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IvanKaramozov
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not everyone is obsessed with the man:shrug:
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SoCalRC
Guest
Don’t worry about sounding xenophobic if you are discussing an issue in good faith. The problem I have with both your citations is they use direct wages against a lot of indirect costs.
I was just pointing out that many economists see other factors. It has always surprised me that immigration is an effective wedge issue for the ‘right’, particularly since the GOP is, in general, in favor of most of the effects. That is why they periodically try to institutionalize it (ex. Reagan gave the largest amnesty program in recent history, Bush has twice tried to push massive guest worker programs and once proposed an amnesty program, etc. And, of course, we have treatment of the stranger and the alien being a direct lesson from Christ.
But, ignoring the greed and Christian issues, it is still something of a dishonest calculation. We talk about aliens ‘stealing’ benefits, but, really, who are the major beneficiaries of those outlays? I’d say the middle class, who get gardners, nannies, cheap produce, and someone else to go off and die for their children in foreign wars.
Think about it, why do each of the costs exist? Because they are cheap, exploitable labor outside the normal system of fairness and legality. They get exploited in their purchases, they get exploited in their jobs, and they end up taxing the public safety net. But who ultimately benefits? The day worker who sought medical treatment after getting injured working on a mansion, or the contractor, homeowner to be, or his slum lord, all of whom reap more from his labors?
For the last 7 years, the whole government has been geared around benefiting, well, me. And the ‘right’ laps it up. I’ve even had people lecture me on what an injustice the estate tax will be - to me! Forget, for a moment, that it is both a Judean Christian concept (Jubillee), and an egaltarian American concept (we each should reap what we sow, not get born into our permanent ‘class’). People are worried that I may be only able to pass a few million dollars directly to my children without paying tax on unrealized capitol gains. But they aren’t worried about children going to bed hungry, illigal aliens fighting our wars in large numbers (while we won’t even pay for them), or the millions of Americans without basic access to health care.
I think it is an amazing feat - sucking the middle class dry while redirecting all their anger and fear at the absolute weakest members of society. Think about it, the government gives tax incentives to move good jobs overseas, syphons hundreds of billions of dollars out for no-bid contracts to chronicly underperforming crony companies, gives $150B in tax breaks to the very richest Americans, all while doubling our national debt to over $9T dollars! A crushing debt on our children’s children. And people are frothing about the guy picking fruit and sending money to his family…
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Christine_Blake
Guest
While I would love to see abortion outlawed or rather I would llove to see them just not used…wouldn’t it be a better day if the clinics were empty and ran out of business for lack of customers?
…as a teacher and youth minister, I’ve seen far more girls have abortions because of the condemnation of the “far right” than out of any “choice”…I think the way to get rid of abortion is to not only teach our youth, but embrace them when they error and not condemn them. When single mothers are given other choices - social programs by the democrats - there are a lot less abortions!
In fact, the number of abortions per year started to decrease in the 1990’s and continued to do so by 100,000’s, into early 2000. Unfortunately, numbers are up again…perhaps with more acceptance, education about adoption options, continued education for the moms and less condemnation of the girls as “sluts” and “sinners” that number can continue to fall…if we cut into education and social programs - typical Republican tactics, we will again push many of these women into feeling they have no choice but abortion - back to the numbers of the 80’s - at one point up 200,000 in a year! …so, if history shows patterns, I expect the numbers to decrease again as they did once we got the righteous right out of there…and started giving young girls (under 25 have 60%+ of the abortions) some choices/help…
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Jzyehoshua
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Here’s a recent article I wrote for the “Voice of the People” section in the Chicago Tribune:
I’m not convinced conservatism, so often associated with Christianity, has lost its home with the Republican Party. I just think conservatism was ill-defined to begin with, and what it stands for is a group of oft-conflicting principles.
I can see how a Christian can oppose abortion, gay marriage and embryonic stem-cell research. But how can a Christian support the death penalty? Or war-mongering? Or taking from the poor to give to the rich (something today’s tax cuts can produce)? Or treating immigrants, regardless of legal status, as subhuman enemies? Or not seeking to provide universal health care (should such an option ever be feasibly available to us) to take care of our nation’s weakest and poorest?
As is often the case, I find the truth is somewhere in between. It’s almost like the Democrats are more right on the economic issues and Republicans more so on the moral issues.
And regardless of which issues are right, a very present danger I see is that all of these issues are being grouped together as conservative or liberal, Democratic or Republican, patriotic or unpatriotic. It’s as if thinking for yourself on them means to deny the whole party, even if it only results in differing on one issue.
I think people need to stop voting as conservative or liberal and start thinking for themselves. Maybe they reach the same conclusions as either party, and that’s fine.
What is conservative? Sticking to old traditions? Sometimes change is needed for better efficiency or progress. What does liberal mean? Changing from old traditions? Change for the sake of change can be a bad thing.
Neither one is always right. People need to think through the issues for themselves, and not just vote the way their ancestors did. There is never an excuse for omitting the thought process from our voting.
I’m not convinced conservatism, so often associated with Christianity, has lost its home with the Republican Party. I just think conservatism was ill-defined to begin with, and what it stands for is a group of oft-conflicting principles.
I can see how a Christian can oppose abortion, gay marriage and embryonic stem-cell research. But how can a Christian support the death penalty? Or war-mongering? Or taking from the poor to give to the rich (something today’s tax cuts can produce)? Or treating immigrants, regardless of legal status, as subhuman enemies? Or not seeking to provide universal health care (should such an option ever be feasibly available to us) to take care of our nation’s weakest and poorest?
As is often the case, I find the truth is somewhere in between. It’s almost like the Democrats are more right on the economic issues and Republicans more so on the moral issues.
And regardless of which issues are right, a very present danger I see is that all of these issues are being grouped together as conservative or liberal, Democratic or Republican, patriotic or unpatriotic. It’s as if thinking for yourself on them means to deny the whole party, even if it only results in differing on one issue.
I think people need to stop voting as conservative or liberal and start thinking for themselves. Maybe they reach the same conclusions as either party, and that’s fine.
What is conservative? Sticking to old traditions? Sometimes change is needed for better efficiency or progress. What does liberal mean? Changing from old traditions? Change for the sake of change can be a bad thing.
Neither one is always right. People need to think through the issues for themselves, and not just vote the way their ancestors did. There is never an excuse for omitting the thought process from our voting.
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Christine_Blake
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Thank you - A lot to think about here
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CentralFLJames
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Sorry Christine. :dts:
I don’t consider myself spokesperson for the righteous right, but you present here “moral relativism through positive trend” as a reason for condemning the moral conscience. Do you realize you are making the conscience an instigator of the criminal act? That is absurd.
There are such things as definate moral absolutes. It is just wrong to scapegoat the moral conscience as a means to garner a relational position of persuasion with those who commit the moral offense. We don’t need to play the good-cop bad-cop game nor pander to the morally bankrupt with a class demogogery that identifies through apparent similarity of degraded moral status. If we must play the tired old class division game let’s constructively divide among objective classes of principals of right and wrong rather than on classes of people. What we need to do is start raising the bar on the least acceptable moral standards of society rather than silence through data those who are alarmed at what is happening.
I think that it is irresponsible to make the moral-conscience the criminal and the criminal the victim. Is it now time for the battered conscience to declare itself a victim and ask for understanding and support from the assaulter?
This all suggests to me that things are much worse than most probably realize. I just pray that the underlying cause of the social disease of abortion has not yet mutated from patient to care-giver to infect the common moral sense.
James
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rlg94086
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Women don’t have abortions due to the “condemnation from the far right.” They have them due to the attitude of their parents and the availability of abortions - those parental attitudes exist in families both Left and Right I agree we need to “embrace them when they error (sic)”, but I think you are wrong to condemn everyone on the right out of partisan hatred. Republican pro-lifers have also pushed for adoption, and the pro-lifers I work with through Catholic groups (most of them “right-wingers”) set up homes and support for pregnant teens.
I would posit that we need abortion to be illegal to take it away as a choice, more community support for teens who become pregnant through Church programs I mentioned and continued abstinence education. That said, there is still a place for some shame at becoming pregnant at a young age. I would rather tell my kid “you blew it, but it’s not the end of the world. Let’s do the right thing.” than to set up government programs encouraging teenage pregnancy. We’ve already had people who have extra kids for the additional welfare. We don’t need teenage girls getting pregnant, so they can escape their home situation.
I am happy that the Left is finally talking about limiting abortions, but I do hope and pray they eventually accept it for the evil that it is.
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Christine_Blake
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I was with you until the end when your assumption that the Left want more abortions? What? “finally limiting abortions?” I don’t think offering programs that protect unwed mothers and children and better schools say they want children killed?
Do you really think that the number is large of people having “extra” kids to get more welfare? Kids cost a lot more than what the parents get per kid on any system of public help…sure there are a few who abuse the system, but really, is helping moms and kids “encouraging teenage pregnancy?” I’ve never worked with a young mom who wasn’t ashamed and scared and wishing they had used better judgement…the few who may think having more kids = free money learn quickly that it is not a true equation…
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Jzyehoshua
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I recently heard it preached that it’s hypocritical for us to tell young women not to abort but then provide them no help when they ask how to take care of a child they can’t afford to raise. More people who publicly oppose abortion should be willing to adopt. The guy preaching had adopted 3 kids already and was looking to adopt more. He actually told of how he went to an abortion clinic and offered to find a woman going to abort a good home for her baby, or else he would personally adopt the child himself. Not only did she end up choosing not to abort right there, but she chose to keep the child.
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rlg94086
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It is a fact that the rhetoric from the Left has gone from arguing about fetuses not being human beings to arguing that their policies are helping to limit abortions. It is a political tactic to reach out to pro-lifers. They looked at the polls and saw that a large number of people supported the partial birth abortion ban that Republicans passed.
I did not say that “the Left want more abortions.” Please don’t misquote me.
Christine Blake:
Yes. They learn that after they’ve had the baby. Good timing.
I didn’t claim that the “number is large of people having ‘extra’ kids to get more welfare.” I claimed that it happens. Yes, helping moms and kids doesn’t encourage pregnancy, which is why I and my fellow “right wingers” at our parish help them. However, setting up a government program will encourage some desperate teens to use an escape route for their personal situation by getting pregnant to go on the dole.
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fix
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May I ask why? I am not being sarcastic I just want to understand the reasoning here? Why must one need to adopt to be against wrong actions? Does that apply to other bad actions as well?
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SoCalRC
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About half of the procurred abortions in this country are by women who are already mothers. Somewhere between 60-70% of them are by women living at or near poverty. Nearly 30% of them are self described Catholics, disproportionate to our share of the population as a whole.
If we are going to profress to know the hearts and minds of others, we should at least keep our guesses in alignment with observable reality.
Prohibition has always been such a swimmingly successful tactic when confronted with strong human desire…
We have laws and have spent billions fighting illegal drugs. We tried prohibition in the constitution. And the Church once went so far as to make abortion a potential death penalty offense in Rome (supposedly to fight rampant prostitution). It was a dismal failure and rescinded a short time later (it didn’t stop abortions, it just stopped people from coming to confession).
Again, we have to accept reality. We have many examples of ‘left’ law makers pursuing policies other than changes in secular law to reduce abortions. And, for all we know, they worked. Abortions have dropped since 1990, most significantly under ‘left’ governance. There also appears to be no statistical connection to secular law. Citizens United for Life has labelled Oregon the most pro-abortion state in the union. But Oregon is actually second only to Wyoming in reducing its abortion rate since 1990, with a reduction significantly above the national average.
It is convenient to collapse Catholic pro-life teaching first to the single issue of abortion. Then to further collapse it to a litmus test on secular law alone. It let’s us rationalize many compromises with regards to Catholic teaching. But it is not nec. good Catholicism:
vatican.va/roman_curia//congregations/cfaith/documents/rc_con_cfaith_doc_20021124_politica_en.html
Elevating abortion to the point of compromise on other core teachings is seemingly no more logical than ignoring it in favor of other teachings. That is why I find arguments about “right” or “left” being more Catholic so silly. Both sides are chosing moral compromises at odds with the teachings of the Church, they are only arguing about the relative moral superiority of their choices on which parts of the faith to ignore.
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pnewton
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I don’t think many have an extra child for the welfare, but some school kids do want to get pregnant to escape their home. My wife works with this group and every year they have several that use this method. Public assistance is only part of the benefits. Some girls see it as a way to force their boyfriend to marry or shack up with them. Other do it to force him to pay child support. In any case, none of these girls consider the actual numbers and how stupid a decision it is. The when they actually get pregnant and have to start looking at the reality of another life is when they are most likely to back out and have an abortion. Every year I hear these stories.
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SoCalRC
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We use monetary policy to adjust growth and combat inflation. This sometimes holds unemployment artificially high.
Financial need is the number one reported choice for early procurred abortions (this makes sense since the majority many are mothers living at or near poverty). This does not make their choices just, but it is a form of pressure towards sin.
So, if we are going to hold some people in deeper poverty for common economic good, or because we want to give $200B in tax breaks to the richest Americans, or spend $2B+ each week in a war of choice, we played a collective part in the sin. Just how big a part is debatable, but it is still a part in a grievous sin.
This gives us a moral obligation to mitigate the pressures we create towards sin. Further, as Catholics, we are given two directives of Love. To love God with all our hearts and to love our neighbor as ourselves.
Each child is a unique creation of God (see our believe on the soul) and each is most assuredly our neighbor. If we are not willing to reach out and adopt (and provide other alternatives to abortion), we are not loving those children as ourselves. Professing that it is someone else’s problem, or a matter for secular law is akin to crossing to the other side of the road on our Jericho (Luke 10:25-37). In fact, professing our rightousness and observance of God’s law in doing so would seem to exactly match the actions of the Priest in the story (who seems to have avoided the man left for dead because of purity laws).
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SoCalRC
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And you don’t see a problem much deeper than just abortion? Seems like a lot of indications of our failure with regards to yesterday’s reading (Matt 25) in that back story.
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fix
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Just so I can follow your circuitous reasoning you mean to say a Catholic ought not be against bank robbery unless such a Catholic is willing to house the family of the man who must go to jail?
And, how many children must one adopt to be against direct abortion? Is one enough, or must we adopt more depending on how much we oppose this crime?
Also, I think the Pope is against abortion. How many must he adopt?
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vern_humphrey
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It’s hypocritical to pretend that the Pro-life movement doesn’t help women who need help.
There is no shortage of parents wanting to adopt – my daughter and son-in-law were planning on adopting before our first grandchild was born – and found they’d have to go to China to get a child!More people who publicly oppose abortion should be willing to adopt. The guy preaching had adopted 3 kids already and was looking to adopt more. He actually told of how he went to an abortion clinic and offered to find a woman going to abort a good home for her baby, or else he would personally adopt the child himself. Not only did she end up choosing not to abort right there, but she chose to keep the child.
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rlg94086
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Hi SoCalRC,
If you read the posts, I was responding to Christine Blake’s statement that "I’ve seen far more **girls **have abortions because of the condemnation of the “far right” than out of any “choice”…
I don’t doubt the numbers as you presented them. Do you think those 60-70% procured their abortion due to “condemnation of the ‘far right’?” I seriously doubt it. As far as the 30% “self-described Catholics,” it is a sad fact that there are a lot of Catholics who have no problem with abortion. They have no problem with a lot of sins.
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SoCalRC
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No, my reasoning is the same as the Church’s:
See Vatican link above. Our obligation to the children is not contingent on their origin. We Catholics do not put life on par with material goods. It is an absolute and unabridable right. Similiar, we do not put conditions on our Christian obligation to the less fortunate. Our call is not to judge others, but to be in the service of the weakest among us (regardless of our own impression of their spiritual state).
The concepts you are professing, that human life is like possessions and obligations to the weak with regards to their continued existance only goes as far as is completely-convenient-and-of-no-cost-to-oneself, does not really match Catholic “right to life” principles (see GENTIUM LUMEN and CHRISTIFIDELES LAICI).
We believe that God values each life infinitely, that is why abortion and euthanasia are absolutes and why the Church so forcefully objects to modern applications of the death penalty. And we are to love our neighbors as ourselves (generally as close to infinite love as we can come). It is easy to claim to love fetal life and unwanted children, but an unwillingness to go beyond no cost efforts would seem to profess that, in reality, we love our own lifestyle and things more.
This is another of the seeming contradictions between different aspects of “right” thinking. Concepts like “mine”, “earned”, and “deserved” are very popular, but at odds with Holy Scripture.
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SoCalRC
Guest
My point was that it is not correct to profess to know the hearts and minds of those procurring abortions. They are mothers, they are Catholics, and they, by and large, live in poverty.
Condemning one dimensional stereotypes and trivializing the problem will not, in my opinion, have any real effect. So far, all the secular evidence seems to bear this out.
I fully embrace the Church’s teaching on abortion, including the immorality of having it in secular law. But secular law appears to be the least effective strategy in terms of actually reducing abortions. It is a good political strategy, but I don’t care about the fortunes of any party, I want to see fewer unwanted children and fewer abortions.
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