Thank you for your response(s). But we have difficulty in not talking past, rather than to, each other.I didn’t realize I was being impatient rather was under the impression it was a discussion on the term Social Justice.
I didn’t intend any complaint, but rather, I had reference to the word “anger” in the thread-starting article/post by bamabound.Saul Alinsky was an expert at twisting Catholic Social Justice.
Saul Alinsky wasn’t particularly leery of the stricture of Isaiah 5:20 KJV):Woe unto them that call evil good, and good evil; that put darkness for light, and light for darkness; that put bitter for sweet, and sweet for bitter!I, OTOH - and I think I speak for most FReepers who are leery of the formulation “social justice” - do not wish to be taken as insensitive on that score. It’s not what I’m trying to do. I’m trying to make the prudential point that there simply has to be a formulation for what you mean by the concept you call “social justice” which does not wave red flags at 3/4 of the bulls in the world.I put it to you that if, for example, even Thomas Sowell doesn’t understand your intellectual argument, you need to find better language. Communication - say nothing of persuasion - has become impossible. In my reference to the term “liberalism,” I tried to suggest that I understand that we are dealing with Newspeak-induced difficulties of thought and communication. But I
thinksure hope you can understand my point about particular term “liberalism” a lot better than I understand your point about the particular formulation “social justice."I may have thought of an example of “social justice” - or the lack thereof: sometimes the government sets tax rates (e.g., the capital gains tax rate in particular) at such high levels that their deleterious effects outweigh their benefit. Mr. Obama has explicitly said that he liked high capital gains taxation even assuming that they damage the economy - just as long as they impact “the evil rich.” The leftist would call that “social justice.” The true liberal, in contradistinction, would call it malicious. Would a Catholic call it “social injustice?” Or something else, positive or negative?
http://chiesa.espresso.repubblica.it/articolo/6893?eng=y
Yet he´s not the type to compromise himself for the public. Every time he speaks, instead, he tries to shake people up and surprise them. In the middle of November, he did not give a learned homily on social justice to the people of Argentina reduced by hunger - he told them to return to the humble teachings of the Ten Commandments and the Beatitudes. “This,” he explained, “is the way of Jesus.” And as soon as one follows this way seriously, he understands that “to trample upon the dignity of a woman, a man, a child, an elderly person, is a grave sin that cries out to heaven,” and he decides not to do it any more.
I think this new Pope points the way to Catholic Social Justice. Secular social justice is all about marking out groups, and discrimination, and redistribution, and “fairness.”
Yet, consider what Pope Francis said in the middle of the Argentinian economic crisis. The Ten Commandments and the Beatitudes! Come on what rubbish is this would say a modern liberal...and yet Bergoglio stood strong on the ideals of Catholic social justice. And was eventually recognized for being able to restore and bring together the people....that the liberal social justice ripped apart. He used the Ten Commandments and the Beatitudes as the guide to restore the social order, trust, and faith.
And to address your last example. A Catholic would call it theft...a sin. And one clearly can see in your own example how secular social justice hurts society, which then makes the action of excessive taxes, a sin, not justice for society.
I agree with and have nothing to add to EBH’ response to your question but I’ll make another attempt to explain Catholic social teaching and reiterate that it’s based on Holy Scripture.
Mark Shea: [...]Catholic social policy which fosters the family, i.e., the revealed understanding of family as one man, one woman and children living in self-giving love is at the heart of Catholic social teaching. Catholic thought conceives of human beings not as “individuals” but as persons. “Person” is not synonymous with “individual” for a person is not a set of subjective impulses and opinions untethered from any objective truth. A person is made in the image of a Trinity Who is, in His very essence, a kind of Holy Family united in love. Therefore, persons are, of their very essence, members of family themselves and such families are a sort of Icon of the Holy Trinity. In short, persons are made to live in love and union with another and cannot exist without participating in that reality to some degree.
It’s the Trinity and not “my personal truth of the moment” or “the rights of the Individual against the Government” which is at the root of our existence, it is this love, expressed in the family, which is the earthly Icon of the Holy Trinity. Therefore, it is the family which forms the unifying basis for all the Church’s prudential (and occasional dogmatic) social teaching...
http://www.ncregister.com/blog/mark-shea/the-key-to-catholic-social-teaching/
Dale Ahlquist on Chesterton: [...]Chesterton was so consistently right in his pronouncements and prophecies because he understood that anything that attacked the family was bad for society. That is why he spoke out against eugenics and contraception, against divorce and “free love” (another term he disliked because of its dishonesty), but also against wage slavery and compulsory state-sponsored education and mothers hiring other people to do what mothers were designed to do themselves. It is safe to say that Chesterton stood up against every trend and fad that plagues us today because every one of those trends and fads undermines the family.
Big Government tries to replace the family’s authority, and Big Business tries to replace the family’s autonomy. There is a constant commercial and cultural pressure on father, mother, and child. They are minimized and marginalized and, yes, mocked. But as Chesterton says, “This triangle of truisms, of father, mother and child, cannot be destroyed; it can only destroy those civilizations which disregard it.”[...]
[...]Marriage is between a man and a woman. That is the order. And the Catholic Church teaches that it is a sacramental order, with divine implications. The world has made a mockery of marriage that has now culminated with homosexual unions. But it was heterosexual men and women who paved the way to this decay. Divorce, which is an abnormal thing, is now treated as normal. Contraception, another abnormal thing, is now treated as normal. Abortion is still not normal, but it is legal. Making homosexual “marriage” legal will not make it normal, but it will add to the confusion of the times. And it will add to the downward spiral of our civilization.
But Chesterton’s prophecy remains:
We will not be able to destroy the family. We will merely destroy ourselves by disregarding the family.
http://www.crisismagazine.com/2013/g-k-chesterton-its-not-gay-and-its-not-marriage
Bottomline: Simply put - Catholic social teaching rule of thumb (using Holy Scripture as a guide) -
“If it’s good for the family, it’s good. If it’s bad for the family, it’s bad.”