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Rebuttal to John Ness article: Is Pope Too Radical for American Politics, LB Patch 12/29/13

John Ness article:  Is Pope Too Radical for American Politics, LB Patch 12/29/13:
I like the new Pope.  But this article is dumb.   The Pope has made it clear he is a strict conservative on what you euphemistically refer to as "culture war" issues.  His recognition that abortion, contraception and same sex marriage are not the only sins against Catholic doctrine that the church must address is welcome new tone and focus, but the idea liberals should feel vindicated and conservative should feel "threatened" is either naive, ideologically contrived, or both.  The symbolism of his personal style is endearing, but the suggestion that his call for compassionate capitalism is an endorsement of rampant secular liberal collectivism and expanded socialism in the U.S. or Europe would be laughable if true.  The Pope presides over one of the most mass concentrations of wealth produced by capitalist private sector in the history of human civilization.  Like governments, churches do not provide a very cost effective or efficient system for redistribution of wealth.  Market driven capitalism is the most efficient way to provide the greatest material and social good to the greatest number of people.  Governments and churches regulate free people and free markets to protect the health, safety and morals of society, but only a fraction of every dollar diverted from the private economy to the government or to churches ends up helping the poor.  The Pope is from Latin America and he is a smart guy, so he knows capitalism is the most humane system for producing wealth, rewarding human creativity, and enabling individuals to be creative and free, so we can find out what it means to be made in the image of our creator.   So why are liberals any less "threatened" by the new Pope than conservatives?   Liberals are just as rich as conservatives, and this Pope is not a threat to the rich in the church or in the secular political world.   He believes government and churches are necessary to sustain social and cultural stability and transmit values and a social order based on those values from one generation to the next.  That is the only sustainable justification for allowing governments to skim from the top of wealth produced by the private capitalist markets to build and maintain the edifice of secular government and the churches of the nations.   Even though the American government is experimenting right now with a social policy that allows government to scoop deeper and take more wealth from the people who produce it, the poor will benefit only marginally, and rich liberals will join rich conservatives in restoring limits and restraints on government spending and taxing.  Our current President promised change we could believe in, then brought in Clinton's economic team and expanded the Wall Street bail out Bush had begun.  The banks wrote the so-called home loan modification program supposedly to help Main Street, but it was used by the banks to take more homes from poor and middle class people than it was to save homes.  The current hyper liberal progressive President has used taxpayer dollars and the creditworthiness of the American people to bring about the greatest transfer of wealth from the middle class to the rich in the history of our nation through the Wall Street bail out.  The banks did not have to live up to the terms and rules, but the taxpayers whose money was used to balance the books of the banks were held strictly accountable and lost their homes at the same time they lost their income and savings.   Eric Holder was so brazen as to tell Congress the titans of Wall Street could not be charged for their crimes because it would hurt the economy!   Too big to fail, too rich for jail.  That is what passes for justice under liberal progressive policy.   Now the President blames the failure of nationalization of health care on conservative "investment in failure."  It was the liberals who invested in failure, the conservatives invested in truth, and opposed destruction of the private sector health industry because common sense predicted it would fail.   So now you come along and try to create the illusion and the lie that the new Pope is aligned with failing collectivization and seeks to end capitalism.  Well, when he asks Congress to end tax exempt status for the church in America so the wealth concentrated in the church can be redistributed through the government to the poor, then let's talk.  Until then, your expression of new found pridefulness in your church because you think the new Pope is a liberal progressive radical is a personal issue you need to address.  The Pope is right, killing a viable fetus and same sex marriage are not the only sins against church doctrine people commit every day all over the world.  Pride and exaltation of secular worldly works are portrayed in some scripture as sins even more displeasing to God than the more conspicuous sins.   So if we admire the Pope for walking a humble path, and I do, perhaps we should recognize that spiritual pride based on secular ideology is as serious a sin as the "culture war" sins you dismiss based on a failed liberal political agenda.  No, conservatives aren't threatened by this new Pope, but liberals should be.

 

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