Thursday, April 26, 2012

"If Paul Ryan Knew What Poverty Was, He Wouldn't Be Giving This Speech"

Rep. Paul Ryan (R-Wis.), chairman of the House budget committee, knew some Catholics were spoiling for a fight with him Thursday when he was scheduled to speak at Georgetown University, a Catholic institution. Nearly 90 faculty members and administrators sent him a letter expressing concerns with his recent comments that his proposed budget, which includes massive spending cuts to programs for the poor but not a single tax increase, was inspired by his Catholic faith.
"I am afraid that Chairman Ryan's budget reflects the values of his favorite philosopher Ayn Rand rather than the gospel of Jesus Christ," said Father Thomas Reese, a fellow at the Woodstock Theological Center at Georgetown, in a press release Tuesday. "Survival of the fittest may be okay for Social Darwinists but not for followers of the gospel of compassion and love."
Read it at Mother Jones
"If Paul Ryan Knew What Poverty Was, He Wouldn't Be Giving This Speech"
by  | Stephanie Mencimer | legal affairs and domestic policy correspondent, Mother Jones' Washington bureau

This is just the beginning of push-back by Christians against Randism, which is incompatible with Christianity.

7 comments:

Anonymous said...

Hypocrisy has a very short survival period. Natural selection does not look favourably upon it. Darwin and Jesus stand hand in hand on this one.

Matt Franko said...

Ryan has cited JP2's Centesimus Annus as a source of guidance for him (doubt he even read it, I cant see how).

Here is the link:

http://www.vatican.va/holy_father/john_paul_ii/encyclicals/documents/hf_jp-ii_enc_01051991_centesimus-annus_en.html

Full Employment:

"The obligation to earn one's bread by the sweat of one's brow also presumes the right to do so. A society in which this right is systematically denied, in which economic policies do not allow workers to reach satisfactory levels of employment, cannot be justified from an ethical point of view, nor can that society attain social peace.88 Just as the person fully realizes himself in the free gift of self, so too ownership morally justifies itself in the creation, at the proper time and in the proper way, of opportunities for work and human growth for all."

Sounds like JP2 would be onboard with the JG....

Resp,

Tom Hickey said...

"Sounds like JP2 would be onboard with the JG...."

Sounds like it to me, too. The strongest argument for it is the moral argument, although it is also more efficient and effective economically, too.

Matt Franko said...

The foundational mandate of God wrt "work" imo is Genesis 3:19 "By the sweat of your brow shall you EAT your bread."

I think this must be where JP2 above gets his "sweat of brow" reference. JP2 uses the word "earn" your bread. God was not running a monetary economy at that time so there was no "earning" involved. You can see how the perception of contemporary arrangements can cause a drift.

It also is NOT an "obligation" of the human, it is a MANDATE of God. Just read the simple words here.

So when govt policies lead to mass unemployment, as we in MMT paradigm know they do, this policy is resisting and adversarial to a mandate of God.

The policy (whether NAIRU, etc) is insubjection and lawlessness, very dark.

But you can see how in JP2's writing here, the "work" issue is transformed from a desire to be subject to a mandate of God to an "obligation" that "presumes a right".

That is not what the scripture says.

resp,

Matt Franko said...

"Uh, yes, uh, ok God we hear You... Your mandate is for the human to work for his subsistence... but I'm afraid that may be all well and good, but I guess You havent heard about "price stability" have You?"

"So look, I guess You dont really know about economics, but dont worry we've got it.... so we're going to have to have this thing called NAIRU which will leave millions of humans unemployed but we think will provide "price stability" which You seem to know nothing about.... furthermore we will "obligate" everyone to have to work (that will have to do for Your purposes) but in our deranged moron broke-dick way we will obligate them while running a macro policy designed so that millions will not be able to meet that obligation... "

beowulf said...

"The strongest argument for it is the moral argument, although it is also more efficient and effective economically, too..."

Richard L. Rubenstein endorsed a JG-like ELR in "The Age of Triage: Fear and Hope in an Overcrowded World" on moral grounds (albeit from a Jewish, not Catholic, perspective).
Incidentally, his earlier book, The Cunning of History, inspired William Styron to write Sophie's Choice.
http://books.google.com/books?id=hon19qakjxkC&pg=PA20&lpg=PA20&dq

Matt Franko said...

right all of this is originally identified in the Hebrew Scriptures (OT). God's mandates, Mosaic Law...

But for Christians: "14 For whenever they of the nations that have no law, by nature may be doing that which the law demands, these, having no law, are a law to themselves,
15 who are displaying the action of the law written in their hearts
, their conscience testifying together and their reckonings between one another, accusing or defending them,
16 in the day when God will be judging the hidden things of humanity, according to my evangel, through Jesus Christ." Romans 2

Christians ideally would desire (among other things) a full employment economy NOT to simply comply with the law (allotment of the land), but rather because the ACTION of the law (ie NOT 'the law') has been written in our hearts.

By the grace (unmerited favor) of God thru the faith He gives Christians in Christ Jesus, Christians are able to bypass the letter of the law completely and go straight to the actions that God's law was intended to provide.

"For freedom Christ frees us! Stand firm, then, and be not again enthralled with the yoke of slavery." Galatians 5:1

But then we have all these evangelicals going around trying to get the 10 Commandments posted up all over the place, go figure...

Resp,