Science Fiction and Salvation

Science Fiction is a powerful tool for exploring and understanding how we human collectively see ourselves.

"No," some might argue, "it's simply the result of a few minds and how they see the world."

Indeed. That's true of any given work. But, those that make it to the masses and become popular, have somehow spoken to people "en mass" and it has a lot to say about how we collectively see ourselves.

Jules Vern, Doyle, Asimov, Roddenberry, Lucas. These are among the minds that have asked us, collectively, to ponder our human potential and how we recognize and choose good and evil, God or Satan.

Of modern note are creations that in recent decades have become popular TV series. Star Trek, Babylon 5, Star Gate series, Buffy the Vampire Slayer, Battlestar Galactica, Terminator: Sarah Connor Chronicles, Heros, Sanctuary.

There is a tendency among the modern sci-fi creations to be highly cynical. There is a distinct lack of hope. There is the premise that evil has won and survival equals victory. There is an underlying belief that humanity is doomed, and that being human means being irreprably connected with evil. This is an accurate and scary reality of the world without Jesus our Christ.

Mutations that are advancing humanity to our fuller potential and to greater potential for destruction abound. There is an awareness that humanity is called to more than we realize, but they very rarely point to God as the avenue for our salvation. 

Watching them, it can be easy to forget the through Jesus our Christ, we can rise up to fulfill a destiny far greater than we imagine -- the one God created us to be. It can be easy to forget we are each made in God's image, and if we can say "Yes!" to Christ being born within us, just as Mary did 2000 years ago, that God's grace gives up hope of living up to being fully human.

Bizarre and Artificial Rift Between Pro-Life and Social Justice “Camps”

This is the Enemy of human dignity clearly at work, dividing a house that should clearly be
united. There are errors on both sides, both of which boil down to not understanding our own
Catholic social teaching.

The battle against abortion is a clear moral “trump” issue. Without life, there is no opportunity
for human dignity here on earth. At the same time, our faith requires us to recognize Jesus our
Christ in every person and seek to help each person overcome the barriers between then and
equal opportunity.

One Body, In Christ

We can have both. We need to strive and struggle, together, toward both.
My prayer is that this model of Catholic social teaching can help move people beyond this evil
rift. We are one body. It’s time we started working like one, including that we realize we’re only one part and that other parts have other jobs and we work best when we realize we are one part, serving all parts.

Does Obama see the Evil around him?

It doesn't appear that Obama recognizes evil for what it is. Giving him the benefit of the doubt, he may have emerged from Chicago politics startlingly clean. If so, he clearly has an understanding of right from wrong in his own choices.

There are potentially many, many things that can be missed when we haven't cultivated the ability to recognize the Enemy's tail slithering in the background.

I pray I'm wrong. I pray for Obama and for his ability to recognize and combat evil, that we may truly be one nation under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all.

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.

Christmas Abundance in Today's Economy

I thought I'd share how we're responding to the much tighter budget this year as we prepare for Christmas.

We talked with our daughters and explained that this year we will be making our presents for each other. We've long read about the Christmases Laura Ingles Wilder had growing up -- and they really like the idea of Christmas gifts being made by us for each other and family and friends.

So our wee house of elves is busy at elven activity! The joy it brings to be doing that is a wonderful gift in itself! It looks to be a wondrously industrious and joy-filled Advent as we prepare for Christ's Mass!

How will your family find abundance this Christmas? Share your thoughts in the comments section.

Compassion and Why Institutional Handouts Rarely Uphold Human Dignity

Compassion is the source motivation which drives people to engage in social justice. Compassion is a beautiful gift that allows us to see the potential in others, despite their poverty, we hope we have ourselves. We need more compassion in our world. Compassion motivates us to advocate for the needs of our neighbor, be they next door or across the world.

Compassion is necessarily most effective when most personal. Indeed the more institutionalized a compassionate act becomes, the less effective it becomes. To illustrate this, I turn to Les Misérables by Victor Hugo (the book or play suffice). Jean Valjean is a newly released convicted thief who can not find work or lodging because of his past. Bishop Myriel takes him in, giving food and shelter. Valjean steals the bishop’s silverware and vanishes into the night, only to get caught. The police drag him before the bishop, who informs them that he gave Valjean the silverware and that he forgot the silver candlesticks as well. Bewildered by the bishop’s unexpected forgiveness and generosity, Valjean takes to heart the bishop’s command to become an honest man and do good deeds for others. That moment becomes transformative for Valjean, who takes the wealth to start a business under a new identity and he does help many.

Would that moment have been nearly as transformative if it hadn’t been so personal? No. It took being beholden to the bishop’s startling forgiveness and additional generosity to motivate Valjean to stand up and strive to become who God created him to be. No institutional handout could have accomplished the same thing. Valjean has many personal levels of poverty in addition to his financial poverty. These can only be addressed personally, in relationship.

Why explain this? Because many people begin their social justice careers by doing compassionate things as a grass roots level. They see that compassionate giving of aid helps people. They logically presume that what works on a local scale could simply be magnified if they did it on a large scale. What is often missed is that larger scale generally means less personal, and the tranformative aspect of the compassionate act is stripped away. No longer is there 1) mutual agreement, 2) relationship, or 3) personal responsibility -- the very things that help overcome the intangible poverties.

I’m often asked, “Why do the doers of social justice need to know this model? Can’t they just ‘love their neighbor’?” If all they will ever do is act individually, perhaps. But if they will ever advocate for social justice by voting or speaking to others, or extrapolate from their experiences to any larger scale (which nearly everyone invariably does), then it is essential they understand the natural law of this model of Catholic Social Teaching.

We need to realize that compassion is transformative and requires personal involvement and sacrifice. Somehow, our structures for social justice need to promote and support individual acts of compassion if we are to be as effective as possible.

Bad Bailout, Government Bully, and Nasty Coconuts

A few weeks ago the cry came from the White House that we were in huge economic crisis and that we needed that the answer was for the government to unclog the system with another bailout -- this time equalling the total of the previous recent bailouts to the tune of $700B.

If "the Man" says there is a problem that's one thing. That's their job. "Danger! Conditions are right for quick sand to form in the free market sand box!" It was said by some, but not in a way or a forum that it was heard or understood or reached most people. And if it had, would we have listened?

But "the Man" did more than declare danger a few weeks ago. Bloated government can't help but want to do more than it's rightful, just, and noble job. Now the government saw the opportunity to be the knight in shinning armor riding in to save the nation's economy, all the while utterly ignorant that it is actually a gangly, clumsy, oaf with a tin pot for a helmet clunking coconuts together for a steed.

I think many people saw the knight for the fool he is. Most Americans opposed the bailout before it passed. But the delusion of grandeur spread through congress. And it will continue to spread, because economic hardship is a vast and prevalent dragon throughout the land. After all, a knight in shining armor can hardly refuse to help more hapless citizenry in need. The delusion will grow and grow, we will pay and pay, until it can no longer support itself and then we will have real collapse and the "must avoid disaster" of the free market self-correcting will look mighty desirable. I pray our leaders look in the mirror sooner than that and wise up.

But I've digressed to dire predictions based on nothing but principles. (By the way, never trust a person who claims "I'm against this in principle, but in this crisis we have no choice but to blow off principle and do what feels good.").

How did our government's declaration to save the day prevent the free market from self-correcting? Because no one was exactly sure what the answer would be, only that government would overstep it's bounds. There was an answer coming. It's not our job to address it.

And the very mechanisms that could and should have helped get things moving again stood still because there was too much risk (of what the government would do) and not incentive (because the government might diminish any profit) to step into the breech, take a risk, and buy up the bad debt at basement prices. So no one wanted to buy. No one wanted to sell because the government was likely a better buyer.

It's the much the same thing that has happened with charity. The government takes care of it so we don't have to. We pay taxes and that takes care of everyone, right? Wrong. The principle of subsidiarity (via Catholic social teaching) states that ANY social entity that takes to itself roles and responsibilities which can be done by more local entities (closer to the family and the individual), undermines human dignity. Undermines human dignity. Wow. How much is our government doing that can be done by anyone else? A lot. That's a lot of trampling on human dignity.

Our current crisis began with a noble and ill advised sentiment -- that everyone should have a house. Government mandates made it so lending institutions had to give loans to people who couldn't afford them. This came to include not only poor people, but middle income people who thought they could turn and flip houses. That works when values keep growing. It's disaster when value shrinks. This was compounded by the Mark to Market rule which caused mortgage securities to appear valueless when they had substantial value. Bungling idiot, this knight in shining armor! And we reward such idiocy by giving our knight more responsibility and tools to mess with new and different aspects of our free market sandbox. Whose the greater idiot? The idiot himself, or the one who follows? 

We have to start calling him what he is. Bully! Get out! This is our sand box! You are just the maker and enforcer of the rules, not a player in the sand. Get out! And take these sand-encrusted coconuts with you!

The government fix we need

Is there a problem? Absolutely. Does the government need to do something to fix it? Absolutely. What does government need to do? Get out of the way.

How do I justify this as a Catholic theologian (and not one with a degree, at that)? Quite simple. The free market is the best economic tool we (humanity) currently have for upholding human dignity in interactions between individuals and organizations through the freedom to contract.

Why has our money supply suddenly become constricted? As near as I can tell because of combination of bad or inept regulation, including:

1) government mandated mortgages to "empower" poor people to buy a home
2) government mandated current list pricing for mortgage securities, which in a stalled market is impossible to assess, resulting in the appearance of a lot more "bad" loans than are really there.
3) quasi/government banks (Fannie and Freddie May) showing exactly why government has no place participating in the free market because there is no one to watch for abuse in the free market when the government is involved. (so why would we EVER turn to the government to do more of the same with a bailout?)

The crisis seems to lie in the regulation usurping people's ability to freely make contracts. Government, get out of the way. Human dignity demands no less.

(For any puzzled by the theology and Catholic social teaching principles refered to here, please see here for all Catholic social teaching posts.

For an intriguing counter-view see here. Kudos to Fr. Dowd for weighing in, and it's well worth noting that we share a common faith and mission. He does a good job of explaining that our problem is a constricted money supply. He's right. But WHY do we have a restricted money supply? Giving more blood to a patient with clogged arteries won't increase the blood flow. What's needed here is angioplasty.