Radical Biblical Capitalism

An occasionally-flawed, yet ultimately consistent, rebuttal to “Christian” socialism: http://mises.org/story/2918

Pacem in Terris

Among other things, Cardinal Renato Martino said, “Look at the conditions in Gaza: more and more, it resembles a big concentration camp.”

People of conscience everywhere must remember that Palestine has been occupied for forty years. Regardless of the merits of this particular offensive or that one, the occupation has left 60% of Gazans without clean drinking water every day. It has disenfranchised 2.5 million people in their own homeland and violated the Universal Declaration of Human Rights by denying these people a homeland. It has led to the destruction of countless families, livelihoods, and ideals.

No matter what these coming weeks bring, ending the illegal and permanent military and political occupation of Palestine must be at the forefront of Middle Eastern peace efforts and humanitarian work today and for however long it takes until Palestine is free.

1967 is over. 42 years later, it is high time to acknowledge the sovereignty and self-determination of the people of Palestine and their right to govern, trade, and live as they choose as a member of the community of nations.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/europe/7817019.stm

Obstinately Pro-Life from Conception to Natural Death

Albert Camus, an ex-Communist and staunch opponent of the death penalty, certainly had his own experience in mind when he put the words below into the mouth of Tarrou in The Plague. It is well worth remembering that today, supporters of the death penalty cannot bear to see chemicals stop the beating heart of a man lying helpless on a gurney. Supporters of war cannot bear to see cluster bomb shrapnel tear apart the lungs of men no older than their own sons. Supporters of abortion cannot bear to see scissors tear apart the limbs of a fetus.

How is it that we have learned to shout out the ideals “Justice!”, “Peace!”, and “Freedom!” over the screams of the dying? How do we care more about theoretical, abstract concepts than human persons? Like Tarrou, “I chose to be blindly obstinate, pending the day when I could see my way more clearly.”

From The Plague, by Albert Camus:

“Have you ever seen a man shot by a firing squad? No, of course not; the spectators are hand-picked and it’s like a private party, you need an invitation. The result is that you’ve gleaned your ideas about it from books and pictures. A post, a blindfolded man, some soldiers in the offing. But the real isn’t a bit like that. Do you know that the firing-squad stands only a yard and a half from the condemned man? Do you know that if the victim took two steps forward his chest would touch the rifles? Do you know that, at this short range, the soldiers concentrate their fire on the region of the heart and their big bullets make a hole into which you could thrust your fist? No, you didn’t know all that; those are things that are never spoken of… Decent folks must be allowed to sleep easy o’ nights, mustn’t they?…

…When I spoke of these matters they told me not to be so squeamish; I should remember what great issues were at stake. And they advanced arguments, often quite impressive ones, to make me swallow what none the less I couldn’t bring myself to stomach. I replied that the most eminent of the plague-stricken, the men who wear red robes, also have excellent arguments to justify what they do, and once I admitted the arguments of necessity and force majeure put forward by the less eminent, I couldn’t reject those of the eminent…

In any case, my concern was not with arguments. It was with the poor ‘owl’; with that foul procedure whereby dirty mouths stinking of plague told a fettered man that he was going to die, and scientifically arranged things so that he should die, after nights and nights of mental torture while he waited to be murdered in cold blood. My concern was with that hole, big as a fist, in a man’s chest. And I told myself that meanwhile, so far anyhow as I was concerned, nothing in the world would induce me to accept any argument that justified such butcheries. Yes, I chose to be blindly obstinate, pending the day when I could see my way more clearly.”

Where Religion Makes Me Progressive

Anyone who has been reading this blog since its inception last week can reasonably infer at least two things about me: I am a Republican and a Catholic. Astute observers will also note that because of my belief in social morality, personal responsibility, and charity, my religious views have an impact on my anti-statist economic views. I also take traditional religious views against abortion, physician assisted suicide, euthanasia, and embryonic stem cell research. Does this make me a member of the vast right wing fundamentalist conspiracy to dismantle the welfare state and reject modern science as the basis of morality?

Absolutely.

That said, my Catholicism features far more fully into my political views than just my beliefs about bioethics and the market. My religious beliefs inform nearly all of my political views. Before you cry “separation of church and state!” on me, hear me out. There are many places in which my Catholicism pushes me away from my fellow Republicans and puts me in company with the liberal Democrats I grew up around.

Perhaps the greatest issue of global moral urgency is the environmental crisis. As a believer in the message of Genesis, I believe that God has set us as stewards of the natural world. We have nothing less than a religious duty to protect God’s creation and undo the damage that centuries of consumerist excess have wrought. In the process of adopting new regulations on the use of natural resources, we will pay a price in prosperity. Indeed, the fuel crisis will only get worse and every American, from the middle-class parent to the corporate executive to the food stamp recipient, will be hit by inflation and costs. My faith in God teaches me that, painful though they are and as much as we have to work to minimize their impact, these sacrifices must be made for the sake of fulfilling our duties as stewards of the environment.

Another issue that transcends our borders is that of war. Catholic doctrine holds that just war is a last resort and must be practiced only when diplomacy has absolutely failed. Wars of aggression are not morally justifiable. A clear plan for the protection of civilians and a transition to a livable peace must be made before the first shots are fired. Permanent occupation is not acceptable. America violated these doctrines in declaring war on Iraq, and is now poised to do so again with Iran. We are not waging preemptive war. We are executing preventive war. There is no moral ground for this. I was wrong to support the decision to start the Iraq War through 2007 and do not support any permanent occupation of the nation once stable conditions have been established.

Other acts of violence and degradation of humans have also been made known over the past eight years. My Catholic heart has been mortified by pictures of sexual abuse at Abu Ghraib. My conscience has been hurt by the plight of prisoners held without charge for years on end at Guantanamo Bay. My mind has been disturbed by news of secret flights over Europe bringing prisoners to be tortured at covert prisons. My prayers have been with innocent men, women, and children murdered at Haditha, and my soul was troubled when the perpetrators were declared innocent by courts. That so many religious Americans have remained complacent about the moral atrocities committed by the current administration and its agents only makes the pain worse for me.

Another gross crime against the dignity of the human person continues in the death penalty. Where Jesus preaches a message of forgiveness and healing, American “justice” teaches that some people are irreparably broken and must be killed in atonement for their crimes. This policy denies the redeemable nature of humans as found in Sts. Paul, Mary Magdalene, and Dismas, the thief saved as he was crucified beside our Lord. Like any instrument of death wielded by the state, the death penalty stands for a rejection of life that plagues our society. Our drug policies are also based on the irreligious assertion that punishment, not healing, is the goal of the “correction” system. If we held to the teachings of the Gospel about the primacy of reconciliation over separation, we would find more ethical ways to treat drug abusers than by locking them away from their families for years.

Catholicism, which by its dictionary definition means “universalism,” also teaches us not to judge those who are different. America is considering deporting approximately 12 million people from our midst because they violated our immigration laws. They hold a different culture, language, and worldview than we do. Our first ancestors in the faith were in the same situation. God called the immigrants Abraham and Sarah to leave all they knew for the sake of their descendants and start a new life abroad. The early Christian apostles spent their lives crossing many borders to proclaim the Gospel. Christians are a people whose nation is the Kingdom of Heaven. Though we have the right to secure our borders, enforce our laws, and expect people to honor our culture if they come here, we are called to be merciful to wanderers, not legalistic, and to reject nationalism as the basis for our identity.

As evidenced by the coming together of Jews and Gentiles at the table of the Lord, we are also meant to overcome the differences of race and ethnicity we find in society. We are meant to live in a society in which there is a mingling of races, social classes, and nationalities. Policies like gentrification, slum clearance, and panhandling restrictions, while they may make us more comfortable, belie a lack of faith in the ability of God to bring together His children that all may be one. We also have to learn to embrace our homosexual brothers and sisters, ensuring that they are treated with compassion, dignity, and respect, as called for in the Canon of the Church. Though we may disagree on the specific measures needed to make this happen while still showing proper honor to tradition, it is a task we must work towards.

Exploitation of the poor is also an area of grave concern to the Catholic. We are taught by the Gospels that the poor in spirit, those who are free of ambition and are not attached to material riches, are the heirs of the Kingdom of God. We are called to work towards a world, in the words of Catholic Worker Peter Maurin, “in which it would be easier for men to be good.” Government protection of monopolies and the corrupt rich is fundamentally at odds with this calling. We must work for a world in which the most people have access to capital and the means of production. Far from state socialism, we fight for a truly free market that all people have access to and can reap the rewards of. This means vigorous enforcement of anti-trust laws, ending corporate welfare, and protecting the right of all workers to join together in labor unions, a right declared expressly by the Church in Pope Leo XIII’s encyclical, Rerum Novarum. It also means rejecting the consumerism that is usually used as a measure of the wellbeing of a people. Without a sense of dignity and identity, what is the purpose of all the wealth in the world?

All too often, the faith of an American falls along the lines of a political manifesto. Conservatives find religion to be an affirmation of hawkish views, retribution against criminals, the corporate system, nationalist patriotism, and the defense of the comfortable people in society. Liberals find religion to be an affirmation of feminism, gay identity, the welfare state, abortion rights, and the defense of social deviance. I believe religion is meant to transform us to a radical defense of the sanctity of human life and the dignity of the human person in any state of living, from the unborn to the criminal to the foreigner to the worker to the parent.

My belief in the Revelations of Christ as the source for this belief makes me a believer in conserving our morals at any price. In many cases, though, this means progressing back to them first.