Your Political Ideology?

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CivisRomanusSum

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Hi guys! I was wondering what your political views/ideologies are. Please also indicate how this relates with your religious beliefs, especially for Catholics with the Church’s Social Teaching. Let’s be specific if we can 🙂

I myself am Conservative; I’m for Liberal conservatism to be more specific, Center-Right 🙂 This position to me generally conforms with Church teaching, and is flexible enough for individual discernment I suppose. How about you?

Erratum: It’s supposed to be Conservatism in the poll, not Conservativism haha. My bad 🙂
 
Maybe consider putting in a poll?

I’m politically conservative in most respects.
 
I’m not a big fan of ideology. Ideologues tend to get end up defending the indefensible due to their ideology. I prefer to be a pragmatist, a balanced approach.

To me ideology is really a form of idolatry and should be avoided. What really irks me are those who attach their ideology to whatever particular flavour of Christianity they adhere to, by saying Jesus wants us to be (insert ideology here)… and I’ve seen that on both sides of the fence (liberal or conservative). In Canada for instance, the United Church bends over backwards to be very liberal and support liberal causes, whereas Evangelicals often do the exact opposite.

The only values I am inflexible on are the values of life, in particular, I am completely against abortion and 110% behind the Church on that issue.
 
OraLabora said:
I’m not a big fan of ideology. Ideologues tend to get end up defending the indefensible due to their ideology. I prefer to be a pragmatist, a balanced approach.

To me ideology is really a form of idolatry and should be avoided. What really irks me are those who attach their ideology to whatever particular flavour of Christianity they adhere to, by saying Jesus wants us to be (insert ideology here)… and I’ve seen that on both sides of the fence (liberal or conservative). In Canada for instance, the United Church bends over backwards to be very liberal and support liberal causes, whereas Evangelicals often do the exact opposite.

The only values I am inflexible on are the values of life, in particular, I am completely against abortion and 110% behind the Church on that issue.
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Hmm I don’t think that adhering to ideologies is a form of idolatry, but I do believe that extremism/fundamentalism/radicalism to a certain ideology could lead to idolatrous acts, and also acts that are certainly harmful to others. Case in point: Most, if not all, communist regimes are atheist regimes, and adhere to their ideology or founder (or both) as almost (if not totally) infallible, which might as well be considered idolatry because they place the state or an idea before God or as equal to God. You wouldn’t expect Christians like us to be all too happy about North Koreans thanking Kim Jong-Il for their meals instead of saying grace, which is properly attributed to God.
 
I indicated “Other,” for a few reasons.

First, I dislike what is often conceived of as the modern political spectrum. Most of the people we call “conservatives” or “rightists” today are really just different kinds of liberals, and most of the “conservative” institutions they think they’re defending (the free market, for instance) are really just earlier liberal institutions which most self-identified liberals today have abandoned. There are some respects in which I agree with modern “conservatives,” for instance in my opposition to gay marriage and abortion (both of which are weakening on the secular American “right”), but I find their warmongering and soldier-worship intolerable, as well as their willingness to pick up any left-wing trope they can use to bludgeon Muslims, their fetishization of greed, and their belief in the supremacy of economic motives and economic ends over all others.

I dislike liberalism even more, obviously, in that I view them as the champions of the modern philosophical movement, a giant protracted heresy and a massive moral and intellectual blunder that has more or less ruined the Western world, possibly for good, and condemned millions of souls to Hell. On the very few issues on which I agree with liberals, I hate the means they used to reach those positions and the means they have of implementing them. I see them as the ideological embodiment of the culture death; a movement devoted to the destruction of society and the suicide of all who adhere to it.

I believe freedom is a good, but not the only good, and even then only when properly understood. I see community, authority, and tradition as other goods, equally (perhaps moreso) important. I hate the Western notion of individualism but believe in a kind of “personalism,” which views the individual not as a creature of rights but as a creature of duties, who finds the fullest expression of his character in the carrying-out of his obligations. Again, I hate the enthronment of economic values like the pursuit of wealth and private property as supreme; I suppose I support something like distributist, agrarian, perhaps even neofeudal economics. I think a more humanely organized, essentially Middle Age society (in terms of values) would be ideal.
 
Burkeian Whig, basically, but I can think for myself. I’m hardcore foreign policy conservative (and the last person who supports who the Iraq war).
 
I am basically liberal on most issues. At the same time, however, I like to take each issue individually and decide on the basis of its own merits, without superimposing a preconceived perspective, so I don’t consider myself a true ideologue. I think this approach conforms to my belief in liberal, Reform Judaism.
 
I am probably closer to sw85 than anything else, but don’t know enough about distributism to say for sure and am not very agrarian.

My aim, which I have not yet attained (still learning), is to have a totally Catholoc perspective on politics. I have moderated a lot of my views as a result–I used to have too strong of a libertarian/individualist base.

I tend to vote and argue to the right, for several reasons. Two main ones are 1. I think that the right would allow for a blossoming of Catholic politics more than the left would; and 2. in my research I have come to believe that the way the leaders of the left think is based on an unattainable ideal centered on a God-less view of the perfectibility of man.
 
Rascalking said:
Burkeian Whig, basically, but I can think for myself. I’m hardcore foreign policy conservative (and the last person who supports who the Iraq war).
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I guess that makes me the second-to-last person who supports the Iraq War.

I’m a Constitutional Conservative.
 
starshiptrooper said:
I guess that makes me the second-to-last person who supports the Iraq War.

I’m a Constitutional Conservative.
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Good to see another person who agrees.

By the way-Adam Smith, the person you quoted, is an outstanding economist! Do you read Freidman or Hayek too?
 
I selected “Other” because “Conservative” isn’t strong enough to describe my beliefs. Let’s say I’m just an Absolute Monarchist, but not with any of the Enlightenment-era connotations of disestablishment and land-grabs. 😉
 
Rascalking said:
Good to see another person who agrees.

By the way-Adam Smith, the person you quoted, is an outstanding economist! Do you read Freidman or Hayek too?
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I just started reading The Wealth of Nations, fascinating book. Unfortunately, I have not read anything by Freidman or Hayek. Would you recommend any specific titles by these two authors?

As a side note, I don’t see why Constitutionalism was an option in the poll. The Constitution tells us how things should be done and who has the authority to do certain things. However, it is possible to enact any sort of policy under the Constitution. It might be necessary to amend the Constitution to do it, but the Constitution allows us to change the parts that we want to change. I hope this makes sense. :o
 
starshiptrooper said:
I just started reading The Wealth of Nations, fascinating book. Unfortunately, I have not read anything by Freidman or Hayek. Would you recommend any specific titles by these two authors?
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Start with the standards, “Free to Choose” by Friedman and “The Road to Serfdom” by Hayek.

I don’t agree with either one 100 percent (no one will agree with you everything) but both are great reads.

Good luck!
 
I thoroughly enjoy politics and considered getting involved but I could never fit into either party. I am very conservative on social issues, moderately liberal on fiscal issues. I prefer to call my political views “Catholicism” 😉 but that would not be fair to others that disagree with me while still remaining faithful to the teachings of the Church.

As has been said before, I hate it when people say that the Church is either entirely conservative or entirely liberal. Her teachings don’t fit either party’s platform.
 
I would say I am a sceptical pragmatist of a conservative persuasion. I am more of an Aristotlean than a Modern. Social and political issues are too complicated to be reduced to ideological frameworks. Ideological systems all too often offer a rigid intellectual template that excuses people from thinking things through and from exercising genuine political judgment (phronesis). Libertarians and Marxists are probably the worse in this regard.

These two quotations come close to summing up my point of view:
“There is always an easy solution to every human problem—neat, plausible and wrong.”
–Henry L. Mencken, “The Divine Afflatus” in A Mencken Chrestomathy
“Conservative, n. A statesman who is enamored of existing evils, as distinguished from the Liberal, who wishes to replace them with others.”
–Ambrose Bierce The Devil’s Dictionary
 
Mark 8:6: For what shall it profit a man, if he shall gain the whole world, and lose his own soul?

Good Civil Law must comport well with Moral Law.

No political ideology fully fits well with Moral Law.

I think Conversative principles come the closest. But many Conservatives forget the need to stay with Moral Law.

Many Liberals seem to think it is loving the way God intended us to love when laws allow more use of drugs, more divorce, more abortion, more same sex unions, more handouts rather than a hand up.
 
CivisRomanusSum said:
Hi guys! I was wondering what your political views/ideologies are. Please also indicate how this relates with your religious beliefs, especially for Catholics with the Church’s Social Teaching. Let’s be specific if we can 🙂

I myself am Conservative; I’m for Liberal conservatism to be more specific, Center-Right 🙂 This position to me generally conforms with Church teaching, and is flexible enough for individual discernment I suppose. How about you?

Erratum: It’s supposed to be Conservatism in the poll, not Conservativism haha. My bad 🙂
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I’m with you. The liberal arts are very effective to help one open the mind, but many people take it too far by getting sucked into worshipping the pop culture media for the sake of personal entertainment. One cannot worship 2 masters.
 
I object to the categories altogether because they have changed so much over time that they don’t mean the same thing to any two people.

In the sixties I was considered a Liberal because I believed James Meredith should be admitted to the University of Mississippi on his qualifications and not denied admission due to his race. Today I believe everyone should be admitted to universities based on relevant qualifications and no one should be denied admission because of race. Apparently that now makes me an extreme conservative who opposes affirmative action. The very same principle now has the opposite label.

Besides that, you need about 300,000,000 more categories. I can’t seem to find anyone who agrees with me on every issue. Sometimes I even disagree with individual bishops whom I love on Social Security, casinos, and the ability of society to protect itself from violent criminals without the ability to execute some of the worst offenders.

I believe in personal responsibility, equal protection under the law, living within our means, and dealing with community issues at the lowest possible level. What label do I get for that?
 
The shifting meanings of the labels make this difficult.

Using the Anno Domini 2011 labels, I suppose that I’m conservative. I can certainly say that I find ‘statist’ solutions to be unpalatable. (Mind, I don’t want to ride the libertarian train to the last stop either.) I see a rough equivalence between the concept of federalism, as limned in the Tenth Amendment to the US Constitution and the idea of subsidiarity from Holy Mother Church.

I’m at odds with many of today’s political conservatives because I take a very restrictive view on capital punishment. I’m absolutely opposed to the current liberal position on abortion and euthanasia. I also find myself persona non grata with the social justice crowd in my parish because I don’t see voting to spend other peoples’ money to grow a welfare state (where many of the policies have been corrosive to family life and prove to be self-perpetuating) as a moral good, an obligation, or even desirable. I would differentiate between giving alms, as a moral good, and voting to force you to give alms via your tax obligation to the state. The latter would be at best morally neutral and perhaps even pernicious, if it led you to ignore the poor because ‘you gave at the office.’

I want to be Catholic first and walk the path that such a commitment demands of me. Sometimes it means that I’ll side with the conservatives and perhaps less frequently with the liberals… even if it finds me out on a limb, alone.

Perhaps I should solicit prayers for my formation, that I might truly see the obligations that God has put before me. (And similar prayers for our national leaders can’t hurt either.)
 
CivisRomanusSum said:
Hi guys! I was wondering what your political views/ideologies are. Please also indicate how this relates with your religious beliefs, especially for Catholics with the Church’s Social Teaching. Let’s be specific if we can 🙂

I myself am Conservative; I’m for Liberal conservatism to be more specific, Center-Right 🙂 This position to me generally conforms with Church teaching, and is flexible enough for individual discernment I suppose. How about you?

Erratum: It’s supposed to be Conservatism in the poll, not Conservativism haha. My bad 🙂
Click to expand...
Socially conservative, fiscally (and pretty much everything else) liberal.

Outside of abortion and gay marriage, I’m liberal.
I like to consider myself an old school labor Catholic.
 
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