All Things in Moderation

I was drafting a kind of “this is why NoVA is the way he is” post in response to a brief dialogue with 12Bars and Michigoose on the PL, but it could take weeks for me to sit down and actually write a complete essay with citations on balancing a catholic religious tradition and faith and the associated social responsibilities with a libertarian stance on economic and social issues. Then I realized that you could spend your whole career on such an exercise. So instead I’ll kind of hit the highlights, with the caveat that each of these points could be the subject of much more detail. I’ll also note that there’s a debate within the Church about this and each of my points has a legit counterpoint.

Subsidiarity — One of the facets of catholic social teaching is the idea that the smallest organization possible should be responsible any given activity. Pope John Paul II wrote in 1991 that ignoring this principle deprives society of its responsibility and this “leads to a loss of human energies and an inordinate increase of public agencies, which are dominated more by bureaucratic ways of thinking than by concern for serving their clients, and which are accompanied by an enormous increase in spending. In fact, it would appear that needs are best understood and satisfied by people who are closest to them and who act as neighbours to those in need.” Do note, however, that before making this point, the pope when into great detail on the role of the state in the economic sector. This is why I’m libertarian and and not anarcho-capitalist (although at times ….). See point 48 of John Paul II’s Centesimus annus here

Expanding on this, the more powerful and larger the state becomes, the less the need for charity. Instead, we create uncaring bureaucracies that will subsume and control those institutions that reflect our values. The state will not, and cannot, consider our values. You saw this in the health reform debate — under the goal of providing increased access to care, the bishops were shocked to learn of the requirements they will have carry out. They should not have been surprised.

Quoting from Taki’s Mag on this point: “In an American context, given our constitutional heritage and the large body of legal decisions solidifying its interpretation, on nearly any issue, Christians of any denomination should reject the assistance of the State. Our efforts to capture it, the courts have made it clear, will always fail. Any attempt to infuse the activity of the government with the moral content of a revealed religion will be rejected, in the end. Indeed, the more our own institutions cooperate with the government, the more they will be compromised; hospitals which take federal funds will be subject to secular ethics on issues like contraception, end-of-life, and even abortion. Religious colleges accepting federal grants will eventually be federalized, and so on.

Read more: http://takimag.com/article/ron_paul_and_pius_ix#ixzz1Ymq0cWzK

I would add that I have no problem with this. I don’t expect the state to enforce my values. I think we’re foolish to think that it would.

Militarism — In the Beatitudes, Jesus tells us “blessed are the peacemakers.” Arms and violence should be a last resort. At this point in our history and for the foreseeable future, our leaders have turned this idea around. We are at perpetual war now. And the technology is advancing at such a rate where we can kill so easily and without risk to our own soldiers that the system is slowing becoming automated.

The idea that our leaders will even consider the catholic notion of a “just war” is hopelessly lost. We don’t even debate war anymore. This is simply incompatible with catholic teaching. And I don’t believe for a second that those who can callously order remote killings on one day can turn around and have any legitimacy on the next when they say we need to raise taxes because of the poor, or schools or any other “public good.” They’ve demonstrated repeatedly they care only about their own power. Respecting authority is a big part of catholic tradition, but respect these guys? The only solution to this is a smaller state.

And we are at this point, because as Lord Acton put it, power corrupts. We can spin our wheels trying to control this through ethics reforms or campaign finance reform. I contend that these efforts will fail and the only true solution is not to attempt to control or weed out the inevitable corruption, but to limit the power. So while we have reg after reg and law after law attempting to control vice, the greater threat is power. You can say we need to give the state power b/c x,y, or z. They will take your good will (and your money) and abuse it

This power, which they’ve used to control an ever larger part of society is a threat to our greatest gift, that of free will, a topic that needs it’s own post.

Thanks — and I’ll (try to) stay quiet in the comments and let everyone else poke holes in it.

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