Why does the Church support the welfare state?

[Bill_7154]

FaithIn TheSon,
I needed to snip part of your post (and part of my original reply to make it fit.

I wish I could as I am in Michigan I can not. I wish I could take you to some in Detroit though. I have only been outside of them but I used to encounter homeless on a daily basis. Some of them very smart obviously just left behind. Maybe that is part of where our different perspectives come from I suspected that because I have read your posts which I normally enjoy and I was already aware of most of what you just said.

Here politicians steal money like every1 is blind and every once in a while throw up a scapegoat for good measure. I tend to focus more on that.

Our poor people are completely screwed over I have nothing but sympathy.

To give you a little insight on my perspective if you haven’t already read my other post: My best friend was killed by a 15 year old and his mom. He saw the 15 year old was about to get jumped, told the boys about to get jumped that he had warrants and to not do it (this was just to front them off, he really just didn’t want the kid to get jumped). They punched the boy one time. He told his mom. His mom gave him a gun and drove him to shoot into a crowd. He missed his targets and hit the only person I’ve ever been able to trust in the head. This also happens to be the same one that stopped him from getting jumped. The rest is in this article wchbnewsdetroit.com/3491/mom-helped-son-get-to-gun-worthy-says/ .

So I do not judge them for their weakness. In the same way if you were too weak to climb out of your hole I would not have judged you. I have been plenty weak myself almost all of the time. We all have been.

Did you get the sense from my post that I was judging those on entitlement programs? I thought I made it quite clear that I see any anger towards any of them as misdirected. And I’m terribly sad to hear about your friend. I’ve heard about Detroit and think it’s worse than Boston is now, but back in the 80’s Boston was rough. I was the live in manager of a 3/4 way house in the ghetto. I am white. The only white face you saw in that area, day or night, except for the police. And i grew up in the suburbs so didn’t even have a ‘street’ education. I got a crash course at the homeless shelters I stayed in though.

Anyway, I’m not clear on what our ‘different perspectives’ are on the homeless. I feel sorry for them and beleive that prior circumstances in their life lead them to become homeless. I don’t think anyone chooses it or anyone can snap themselves out of it. But I do believe that alcohol and drug abuse is a major issue with the homeless. Again, I’m not surprised. Who wants to be homeless? Am I surprised people drink as a means of coping with their terrible circumstances? Not in the least.

But that house i managed in the ghetto:. They used a different philosophy before I started working there. That was “homeless people’s problem is that they don’t have a home, so give them one and all will be OK”. They did that and someone who was drunk wound up putting a potato in tin foil or something in the microwave for 2 hours, left the house. Fire, spinklers went off, the first floor filled with sooo much water, that it collapsed.

After that they decided to make the program drug and alcohol free. I heard gunfire every weekend night for years. I saw people shooting, getting beaten with crowbars, 2by4’s, even saw a guy chase down a woman with a sword.

And I hear that Detroit is rife with corruption like no other city. That is a shame. But I’m not sure how far off we are from one another on different issues. I would like to see all cheating by politicians ended, all bribes, scams, insider trading, war profiteering come to an end.

Where we may differ is that I believe that using a teach a man to fish method is superior to a feed a man a fish method. Especially since there is multi generational welfare. I think that comes from the family more than from ‘lack of education’ as if your parents don’t prioritize your schoolwork it doesn’t matter how good your school is. If your parents are too preoccupied with their own problems or issues to pay attention to yours, it doesn’t matter how bad your school is. Your going to gravitate toward gangs most likely unless you have other family that is stable and loving and kind and that you were close to from an early age to continue to guide you. By the time an inner city kid is like 12, the path of his life is kind of laid out for him. With 2 loving parents living in the same home, where they sit down with him daily and help him with his homework and provide strong moral guidance and good discipline, etc that boy has a good chance of making it out of the ghetto.

If a 12 yo comes from a single parent home, with multiple males coming and going, if the mom uses drugs, if the child is emotionally neglected (or worse) he is going to join a gang, sell drugs… you know the story.

When it comes to politicians I don’t trust any of them. Show me one that gives away 1/2 of their total wealth (not income for the yr subject to fed income taxes) until they have no more than 5 million dollars and I will pay serious attention to what that politician has to say and take him serious when he claims he wants to help a segment of society.

So where do you see that we differ? I’m curious?

 

[FaithInTheSon]

I’m glad you asked. We differ on two points:

1. I believe we should not place greater restrictions on welfare I believe the opposite. I know, like you do, that the money is there it is just not going where it should. I disagree that the taxpayers are under any more or less burden to help the poor regardless of entitlement programs when the politicians have all the money at their disposal JUST BECAUSE THEY SAY!? No. I won’t base any world view on a falsity no matter how high up the falsity is coming from. They put beautiful actresses on T.V. and get them to make you feel bad for not donating to poor children in other countries and then go back to a mansion with 3 rolls royces a benz and a mayback. The richest man in the world told us we need to work harder and retire later. I know you agree on these points…but I just disagree that it is the taxpayers problem at this point. They are deceiving us into thinking that.
2. I also wholeheartedly believe that the parents are not the problem. The one that I told you about earlier came from one of the the most broken homes you get in America. But he had the love of his mother and his sister. In a terrible situation already and with 6 warrants for petty victimless and non-drug related offenses he still got an A on his last math test. That was in highland park it’s a city inside a city (I think they keep it that way so they can mess with statistics how they want). At that time it was literally the most broke city in America. Highest unemployment, missing persons, all that. Having financial difficulty isn’t the problem. A lack of a criminal justice system isnt the problem as Detroit has finally started learning how to deal with that on their own now that they have no police (as a former cop said “only city where you get robbed call the cops and they ask why you called”). THE PROBLEM IS THE EDUCATION SYSTEM. If a family can provide the love and the protection a child needs in that environment it is still impossible to get a good education. Not to mention you are almost guaranteed a criminal record because of where you were born and how people have to look at you if you want to be left alone and not get pistols stuck in your face, not to mention have any chance at getting a girl.

Judging people, to me, is the root of the problem.
“Federal reserve”. Funny it is not Federal (it is private) and it is not a reserve! there is no reserve it is inflating! lol. Money is another problem. We need a better economic system than money because we as humans cannot handle it responsibly. I don’t have the answer to that so lets just stop judging people for now that will fix most of the problem.

EDIT: I did sense that you were saying if they don’t contribute more then they should be cut off. I disagree with that notion completely. It does seem very judgmental to me because you are cutting them off for not doing your will. Our Lord tells us to give to the poor he does not tell us to give to only the poor we judge as worthy.

 

[Bill_7154]

Where you live it is very different. Your numbers are outrageous here. And I do not blame them for spending it on drugs. I would prefer to help them than judge them. Our failure as a society is the reason they are waiting for the 1st or 3rd or 5th so they can kill themselves to feel good for a while. Our criminal justice system blatantly promotes the drug game it is insulting to all of our intelligence. They get paid bringing it in and get paid for locking people up for having it. Rehab is a complete joke.

Also you must be familiar with how much of that goes to child support. Their whole check will never go to drugs normally a fraction. Many of them get warrants on them for child support! This is not their failure. To break the cycle you have to help people and never judge them. It is like if someone needs surgery giving them a band aide and a painkiller and telling them it will be ok just got home. Then when they die you tell everyone they must have not been doing what you told them to do.

We agree on everything here (with the exception I am not familiar with child support system). I see the war on drugs as the greatest evil as far as government policies that exist today (and have made many, many posts about that. I advocate what LEAP Law Enforcement Against Prohibition www.leap.cc advocates. Prior to being introduced to them (I have corresponded with one of the co-founders as he lives like 10 minutes from me).

But understanding why people do things that are not helpful, or are harmful, to themselves is different than helping them. As I said I advocate ending the failed war on drugs as a first step. Police certainly don’t help people who they consider ‘scum’ (drug addicts) by inviting them to join their social circles and provide them with a support network when they get out of jail.

In addition to ending the war on drugs (if you have never been to leap’s site I highly recommend you go to www.leap.cc then click on ‘watch a video’ on the top left, then click the video on the left. It was their promotional video back in 2005 closer to the time they were just getting up and running. It basically explains why the drug war is a failure, and more than that, institutionalized racism (at the end). I think you will enjoy it.

As an ex drug and alcohol counselor, don’t you think I understand that it is necessary to come from a place of non-judementalness in order to help a person. That’s like helping people 101.

So we still agree on everything so far…did you think we disagreed on some of this?

 

[Bill_7154]

I know rehab does help some people what I am saying is it is inadequate for most that don’t have a lot of money. Why don’t we let the homeless get a couple cycles in at a rich man’s rehab? What if he was born rich? Why should he be better off than a man born poor? Why should he be so greedy he won’t allow society to fix it’s problems because his family would lose power and influence? To protect society from the other greedy rich people duh! that’s how they justify it. the sad thing is speaking strategically that might be the best move for all of us in many instances.

Well, I don’t think that success stat’s from rehabs are anything to brag about, regardless of how much they cost. I think the rich benefit when it comes to drugs by: not having to buy off the street, having people on their payroll buy it for them, use them in the privacy of their mansions, and having very expensive lawyers if they happen to be charged with a drug crime.

As I said, I think it’s necessary to end the drug war in order to end the stigma associated with drug use, allow people access to the actual drug rather than some drug mixed with some rat poison or whatever random chemicals are around the house… they would be processed by pharmacies and therefore be much much safter. And people would know the strength of the drug, decreasing risks of overdosing. They would also have access to safety info regarding drug use. And being legal, they would be affordable like cig’s and booze… not too many addicted to those drugs doing home robberies to pay for those habits, or armed robberies.
Hundred’s of millions would be taken out of the hands of drug lord and terrorists. Tens of thousands would stop being murdered. Cops could focus on crimes of violence and theft, and not transactions that neither party wants them involved in. Cops jobs would be much safter…they wouldn’t have to worry about every traffic stop being a potential 2 time looser with drugs in their car…looking at life in jail and therefore much more willing to shoot them. I’m old enough to remember what it was like in the early 70’s before the drug war really got up and running. Cops were friendly to citizens. And they didn’t have to fear traffic stops because the only people willing to shoot them would be escaped murderers, wanted murderers, wanted bank robbers facing 20 years… a tiny fraction of the % of people they need to be concerned might pull a weapon and aim to kill them…all because of the drug war. Since police would be more relaxed dealing with the public, public and police relations would improve and people would start to like cops again like they like firemen.

So I think this is where we need to start. It will also lessen the stigma of drug use, making addicts more willing to discuss their use, making them more open to help. Their health and life functioning would also greatly improve as they wouldn’t spend their day trying to put together 50bucks for drugs for the day… it would be like cigarettes…even bums loan each other cigarettes…even taxed like crazy…they are still affordable. So drug addicts could easily afford their days supply and the live their life…like eating meals, etc…

As far as wealth distribution…the only way I see that happening is that if some group decides to use terrorist tactics against the very wealthy and risk their own lives by strapping themselves with dinomite and getting close to a super wealthy person and blowing them up…and then this group threatening to do this to anyone with wealth in excess of x ammt who doesn’t donate x ammt to charity every year. And I don’t see that happening.

 

[Dranu]

I just finished reading an article in the Tidings (a Southern California Catholic circular) urging voters to vote “yes” on specific measures that will increase taxes in our area. It said in the article that it is our duty as a society to support a progressive tax system which supports the poor. The article sounded like an endorsement of these measures and the welfare state.

Don’t confuse prudential judgments of the ‘Church’ with her proper jurisdiction in matters of faith and morals. It is quite possible for a faithful Catholic to completely disagree with prudential judgments (which these seem to be) after proper consideration.

 

[Bill_7154]

I’m glad you asked. We differ on two points:

1. I believe we should not place greater restrictions on welfare I believe the opposite. I know, like you do, that the money is there it is just not going where it should. I disagree that the taxpayers are under any more or less burden to help the poor regardless of entitlement programs when the politicians have all the money at their disposal JUST BECAUSE THEY SAY!? No. I won’t base any world view on a falsity no matter how high up the falsity is coming from. They put beautiful actresses on T.V. and get them to make you feel bad for not donating to poor children in other countries and then go back to a mansion with 3 rolls royces a benz and a mayback. The richest man in the world told us we need to work harder and retire later. I know you agree on these points…but I just disagree that it is the taxpayers problem at this point. They are deceiving us into thinking that…

I don’t know where you got the idea I think it’s a taxpayer problem. I see gov’t as the problem. We may differ on particulars (I think it should be dismantled slowly over time) but we agree gov’t and those in power are the problem.

1. I also wholeheartedly believe that the parents are not the problem. The one that I told you about earlier came from one of the the most broken homes you get in America. But he had the love of his mother and his sister.

I think you must have misunderstood that part of my post, because what you say here is essentially proving my point. With loving and careing parents kids have a chance (and some a lot more than ‘a chance’. Without that, (or a reasonable substitute, they are essentially doomed- of course there are exceptions)

.

THE PROBLEM IS THE EDUCATION SYSTEM. If a family can provide the love and the protection a child needs in that environment it is still impossible to get a good education. Not to mention you are almost guaranteed a criminal record because of where you were born and how people have to look at you if you want to be left alone and not get pistols stuck in your face, not to mention have any chance at getting a girl…

I agree, IF the parents are involved. If they are not involved in their childs education they are going to do a lot worse than if the parents are involved (essentially showing they care). I think this is true even in afluent communities, if a kid senses (correctly) their parents don’t care about them…it rubs off on them and they feel worthless. Typically these kids are not straight A students. How many kids get into Ivy League Colleges if they correctly sense their parents don’t care about their education?

.

Judging people, to me, is the root of the problem.
“Federal reserve”. Funny it is not Federal (it is private) and it is not a reserve! there is no reserve it is inflating! lol. Money is another problem. We need a better economic system than money because we as humans cannot handle it responsibly. I don’t have the answer to that so lets just stop judging people for now that will fix most of the problem…

I agree judging poeple is a huge problem. I’m not sure that is the largest problem when assessing all of the issues that the usa faces though. Not saying I disagree, I’m undecided. No. I will say the biggest immediate problem is drug prohibition (which just so happens to be completely filled with judging people lol)

.

EDIT: I did sense that you were saying if they don’t contribute more then they should be cut off. I disagree with that notion completely. It does seem very judgmental to me because you are cutting them off for not doing your will. Our Lord tells us to give to the poor he does not tell us to give to only the poor we judge as worthy.

MY boss will cut me off for not doing his will. There are tons of skills we all practice on a daily basis as part of having a job. Those who don’t the skills don’t get learned, or wither away. I’m not saying ‘cut off’ but I think people should work for what they get. I have no ideal system in mind. But I got out of homelessness because I busted my but to do so and there were people (counselors there) that actively tried over and over to make me fail.

I’m poor myself. And in fact I’m worse off than many on disability when you add in their section 8 funding, their free medical care, their food stamps, etc…

When you take my income, deduct the taxes, deduct what I pay for health insurance… I wind up will less net income value than someone disabled adding their cash and all their non cash disabilities.

I go to food pantries to get food to feed my family. The only advantage I have over the disabled is I have a car. Since I have PTSD I also have a major mental illness, I decided to push myself when I was homless to try and get a job or I would have likely eventually wound up in a sec 8 apt on disability myself.

I don’t qualify for food stamps because I make like 10 bucks a week too much (calculated annually). The fact they don’t take into acct the taxes I pay and the huge cost of my medical premium as well as all the co-pays…which drops my income by over 10K (which is a LOT to someone like me) is crazy. If I were self employed and made the same(or even double what I make), or worked for a company with less than 50 employees and made the same (or even double what I make) I would be able to buy into a health insurance plan that costs something like 20% of what I pay… and again…this would be even if i made TWICE what I make.

 

[FaithInTheSon]

First off I think you are right we come from very much the same perspective on what the problems are. BTW if people didn’t judge there would have never been a war on drugs.

We disagree that anyone should have to work for anything(if they don’t want to work for anything, I am more concerned about them then than ever). Your boss would cut you off if you do not do his will. You are lending yourself as an obedient servant. You are only supposed to do that to the Lord. I’m not saying you are wrong for working (it is good to work) I’m saying the way society approaches work and school in general is dead wrong. Remember who your Lord is and put his will above all else including your boss at work (not preaching to you just showing my point of view, which is probably yours too haha).

You were in a messed up situation and pulled through because of determination. For those less determined than you… I feel they should not be left behind. I don’t care if it is as simple as laziness! We are fishing for souls not currency. It is not their fault they cannot succeed where you were able to. I never grabbed a homeless man off the street and gave him a job and a house though either so I am just as wrong as society.

As far as the rest of the points I thought we were disagreeing on, it appears I was wrong. Words have a way of not conveying the message you want them too. And the human mind has a way of taking them wrong and/or out of context.

It is interesting how we can say the same things in different ways and this causes me to think we disagree (which we did but only on one minor point on how to fix the problems). How many wars has that situation cause I wonder? haha nice discussion thank you.

EDIT: also very sorry to hear about your situation. Remember what I said about how it is here in MI though. It could be a lot worse.Continue to keep the Lord’s word close to your heart it is comforting to see that you do. He is watching every move we make. The wisdom you obviously have is more precious than silver or gold.

 

[nordskoven]

There is only ONE industry in the world that has any incentive to see that our lives go wonderfully–INSURANCE.
Real Christians put together a para-insurance pool that excises smokers and drinkers, ChristianCare MediShare. This shared risk model is ideal. You can bet bubba will have sista urging more salad instead of a second helping of fried chicken if she’s in his insurance pool. Business-as-usual chancery types and politicos have done nothing to aid or institute even this one, easily computerized grand idea. We are indeed a house divided. And no wonder.

The model for many dioceses is to dun the faithful or the government for cash, not help organize us to help each other. Too much control would be lost. The small “c” church is fighting with both hands tied behind their proverbial back. We could have at cost food clubs but that would make Catholic grocery chains peevish. The Catholic corporate culture can unleash for remodeling churches with the incentive to have pricey weddings and happy contractors to later donate to the kitty.

And Catholics in general are so far out of control of their cash that THREE BILLION has been given to victims of clerical abuse with no accounting of who, what or where these funds came from, with no protest that these “reparations” were funding gag orders for kids to clam up. We are the mushroom people, kept in the dark and heavily covered with fertilizer.
medi-share.org/ms/lp/pi_12-6.aspx?leadsource=Internet-Search%20Engine&custentity_urlreferralid=GB-MediShare&mkwid=49iS8KJQ&pcrid=11887918586&gclid=CKDY7oWy_rICFRSSPAodv1wA3w

INCENTIVE! INCENTIVE! INCENTIVE! A great Democrat liberal suggested the scheme for direct payments, bypassing spendy bureaucrats. That went nowhere because it takes a village of bureaucrats to vote for politicos to raise taxes for politicos to spend on bureaucrats. Linked to INCENTIVES as Bill suggested–like the WorkFare reform recently vacated by Barack–would not only have saved bureaucrat slop, but put people on the ladder of success and out of the grasp of plantation politics. People were getting wealthier and homes getting more stable on WorkFare! So that had to go. Respectfully, we must throw these types of rascals out.

NOBODY HAS ANY INCENTIVE TO SEE THINGS WORK! WE ARE IN WHAT HAS BEEN TERMED A “CANNIBAL ECONOMY.” PEOPLE MAKE MORE MONEY WHEN THERE IS CHAOS! If there is no incentive for goodness in whatever action you or I take, we risk feeding the Beast. A Vanity Fair article a decade or so ago first introduced the term “cannibal economy” and they have had a more recent look at auto-self-destruction in the microcosmic analysis of MicroSoft here:
vanityfair.com/online/daily/2012/07/microsoft-downfall-emails-steve-ballmer

I’m a trained artist-designer. I love to ask the question, “What does it make when it breaks?” Nuclear energy is an obvious subject, but look at society at large. A broken society makes cash, and fosters people who love money, the root of all evil. I’ve been crying in the wilderness that the Treasury/ATF not only put automatic weapons into the hands of the drug cartels, possibly crashing the “honest” rule of Mexico and emplacing the long-time bad guys, but Treasury/IRS put billions from refund fraud into the hands of what were termed “drug dealers.” Both weapons and cash grants to thugs were via Washingtonians in this administration removing controls already in place. Might one imagine there are insiders somehow profiting from this chaos? Years ago the CIA was implicated in running drugs to ghettos to fund black-budget operations. Must we trust? We’re too nice, and project our niceness on others. That includes trusting church (small “c”) bureaucrats. By their fruits we know them. Churches are redecorated, and the government is dunned for welfare cash.

Divorce is so grave but where are parishes setting up hotlines and counselors and emergency shelters and economic opportunities networked with other Catholics? Keep the divorced from Communion but do provide generally pricey canon law work-arounds? Anybody have any INCENTIVE to prevent divorce, the most singular society killer known to man? Any lawyers making more money preventing divorce? Anybody making more money in two-parent scenarios? Nope. Sell two where one would do. Two couches, two refrigerators, two TV’s, two DVD’s, two coffee pots, two beds, two alarm systems, two dogs, two cops to pick up dad on a child support warrant, two jailers, government subsidies for beds filled in jail for daddy and bubba and sista…Divorce is “good” for the cannibal economy.

If there is no incentive in a system to make it better, unplug, please God. Unplug and regroup. Buying laissez-faire Capitalist-Communist “Made in China” goods? No soup for you. And what incentive is there for China to be our good neighbor? China sponsoring any softball teams?!? St. Benedict said to, "Pray and work. Let’s pray first.

Lord, we beg Thee, enlighten the eyes of our hearts and preserve us from the world, the flesh and the devil, wisely working Thy mighty and miraculous righteousness here and joining Thee in Heaven to help on Earth, all for Thy honor and glory. AMEN

Say, “AMEN” somebody!

 

[_Abyssinia]

Church teaching supports goverment providing a safety net but has been critical of the modern welfare state

Blessed John Paul ll in encyclical Centesimus Annus said

[D]efects in the Social Assistance State are the result of an inadequate understanding of the tasks proper to the State. Here again the principle of subsidiarity must be respected: a community of a higher order should not interfere in the internal life of a community of a lower order, depriving the latter of its functions, but rather should support it in case of need and help to coordinate its activity with the activities of the rest of society, always with a view to the common good. By intervening directly and depriving society of its responsibility, the Social Assistance State leads to a loss of human energies and an inordinate increase of public agencies, which are dominated more by bureaucratic thinking than by concern for serving their clients, and which are accompanied by an enormous increase in spending

 

[FaithInTheSon]

Church teaching supports goverment providing a safety net but has been critical of the modern welfare state

Blessed John Paul ll in encyclical Centesimus Annus said

I assume he wasn’t saying this in reference to Michigan in 2009 and up haha. Time’s have changed since then. Less welfare more profits for the rich less jobs more profits for the rich.

 

[FaithInTheSon]

There is only ONE industry in the world that has any incentive to see that our lives go wonderfully–INSURANCE.
Real Christians put together a para-insurance pool that excises smokers and drinkers, ChristianCare MediShare. This shared risk model is ideal. You can bet bubba will have sista urging more salad instead of a second helping of fried chicken if she’s in his insurance pool. Business-as-usual chancery types and politicos have done nothing to aid or institute even this one, easily computerized grand idea. We are indeed a house divided. And no wonder.

The model for many dioceses is to dun the faithful or the government for cash, not help organize us to help each other. Too much control would be lost. The small “c” church is fighting with both hands tied behind their proverbial back. We could have at cost food clubs but that would make Catholic grocery chains peevish. The Catholic corporate culture can unleash for remodeling churches with the incentive to have pricey weddings and happy contractors to later donate to the kitty.

And Catholics in general are so far out of control of their cash that THREE BILLION has been given to victims of clerical abuse with no accounting of who, what or where these funds came from, with no protest that these “reparations” were funding gag orders for kids to clam up. We are the mushroom people, kept in the dark and heavily covered with fertilizer.
medi-share.org/ms/lp/pi_12-6.aspx?leadsource=Internet-Search%20Engine&custentity_urlreferralid=GB-MediShare&mkwid=49iS8KJQ&pcrid=11887918586&gclid=CKDY7oWy_rICFRSSPAodv1wA3w

INCENTIVE! INCENTIVE! INCENTIVE! A great Democrat liberal suggested the scheme for direct payments, bypassing spendy bureaucrats. That went nowhere because it takes a village of bureaucrats to vote for politicos to raise taxes for politicos to spend on bureaucrats. Linked to INCENTIVES as Bill suggested–like the WorkFare reform recently vacated by Barack–would not only have saved bureaucrat slop, but put people on the ladder of success and out of the grasp of plantation politics. People were getting wealthier and homes getting more stable on WorkFare! So that had to go. Respectfully, we must throw these types of rascals out.

NOBODY HAS ANY INCENTIVE TO SEE THINGS WORK! WE ARE IN WHAT HAS BEEN TERMED A “CANNIBAL ECONOMY.” PEOPLE MAKE MORE MONEY WHEN THERE IS CHAOS! If there is no incentive for goodness in whatever action you or I take, we risk feeding the Beast. A Vanity Fair article a decade or so ago first introduced the term “cannibal economy” and they have had a more recent look at auto-self-destruction in the microcosmic analysis of MicroSoft here:
vanityfair.com/online/daily/2012/07/microsoft-downfall-emails-steve-ballmer

I’m a trained artist-designer. I love to ask the question, “What does it make when it breaks?” Nuclear energy is an obvious subject, but look at society at large. A broken society makes cash, and fosters people who love money, the root of all evil. I’ve been crying in the wilderness that the Treasury/ATF not only put automatic weapons into the hands of the drug cartels, possibly crashing the “honest” rule of Mexico and emplacing the long-time bad guys, but Treasury/IRS put billions from refund fraud into the hands of what were termed “drug dealers.” Both weapons and cash grants to thugs were via Washingtonians in this administration removing controls already in place. Might one imagine there are insiders somehow profiting from this chaos? Years ago the CIA was implicated in running drugs to ghettos to fund black-budget operations. Must we trust? We’re too nice, and project our niceness on others. That includes trusting church (small “c”) bureaucrats. By their fruits we know them. Churches are redecorated, and the government is dunned for welfare cash.

Divorce is so grave but where are parishes setting up hotlines and counselors and emergency shelters and economic opportunities networked with other Catholics? Keep the divorced from Communion but do provide generally pricey canon law work-arounds? Anybody have any INCENTIVE to prevent divorce, the most singular society killer known to man? Any lawyers making more money preventing divorce? Anybody making more money in two-parent scenarios? Nope. Sell two where one would do. Two couches, two refrigerators, two TV’s, two DVD’s, two coffee pots, two beds, two alarm systems, two dogs, two cops to pick up dad on a child support warrant, two jailers, government subsidies for beds filled in jail for daddy and bubba and sista…Divorce is “good” for the cannibal economy.

If there is no incentive in a system to make it better, unplug, please God. Unplug and regroup. Buying laissez-faire Capitalist-Communist “Made in China” goods? No soup for you. And what incentive is there for China to be our good neighbor? China sponsoring any softball teams?!? St. Benedict said to, "Pray and work. Let’s pray first.

Lord, we beg Thee, enlighten the eyes of our hearts and preserve us from the world, the flesh and the devil, wisely working Thy mighty and miraculous righteousness here and joining Thee in Heaven to help on Earth, all for Thy honor and glory. AMEN

Say, “AMEN” somebody!

Great post. One thing though you forgot to mention is that after they bring the drugs and charge 30,000 a key (nowadays) after paying 2,000 for it they get paid again every time someone gets caught.

 

[TimeEntrance]

Good !
I’m with you writer. The “welfare state is not a good state.” Some need help** but
churches do it better than government.** The important thing is to vote & express
your God-given right to freedom of conscience.

No they don’t. Which is why many secular Europeans point to predominately Catholic nations as producing more poverty, illiteracy, and ignorance than Protestant nations or the more secular agnostic and atheist nations of Northern Europe.

Bear in mind it was the Protestants that first initiated expanding primary and secondary education to children of impoverished households. The Catholics picked up on this. It was the United States that influenced the rest of the world in creating an extensive government funded public school system up to the second tier level.

The Catholic Church began its social justice teachings during the 19th Century with the rise and effects of the Industrial Revolutions. Many of those poor workers in horrific working and living conditions were Catholic. What I mean by that is that originally as a rule of thumb during the 19th Century Protestants were the educated professional class or skilled craftsmen while the Catholics - as a rule of thumb - were the under-educated, sometimes illiterate, non-skilled factory workers.

It was around the 19th Century that the Catholic Church seems to have broke away from the systems of aristocracy and the centuries of ancient Greco-Roman belief in a system of hierarchy of man that justified and authorized slavery.

Civilization is itself inherently hierarchical, so, with Christianity born under the era civilization it stands to reason in my mind it would embrace less egalitarian views.

But the Jesuit Reductions in Latin America as well as the Inca civilization stand as great models of how a society can be structured to take care of all as opposed to modern day Detroit city which in many respects is an utter disgrace to be in a so-called “First World” nation.

Mind you… there are some significant problems with the U.S. run welfare state. It certainly is not very efficiently run and it denies or under-serves a lot of people that should benefit from it while others exploit it to the point they become millionaires or some how earn six figures (i.e., the publicly funded day care center scams).

 

[TimeEntrance]

I can’t speak to the church and the welfare state as I know nothing about the subject. But I know quite a bit about people, human nature, disfunction, government entitlement programs, homelessness, etc and can speak to those things.

How many of you reading this who think that 90-100% of the homeless can’t work and if offered a job for a day making $300 they would turn it down? What about other populations of ‘the disenfranchized’ or whatever term you prefer to use? How many are going to stare at the person confused and walk away because a days work is too much for them at that price, or they are so mentally ill they can’t even understand the nature of the conversation?

When the government pays people to not work, I think it’s crazy for people to expect them to work. If my job paid me to not work, I wouldn’t work (well I love my job so I would show up maybe 2 1/2 days a week and do the parts of the job I like the most) but if they paid me not to work, I would not work. And the gov’t pays millions of people NOT TO WORK. So why would they work?

The system is broken. Why blame people for taking advantage of free money? (I’m not saying that you, the OP, was doing so…just making a general point). So I feel there is a lot of misdirected animosity when it comes to those who live off the taxes of others. They are told it’s their RIGHT! They are told they are ENTITLED to that money, the goods, services, etc they receive! So why get angry at them for developing additudes of entitlement towards that money and those goods and services? That makes absolutely NO SENSE to me.

Sure, one can argue that they ‘shouldn’t’ think or behave that way. But that argument can be used against anyone for pretty much anything. The heart of the problem is not some poor schmuck homeless guy…the problem is GOVERNMENT.

God Bless,
Bill

I’ll be the first to admit there are a lot of people that get entitlement programs and never intend to get off. Welfare especially under former AFDC system produced generations of so-called “Welfare Queens.”

And working with homeless in the U.S. can burn a person out because most of them - due to the “streets” - develop attitudes of ingratitude and “give me this” and “give me that” attitudes.

But things are not totally as you depict them. And I was homeless for a short period of time myself. I stayed down in the Mission (Evangelical Protestant run) and what a grimy place. Standing in a line butt naked with other men to shower. Then sleeping in military style bunk beds with open-ended hospital gowns on. As dirty and run down as it was (or is) it beats the streets especially during the freezing cold.

Just about all of the men there will put in a days work for $300. In fact, small business owners or people looking for help moving things etc. will drive up daily and the homeless guys will scramble like roaches to a plate of food to try and get picked for the job. We’d work for $40 or $60 so I don’t know what you’re talking about.

You’re talking about a very limited number of homeless men on government disability for mental illness and expanding that to all of the homeless men in the U.S.

For the United States being the richest nation on earth (in terms of GDP) - and richest by far - it sure is hard for men to get on disability or government assistance. Food stamps is far more easy to get on but even that is not totally easy. You can be homeless and qualify right away, for example. But you can’t be homeless and going to college at the same time unless you are working at least part time.

And the U.S. true unemployment figures are far higher than any administration ever reveals. If you ever take a first semester economics course you’ll see what I mean. People deemed “out of the work force” are not even computed in the unemployment figures. That’s just one way - there is at least one more way - the figures are tallied to be deceptive and smaller than the reality.

Brazil is one of the richest nations in the world in terms of GDP. In the United States the Republicans - like a right-wing Brazilian government under U.S. backed dictatorship - could undoubtedly grow the nations GDP rather impressively. But while economic growth in terms of an increased GDP is a conditional for reducing poverty, a rising GDP in and of itself does not mean a reduction in poverty will result. Economists recognized this after just about all right-wing governments of Latin America failed to reduce poverty while their national GDP’s grew. This spawned the branch of economics called “Developmental Economics.” Being mathematically challenged I can’t do it justice with all it’s complicated algebraic and calculus formulas. But I can say that it is taught that a nation (or city) must reinvest part of its national income back into the city and its people (e.g., students and workforce). As a rule of thumb better educated populations and workforces are more productive. Of course, this also means being educated in the advanced technologies used in X, Y, Z businesses.

If simply labor is all that matters to a Catholic I invite them to glory in and boast about the Brazilian favelas (technically squatter camps). It was quite common during the 1980’s and early 1990’s for favelados to work 2 and even 3 menial jobs and for their kids to drop out of grade school to go to work just to survive. Far from a lazy poor.

Although, admittedly, many of the poor throughout Latin America make choices in how to spend their money in ways that often results in being caught up in a cycle of poverty (e.g., buying a small radio instead of buying pencils for your child for school).

 

[TimeEntrance]

I wish I could as I am in Michigan I can not. I wish I could take you to some in Detroit though. I have only been outside of them but I used to encounter homeless on a daily basis. Some of them very smart obviously just left behind. Maybe that is part of where our different perspectives come from I suspected that because I have read your posts which I normally enjoy and I was already aware of most of what you just said.

Here politicians steal money like every1 is blind and every once in a while throw up a scapegoat for good measure. I tend to focus more on that.

Our poor people are completely screwed over I have nothing but sympathy. Sympathy is something that barely still exists in the city because it can get you killed. At the very least it will get you robbed. I think it is time to focus the attention on where all our money is going before we focus on how to re arrange it.

To give you a little insight on my perspective if you haven’t already read my other post: My best friend was killed by a 15 year old and his mom. He saw the 15 year old was about to get jumped, told the boys about to get jumped that he had warrants and to not do it (this was just to front them off, he really just didn’t want the kid to get jumped). They punched the boy one time. He told his mom. His mom gave him a gun and drove him to shoot into a crowd. He missed his targets and hit the only person I’ve ever been able to trust in the head. This also happens to be the same one that stopped him from getting jumped. The rest is in this article wchbnewsdetroit.com/3491/mom-helped-son-get-to-gun-worthy-says/ . They forget to mention he was holding the door for everyone else which is what got him hit (not to mention satan whispering to someone to tell him to “check his surroundings” which is obviously useless by the time the 4th shot is coming out of the barrel). I’m not mad. It was time for his harvest he had true faith. His faith became even stronger before he was harvested. I was mad for a long time until I improved my own faith.

The police took 15 minutes to catch the killers the ambulance took 1 hour to arrive. It would have taken the police a lot longer if it wasn’t on a main street. The nearest hospital was roughly 10 minutes away. He might have survived if it didn’t take that long. The same people that created the messed up laws are now profiting from the killers’ incarceration. The moms children will grow up without her guidance, the son will get out and have kids who will grow up without his because he is going to be a product of the system. I do not blame any of them if they get hooked on drugs and need free housing and some food. I’m sure kwamee kipatrick can spare a room at the mansion. He’s a scapegoat, imagine what the other players are getting away with every single year!’

This is not the only victim I have seen no far from it. This is just the closest to my heart.

So I do not judge them for their weakness. In the same way if you were too weak to climb out of your hole I would not have judged you. I have been plenty weak myself almost all of the time. We all have been.

Eh… Detroit.

(Sorry for your friend getting killed by the way)

I’m happy to be living in Milwaukee rather than Detroit; Flint, Michigan; Cleveland, or Gary, Indiana.

Milwaukee - while a shadow of its former glories during the 1960’s - is one of the better kept secrets of the Midwest. Actually, for a city its size, if you can land a decent job or do decently working for yourself, you can afford to live in some of the really decent areas and enjoy some of the best culture, restaurants, and various forms of entertainment the world has to offer.

Detroit is larger than Milwaukee and you guys have fewer snow plows than we do and have a smaller budget for your public schools than we do. I remember one year you guys had to get Federal assistance just to plow your major street - with the side streets going unplowed. Parents had to shovel school grounds by hand.

Eh… notice bombing Iraq and Afghanistan and then spending how many billions rebuilding them is not “welfare.” What I find interesting there is never any money supposedly, until it comes time to go to war and/or rebuild some country we bombed to ruins. Then all of sudden there is more than enough money to be found.

I don’t know if you ever watched “Million Dollar Rooms” or “Selling L.A.” or “Selling New York”? It will boggle your mind the amount of luxury some individual Americans live in. Especially the show and series Million Dollar Room. They make Vatican City look like paupers. I’m waiting for the day when entire U.S. suburbs get put up for sell and bought by individual super-rich Americans for their own private resort homes.

To give you a taste - and these aren’t even the most awing rooms and outdoor areas on the show I’ve seen - here are two clips:

1. youtube.com/watch?v=cps42IRMGFE
2. youtube.com/watch?v=IH0scbtpgS8&feature=related

Bear in mind I do not begrudge these people for their wealth or spectacular personal homes (or in this case garages and indoor pools). I’m more awed than anything. I had no idea I had so little (relative to the very rich) until I started seeing some of these shows. Now I know how some Peruvian Indians may not realize how little they have relative to me and other poor Americans.

 

[nordskoven]

Today’s Gospel: The Rich Young Man
“Sell all you have and give it to the poor and come follow me.”
“Dude, where’s my chariot?”

 

[iloveangels]

Today’s Gospel: The Rich Young Man
“Sell all you have and give it to the poor and come follow me.”
“Dude, where’s my chariot?”

I get totally sick of this topic.

Christ never said, “Go out and make socialists.”

Charity does not consist of getting government money so that we can hire people to do social work. That’s acting as an arm of the government. It has nothing to do with religion. Nothing.

Charity is going out YOURSELF and doing what you can YOURSELF for the love of God and for the love of other people. It doesn’t matter if it’s a small amount or a big amount. That’s not the point. The point is that YOU did it YOURSELF in the name of GOD.

 

[RPRPsych]

There is only ONE industry in the world that has any incentive to see that our lives go wonderfully–INSURANCE.
Real Christians put together a para-insurance pool that excises smokers and drinkers, ChristianCare MediShare. This shared risk model is ideal. You can bet bubba will have sista urging more salad instead of a second helping of fried chicken if she’s in his insurance pool. Business-as-usual chancery types and politicos have done nothing to aid or institute even this one, easily computerized grand idea. We are indeed a house divided. And no wonder.

The model for many dioceses is to dun the faithful or the government for cash, not help organize us to help each other. Too much control would be lost. The small “c” church is fighting with both hands tied behind their proverbial back. We could have at cost food clubs but that would make Catholic grocery chains peevish. The Catholic corporate culture can unleash for remodeling churches with the incentive to have pricey weddings and happy contractors to later donate to the kitty.

And Catholics in general are so far out of control of their cash that THREE BILLION has been given to victims of clerical abuse with no accounting of who, what or where these funds came from, with no protest that these “reparations” were funding gag orders for kids to clam up. We are the mushroom people, kept in the dark and heavily covered with fertilizer.
medi-share.org/ms/lp/pi_12-6.aspx?leadsource=Internet-Search%20Engine&custentity_urlreferralid=GB-MediShare&mkwid=49iS8KJQ&pcrid=11887918586&gclid=CKDY7oWy_rICFRSSPAodv1wA3w

INCENTIVE! INCENTIVE! INCENTIVE! A great Democrat liberal suggested the scheme for direct payments, bypassing spendy bureaucrats. That went nowhere because it takes a village of bureaucrats to vote for politicos to raise taxes for politicos to spend on bureaucrats. Linked to INCENTIVES as Bill suggested–like the WorkFare reform recently vacated by Barack–would not only have saved bureaucrat slop, but put people on the ladder of success and out of the grasp of plantation politics. People were getting wealthier and homes getting more stable on WorkFare! So that had to go. Respectfully, we must throw these types of rascals out.

NOBODY HAS ANY INCENTIVE TO SEE THINGS WORK! WE ARE IN WHAT HAS BEEN TERMED A “CANNIBAL ECONOMY.” PEOPLE MAKE MORE MONEY WHEN THERE IS CHAOS! If there is no incentive for goodness in whatever action you or I take, we risk feeding the Beast. A Vanity Fair article a decade or so ago first introduced the term “cannibal economy” and they have had a more recent look at auto-self-destruction in the microcosmic analysis of MicroSoft here:
vanityfair.com/online/daily/2012/07/microsoft-downfall-emails-steve-ballmer

I’m a trained artist-designer. I love to ask the question, “What does it make when it breaks?” Nuclear energy is an obvious subject, but look at society at large. A broken society makes cash, and fosters people who love money, the root of all evil. I’ve been crying in the wilderness that the Treasury/ATF not only put automatic weapons into the hands of the drug cartels, possibly crashing the “honest” rule of Mexico and emplacing the long-time bad guys, but Treasury/IRS put billions from refund fraud into the hands of what were termed “drug dealers.” Both weapons and cash grants to thugs were via Washingtonians in this administration removing controls already in place. Might one imagine there are insiders somehow profiting from this chaos? Years ago the CIA was implicated in running drugs to ghettos to fund black-budget operations. Must we trust? We’re too nice, and project our niceness on others. That includes trusting church (small “c”) bureaucrats. By their fruits we know them. Churches are redecorated, and the government is dunned for welfare cash.

Divorce is so grave but where are parishes setting up hotlines and counselors and emergency shelters and economic opportunities networked with other Catholics? Keep the divorced from Communion but do provide generally pricey canon law work-arounds? Anybody have any INCENTIVE to prevent divorce, the most singular society killer known to man? Any lawyers making more money preventing divorce? Anybody making more money in two-parent scenarios? Nope. Sell two where one would do. Two couches, two refrigerators, two TV’s, two DVD’s, two coffee pots, two beds, two alarm systems, two dogs, two cops to pick up dad on a child support warrant, two jailers, government subsidies for beds filled in jail for daddy and bubba and sista…Divorce is “good” for the cannibal economy.

If there is no incentive in a system to make it better, unplug, please God. Unplug and regroup. Buying laissez-faire Capitalist-Communist “Made in China” goods? No soup for you. And what incentive is there for China to be our good neighbor? China sponsoring any softball teams?!? St. Benedict said to, "Pray and work. Let’s pray first.

Lord, we beg Thee, enlighten the eyes of our hearts and preserve us from the world, the flesh and the devil, wisely working Thy mighty and miraculous righteousness here and joining Thee in Heaven to help on Earth, all for Thy honor and glory. AMEN

Say, “AMEN” somebody!

I’ll agree with you on this one, my friend.

 

[zenith15]

Getting Section housing is almost impossible the list is a mile long. I know people that get less than 200 a month for food and no other assistance. I knew people that get no money from the gvt and are homeless.

Good thing is priority goes to families. Bad thing is people keep playing up this stereotype that people will have more kids to get more money. Extra couple thousand a year from the gvt will not make up for 10s of thousands the kids will cost. People do joke about it but it shouldn’t be taken seriously.

If they can get disability they DESERVE IT do you know how hard it is to get disability for most people? It takes years. Well IDK about where you live though I have to assume some states are more advanced.

Most people that are homeless would have gotten a job if they could. They have things that prevent them from getting a job. Criminal record/physically incapable of labor jobs cant get a desk job/extreme bad luck/ bad job history…the list goes on. Society is judgmental and doesn’t care to help as much as you might think. ESPECIALLY in areas of poverty.

I don’t care about politics because they are a scam. I do care about the future of the country though. There is two versions of reality - what it should be like and what it is like.
There are two versions of a politician - what they say they will do and what they will do. What is the point? We need more options. Red pill or blue pill? Both are going to mess your world all up what is the point.

Couldn’t agree more. I was refused a job at Wal Mart–an entry level job–because I didn’t have “excellent credit” due to medical bills I could not pay because I have no health insurance and cannot GET health insurance. They told me they feel that if a person has less then great credit, they might steal from the store. But they were ok with people who had actual criminal records.

Nowadays, it is extremely hard to get a job for any number of reasons. Some have small children who would cost more to put in daycare than they could possibly earn at a low wage job. Can’t go to school to get a better job if you can’t afford childcare, tuition, books, transportation, and to pay your bills. And for whoever said you get $15 an hour from the Govt to sit around the house–really? Not in my state. You don’t get anything even close to that. No one on welfare makes enough money to live on.

As for disability, it’s no easy thing to get, as this poster noted. My husband became severely disabled with end stage liver disease and had to apply three times for disability, finally having to hire a lawyer which is almost always a necessity, and who took 40% of his back payments once he won, and when it finally came before the SSD judge, he was appalled my husband had ever been turned down as it was blatantly obvious how very ill he was. Then, once you GET disability, you have to wait another two YEARS to qualify for Medicare. SO meanwhile, unless you are insured through a working spouse, there is no way you can get medical iinsurance–you can’t get a private policy because you are too ill, and you obviously can’t work and get insurance that way, and if you get insured through the state high risk pool, it costs over $1,000 a month just for catastrophic care coverage with a 5K deductible, and pays nothing for Dr Visits, Rx, tests, etc. Obviously the govt is hoping you will die in the ensuing two year wait without medical care.

Now–do you really think that private charitable contributions will cover that sort of thing? To what charitable agency would one go with extremely high dollar ongoing medical needs in situations like that? The local parish? Have a backyard fundraiser for a few hundred bucks? No. And until you have watched someone you love literally die from lack of affordable medical care as you scramble and beg and scrabble and make thousands of panicked phone calls to try and help them–someone who worked hard all their life–you have no idea how it feels.

It makes me so sad to hear people talk about how they are sick and tired of these horrid lazy poor people taking their hard earned bucks. Jesus said “Give all you have to the poor and follow me”, not “hang onto all your material goods with both fists and use all your strength to obtain more goods and prevent them from going to the poor”. I never heard of Jesus making snippity remarks about the poor, or about how they need to stop mooching off decent people and be made to deserve the charity they are so resentfully given by “taking hygiene classes”, etc. He just said, give. Give with a full heart. Give and give some more. And render unto Ceasar what is Ceasar’s. If Ceasar wants to use those tax dollars to help the poor, so be it. Beyond voting, that’s not for us to say.

I have been middle class, and I have been poor. Other than my husband’s disability income, I have never received any type of welfare whatsoever. But being poor has opened my eyes to many things I was unaware of when I was not poor, and how many road blocks stand in the way of those who do want to better themselves and their situation, and of how limited private charity is in it’s ability to help with the big problems.

 

[iloveangels]

Couldn’t agree more. I was refused a job at Wal Mart–an entry level job–because I didn’t have “excellent credit” due to medical bills I could not pay because I have no health insurance and cannot GET health insurance. They told me they feel that if a person has less then great credit, they might steal from the store. But they were ok with people who had actual criminal records. …

Those are all secular & political problems.
There’s nothing religious in this post at all.

 

[Elizabeth502]

As at least one other poster has mentioned, the Church does not support the welfare state. The Church supports primarily the responsibility of all of those not in severe need to help out, to our ability, those in serious need. To a limited extent the Church also supports emergency or essential government aid for the very poor for those who are not receiving aid through other means.

There is no approved Church teaching which promotes government aid on a broad basis, indefinitely, and as the primary instrument of poverty relief for all those “in need.” Clergy and hierarchy regularly remind us Catholics to investigate how the poor are or are not being served, and to what extent any sub-populations of the poor legitimately rely on some aspects of government aid. The Church does not advocate the government replacing, en masse, other agencies of giving.

That said, I am disappointed that there is not nearly the visibility of the needs of the poor from the pulpit. There is a Church I know of which devotes part of each Sunday’s collection to a specific need (on a rotating basis), naming that need from the pulpit each time. Some of those private agencies needing contributions are domestic, some international. There is a brief description of whom/what that agency serves, and the money is applied directly to relief. Most of the time the agencies are not involving themselves in cash handouts, either, but in efforts such as job training, school supplies, medical intervention, and other kinds of practical but non-monetary support – all of which do need dollars for the service provided.

I admire that parish for not being lazy, such as merely waiting for the annual Appeals and things like CRS. I far prefer, when I can, to give to small private concerns unobstructed by “middle men” and not subject to decisions as to where (which cause) my money is going. (such as happens with CRS, the secular organization United Way, etc.)

There are all kinds of wonderful organizations which need publicity; this parish helps with that, and I tip my hat to them. Those who can’t give to that collection will know the name of the orgnaization & can give directly to them at a later time. The only other way I hear publicity about effective charity is on local news shows, which feature stories about very small NGO’s which provide professional makeovers & re-employment support to re-entry women, others which provide transitional support for those leaving prison, shelters protecting battered women – all kinds of gospel initiatives, although almost all of these are secular. But the point is, that individual parishes can be wonderful clearninghouses for such needy and worthwhile projects, and every parish should commit to such announcements as a gospel mandate, i.m.o.

It needn’t be an explicitly or formally “Catholic” group for Catholics to support it with dollars.