I'm interested in the fact that the less secure a man is, the more likely he is to have extreme prejudice.
Clint Eastwood
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The Worst of Democrats: Bloopers, Gaffes, Soundbites, Blunders
The Role of Food Banks in Dealing with Government Failure
One might wonder, given Obama's Food Stamp Nation, why food banks are even necessary. Adam Smith Institute has a relevant essay (my edits):
Private charities are much better at tackling individual human issues, like families who run out of cash from time to time. The biggest philanthropic sector on the planet is that of America, the world’s richest country. Food banks in Britain helped over 900,000 people last year, up around a third over the year before. The underlying problem that food banks help solve is not food poverty, any more than it is shoe poverty, clothes poverty, electricity poverty or water poverty. It is the temporary crises that people sometimes get into when they are unemployed or on low pay. Around 60% of food bank users are once-only users. They hit a crisis and can’t afford the groce ries. And you can blame that on our over-complicated, bureaucratic, distant and unfeeling state benefits system. The state is inevitably large and lumbering. Around 30% of [food bank users] have problems because their benefits payment has not arrived in time, or they are being penalised for not showing up at interview, or they have simply filled in a form wrongly. No government can do much about the fact that food prices have risen nearly 35% since 2007. Well, actually, they could stop subsidising biofuels, which has diverted huge amounts of agricultural produce out of human mouths and into gasoline tanks.And one way to help struggling workers is to make it easier for businesses to hire them, e.g., by dropping government wage/benefit mandates for lower-wage workers, such as minimum wage and employer contributions to social security, and by exempting the employee tax burden on wages and basic living expenses:
If you want to help people in poverty–and get people into the world’s best welfare programme, namely a paying job–you should be making work pay, which for many of the nation’s poorest, is appallingly not the case.Choose Life
The Unintended Consequences of Pope Francis' Mixed Messages
I've had serious issues with this pope, and it's already led to arguments among my relatives. One of my nephews is a big Pope Francis fan, and he deleted a critical comment I posted (consistent with things I've written in the blog). I don't mind people disagreeing with me, but I don't like being censored. I very much prefer Pope Emeritus Benedict, who was/is a first-rate theologian. I had high hopes for Francis, his being a Jesuit, renown for intellectual rigor. (I have mentioned in the past that I was serious enough about becoming a priest I was actually interviewed by a Jesuit recruiter while I was living in the campus dorms. I don't recall the Jesuits following up, but I eventually put a religious vocation on the back burner because I worried that the Church was drifting too secular leftist in the post-Vatican II era, I had started dating coeds (I was 16 when I started college), etc.) Ironically, my philosophy mentors at OLL had trained me not to unduly rely on secondary sources and to be just to primary sources (e.g., I read Karl Marx in my social philosophy course, and my professor was no Marxist). That's why when I read his dismissive comments about the free market and bringing up a long discredited whipping boy of social darwinism (basically a smear of Herbert Spencer), it really set me off; he did little more than paraphrase leftist talking points. He doesn't understand free markets and free trade, he doesn't understand business and economics principles, he doesn't see how, in his own lifetime, how liberalized economies have brought millions in India and China out of poverty and into the middle class. He's engaging in populist demogoguery which is divisive and counterproductive. It's not even a first-class critique. He's a Jesuit, one of the most intellectually rigorous of the orders. He lost a lot of credibility; when the Church strays from its core competencies of faith and morals, it has unintended consequences.
I have no idea why Pope Francis has taken on the gay and divorced Catholic issues. Perhaps he sees himself as shepherd of the lost sheep, the prodigal son come home. But you cannot abandon your flock or your family by compromising dogma and tradition. Many are called; few are chosen. Yes, God loves all His children, even the gay and divorced ones. But we are also sinful children, and we must repent. Implying or suggesting sex outside traditional marriage is not sinful would be heresy and scandal. And Francis has not made the case that the Church has failed to minister to wayward Catholics. Remember, the prodigal son came home on his own and realized he had no right to ask for more. The odd thing is that here in America 40% of babies are born outside of marriage--but Francis' priority is in luring back the 2-4% which is gay? Mass attendance is down, vocations are down, Catholic universities invite pro-abort politicians to commencement or dissident theologians to lecture, the Church mishandled the sex abuse scandals. This appears to be a Church floundering without real leaderhip, while the clergy and nuns seem more concerned with secular humanism as "social justice" and feminist ideology: this Church seems afraid to rebuke sin and the sinner: “Da mihi castitatem et continentiam, sed noli modo (Give me chastity and continence, but not just yet)!”, confuses moral/spiritual development and the virtues with today's culture of immediate gratification, self-indulgence, and moral relativism.
Father Dwight Longenecker gives some good examples of how the pope's off-the-cuff speaking style makes his job as a diocesan pastor more difficult. [Note that priests in religious orders don't necessarily have pastoral responsibilities. Consider this NCR excerpt:
Pope Francis, as Fr. Jorge Bergoglio, did not have much pastoral experience. He was the rector of the Jesuits in Argentina. It was only when he became auxiliary bishop that he began to get immersed in ordinary parish life.The problem as I see it: the way bishops are groomed and chosen. Our bishops are chosen more for their connections than for their simplicity. They are often much more ecclesiastical careerists than they are pastors. In fact, very few of them have much (if any) actual parish experience.
Most of our bishops have been chancery office officials, seminary rectors, diplomats, professors, superiors of religious orders, and agency directors. They have worked in Vatican offices or in embassies, but they have not often been in parishes before they have been appointed bishop.
I have had three bishops in my time as a priest. Together, they had more than 150 years of service to the church following their ordinations. But together, they had only about three years combined of actual service in ordinary parish ministry. In other words, they had very little of the "smell of the sheep." They had been seminary rectors, priest secretaries to bishops and cardinals, fundraisers, and auxiliary bishops. Just no parish priests.]
I know the Synod on the Family is an attempt to make the church more compassionate and caring, but with respect, this is not best done at the Vatican or diocesan level but on the parish level. I was taught that subsidiarity is a Catholic principle: that solutions to problems and ideas for initiatives are best taken within the local community.
Here is an example: twice in the last week I have had to deal with Catholics in irregular marriages. One woman married outside the church and told me that she thought it was now okay for her to come to communion because, “The pope has changed all those old rules.” Another man has divorced his wife and is living with another woman. He also assured me very confidently that it was now fine for him to come to communion because, “Pope Francis has changed the rules.” I know you mean well Holy Father, and I admire and like you, but this process on which you have led us is not helping.
Here is another example from my experience as a parish priest: a young couple came for marriage preparation. They do not practice their faith and are living together already as husband and wife. I welcomed them and listened to their story. I told them it was good that they wanted to be married. I said we would help prepare them not only for a Catholic wedding, but for a Catholic marriage. However, when I gently began a conversation about their irregular lifestyle the girl began to pout and accuse me of being “unwelcoming.” Then she said, “I thought with this new pope we would be welcomed.” What she meant by this was, “I expected Pope Francis’ Catholic Church to condone cohabitation.”Yes, the Holy Father has forgotten what Jesus said to the adulteress He spared from stoning: "Go and sin no more." He's focusing on bringing back the lost sheep, but don't confuse personal acceptance with one's sinful past. One must seek moral and spiritual development, be fully honest about, humble about, and contrite for one's failings. Christianity is not some self-esteem movement; it does not condone or define away one's past sins; it challenges us to confront and repent from our self-serving, indulgent past.
Facebook Corner
(Cato Institute). If oil prices keep falling, we'll see some negative outcomes globally, says Prof. Steve Hanke: http://bit.ly/1tCqKbs
I had to scan the comments to see if anyone grasped Hanke's point. For one thing, energy is correlated with economic growth. A glut may be a short-term boon to oil consumers like airlines and trucking companies (assuming no global recessionary effects), but it also lowers the incentive for competing energy sources and exploration and development. More importantly, what happens when governments lack key resources, if their foreign reserves are drawn down and they lack compensatory in-demand exports? Consider the case of Saddam Hussein, who came out of the Iranian war with a huge debt and vulnerable to adverse actions by other exporters. Economic turbulence in the already precarious Gulf Region could exacerbate tensions, causing energy prices to shoot through the roof, setting off a global recession/depression.
(Bastiat Institute). "They risk going to jail for over three years and being fined $7,000...'The government should not force ordained ministers to act contrary to their faith under threat of jail time and criminal fines...Many have denied that pastors would ever be forced to perform ceremonies that are completely at odds with their faith, but that’s what is happening here — and it’s happened this quickly.'"
I had to go through all the comments to see if anyone noticed the elephant in the room: "Two ordained ministers have filed a federal lawsuit". Stop right there. SCOTUS has ruled that federal RFRA does not necessarily apply to state/local laws. That is why some 19 states, INCLUDING IDAHO, have state RFRA laws. As long as the gay couple has a legal alternative, say a local justice of the peace, the enforcement of this ordinance is a material violation of state RFRA and Article 1 Section 4 of the state constitution that references liberty of conscience and the (economic) rights of those who hold religious views. The chapel does not have a monopoly on state marriages. This is an open-and-shut case in violation of the Idaho state law and constitution; I'm only questioning why the lawsuit is being filed in federal vs. state court.
I expect better from the Bastiat Institute. This couple operates a "for profit" chapel and performs marriage ceremonies for profit. Jail time and fines are a punishment for the business, not the church, and therefore 'freedom of speech' and 'separation of church and state' don't apply here. By the logic of the Alliance Defending Freedom, any business owner or company could hang a cross on the wall of their establishment and claim that laws don't apply to them because they're religious. If this company doesn't like it, they need to file as a 501c and go non-profit as a religious organization, not a tax-paying business.
Another fascist OP. Also a freaking moron who doesn't know "separation of church from state" is not part of the constitution. If a chapel wants to cater exclusively to heterosexual couples for any reason, it absolutely has that economic liberty, right of contract. Suggesting that a business has to service an undesired line of business against an owner's religious or other principles is an incontroverible violation of his economic liberty, right to contract, the voluntary nature of a free market transaction. That IS what Bastiat Institute should be all about. Never mind this is a clear violation of the Idaho constitution and its RFRA; this wedding chapel does NOT hold a monopoly on "gay marriage". State law REQUIRES reasonable accommodation of religious practices; I'm sure that that gay couples have state or local judges or unprincipled clergy to "marry" them,
This is ridiculous. Coming from a group who has struggled and fought for liberty. Some are now turning around and attempting to restrict others of theirs. That's definitely not how liberty works.
What kind of a fascist OP are you? The wedding chapel does not have a monopoly on "gay marriage" in Idaho. Idaho has a state constitutional amendment RFRA. This means, idiot, that if gay people have another option, like a local justice of the peace, you cannot infringe on the business practices of a closely held Christian business.
More Proposals
One of my nephews got engaged this weekend to a wonderful young woman (an engineer! YES....)
Political Cartoon
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| Courtesy of the original artist via IPI |
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| Courtesy of Gary Varvel via Patriot Post |
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| Courtesy of Glenn Foden via Townhall |
Linda Ronstadt, "It's So Easy"
