No, We DO NOT Need Better Systems

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Good, level-headed article. Of course, the writer will inevitably be told he “doesn’t get it”, or be told he’s somehow a racist by having an opinion. Could I just point out that the lack of ability to criticise because of fear of legal repercussion is exactly what America is supposed to be against? People need to stop turning ideology into a god.
 
Ignoring the anti-COVID sentiments, and his denial of systemic racism and injustice (I also read the national review article he linked), we do need better people. If Catholics separated from the world more and prayed with fasting, miracles would happen, and hearts converted to the Lord.

St. Joseph pray for us, so that we may become holy like you
 
From the article;
Too many Catholics (and other Christians), however, are allowing secular progressive propaganda to sway their thinking. They are letting irrational, emotional arguments cloud their judgment. Too many Catholics are letting the teachings of their religion – teachings that are firmly based in both faith and reason – be displaced by irrational and illogical ideologies intended to put man above God and man’s laws above God’s laws.

And the father of lies is loving it.
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That is so, so true. And I see that played out again and again and again on this forum in the many threads on this topic. An absolute tragedy that the secularists are winning the day. And the Catholic Faith and teachings are placed in the background. And you better believe it…Satan is smiling somewhere!
 
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Mark121359 said:
That is so, so true. And I see that played out again and again and again on this forum in the many threads on this topic. An absolute tragedy that the secularists are winning the day. And the Catholic Faith and teachings are placed in the background. And you better believe it…Satan is smiling somewhere!
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Not neccessarily since as long as they don’t go to an extreme they will be within the lines the Church sets.
 
Apparently you can’t catch the coronavirus if you’re protesting, looting, or destroying private property, even though you are not practicing social distancing
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Who actually professes that? I’ve heard no one make that claim, but I’ve seen plenty of commenators pushing that claim as if it’s being made by the protestors. If the protestors are being cavalier about social distancing, it’s most likely because they believe the cause (justice for a wrongful death) to be worthy of the risk. You can agree or disagree with that belief, but to construct a straw-man is disingenuous.
a number of black people were murdered during the protests-turned-riots. But no one is talking about this
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This is also false. People – even black people – are lamenting the injuries to and deaths of people (including black people, including black police officers) in the protests, riots, and looting. The very fact that you know black people were killed in looting and riots means that people are talking about this. And I would hope that the conservatives who raise this issue (black deaths during the riots) do, in fact, care about these black deaths, and are not simply using them as a convenient tool to get their message across.

The author’s claim that systemic/institutional racism does not exist is made very cavalierly.

(I would ask the following questions: Has there ever existed, in the United States as a whole, systemic/institutional racism? If yes – and I think we can agree here --, when did it stop existing? What was the event that ushered in its demise? What year did systemic racism disappear from America? What month, and on what day, did the last vestiges of racism fade away from all our institutions, whether the police force or something else?)

And the source he links to (an article in the National Review) deals with raw numbers in a way that misleads. There are approximately 4.5 times as many white people as black people in the United States; so, all things being equal, whites should be killed by police officers about 4.5 times as often as blacks. So in 2019, 370 whites were killed by police, so proportionally we should expect about 82 (370 / 4.5) blacks to have been killed by police. But there were 209 blacks killed by police, about 2.5 times more than would be expected. So, why are blacks being killed by police at a disproportional rate versus whites? Is it only due to racism in the police force? That seems unlikely; there are probably other factors to be considered. But which of those other factors are also affected by racism?

It need not be only “secular progressives” in charge of the overhaul of racist institutions. I would hope that people of faith, and conservatives, join the cause of weeding out inherent racism from every institution in this country.

I agree with the author that, if the people are better, the systems will be better. But we cannot control people and make them better; we can, however, control the systems, because they are artificial, man-made societal constructs. We can choose better people to design them, and better people to belong to them, while we wait for people (as a whole) to become better.
 
japhy said:
I agree with the author that, if the people are better, the systems will be better. But we cannot control people and make them better; we can , however, control the systems, because they are artificial, man-made societal constructs.
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The system relies on people to follow it in order for it to work, so you do need to cotrol them.
 
NEEDING to control people is not the same as being ABLE to control people.
 
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