Nobel Peace Prize Prez: Thumbs up on Child Soldiers

Bational Catholic Register Blog ^ | November 22, 2010 | Mark Shea

[Mrs. Don-o]

Our Nobel Peace Prize Winning President Barack Obama (“Winner: 2009 Prize for Being the Darling of the Euro Left”) has, yet again betrayed the suckers who took him seriously as some sort of Messianic Bringer of Peace.

First, it was the move (on the heels of the Nobel Prize) to increase troop levels in order to prop up a failed third world narco state with no clear plan of what to do besides get Americans killed in pointless battles. [snip]

Sec’y of Defense Robert Gates... plainly stated, “We’re not leaving Afghanistan prematurely. In fact, we’re not ever leaving at all.”

Then... Obama voted himself the power to murder anybody on planet Earth, civilian or foreign, whom he deemed (by his all-knowing power) to be an “enemy combatant”.

[snip]

But no worries, because Obama says his power to murder citizens he deems undesirable is a “state secret” and therefore cannot be investigated by prying subjects who want to know if Caesar is entirely motivated by the desire to, as he always puts it, “keep us safe.”

...In yet another breathtaking betrayal, Obama has declared that the US will support nations which make a habit of kidnapping children and forcing them to fight in some of the bloodiest battleground in the world—just so long as they are doing it to support our Grand War on Terror.

The administration stunned human rights groups last month by sidestepping a commitment to help countries curb the military exploitation of children. Josh Rogin at Foreign Policy reported that President Obama issued a presidential memorandum granting waivers from the Child Soldiers Prevention Act to four countries: Chad, the Democratic Republic of the Congo, Sudan and Yemen...despite their failure to comply with the rules Congress passed and George W. Bush signed in 2008.

[more]

[pallis]

This goes along with the supposition that Obamao is first and foremost a dictator in the mold of African dictators, our very own Mugabe.

[blackbart.223]

"By American standards, he's the anti-Christ. But by Kenyan standards, he's an above average achiever.

By any standard he is a danger to The Republic.

[The Comedian]

It's like judging the quality of a tape worm.

To the host, it's a life-threatening, disgusting parasite that must be exterminated at any cost.

To other tape worms, it's a success story.

Frowning takes 68 muscles.
Smiling takes 6.
Pulling this trigger takes 2.
I'm lazy.

[blackbart.223]

"To other tape worms, it's a success story."

The other tapeworms are trying to affect the body politic here. The current tapeworm is seen as weak. Not a good thing for us.

[mimaw]

Why aren't things like this spoken about from the pulpits of our churches? Why aren't our bishops who are so into that social justice thing up in arms and shooting their mouths off about this? They had a lot of criticism of President Bush supposed unjust war but their silence is deafening unless I missed something. I don't mean to stick it to the Catholic hierarchy the other religious leaders seem to have taken a pass too. I blame all of them for the mess we are in, it seems to me morality has taken a back seat to political expediency. That's how it was so easy for people to pull the lever for Obama in 2008.

[americanophile]

LOL

[Candor7]

Without supermajorities in both houses, nothing is impeachable.>>>>>>>>>>>>>

Lets see now, the courts will not touch Obama despite the evidence,Cogress will not act against him,And the media are in the tank forhim, he is deserting our allies, and is a fascist by ideology and action.

Seems to me we only have one or two remedies left.

[Dr. Scarpetta]

The administration stunned human rights groups last month by sidestepping a commitment to help countries curb the military exploitation of children. Josh Rogin at Foreign Policy reported that President Obama issued a presidential memorandum granting waivers from the Child Soldiers Prevention Act to four countries: Chad, the Democratic Republic of the Congo, Sudan and Yemen...despite their failure to comply with the rules Congress passed and George W. Bush signed in 2008.

BTTT

[SaraJohnson]

If he can’t be impeached as a traitor on his violations of the US constitution, no president is impeachable. That means he is free to be a brutal dictator - to murder US citizens he deems are “domestic terrorists” and sexually intimidate, threaten and molest citizens at airports with no cause - solely upon his will.

[Mrs. Don-o]

Brothers, in the heart of all Christlike charity, let me take aim at you with my polemical buckshot as follows:

• This article, here posted, is neither pacifist nor Bush-deranged: it deserves to be discussed in terms of its content and not via ad hominem sniping. Shea is criticizing Obama for violations of moral law, and doing so effectively on a basis of Catholic criteria. This merits serious consideration.

• Mark Shea opposed Obama, in the most stinging and whip-cracking MarkSheavian terms, from the git-go. And by the way, Shea has never criticized Obama from "from the left," but always on the basis of "what a baby-killing, morally-deficient, fatuously narcisistic, over-reaching Chicago thug!" You can look it up.

• The difference between pacifism and a Just War Ethic. Let's distinguish between the first, which Shea does not embrace, and the second, which he does. I don’t doubt that he draws his lines in a different place from where you do. So what? The present supreme Pontiff and 6 or 7 of his predecessors going back at least to the WWI era, no doubt drew their lines in a different place from many FReepers, and possibly you as well. Pause a moment and think of that.

• The relation of Subsidiarity and Solidarity. Every one who has had to deal with political questions at any level, has had to wrestle with how to observe both Subsidiarity and Solidarity. These struggles are documented in our family budgets as well as our FReeper blasts and our ballots. Shea claims no expertise on policy questions and goes back and forth as best he can, sometimes zigging where I zag, but what the heck. He’s trying to make room for both Subsidiarity and Solidarity in every instance.

Mark Shea has been cited as an outstanding supporter of Subsidiarity, such as, here (Link), and he referenced Subsidiarity as the basis for his opposition to Obama’s “faith-based” financial co-optation of church groups here (Link).

This puts Shea to the Right of 100% of the Catholic Left, as well as to the Right of a good many people who naively think themselves Catholic conservatives, but who don’t mind Catholic hospitals, colleges, social services, and military chaplains benefiting from government tax exemptions, contracts, bonds, loan guarantees, grants, subsidies and even salaries when they can get them.

So….. I think Shea’s disqualified himself as Far Left Barking Moonbat.

I am hereby stripping him of the title.

He may possibly accept the label Papal Pink.

I'll get back to you on that.

Thank you for reading to the bottom of this rant.

[mlizzy]

[Mrs. Don-o]

Is that a smile, or what? Looks a little wry :o}

[mlizzy]

It’s my shameful smiley.

[markomalley]

The first article you cited speaking of subsidiarity was written in 2004. If you will read again my initial rant, you will note that I fully supported Mr. Shea prior to around 2005, when he had his apparent break with a conservative viewpoint.

The second article you cited was from 2008, months before Mr Obama came into office. Having said that, let's take a look at what he says about subsidiarity:

Subsidiarity means "The people closest to the problem are usually the ones to fix it. It's only when you can't fix it locally that you go up the chain of command. So, for instance, schools are best run by the people in the community, not be a Central Planning Committee 2000 miles away."

That is usually what leftists say about subsidiarity. They usually say that (in context of state run medicine) just before they say, "Well, we gave the free market a chance and they blew it. So now we can completely ignore subsidiarity."

The Catechism of the Catholic Church says the following about subsidiarity:

• 1883 Socialization also presents dangers. Excessive intervention by the state can threaten personal freedom and initiative. the teaching of the Church has elaborated the principle of subsidiarity, according to which "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 co-ordinate its activity with the activities of the rest of society, always with a view to the common good."7 [NB: Read that VERY carefully: it says that the higher level doesn't replace the lower level but that it supports it and helps co-ordinate activities]
• 1885 The principle of subsidiarity is opposed to all forms of collectivism. It sets limits for state intervention. It aims at harmonizing the relationships between individuals and societies. It tends toward the establishment of true international order. [NB: once again you will note the word "harmonize" versus "replace" not supersede]
• 1894 In accordance with the principle of subsidiarity, neither the state nor any larger society should substitute itself for the initiative and responsibility of individuals and intermediary bodies.
• 2209 The family must be helped and defended by appropriate social measures. Where families cannot fulfill their responsibilities, other social bodies have the duty of helping them and of supporting the institution of the family. Following the principle of subsidiarity, larger communities should take care not to usurp the family's prerogatives or interfere in its life.

I personally think that this is a whole lot different than "going up the chain of command."

For a more recent example,

Take a look at this blog entry from November 18th, 2010:

turns out Health Care is a Right (boo hisss! say the "Health Care is Not a Right" crowd of corporatists), it *is* the obligation of government to help secure that right since he says, "healthcare justice must be one of the priorities on the agendas of governments and international institutions" (boo! hisss! says every Talk Radio, Fox News, Tea Party Righty in the US), and it must conform to God's Law (boo hissss! say the "Abortion is a Right" crowd of child killers).

Our health care package, naturally, seems calculated to benefit corporatists *and* kill children. The genius of the American system of compromise.

But what did the Holy Father actually say? (You can read the entire message here)

Without pasting the entire document, the only time he mentions "government" in the entire message (remember, Shea says that the Pope says that it is government's responsibility to provide health care, right???) is here:

Health justice should be among the priorities of governments and international institutions.

The Holy Father does discuss health (not health care) as a good (in the Catholic sense of the word):

Health is a precious good for the person and society to promote, conserve and protect, dedicating the means, resources and energies necessary so that more persons can enjoy it. Unfortunately, the problem still remains today of many populations of the world that do not have access to the necessary resources to satisfy fundamental needs, particularly in regard to health. It is necessary to work with greater commitment at all levels so that the right to health is rendered effective, favoring access to primary health care. In our time we witness on one hand a care of health that risks being transformed into pharmacological consumerism, medical and surgical, becoming almost a cult of the body, and on the other, the difficulty of millions of persons to accede to conditions of minimal subsistence and indispensable medicines to be cured.

(I highlight society above for a reason that I will discuss below)

That is not an endorsement of Obamacare or Mr Shea's favored position: full government run State medical (I say that based on his comments that Obamacare is a horrible compromise). If Mr Shea examined the Holy Father's comments with a true view to the majority of the world, he would understand that there are places in the world where there are no doctors and that there are other places in the world where there may be plenty of doctors, but if you are the wrong tribe, wrong religion, or wrong skin color, you could have all the money in the world, but you aren't seeing one of those doctors.

What the Holy Father is constantly going over, be it in this message, in Caritas in Veritate, or in his other writings, is that we need a more human approach that absolutely needs to be based upon gratuitousness...which is an outgrowth of charity (Christian love).

And if Shea was truly a Chestertonian Distributionist, he would be jumping up and down screaming to get rid of insurance companies and moving toward a more distributed health care system where you have relationships between doctors and patients. He would recognize that subsidiarity doesn't mean that you give the more immediate level a shot and if they blow it, then it's perfectly OK to usurp their responsibilities.

And, by the way, I'm writing this to you...not to him...because you might actually read it and consider it. I don't bother with him because he is always right. Just ask him.

[markomalley]

Sorry...one other thing. I highlighted “society” above because one other fool thing that most lefties do is confuse the term “government” / “the State” with “society.” They aren’t the same.

If a Vatican document says “society,” it means society. If it says “the State,” it means “the State.” And if it says “government,” guess what it means...

They aren’t interchangeable.

[Alamo-Girl]

Thanks for the ping!

[mlizzy]

I don't bother with him because he is always right. Just ask him.

His lack of humility has always bothered me. And I really don't care for his stance on Potter. Shows his Catholicism is weak at best. Link.

But basically, it's now bleedin' obvious that Rowling is drawing very heavily on the Christian tradition for her work. She's not, one hastens to add, an American Evangelical or a Catholic, so no: she's not going make everybody happy. But the books, nonetheless, belong quite squarely in the middle of the broad stream of Christian literature.

I don't like the way he writes either. He's guiding Catholics in a poor direction and that, to me, is "bleedin' obvious." *final punctuating thoughts of mine missing ... they are not kind*

[GVnana]

Obama issued a presidential memorandum granting waivers from the Child Soldiers Prevention Act to four countries: Chad, the Democratic Republic of the Congo, Sudan and Yemen

It wouldn't surprise me to learn the practice was a family business for the Obamas in these parts.

[GVnana]

bushwah:

–noun rubbishy nonsense; baloney; bull: You'll hear a lot of boring bushwa about his mechanical skill.

Nothing to do with George Bush.

[markomalley]

See post #20. Thank you.