Subsidiarity and Solidarity, Conservatives and Liberals

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The Catholic social doctrine of subsidiarity emphasizes keeping control and decisions at the most local level possible. Therefore liberties at the level of the individual, the family and the church should be maximized. Religious liberties should be fully affirmed while the role of civil governments should be somewhat restrained.

The Catholic social doctrine of solidarity emphasizes issues of social justice in areas like criminal justice, eradicating poverty, healthcare, education, etc.

Similarly, political conservatives emphasize individual liberties and reducing the size and scope of civil government. Where necessary, city, county, state governments in the USA should ideally have more relative control while the federal government (and international organizations) should have a more limited role.

Similarly, political liberals seems ready to address all the social issues but often want to do through the means of civil government programs at the higher levels of civil government and de-emphasize the roles and responsibilities of individuals, the family and the Church.

It seems good to address to social justice issues and good to maximize localized liberties while minimizing centralized tyrannies.

Why does it have to be one or the other? Why such polarization and extremes? Why not utilize the best of both from the Catholic social doctrines of subsidiarity and solidarity?
 
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I don’t see what’s wrong with the conservative view, provided if there’s enough charity (eg financial assistance) for the poor. I’m not American, so I don’t know how good or bad the situation is for a poor person. All I know is that it could be a lot better.

Everything doesn’t have to be done at the government level, but I think the main issue for most normal people is that people don’t trust people to give help when it’s needed, so they want the government’s involvement. Greed is also another thing.
 
nodelink said:
Why does it have to be one or the other? Why such polarization and extremes? Why not utilize the best of both from the Catholic social doctrines of subsidiarity and solidarity?
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This. There does need to be a purge first. It takes some time away from the echo chamber. The best thing I ever did was to give up all commercial news/commentary for Lent one year. The peace that came into my life was nothing short of astounding.

I never went back to consuming commercial news the way I used to (and I was a “news” junkie and virulent political activist before that time).

Once the scales fell from my eyes, I began a year long study of the Compendium of the Social Doctrine of the Church and the many encyclicals that have been written on these topics.

That journey took me to an interesting place, politically. I don’t want to get into a “my political party can beat up your political party” roundabout here, will just say that I’m not riding an elephant or a donkey anymore. If anyone wants to private message me I will tell them where my affiliation now lives.
 
It seems to me to come down to how much social pain one is willing to tolerate before acknowledging a higher level is needed.
 
It has been altogether rare for conservatives and US Republican Party adherents to show much concern for the poor, oppressed minorities, healthcare needs, education needs, criminal justice, worker safety, environmental protection, etc. These are the solidarity issues. People may write books about “compassionate conservatism” but the examples have been too few.

On the other hand, it has been altogether rate for liberals and US Democratic Party adherents to show much concern for individual freedom and responsibility, parental rights, religious freedom, preventing oppression by globalist elites, finding answers from sources other than civil government or at least big NGO’s, letting people experience the consequences of their actions. These are the subsidiarity issues.

In the US Congress, neither party seems to care about balancing the budget so the national debt and unfunded liabilities keep spiraling higher. This is particularly true when their party is in power. But, that’s a separate although related topic.
 
nodelink said:
Why does it have to be one or the other? Why such polarization and extremes? Why not utilize the best of both from the Catholic social doctrines of subsidiarity and solidarity?
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Because neither of the only two choices we are given are thoroughly Catholic, and yet, most Catholics are sadly more dogmatically tied to one party or the other than their own religion. If Catholics actually united around our authentic faith and social doctrine, we’d be a major force for good to be reckoned with–but alas, we have been divided and conquered.
 
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Sorry but I have to agree. Party and ideology tend to aberrate ones view of Catholic social teaching.
 
The republican view in no way hinders personally acting upon subsidiarity.
By definition it should be primarily enacted at the local and state level, not the federal level.
 
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The republican view regretfully does seem to hinder persons from acting upon the principle of solidarity. Concerns for principles of solidarity need not be foreign to republicans. Principles of solidarity will often include concerns about racism, oppression of women, needs of the poor, healthcare needs, education needs, environmental concerns, needs of migrants and immigrants, needs of children, needs of the elderly, criminal justice and other social concerns.

There is no need to castigate someone as being a “bleeding heart” because they have a compassion for needy and suffering people.
 
I think that it doesn’t matter what Republicans do wrt solidarity, because there can be a lot of solidarity among people on a private level and the Republicans do not wish to prohibit this.

The Democrats, however, act against subsidiarity a lot, and in ways which cannot be gotten over. If the feds start doing things, like proposing school curriculae, then we are pretty much stuck with it.
 
What about situations where the most local level possible is the federal or even global level? Subsidiarity doesn’t dictate that all must be done at the state and local level.

I find it interesting that conservatives tend to dismiss subsidiarity when it comes to enforcement of immigration law.
 
J_Peterson said:
I find it interesting that conservatives tend to dismiss subsidiarity when it comes to enforcement of immigration law.
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I think you are confusing enforcement vs creation of said law. As we saw with Sheriff Joe, local enforcement is not allowed. I think most conservatives would welcome enabling local LEO to help enforce such federal laws.

Then the feds could step-in only when local LEO was shirking their responsibility.
 
Subsidiarity is when the lowest, most local level possible takes care of an issue. If the lowest level which can take care of an issue is the national level, for example, diplomatic relations with other countries, then that’s who should take care of it.

As to “subsidiarity” in immigration, immigration is also one of those things whihc need to be determined at a national level, because the borders are national borders.

That being said, I do think OCE should reimburse localities for expenditures relating to holding people on ICE behalf.
 
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