Commit Robbery Without Sin”. In that Article, Aquinas lays out the times in which taking by force, whether by government or individuals, can be moral. The examples Aquinas gives are:
  1. Warriors taking spoils of war.
  2. Taking property that does not belong to the one holding it.
The quote in question says "But public authority is committed to rulers in order that they may safeguard justice. And so they are permitted to use force and coercion only in the course of justice, whether in wars against enemies or in punishing civilian criminals ". The two references bolded are references to warriors taking spoils of war and taking property from criminals that do not justly own the property they are holding. The are not references to funding armies from taxes raised at home, or funding a criminal justice system. A little common sense shows that Aquinas did not mean to limit taxation to these two very specific functions of government. What about taxation for building roads? This is something that government did even in Aquinas’s time. If Aquinas were alive today, do you think he would declare the US Air Traffic Control System immoral because it is supported by taxes and it not for war or prosecuting criminals?

Four paragraphs after the quote in question, Aquinas goes on to say:
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Aquinas:
If rulers exact from their subjects what is due them in justice in order to maintain the common good, even if the rulers use force, there is no robbery. But if rulers unduly exact things by force, it is robbery.
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Here at last Aquinas is directly addressing the issue of normal taxation. And in his addressing of this issue he makes no such narrow declarations about the proper use of taxes. Instead he leaves it up to the determination of " what is due them in justice in order to maintain the common good."

Now I will say that none of this supports the notion of wealth distribution to fight poverty. Aquinas surely would have opposed that idea. But in making that point, please don’t over-represent what Aquinas actually said.
 
Rhode Island and then Vermont.
Every time one of these professedly Catholic governors, as in Rhode Island, pushes something like this it not only endangers their own immortal soul, it is a great wound and scandal to His Church.

 
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EvangelistVictor said:
Yes they are. I’m pro-life, too, but not just for the unborn only. Most pro-lifers only care about this one issue, and say screw the poor, the homeless, the sick, oppressed, etc. The Catholic Church focuses on all these issues, and we should be the same.
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This is just absolutely false. It is a theme invented out of whole cloth as an excuse for those who support abortion (or the politicians who enable it) to justify that support. “You support the unborn, we support the poor et al. You don’t have the moral high ground.”

That claim rests on the presupposition that it is immoral to oppose the social programs they support. The difference is that there is no moral distinction between e.g. supporting or opposing raising the minimum wage, between supporting or opposing this or that particular congressional bill. There is of course a clear and significant moral difference between accepting or opposing abortion.

On the one hand are the practical problems of how best to support those in need, and positions may legitimately be taken on all sides of those issues. On the other hand is the moral question of destroying the unborn (or now in New York even some of the born), an issue that is truly about choosing good or evil. Pick one.
 
YourNameHere said:
Though I do not mean to minimize the issue of abortion, I would like to say that there are other issues of importance in the USA.
Poverty, physical abuse, drug and other substance abuse, corruption, and so many other things.
I would like to see my brother and sister Catholics address these issues.
We can be concerned and focused on more than on issue at a time.
Love and peace to everyone! ❤️✌️🤝🙏
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In the USA… 🤔🤔🤔 I would say gun violence is a crisis that needs to be addressed because we really don’t have public security and safety when anyone including a criminal or undocumented immigrant or lunatic can purchase guns and shoot anyone whether it be in workplaces, schools, clubs, restaurants, malls, movie theaters, bowling alleys, churches and synagogues, etc… I would also say that unrestrained capitalism is a huge problem because it is intertwined with most of the issues we have in the USA including those issues you mentioned above. I have issues when a few can horde most of the wealth and resources of the world and not be held responsible or accountable for humanities crimes. So there, I’ll start with those… 😉
 
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YourNameHere said:
Only to get the attention of those who never seem to think about anything else.
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But you yourself were thinkin about it and started another thread about it.

And so it’s ok for you to start a thread about a heinous crime, but no one else should talk about it?
I’m confused.
 
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LeafByNiggle said:
he is misinterpreting that Aquinas quote
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If that’s true then the cited source you’re relying on is fatally deficient in which case your claim has no support
LeafByNiggle said:
The two references bolded are references to warriors taking spoils of war and taking property from criminals that do not justly own the property they are holding. The are not references to funding armies from taxes raised at home, or funding a criminal justice system
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Not mutually exclusive.
A funded army takes spoils of war
A funded criminal justice system takes criminal property
LeafByNiggle said:
Now I will say that none of this supports the notion of wealth distribution to fight poverty. Aquinas surely would have opposed that idea
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Thanks for conceding the point
 
I actually have four top “issues,” that trump all my other "issues. These are:

Abortion in the first trimester. Abortion in the second trimester. Abortion in the third trimester.
Infanticide.

I use “issue” in quotes because for a Roman Catholic like myself to call abortion an “issue” is to trivialize it and to insinuate that there can be more than one attitude toward this most diabolically wicked, ongoing, wholesale slaughter.
 
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When YHWH exterminated most of humanity, it was because He objected to man’s propensity towards using violence. And while abortion did exist in ancient times, it does not seem to have been common.
Therefore, that is not the violence that YHWH objected to back then. YHWH did promise that He would never again wipe out humanity because of mankind’s violence (Genesis 8:21.)

Since the end of the Flood, mankind has been free to develop increasingly deadly means of destroying his fellow man, the culmination of which are ICBMs and nuclear bombs. This is what I believe is more offensive to our Creator than anything else that we do. In my opinion, the abortion issue is nothing more than a smoke-screen which distracts us from the real problem.

I might note that the numerous OT prophecies of a world-wide disaster by fire can now be fulfilled by mankind’s own evil inventions, and YHWH will not have to break His promise not to destroy humanity again. Now we can accomplish that goal all by ourselves.
 
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Aquinas11 said:
The govt own words was a “war on poverty” so the causality is self-conceded.
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That doesn’t at all prove causality and you’re smart enough to know that.

If all it took was a self-concessoon of causality to prove causality, pharma companies would only have to announce that a drug worked in order for it to be approved by the FDA.
 
Aquinas11 said:
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LeafByNiggle:
he is misinterpreting that Aquinas quote
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If that’s true then the cited source you’re relying on is fatally deficient in which case your claim has no support
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I was not citing that source for the words of the author of the article. I was citing it for the words of Aquinas that it contained and referenced. The author may have been mistaken about his interpretation, but there is no doubt that his quotations of Aquinas are accurate, since I found them in another source.
 
on_the_hill said:
That doesn’t at all prove causality
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It proves the spending was intended to reduce poverty and thus proves spending was failure, by Govts own measuring stick

Unless someone believes “war on poverty” means Govt intended to increase poverty
 
LeafByNiggle said:
. I was citing it for the words of Aquinas that it contained and referenced.
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If so the claim still fails too because you even conceded Aquinas doesn’t believe taxation should be used for poverty which was the context of discussion .
 
Will you please point me to the legislative language of New York and Virginia’s Infanticide laws?
 
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