Income inequality

[Skyweir]

I still believe in a democracy the government should. I never said it DOES. As that is obvious.

But yes Av .. if the people dont like it they can throw in with someone else.

I mean you wouldnt have Trump today if it werent for the people voting him in. He represents and is supposedly doing what his voters want. Thats kinda the travesty of democracy .. its not about right or wrong, regrettably.. it rarely ever is.

Governments dont have to serve its people, so long as it pleases its majority.

[sgt.null]

Why is it tragic that the people
Who voted for Trump are in
Part getting what they voted for?

[Hashi Lebwohl]

Governments dont have to serve its people, so long as it pleases its majority.

What happens when the majority are wrong?

Once upon a time the majority of people believed that sacrificing a child would appease the gods....

[Skyweir]

That is PRECISELY the problem with democracy no?

But what better system is there?

[Hashi Lebwohl]

Governments dont have to serve its people, so long as it pleases its majority.

What happens when the majority are wrong?

Once upon a time the majority of people believed that sacrificing a child would appease the gods....

That is PRECISELY the problem with democracy no?

But what better system is there?

The republic.

A system of government where the people do not make decisions directly but by a set of proxies for whom they vote with laws in place preventing the majority from abusing the minority.

[Skyweir]

How many proxies are representative of how many people?

Cos what you have described sounds not that dissimilar to what exists today.

However your President Id argue has more power that our PM.

Does the republic model you described include a President?

[Hashi Lebwohl]

How many proxies? *shrug* Depends upon the people in question. Republics do not have to include a President but it does make sense to separate powers.

As an experiment in my political science class back in university I devised a government having only a Legislative and Judicial branches but all legislation had to pass with a 2/3 supermajority and all laws were subject to being sunset after 10 years, requiring them to be renewed at that time. Most of the class did not like my idea but I thought it was great.

[Skyweir]

No executive branch? So who does ALL the work? The administration?

A weighted legislative arm?

[Hashi Lebwohl]

It was something like it--I thought it up a long time ago and never revisted it.

[Wosbald]

+JMJ+

Talking with a Friend Who Fears Francis [Opinion]

Regarding the CRISIS piece on Francis' alleged socialist agenda, I find it hard to buy for a couple of reasons.

First of all, it assumes as a matter of course that anything socialist is, ipso facto, absolutely incompatible with the faith. This, according to no less an authority than Benedict XVI, is not true. Here is his discussion of socialism in First Things:

But in Europe, in the nineteenth century, the two models were joined by a third, socialism, which quickly split into two different branches, one totalitarian and the other democratic. Democratic socialism managed to fit within the two existing models as a welcome counterweight to the radical liberal positions, which it developed and corrected. It also managed to appeal to various denominations. In England it became the political party of the Catholics, who had never felt at home among either the Protestant conservatives or the liberals. In Wilhelmine Germany, too, Catholic groups felt closer to democratic socialism than to the rigidly Prussian and Protestant conservative forces. In many respects, democratic socialism was and is close to Catholic social doctrine and has in any case made a remarkable contribution to the formation of a social consciousness.

Benedict, in fact, hails from a country which, pretty much like the rest of Europe, has adopted quite a number of social support networks that function just fine and that are, as he notes, quite compatible with Catholic teaching. Every one of these systems would be categorically condemned as 'socialist' by the American right and by the writers and readers of CRISIS. Indeed, the entire English-speaking world as well has adopted what American bishops have literally been demanding for a century; universal health care, which the Church teaches is a human right and we alone still treat as a privilege and condemn as 'socialist'. It has resulted in, among other things, a health care system where diabetics like me are literally being murdered by insulin costs that force the poor to ration -- and die as a result. And that is just the tip of the iceberg when it comes to the madness of our medical system. Meanwhile, the Trump Administration wants to completely destroy Obamacare and has no plans to replace it while also stealing billions from Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid in order to pay for the trillion and half in money he and his party just gave to the 1 percent.

If we are going to worry about socialism, I say we should attack the socialism of the rich that is the hallmark of the party of Trump, not the 'socialism' of the poor that is simply the Church's teaching on the common good.

So since there is nothing necessarily incompatible about Catholic teaching about certain aspects of socialism, the question has to be asked, what exactly is Francis saying or doing that is contrary to the faith? I don't see anything. What I see is offended American conservatives at CRISIS defending the perks of the super-wealthy.

[...]

[Hashi Lebwohl]

The Trump Administration is not stealing billions from Social Security, Medicare, and Medicaid so it can give that money to the 1%. That is pure bullshit, which means the rest of the opinion article is pure bullshit, as well.

"Democratic Socialism" is nothing but newspeak for "we want everyone to be in de facto slavery to the government, dependent upon an all-powerful parent for all their needs". Religion should be engaged in the process of making people free, not advocating complete subservience to the government.

[Skyweir]

Its perspective.. and perspective is always subjective.

Outsiders ie non government observers .. looking at the administrations policies are struggling to reconcile tax breaks that benefit the narrow group of exceptionally wealthy recipients... and see social policies being eroded in their realities .. ie faced with the costs of insulin for example. Such are struggling to see how THEY are benefiting.. when they are not.

I can see how the Catholic Church can view social democracies as aligning with Catholicism.

[Avatar]

Religion should be engaged in the process of making people free, not advocating complete subservience to the government.

Goodness, this thread is full of laughs.

Religion isn't about making people free.

And as for its relation to government..."Render unto Caesar..."

--A

[Hashi Lebwohl]

Religion isn't about making people free.

I said "should". Then again, a lot of things "should" be which are not.

[Avatar]

Suspect the only type of freedom religion has ever promised is the freedom to do what they tell you. (And possibly only explicitly in James 8:32.)

So even the "should" is just opinion.

--A

[Wosbald]

+JMJ+

... Religion should be engaged in the process of making people free, not advocating complete subservience to the government.

Assuming I'm reading you aright, I'd say that the aim of "religion" -- or at least, of Catholicity -- is to free people from sin, not to free people from government (or from whatever one's ideological bogeyman may be).

[Hashi Lebwohl]

+JMJ+

... Religion should be engaged in the process of making people free, not advocating complete subservience to the government.

Assuming I'm reading you aright, I'd say that the aim of "religion" -- or at least, of Catholicity -- is to free people from sin, not to free people from government (or from whatever one's ideological bogeyman may be).

Technically, yes, since religion cannot--and should not--control the secular government.

[Gaius Octavius]

If that's the case, that Catholicism aims to free from sin, then why does Pope Francis support tolerance for divorcees and homosexuals? What about Vatican II?

When was the last time the Church declared a crusade to take back the Holy Land? Fanaticism is to piety as tolerance is to infidelity.

[Wosbald]

+JMJ+

... Religion should be engaged in the process of making people free, not advocating complete subservience to the government.

Assuming I'm reading you aright, I'd say that the aim of "religion" -- or at least, of Catholicity -- is to free people from sin, not to free people from government (or from whatever one's ideological bogeyman may be).

Technically, yes, since religion cannot--and should not--control the secular government.

Seems to me that "freeing people from sin" would necessarily include "freeing government from sin" in its ambit.

That is, unless one sees government as alien to people, alien to humanity -- an oppressive force inhibiting human flourishing.

[Hashi Lebwohl]

That is, unless one sees government as alien to people, alien to humanity -- an oppressive force inhibiting human flourishing.

That is exactly how I see government--large, centralized governments have never been anything but the means through which career politicians have abused their own citizens or engaged in wars against other nations.