The Catholic Populist

Listen to the Pope, not the bewildered and misguided Pontifical Council for Justice in Peace

I refuse to mince words.

The Vatican’s Pontifical Council for Justice and Peace (which, incidentally, has no role in the Magisterium of the Church and no binding authority over the consciences of Catholics) has released a document rife with radical internal contradictions and ignorance.  Futhermore, it tramples on the fundamental Catholic Social Teaching of subsidiarity.

What is subsidiarity?

Subsidiarity is the belief that decisions should be made as locally as possible.  The reason for this is best expressed by Catholic historian Lord Acton: “Power tends to corrupt and absolute power corrupts absolutely.”  Concentrating power in the hands of politicians and bankers is a departure from subsidiarity condemned by Catholic Social Teaching.

Few institutions wield as much unchecked power as the US Federal Reserve, whose chairman has the responsibility of managing monetary policy for the entire nation and — as the result of the fact that all the world’s currencies are based on the dollar — the world monetary system.  Since all economic transactions depend on monetary policy, it is not an exaggeration to say that Chairman Ben Bernanke wields some authority over every transaction on the globe.  It is safe to consider this radical anti-subsidiarity.

Before World War I, monetary policy was entrusted to individual citizens.  A basic cycle of inflation and deflation would occur that would ensure long-term price stability.  Population would increase, causing deflation.  Gold miners would rush to mine in order to take advantage of the large profit margins that are part and parcel of gold deflation.  They would flood the market with gold.  This would cause inflation that would cause the gold miners to stop mining.  However, people would continue to have babies and the cyclical process would start all over again.  This ancient process gave individuals the ability to manage their financial affairs knowing that, over the long-term, the value of money would remain stable.  There was no need for people to wonder if Ben Bernanke or anyone else would make decisions to jeopardize their hard-earned dollars or the economy.

Prior to World War I, the US operated on the classical gold standard, which trusted the market and individuals with the monetary authority in this country.  Since then, we have progressively abandoned the gold standard until Richard Nixon scrapped it in 1971.  Since that time, Congress has operated with a virtual limitless credit card.  Trade deficits, federal deficits, inflation, and government power all grew exponentially.  Jobs fled overseas.  Ongoing low interest rate policies created bubbles that exploded in the financial meltdown.

Fortunately for the country, the American people are waking up and demanding increased subsidiarity.  In a Rasmussen poll last week, by a 44% to 28% margin, likely American general election voters support moving back to the gold standard.  When informed that it reduced the power of bankers and politicans, voters supported it 57% to 19%.

Unfortunately, the out-of-touch Pontifical Council for Justice and Peace offered the un-Catholic and wacky analysis that we need to centralize power even more:

“In fact, one can see an emerging requirement for a body that will carry out the functions of a kind of ‘central world bank’ that regulates the flow and system of monetary exchanges similar to the national central banks. The underlying logic of peace, coordination and common vision which led to the Bretton Woods Agreements needs to be dusted off in order to provide adequate answers to the current questions. On the regional level, this process could begin by strengthening the existing institutions, such as the European Central Bank. However, this would require not only a reflection on the economic and financial level, but also and first of all on the political level, so as to create the set of public institutions that will guarantee the unity and consistency of the common decisions.”

Where to start?

Fortunately, the Pontifical Council of Justice and Peace was kind enough to include a refutation of their own dangerous idea in this selfsame contradictory document:

“As we read in Caritas in Veritate [a papal encyclical with real weight to the consciences of Catholics], ‘The governance of globalization must be marked by subsidiarity, articulated into several layers and involving different levels that can work together.’ Only in this way can the danger of a central Authority’s bureaucratic isolation be avoided, which would otherwise risk being delegitimized by an excessive distance from the realities on which it is based and easily fall prey to paternalistic, technocratic or hegemonic temptations.”

That pretty much sums it up.  So stop dreaming up schemes that violate subsidiarity.

And follow the advice of the one section of your own document where you actually quote a Papal Encyclical.

Lincoln rejected utilitarian debate in founding the GOP

Have you ever met a moral relativist?  What would they believe?

A true moral relativist is someone who believes that the ends justifies the means.  Period.  There are no moral absolutes that cannot be violated in pursuit of some noble end.  Adolf Hitler, Josef Stalin, Mao Tse-tung, and Osama bin Ladin were such people.  They believed that some utopia awaited.  The Nazis believed that they could end human suffering and perpetuate a genetically perfect Arian race.  The Communists believed that they could end economic injustice.  The Islamists (as distinct from Muslims) believed that we could have a world Caliphate where virtue and happiness reigned supreme.

Of course, they reasoned, there were just a few people they had to remove first …

Obviously, moral relativism on the biggest scale of all — the belief that a utopian world can be crafted by world conquest and centralized reform — has resulted in the greatest suffering — well over 85,000,000 lives lost to the two socialisms (Nazism and Communism) alone.  Islamism — being older — is harder to track.

Unfortunately, utilitarianism and moral relativism are not restricted to such believers in world domination as bin Ladin, Hitler, and Stalin.  In spite of the fact that almost all Americans would agree that the actions of such men violated unchanging moral principles under any circumstances, policy debate is often co-opted by utilitarian rhetoric.

For example, if someone advances an argument that is based on principle such as my previous post on the need for a Federal Marriage Amendment, it would be (likely inadvertently) utilitarian for someone to clamor for additional studies and experts to confirm my thesis.

In order to refute my argument, a person would instead have to first counteract the principles-based argument I advanced.  Such a counter-argument could do one of either two things.  It could demonstrate that not only was my principles-based argument wrong but that true principles demand the opposite conclusion — a thorough demolition of my argument.  Or it could also prove that the issue was in fact outside the realm of principles altogether and was rather an issue of prudential judgment.  If it was a prudential judgement issue, then it would be time to whip out bibliographies on either side as each side needed an evidenced-based argument for prudential judgment.

The default position for argumentation on public policy has to be a series of questions: “Is there a principle that dictates a particular course of action?”  If the answer is yes, you must follow the principle.  Period.  If the answer is no, you must ask: “Which course of action would best get me to the desired results?”  A battle over the evidence and data would be then appropriate.

As Americans, we are fortunate that our country was founded on a clear and concise set of principles set out in the Declaration of Independence — the first law and the guiding light of our nation.

When Abraham Lincoln debated Stephen Douglas, Abraham Lincoln was building an anti-slavery coalition (the Republican Party) that emphasized the basic principle that all men are created equal.  He argued that slavery was evil.  He argued that the only prudent thing to do with the evil institution was to put it on a gradual path to extinction.  Stephen Douglas argued that Lincoln’s lack of prudence would have radical negative consequences and that, although slavery might be evil, it was best for everyone involved (master and slave).  Because Douglas was arguing based on practicality and Lincoln based on principle, Lincoln’s argument was superior and was recognized as such by the American people when he became our 16th President.

The best practicality-based pro-slavery argument in the world (Douglas was a renowned debater) is automatically defeated by an unrefuted principles-based argument every time.

Which is why any effective argument will deal with the principles first.

Children's Right to the Pursuit of Happiness Demand Legal Conjugal Marriage

Marriage predates recorded history.  Most anthropologists believe it predates both religion and government.  Jesus thought so too: “But from the beginning of creation, ‘God made them male and female.  For this reason a man shall leave his father and mother and be joined to his wife, and the two shall become one flesh.’ So they are no longer two but one flesh.  What therefore God has joined together, let not man put asunder.”  All agree that it is old — perhaps as old as mankind.

But what then is the government’s role in it?

Texas Republican Ron Paul deviates from conservative orthodoxy by claiming that the state should leave marriage to the churches and that no recognition of marriage by government is necessary.  The Left calls for recognition of conjugal marriage and same-sex marriages.

Fortunately, in addressing such claims, the Declaration of Independence is the primary tool that Americans need to understand the role of government according to our founding principles.

The Declaration specifies that the government’s role is to secure such unalienable rights as “Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.”  These are to be secured in that order.  For example, protecting one person’s pursuit of Happiness is never an excuse to strip someone else of Liberty (slavery).  Liberty cannot be an excuse to strip some else of Life (abortion).  Marriage concerns the pursuit of Happiness.

It is a self-evident truth that men and women are uniquely biologically, psychologically, and spiritually suited to the begetting and raising of stable children in marriage.  The freshly released Sustainable Demographic Dividend (well worth reading) states:

“An abundant social-science literature, as well as common sense, supports the claim that children are more likely to flourish, and to become productive adults, when they are raised in stable, married-couple households.  We know, for example, that children in the United States who are raised outside an intact, married home are two to three times more likely to suffer from social and psychological problems such as delinquency, depression, and dropping out of high school.  They are also markedly less likely to attend college and be stably employed as young adults.”

Additional psychological research emphasizes the critical nature of the father’s and the mother’s relationship with children.

Furthermore, natural rights can be best understood as what would occur in a Lockean State of Nature.  Locke had a Garden of Eden vision of the State of Nature.  This is a sound reference point.  Since grace perfects nature, analyzing what would occur in the state of nature must operate based on an appropriate perpetual state of grace scenario.  The Garden of Eden fits the bill perfectly.

In the garden of Eden, an ongoing relationship with their biological mother and father would be a key to childhood happiness.  This is a clear example of a right protected under the pursuit of Happiness.

Of course, a government protecting the right to the pursuit of Happiness for the child (a clear governmental responsibility) cannot violate Liberty in order to do so.  However, marriage does not violate liberty whatsoever.  It is a consensual agreement which the government recognizes and builds its law structure around.

Obviously, same-sex unions do not warrant such governmental recognition.  No child will ever secure an ongoing relationship with his biological mother and father via a same-sex union.  A government recognition of such unions as marriage would operate as a government stamp of approval for a particular exercise of Liberty.  According to the Founding principles, that is simply not the role of government.

The state must continue to protect conjugal marriage from any form of assault by passing a Marriage Amendment to the US Constitution.

It is time to protect the child’s pursuit of Happiness once and for all.