Socialism and Catholicism

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Aquinas11 said:
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HarryStotle:
In other words the same leftists who loudly proclaim their intentions to help the poor seem to inevitably create a BIGGER poverty problem after they have helped than before.
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After 50 years and $21.5 Trillion, poverty rate went from 27% (1962) to 29% (2012)
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This can only be evaluated in light of what the poverty rate would have been in 2012 if nothing was done at all. We don’t know that. Also, I can’t help but notice the cherry-picked years of 1962 (when the post-war economy was still going strong) and 2012 (only part-way into the recovery from the 2008 financial crisis).
 
Aquinas11 said:
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LeafByNiggle:
In case (3), if the majority are good, what is to prevent them from using the government to control the evil ones?
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Well if they’re good, they wouldn’t seek to control others by force.

They’d likely use self defense to thwart any evil , which doesn’t necessitate a State.
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That is your definition of “good people” - i.e. people who worship the 2nd amendment more than they worship God.
 
All good points. Yes you’re right, it is assuming that wouldn’t have been higher than 29% absent the spending. You’re correct

But seriously ask yourself if you’d be happy with paying someone $$$ to fix your roof and after they’re done its leaking more than it was before. Would you seriously ask “well but maybe its not leaking as much as if he hadn’t tried to fix it”? No. You’d fire him and ask for a refund.
 
LeafByNiggle said:
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Aquinas11:
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LeafByNiggle:
In case (3), if the majority are good, what is to prevent them from using the government to control the evil ones?
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Well if they’re good, they wouldn’t seek to control others by force.

They’d likely use self defense to thwart any evil , which doesn’t necessitate a State.
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That is your definition of “good people” - i.e. people who worship the 2nd amendment more than they worship God.
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Straw man.

Defending something (even to the death) is hardly the equivalent of worshiping it.
 
LeafByNiggle said:
people who worship the 2nd amendment more than they worship God.
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They are one and the same, since 2nd amendment is natural right from God.

Hence why it states “the right of the people to keep and bear arms shall not be infringed”, it doesn’t create a right, it recognizes a pre-existing right. Note it doesn’t say “a right to bear arms is hereby created”
 
I guess I don’t understand why all these issues are necessarily conflated with, say, universal healthcare. A conservative in Canada supports universal healthcare without giving non-citizens the right to vote…
 
LeafByNiggle said:
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Aquinas11:
After 50 years and $21.5 Trillion, poverty rate went from 27% (1962) to 29% (2012)
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This can only be evaluated in light of what the poverty rate would have been in 2012 if nothing was done at all. We don’t know that. Also, I can’t help but notice the cherry-picked years of 1962 (when the post-war economy was still going strong) and 2012 (only part-way into the recovery from the 2008 financial crisis).
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It might be argued that the case for “had nothing been done” could be made from the years preceding the 1960s when very little was actively done. For example, as Thomas Sowell points out in this article:
The economic rise of blacks began decades earlier, before any of the legislation and policies that are credited with producing that rise. The continuation of the rise of blacks out of poverty did not — repeat, did not — accelerate during the 1960s.

The poverty rate among black families fell from 87 percent in 1940 to 47 percent in 1960, during an era of virtually no major civil rights legislation or anti-poverty programs. It dropped another 17 percentage points during the decade of the 1960s and one percentage point during the 1970s, but this continuation of the previous trend was neither unprecedented nor something to be arbitrarily attributed to the programs like the War on Poverty.
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So after great successes between the 1940s and 1960s (drop of 40% in poverty rate), and another small drop during the 1960s of 17%, the rate basically levelled off despite the $21.7 trillion investment.

Seems like a big waste when the rate dropped most through a time when black families were left to their own devices from the 1940s to 1960s.

Besides that, there are other factors such as crime, family stability, teenage pregnancy rate, and social unrest, among others.
Rates of teenage pregnancy and venereal disease had been going down for years before the new 1960s attitudes toward sex spread rapidly through the schools, helped by War on Poverty money. These downward trends suddenly reversed and skyrocketed.

The murder rate had also been going down, for decades, and in 1960 was just under half of what it had been in 1934. Then the new 1960s policies toward curing the “root causes” of crime and creating new “rights” for criminals began. Rates of violent crime, including murder, skyrocketed.

The black family, which had survived centuries of slavery and discrimination, began rapidly disintegrating in the liberal welfare state that subsidized unwed pregnancy and changed welfare from an emergency rescue to a way of life.

Government social programs such as the War on Poverty were considered a way to reduce urban riots. Such programs increased sharply during the 1960s. So did urban riots. Later, during the Reagan administration, which was denounced for not promoting social programs, there were far fewer urban riots.
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The Church does teach that self-defence is a natural right. The Church does not teach that all men have the right to bear arms. The latter can be and has been regulated by competent authorities… and the Church has never condemned the right of states to do so.
 
twf said:
The Church does teach that self-defence is a natural right. The Church does not teach that all men have the right to bear arms
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So the Church teaches one has a right to self-defence, but not using arms?
 
I don’t believe the Church teaches that a state can not restrict the right to arms. States can and do impose lawful limitations.
 
quote me saying anything about State not being able to restrict right to arms

obviously the language itself restricts the right, i.e. “to keep and bear arms…” itself would limit the right to only arms one can bear, e.g. would exclude a tank.
 
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Aquinas11 said:
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twf:
The Church does teach that self-defence is a natural right. The Church does not teach that all men have the right to bear arms
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So the Church teaches one has a right to self-defence, but not using arms?
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Using them if you happen to have access. The Church does not say everyone has a right to acquire and own firearms on the chance that they might come in handy.
 
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Aquinas11 said:
Actually you’d have to prove that since its well known from Constitutional documents.

(Please Note: This uploaded content is no longer available.) LeafByNiggle:
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The constitution is not an infallible Catholic source. Only one nation has it. It is a mistake to take secular documents as morally authoritative.
 
Aquinas11 said:
They’d likely use self defense to thwart any evil , which doesn’t necessitate a State.
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LeafByNiggle said:
That is your definition of “good people” - i.e. people who worship the 2nd amendment more than they worship God.
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What is your Official Catholic Source that “self defense” (my post) means “people who worship the 2nd amendment” (introduced in your post)?
 
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