Why do some Catholics lean politically conservative?

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DENNYINMI said:
Skimming the posts and once again pro-life is never dealing with those that were born. Pity.
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Well, as far as I know, no one’s fighting for the mass genocide of the homeless, so no need to focus any energy there.
 
Sorry to hear that you have had such terrible experiences. I know that I consider myself a liberal Catholic and liberal in political and social views, but all that I believe could not simply be put in box and wrapped in a tidy ribbon. In other words, my beliefs on many issues run a spectrum and cannot be easily defined.
 
I can no longer afford healthcare. I own a small business to support my family. Last year they wanted $1,980.00 a month for health insurance, that’s not smart money when they tack on the $12,000.00 deductible. Do the math…$36,000k a year. Obamacare was the worst thing that ever happened to small business people.
 
I attended a pretty decent university, Loyola University, New Orleans, but my true purpose in achieving a university education wasn’t to get a job, but achieve a proper education. I wan’t a well-rounded education from a Liberal Arts University, and esp. to learn critical thinking, which has kept me in good stead decades later. I completely funded my own education, worked during high school, summers, while attending college, served in the Army National Guard. Point is, is that I did it myself, not because it would be easy, but because it would be hard, a difficult challenge. When someone tells me that a goal is impossible, I try to achieve the impossible. Granted, I never ever had a perfect job ( are they’re really any), but I was never without a job, even as I changed jobs or careers. The only thing that slowed me down, or really put a direct stop to my employment, was when I became disabled 4 years ago. I’ve always had at least several disabilities, and for most of my life even existing was done with difficulty. I’ve failed at many things, but I’ve persevered at many more things than I’ve failed. I won’t go into all the details of my disabilities, but I have a learning disability, Epilepsy, memory loss… Anyway, what I achieved and earned by attending a university, and a great Catholic Jesuit University, I must add, is that my education and everything I’ve learned can never be taken away from me.
 
I still don’t see how a Catholic can vote for a Democrat politician who promotes the murdering of children which are most if not all of the politicians in the Democratic party.

Also I do not like how the OP framed the original question making it seem that it is strange that a Catholic is leaning politically conservative.
 
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Please forgive me, if I offended any of you. I realize I could worded my post in a more considerate and sensitive matter (such as simply posting a question, clarifying why I am quizzical and instead being forward with my perspective than making an insinuation). I ask for the pardon of any of you who weren’t enthused about my question.
 
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I agree, but we can also do it in such a way that subsidiarity is maintained. While our system of government isn’t perfect, I think abiding by the original intent of the Constitution and showing a preference for state (and municipal) solutions will do just that. Larger bureaucracies are frowned on by the Church, because people become little more than a number.
 
Some of us are old enough to remember when their state, California, offered free 2-year and 4-year tuition at community colleges and the UC and State schools. It didn’t last long. Californian pols brag that they are the 5th largest economy in the world. If they can’t do it in a wealthy state, what makes anyone think that a nationwide program is going to work?

Also, part of the problem, as you allude to, is that not all degrees will actually prepare someone for a financially viable career.
 
RCIAGraduate said:
Please forgive me, if I offended any of you. I realize I could worded my post in a more considerate and sensitive matter (such as simply posting a question, clarifying why I am quizzical and instead being forward with my perspective than making an insinuation). I ask for the pardon of any of you who weren’t enthused about my question.
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Forgive me as well please. It was not my thread but I attempted to ask a question of how the conservative platform moves persons out of poverty. A lot of what they do not believe in, but a nothing burger on what they “do”…As you can see, specificity would not have gotten you too far…I don’t see much except for a redundant anti-abortion message which even a liberal can espouse, only to be outdone by the “pull oneself up by ones bootstrap” message and beyond high school is of no use.
 
Ender said:
I’ve already mentioned several: more school choice. workfare instead of welfare, support of social institutions that foster good decisions (starting with the nuclear family). Others include removing or lessening restrictions on start up businesses, tort reform (medical costs are heavily affected by malpractice suites), controlling the borders, and the list goes on. You may disagree with all of these proposals, but let’s not pretend they don’t exist.
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School choice, but none after 12th grade was exploited to the hilt. It’s silly not to consider vocational training. A start up business without an education is silly. How can one be trusted with much when one has not learned to handle a little…The question was moving someone out of poverty…Poverty. And you’ve moved their plight into the realm of removing regulations for small start up businesses. I would suggest to you there would be need for innovation, the ability to offer a service that would have required some training or know how so they have a business that prospers. The “border issue” opens jobs that many persons neither wanted or are equipped to handle…Get that!~Even working agriculture requires know how. Safety is involved, as well as physical endurance.

I live in the Midwest and I can guarantee you…Not just anyone can operate farm machinery or can do the work many immigrants were/are willing to do. Farm work is hard work, long hours and requires know how especially with equipment ,plowing, tilling, planting and when to harvest. No sir…you’ve moved no one out of poverty. Not without education beyond high school.
 
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DENNYINMI said:
No sir…you’ve moved no one out of poverty. Not without education beyond high school.
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I was responding to you assertion that conservatives didn’t have any proposals other than “pull yourself up by your bootstraps.” Obviously that claim is untrue. Now you are judging everything by whether it accords with your own view that an additional two years of education is needed, and this despite the fact that the real problem with our current education is the high percentage of high school dropouts. So let me post this comment again. Here are the keys to avoiding poverty:

Our research shows that of American adults who followed these three simple rules, only about 2 percent are in poverty and nearly 75 percent have joined the middle class…

If only two percent of people who graduate high school end up in poverty - if they also get a full time job and put off marriage and children - then where is the argument that what they really need is two more years of education?
 
Ender said:
I was responding to you assertion that conservatives didn’t have any proposals other than “pull yourself up by your bootstraps.” Obviously that claim is untrue. Now you are judging everything by whether it accords with your own view that an additional two years of education is needed,
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I addressed your thoughts on school choice, poverty, and even the border. See above. IF it comes back to education in some way, which I believe is the pole to teaching to fish, and not for a day…it is what it is.
Edited to include the idea of small business start up
 
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The funny thing is, y’all remember that Catholicism was against compulsory education in the 19th century. 😉

From Boston’s Catholic newspaper—
The general principle upon which these laws are based is radically unsound, untrue, Atheistical… It is, that the education of children is not the work of the Church, or of the Family, but that it is the work of the State… Two consequences flow from this principle… In the matter of education, the State is supreme over the Church and the Family. Hence , the State can and does exclude from the schools religious instruction… The inevitable consequence is, that… the greater number of scholars must turn out to be Atheists, and accordingly the majority of non-Catholics are people of no religion…

The other consequence… leads the State to adopt the child, to weaken the ties which bind it to the parent. So laws are made compelling children to attend the state schools, and forbidding the parents, if they be poor, to withdraw their little ones from the school… The consequence of this policy is… universal disobedience on the part of children… Our little boys scoff at their parents, call their fathers by the name of Old Man, Boss, or Governor. The mother is the Old Woman.
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I answered this and I’d like to expand on it. I lean politically conservative because I think the conservative position is more in sync with the nature of mankind. My progressive friends all believe fervently that mankind is perfectable. Conservatives don’t. Individuals are, but as a whole we will never have heaven on earth. My progressive friends all think that if we pass this law, or that regulation or rob Peter to pay Paul we will have a society where racism, poverty, want and any other 'ism you can think of will magically disappear.
It just won’t work.
 
I can see now I need to thank God for what the poor has taught me. It’s true as it is written in Evangelium Vitae regarding the preferential option for the poor, they have much to teach us.

I realize I, myself would be living in poverty had it not been for vocational training.

Give a man a fish, feed him for a day. Teach him to fish, he will eat for a life time.

This has been a conservative mantra for a long time, yet when it comes time to put the rubber to the road, it appears there is flat tire.

Simple fisherman were called to preach the Gospel, to go and make disciples of all men. But first the prophecy of “they will all be taught by God” was fulfilled.
IF someone has a better idea in which to give preferential option for the poor, assist in alleviating substandard living conditions and assist in moving persons into productive, contributing members of society without some means of education beyond liberal studies of high school…I’d like to hear it.
Because there will “always be” substandard conditions and unfairness is never a reason to be satisfied within our hearts to leave persons this way. That is not the Gospel message.

I’m waiting for the economical idealism of conservatism to rear it’s head and other than border security, removing regulations for start up businesses, school choice for high school, and the recognition we will always have poverty, I don’t see it.
 
Augustinian said:
For many of these communities, oil and gas , with the new Fracking technologies are giving them hope. Conservatives tend to be for those policies which will help out immensely, even though they aren’t “social” programs per se , and more along the line of an industrial program.

But this is the kind of thing conservatives favor to revive areas.
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Worth repeating.

And for financial guidance, read Dave Ramsey.
 
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