Posted on 12/16/2013 3:41:05 PM PST by NYer
I think for the first time since encountering you on FR, I find myself in complete agreement with what you have said in a particular post. (This one). Haha
Not only that, but I think what you said here is a brilliantly simple way to encapsulate the truth of the matter in this topic of “Rush vs the Pope”.
Thank you.
>Jesus said we would always have the poor with us<
This is the problem with all collectivist thought - they think they can create a utopia (heaven on earth) where everyone is prosperous and happy. Unfortunately, sin doesn’t allow for that. Sin always corrupts their utopian plans with unintended consequences, and things often end up worse than before they began. As I mentioned before, free market capitalism is the best system we have for creating prosperity and minimizing poverty. However, there will always be sinners making messes within that system.
>Marxism, I think, destroys the compassion we should have for the unfortunate by forced distributism. The Lord loves a “cheerful giver”.<
Yeah - hard to be a “cheerful giver” when Marxism takes everything you own.
All types of collectivism create an us-versus-them attitude, pitting the haves against the have-nots. Naturally this creates a double wall of bitterness. The have-nots demand to be taken care of and resent those they think owe them, and the haves feel unduly put upon. Not exactly a recipe for happy utopia.
Please keep me posted, friend.
“For even when we were with you, we gave you this rule: “The one who is unwilling to work shall not eat.”
It’s a shame the Pope chose not to comment on this verse...
It is impossible for Marxists to be good people. It’s like saying that rapists are still good people.
Of course it was NOT about ideology.
Christianity (i.e. the following of the Way of Yeshua) is in no way ideology. Francis was giving his interpretation of the will of Yeshua. He has no ideological platform.
You being less than educated, err on the meaning of Distributism.
It is for this reason that Marxists consider capitalism the final stage before "socialism." Previous social systems had ancestral hierarchies in which people were largely frozen in whatever class they were born in (one could make the argument that the highly stratified medieval European society descended ultimately from the hindu caste system). Capitalism is regarded by Marxists as a positive good for having destroyed this and replacing it with an inorganic hierarchy based on ownership of productive property. All that remains now (according to them) is to supersede this final class division with a "classless society."
American conservatives should really study the conservatism of other cultures more than they do. They would learn, for one thing, why Fascism is considered "right wing" even though it was a totalitarian, collectivist, statist system. Despite all the claims that Fascism and Nazism were left wing, plenty of anti-Communists (including right wing Zionist 'Abba 'Achime'ir) considered totalitarian fascism as the ultimate antidote to totalitarian Communism. Some conservatives attribute the evils of Marxism to its "individualism" (patriotism and national identity are, after all, collective).
I myself of course consider G-d's Law as the ultimate antidote to all our problems. The Theocracy of Biblical Israel is not really fit in with any modern system. It was not the highly stratified society of medieval Europe, but neither was its ideology identical to that of eighteenth century American revolutionaries (there was certainly no "freedom of religion" as is so dear to American Protestants). It seems more capitalistic than traditional European chrstianity, but at the same time Divine Law commanded everyone to give to charity and there was a tithe for the poor taken up at certain times, as well as the right of the poor to glean in the fields and from the corners of vineyards. Maybe qualified poseqim should devote some time to studying these problems and coming up with practical solutions as to how to begin implementing a G-dly society even in these days before Mashiach.
I find myself between a rock and a hard place in this argument, as both free markets and the "organic" systems of European conservatives are flawed, as are all human systems. Capitalism indeed does create more wealth than any other system in history, but this voluminous wealth does not automatically make it into the hands of the needy who aren't able to work themselves. And as for distributism or social credit (its Protestant counterpart) carry the whiff of anti-Semitism as well as being a pull to the Left in the American context.
I do feel that some make an idol of capitalism just as they do of other economic systems. Some have an almost utopian concept of the free market. But that does not mean any alternative is better. There is simply no perfect system and never will be until HaShem is acknowledged as King over all the earth.
In the past I often thought that the insistence on correct economics was a mistake, since it prevented an alliance with other communities (the much vaunted "Blacks and Hispanics") who were economically liberal but socially conservative (after all, should sexual morality really be inextricably tied to a single economic system?). But I see now that these "socially conservative" communities aren't really socially conservative at all. Still, sexual morality is certainly more important and more central than economic speculation of any kind.
Just my thoughts.
I have often pointed out that the JBS-right is in some sense a descendant of the old late nineteenth century Populist movement which was a sort of rural socialism whose beneficiaries were to be poor whites. This explains why some conservatives adore socialists like Huey P. Long and Father Coughlin while the Left ignores or demonizes them, in spite of their own leftist rhetoric. Many of these conservatives advocate the nationalization of the Fed or even the entire economic sector, and believe fiat currency printed by the government rather than by a central bank will solve all the problems in the world. Their rogues' gallery also is identical with that of the Populists: the old Federalist New England and New York families who were largely affiliated with the Republican party. There is also some interplay with the anti-capitalist and medievalist ideology of the Old South and of the Confederacy, whose apologists seem to have fewer objections to the "right kind" of socialists.
Many of the "old right" during the New Deal who opposed intervention in World War II were in fact old leftist radicals who simply maintained their original pacifist beliefs even when confronted with a war against "fascism." Kind of ironic, given how "palaeos" are always calling "neoconservatives" former leftists!
One of the JBS' heroes was Charles Lindbergh SR., a radical (and anti-Catholic) populist politician from Minnesota who was an early member of the left wing Minnesota Farmer-Labor Party. Needless to say, his son's struggle against "Jewish international bankers" is regarded as the continuation of his father's noble mission.
Irishjuggler,
You make a very good point. While there are some people who take an ideology to criminal extremes (e.g. communists and Nazis), there are others who are well intentioned, even though they may be misguided.
I’m reminded of the book “The Rape of Nanking” which recorded that John Rabe, who was a German Nazi party member, lead a safety zone which saved numerous Chinese from Japanese aggression during WWII.
So I can’t disagree with the Pope’s statement that he has met many good Marxists. There can be genuinely good people are are caught up in a wrong ideology.
In addition, it could be pointed out that the framers of our country used the term ‘liberal’ in much the same sense that conservative is used today.
In fact, the idea of distributism is better expressed in a country like the United States, where there is a very large middle class and generally smaller numbers of very rich and very poor.
The opposite is what you see in many Central and South American countries, where you have a small amount of very wealthy (e.g. Mexico) who control nearly all of the wealth and a huge number of poor or lower class people with hardly any middle class to speak of.
Unfortunately the trend is the USA to look more like Mexico if we keep going down Obama’s path. As our middle class shrinks due to globalization and the concentration of wealth it will inevitably look more like the Mexico’s of the world.
The Pope’s experience is probably informed by the crony capitalism found in many of the South American countries, where wealthy interests manipulate and screw over both the middle-class and the poor. Unfortunately, our politicians in the Democrat and GOPe parties seems to want to do the same thing to us.
>> “In fact, the idea of distributism is better expressed in a country like the United States, where there is a very large middle class and generally smaller numbers of very rich and very poor.” <<
.
Precisely.
Education is at a rock bottom low in this country.
Chiang-Kai Chek was a distributist. His policies made it possible for Taiwanese farmers to become landowners rather than de facto serfs. You can't expect people to defend an ideology based on private property in the abstract when the reality consists of 99% of the population being non-property holders. Opposition to Communism and Socialism becomes a prerogative when you're defending your land and work.
This is why Communist ideology found little support in the US but found plenty of support among Third World peasants. In the US, most people are either property holders or have the realistic prospect of becoming property holders. Therefore, there's no sympathy for an ideology that promises to abolish private property.
In contrast, "private property" in Latin America means the wealth of a handful of families and their cronies. Why would a peasant fight and die to defend somebody else's land and wealth from usurping revolutionaries, especially when the revolutionary promises to give him a cut of the plunder?
Without an affluent middle class, not only do you not have "distributism," you don't have stable capitalism either, unless it's maintained by an autocratic police state.
One of the many reasons that the United States is starting to resemble Mexico socio-economically is that both parties are hell-bent on importing most of Mexico into the US. What better way to erode the US Middle class and its political power by replacing them demographically with third world slum dwellers and illiterate dime-a-day unskilled grunt laborers?
Well said and it is remarkable how few people “get it”. In order for a true “Utopia” to come about, the sin nature of man must be utterly eliminated. Until that happens, all attempts at creating it will be futile.
A most excellent article, which I have read and bookmarked - thanks for posting the link to it.
He's from South America, so I'm sure he has also met a lot of Nazis who are good people.
>Of course it was NOT about ideology.<
>You being less than educated, err on the meaning of Distributism.<
Economics isn’t about ideology?!? Give it up already. Attacking Rush is irrelevant. Now you are attacking me. Stick to the issues of the OP.
You’re the loose cannon on this thread, just look around.
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