Immoral Abuse of Morality

This is in response to Jim Wallis, his confused "God's Politics" blog, and this post in particular. It presumes at least a familiarity with the Model of Catholic Social Teaching, which can learn about here.

First, I absolutely agree that a budget, be it a family's, a parish's, diocesan, state, or national or any other, is a moral document. There, however, ends my agreement with him.

Catholic social teaching offers us a beautiful and challenging understanding of what human dignity is, our call to always uphold it, and even some understanding of what is required to uphold it. What follows is my personal response to Jim Wallis' radio statement and blog, based on my understanding of Catholic social teaching.

From a moral perspective I utterly disagree with Jim Wallis' statement (and underlying assumptions) when he speaks about our nation's current budget: "[Obama's 2009 budget is] a budget aimed at redressing the imbalances." He goes on to say this is a very good thing: "The new budget proposed by the White House is a dramatic step in the direction of the common good, with strong support for the middle of America, real help for the poorest among us, and the proposition that the wealthiest pay their fare share."

Let's start with the underlying presumptions in his moral analysis. He presumes that inequality is a bad thing. Poverty (of any kind, defined as anything that prevents us from becoming who God created us to be), is a bad thing. Barriers which prevent people from having equal opportunity are a bad thing. But inequality in results is part of what motivates us to take ownership of who we are and what we do. Inequality in results is part of what compels us to co-create with God. Imposed equal results is not a moral principle that upholds human dignity. Imposition of equal results undermines natural law, demotivates people from responsibility, ownership, risk, and reward. It undermines human dignity and is sinful.

A second, and equally sinful presumption under Wallis' statement is that it is the right and proper role of government to address the issues that need addressing, particularly by taking from those who are successful and giving to those who aren't as successful. This inherently undermines subsidiarity, one of the three required pillars upholding human dignity. From a moral perspective we have to stop presuming government is required to address moral issues simply because we've ignorantly forgotten that we are supposed to do that ourselves.

The solutions Wallis advocates as "moral" are, in fact, immoral because they are highly socialist. They redistribute wealth and undermine the right of the people to freely enter into contracts, keep the fruit of their labor. Catholicism has long recognized the right to own property, and keep the fruit of one's labor is a fundamental individual, God-given right (going back to Aquinas and even earlier -- long before Socialism existed as we know it).

Socialist answers to the poverties of our world are wrong and immoral and deepen the poverty of the world. From a Catholic moral standpoint, Socialism and socialist answers (which this budget is) are irredeemable because they inherently undermine human dignity.

What of the free market? That can hardly be a moral system, Wallis and friends will claim. Ahhh, but they are wrong. Free will is just as immoral as the free market it. Put another way, both free will and the free market are neutral -- their morality depends on the choices made by those exercising or within them.

Here's the hard truth about our current economic situation. Part of it is our fault as a Church. What? To to extent that we have failed to speak with the moral teaching authority of the Church in the areas of faith and morals, we are responsible for failing to invite and challenge the people of the free market system to be moral in their business practices, use of debt, the rightful role of government to protect and defend the inherent rights of her citizens instead of entering into the markets as a power hungry, greedy participant who no longer is capable of regulating the free market playground because it is a horse in the race. Quite simply, we've failed to teach human dignity and the three pillars required to uphold it. We've failed to teach our faithful and society morality. We've failed to compel our faithful to answer their God given mandate of faith to reach out to our neighbor and help them become the fullness of who God created them to be (yes, that's our responsibility, not government's!).

As a Church we have advocated for specific solutions and ignored our own moral teaching. It's one thing to advocate against the mortal sin of abortion (it is an inherently grave mortal sin), quite another to advocate specific economic solutions such as farm subsidies, universal healthcare, minimum wage, when there are other solutions which aren't inherently morally grave.

The reality is that it's poor theological and moral understanding like what Wallis touts that leads to the type of irresponsibility and lack of ownership on many moral issues required to uphold human dignity, abortion included. There is a reason that abortion, euthanasia, gay marriage, embryonic stem cell research, and other inherent evils are part of the platform of our current administration. It fundamentally does not understand human dignity or how to uphold it.

Are we compelled by our faith in Jesus our Christ to respond to the needs of our poor? Absolutely. But let's not make the mistake of foolishly falling for the argument that the government is the only or even the best way to accomplish what we are called to do as individuals, and which we as a Church have poorly taught.

Truth can not contradict truth. In that same vein, human dignity is not upheld if one of it's three required pillars is undermined. It is an error to uphold "common good" as if it is a stand alone principle. It's not. Human dignity is, and it requires all three pillars of common good, subsidiarity, and solidarity to be upheld. A social action which takes power and rights which rightfully belong to families and individuals and churches and the free market undermines subsidiarity and fails to uphold human dignity. The government ought not be in the business of forcing us to do with our money what they think we ought to do, making it so we have less to do what Christ calls us to do.

Christ's challenge to all of us is to find a way to address society's poverties that actually upholds human dignity. Our current path does nothing of the kind.

Human Dignity in One Lesson

Our nation is facing challenging economic times. Such times often cause tremendous change in roles of government, private sector, and family. It is the purview of the faithful and all in our society to assess how to best meet our moral obligations. As hierarchy in the Catholic Church, it is our responsibility to remind both our faithful and all people in our society of what these moral responsibilities are.

Always and everywhere it is the responsibility of every individual, and all grouping of society, including government, to serve and uphold the dignity of every human being. To accomplish this, it is necessary to understand what is meant by human dignity, and what is required to uphold it.

Human Dignity
Human dignity is the innate and unalienable quality bestowed on every human at conception. We each have a value beyond reckoning and a God-given potential that only we can fulfill. Our nation's Declaration of Independence is founded on this most fundamental natural law.

Three principles must be fully, mutually, and equally met in order to uphold human dignity: the common good, subsidiarity, and solidarity. If any of these three is absent or slightly lacking, then, human dignity is not uphold, and is in fact undermined -- a three legged stool with a missing or shortened leg can not uphold the person sitting on it.

The Common Good
The common good is the mutually shared responsibility of all individual people to corporately realize our full human potential as individuals.

Subsidiarity
Subsidiarity is the responsibility of individuals to realize the fullest potential of the smallest groupings, down to the family and individual, by placing ownership at the smallest feasible and practical level. Indeed, not only is it the responsibility of smaller groupings to claim and act upon their local authority, but it is the responsibility of larger groupings to encourage and support ownership at smaller levels as required.

Solidarity
Solidarity is the responsibility of individuals to realize that what happens to one effects all and thus to stand together, with our strongest helping support our weakest, that we might realize our fullest human potential.

The Most Common Error in Trying to Uphold Human Dignity
Any well intentioned act by an individual, group, society or government which fails to uphold human dignity does so for one or both of two very simply reasons:

It examines the impact of its cause and effect for too short a time and/or on too small a group.

Abortion is the perfect example of this grave error. Examining the rights of the woman only at the time of her pregnancy and anticipated motherhood, her right to not be bothered by anything she doesn't want to be falsely makes abortion seem a moral option. However, doing so fails to consider the effect of the abortion on her unborn child (death), on the mother's life-long mental, spiritual, and physical well being (tremendously harmful effects in all areas), on the father (who has a right to know he's a father and who suffers mental, spiritual, and physical effects as well), and on society at large, which fails to value human life and dignity leading to the harming or killing of millions because of being blind to evil.

To the extent that government, corporations, and other larger groups usurp actions, rights and ownership which rightfully belong at an individual, family, or smaller group level, human dignity is undermined.

To the extent that we as a society fail to reach out and help our brothers and sisters overcome their poverties to the point they have equal opportunity, human dignity is undermined.

To the extent that individuals turn to others for what they themselves can provide, even through struggle, human dignity is undermined.

To the extent that government takes the fruit of individual's labor beyond what is essential to fulfill government's rightful role to protect its people's fundamental, God give, unalienable rights, human dignity is undermined.

Our Call to Uphold Human Dignity:
Christ's challenging invitation to each of us: making decisions effecting the dignity of ourselves and others, to examine the full effect of our actions and laws, and ensure our actions uphold human dignity as fully as possible. Doing so is essential for our nation to continue to be a vibrant, free beacon of democracy, and to us to live our faith.

Ask yourself two simple questions: What is the effect of this action if I consider it's full impact over a long period of time? Does it fully, equally, and mutually uphold the common good, subsidiarity, and solidarity, and thus human dignity?

Human Dignity in One Lesson

In 1946 Henry Hazlitt wrote "Economics in One Lesson." It's a painfully simple book that cuts through a lot of confusion in economics. What is this one lesson? Turns out, it's one sentence:

"The art of economics consists in looking not merely at the immediate but at the longer effects of any act or policy; it consists in tracing the consequences of that policy not merely for one group but for all groups." (p. 5)

Indeed, this is perhaps the simplest, most elegant way to describe the art of upholding human dignity.

Any policy, no matter how ill-conceived, can be shown to benefit some sub-group of people for some limited amount of time. But who does it harm? What are the medium and long term effects? How does it effect all people?

Proof of Concept:
Care for a non-economic example? I'll take a non-controvercial one (sardonic grin):

Abortion
In the little picture, abortion benefits a defined subset of the human population for a limited time. But doing so ignores that it harms everyone involved, plus society at large when we look at the big picture.

Resources for learning more:

Model of Catholic Social Teaching

Compendium of the Social Doctrine of the Church

Variety of books on Freedom and Economics

We are witnessing the slow death caused by subtle socialism

The Soviet Block used overt socialism to kill itself in 70 years. The US is using subtle socialism to accomplish the same thing over a longer timeframe.

Why does it take longer to kill a nation with subtle socialism than with overt socialism? Because the free market breathes new life into the infected nation, giving it strength to endure and last longer than otherwise.

I say this not based on economics. I say it based on the principles of human dignity. In the early 1900's the US began undermining human dignity by turning to the government to unnecessarily regulate the free market, undermining subsidiarity by hindering the ability of people to enter freely into contracts with each other.

It's now so common place we don't realize the government doesn't belong as a third wheel controlling how any free interaction takes place. The government sitting on each person's hand looks right to us. It's not.

If the government is involved, increased regulation is needed to keep the government in check while it regulates the interaction (otherwise, the government is tempted to become a player in a sandbox that's it's regulating). When abuse happens, we daftly trust the government to fix it by adding more regulation (brilliant deduction! I'm off to wipe the sardonic off my face) and instead of doing the right thing to uphold human dignity (remove regulation and government involvement), we add more of both, compounding the problem.

Now, we've given up on even the facade of subtle socialism and our government is deciding which companies get bailout finding (gee, no chance for further waste there!).

Unless we take drastic action to remove the insidious cancer of socialism from all aspects of government -- cutting it's role back to only the most basic and necessary functions to protect our population and define and uphold the rules of the free market -- our great nation will crumble under the weight of our own bungling weight, and human dignity will be squashed just as equally as it was under overt socialist USSR.

Let's try everything except nothing!

Everything Seems Reasonable without Principles to Stand On
Treasury Secretary Paulson today changed strategies in the financial bailout. I don't pretend to understand what he's now proposing (and I'm far from convinced he knows either), but what I do know is that we have strayed far and wide from what the proper role of government is: upholding and ensuring the rights of the people to life, liberty, and property (see The Law, by Frederic Bastiat).

Och! How very much our government has become the legal plunderer rather than the protector.

The government has two right and proper roles in the free market (which I call the sandbox):

1. Define the sandbox and its rules
   
2. Uphold and enforce the rules
   

Bully in the Sandbox

Of course it is hardly content with only those two roles, and so it steps into the sandbox to play, often in the name of "fairness". Except that as make, enforcer, and now player in the sandbox, there is nothing to stop the government. And we just elected leaders who want to play even more in the sandbox.

Of course, the problem with a bully in the sandbox is no other kids are quite sure they want to play because anything they play might get taken away. So of course we still have a credit crisis. You hold on to your toys when the bully's around, especially when he says "Go ahead, play!"

Mini-Revolution

Time for a mini-revolution to return government back to being by the people and for the people.

Our one option: vote them out! They clearly won't get out of the way. We are the only ones who can stop the government. Not entirely. It has a right and proper role. It's just that right now it's doing everything except its right and proper role, and in so doing harming those it is supposed to protect.