An open letter to college kids, from the Church

Inspired by (and partially in reply to) this:

Dear College Kid Who Misses Me,

Glad you had a great time at the Macklemore concert.I understand that sense of belonging, of being taken outside yourself. That’s a lot of what I do, but I don’t do enough of it, it seems. You want more, and you want real. And you think I’m in the business of excluding and hating people. Yeah, Fred Phelps, but you know me better than that; you know Westboro Baptist isn’t Church. Dad’s gonna spank that man, when he come home.

In particular, you think I hate gay people. I love gay people. I love gay people so much, that I don’t want them to hurt themselves. You remember, just a few years ago, when your mom wouldn’t let you eat your whole Easter basket all in one day? Or when she made you eat your vegetables (or at least try them)? She made rules about organizing your stuff so it didn’t get stepped on. And she had a screaming hissy when you wanted to overnight at your boyfriends’. Your dad had rules too, and your parents backed each other up. Oh wait, you didn’t have a dad. That makes my heart ache. But anyway, they really hated your guts, didn’t they? Oppressive patriarchal fossils who didn’t understand. Uh, no, they loved you. You know that now. You’ll know it even better soon, when you have kids of your own.

You seem to think that because there was some science that part of me was wrong about once, that I’m wrong about everything, and can change my mind about everything. I never claimed to be a scientist; I claimed to be infallible in matters of faith and morals. I know where you got that. The Schmuck of the Body of Christ who is typing this grew up in a “church” started by a priest who didn’t like some of what he saw in me either. He wanted to marry a nun. So a bunch of young people left and made their own “church” that didn’t oppose priestly marriage. They left those haters. (Of course, the guy they left with hated Jews, but none of the kids were Jewish, so it didn’t matter.) And people kept on following that pattern: they didn’t like Dad’s rules, so they’d start a church that did just what they wanted. You probably grew up in a church like that. But God is Truth. If you have a bunch of truths that contradict either other, some of them have to be false, right? Consider those Episcopalians you speak well of. They got started over sex too. And they’re losing members in droves, more than almost any other church. If people leave me because I’m fake, what does that say about them? God doesn’t change. If I speak for God, then I can’t change either. That should be pretty obvious. The world is supposed to conform to me; I’m not supposed to conform to the world. On the other hand, look at all the young people going to Latin Mass. That’s pretty hardcore. Maybe changing and pandering makes you a little less real.

But yeah, sex. You’re horny , right? I’m not who decided that you’re a child until you’re 26. I didn’t establish this messed-up social order. You should be getting married now, and working, not wracking up debt for a Gender Studies degree. That’s my plan. And I know you have issues with it, that the whole society does. You should be campaigning for heterosexual marriage. That got eliminated about the time your parents were born. You hate fake things; that’s why your generation isn’t getting married. If you can leave each other when the going gets rough anyway, why call in the clergy and the lawyers? Shack up. So do you want gays to get married, the way I mean marriage? Forever and ever, what God put together? If you do, I’d respect your argument more.

They’re tough rules. I understand. The Schmuck who is typing this had a big problem with them too, when he was your age. He thought he was good enough and smart enough to make his own rules. He hit 50 and saw that his rules didn’t work: not for him, not for society. His sexuality was disordered, and he doesn’t get my Gold Star of Approval just because it was disordered in a heterosexual way. I want you to be bound in love to each other, and to time, and to Dad. That’s what marriage does. And with gays, the time part is missing, because spit don’t make babies.

Dad wants gays not to play boinkie with each other. And that seems so unfair. But Dad didn’t make them gay. The world is broken, and He hurts because of it, hurts so bad that He let his own Son hurt like hell to fix it. Dad and I are trying to implement the fix, and we can fix individuals, but it’ll be awhile yet before we fix the world…or rather, Dad will replace it with a new world. Again, I don’t make the rules; I just pass them on. It’s up to each of us to play the cards we’re dealt, with Dad’s help, even if it seems like the dealer cheats. And that makes it all the more important to be kind to gay people. They have a tough row to hoe. I’ve got to call a sin a sin, but other people’s sins aren’t any of your business. You have enough sins of your own to worry about.

A lot of this stuff is even harder because of your parents. A lot of them said, “I want my children to make up their own minds about religion”. Funny, they didn’t say, “I want my children to make up their own minds about ALGEBRA.” You learned that, and maybe you don’t use it, but if you ever needed it, it would come back. If you don’t know what religion is, or how it works, or what it’s good for, how could it ever come back? Why would you ever become interested? And then maybe you go to church, and hold hands and sing Kum-ba-ya, and the pastor never says anything that’s challenging, because somebody might get offended and withhold their money. That’s fake too. Jesus is the most real, the most countercultural and rebellious thing out there, and it’s my job to point to Him and provide a space where you and He can hang out together, and where somebody can speak the truth, even if it hurts.

I’ve failed you in a lot of ways. I’ve always failed, because I’m made up of folks like the Schmuck and you, who are always looking for the easy way. This is not an easy way. Your friends won’t like you. People may even kill you. Life will become a live-action film, and you’ll be the hero. But the movie is realer than real. I think you’ll like it. Please come back to me.

A canticle for Leibowitz

My high school band director, Paul Parets, suggested that I should read A canticle for Leibowitz by Walter M. Miller Jr. Since Mr. P (I still can’t bring myself to call him “Paul”) was one of the few teachers I had who was Not An Idiot, I decided to take him up on it. And here is the obligatory book report.

Canticle was written at the high point of American Catholicism, the mid-50s, before The Spirit of Vatican II (not the letter!) tore everything apart. Miller was a Catholic convert who had before his conversion taken part in the bombing of the Benedictine Abbey of Monte Cassino, which was traumatic for him, and which was a definite influence on Canticle. It’s a bit of a shock in 2013 to read a novel, not specifically aimed at a religious audience, which treats the Church accurately and respectfully, and which deals with theological issues with 99% fidelity. It’s a realistic portrayal: there are sadistic abbots, bad popes, and a priest who punches somebody in the face (like St. Nicholas!). But there is no pederasty and no conspiracies (aside from a little politicking by an abbot). Rather, there is (among other matters) a battle over euthanasia which is shocking in its timeliness.

The theme of the novel is the relationship between religion and science, and the practical necessity for religion to guide the use and development of science. The first part of the novel (originally, three separate novellas) is set 600 years after a nuclear war. In the aftermath, the survivors had attempted to wipe out all knowledge and learning. A scientist named Isaac Edward Leibowitz joined the Church for protection, and founded an order of monks, The Albertine Order of Leibowitz (coincidentally and amusingly abbreviated AOL), to preserve what knowledge had escaped the howling mobs. The monks hand-copy books, as they did during the Dark Ages. A postulant encounters a Jewish pilgrim who points him to the final resting place of the Beatus Leibowitz’s wife, and to some relics, which eventually leads to the canonization of Leibowitz. This mysterious pilgrim appears in all three sections of the book (the only character to do so, given that the time span is 1200 years). In the first part, he is taken by some to be an apparition of Leibowitz himself. In the second section, he scoffs at this and declares himself to be Lazarus. As a type, he fits the legend of the Wandering Jew; he is always looking for the Messiah (who Lazarus would presumably recognize). And it should be noted that standard Catholic belief is that Lazarus eventually died again.

In the second section, set 600 years later, a Renaissance is beginning., along with secular science, which finds itself being co-opted by political power. The Church (in the form of the AOL Abbey) is open-handed with scientific knowledge, while challenging the moral choices of scientists. In the 3rd section (600 years yet farther on) civilization has returned to its former state, including nuclear weapons, and they are starting to be used. A group from the Church, including bishops, sets off in a spaceship to the colony on a planet of Alpha Centauri, to perpetuate the Church, before Mankind destroys itself again (and possibly finally).

The writing style is engaging (indeed, at points so virtuosic as to call attention to itself), the plot energetic, and the ideas of consequence. It’s well worth the read. One wonders what effect the post-Vatican II disruptions would have had on Miller’s writing. Miller suffered from PTSD and depression all his life, and after he wrote Canticle, he became a recluse. He had finished most of a companion novel, Saint Leibowitz and the Wild Horse Woman, before shooting himself in 1996. It’s been finished and published, I haven’t read it, but the Wikipedia summary suggests that either the Church’s demons or Miller’s own had gotten to it, set as it is in a time of a Babylonian Capitivity of the Church. I might look for it; in the meantime, Canticle gets this layman’s official Nihil obstat and recommendation.

My jury adventure

OK, I haven’t kept up the blog.  This week I have an excuse: I was on jury duty.

The case was about negligent builders.  3rd generation members of a highly-respected local residential building company family decided to do a couple of spec houses on their own, so that they could get experience with the financing end of things; they’d been working as project managers in the family business. So they built this $470K house, which was bought by a family from Texas. The 2nd winter they’re there, they went back to TX for the holidays. Meanwhile, the temp went down to zero, with high winds. Hubby had to return early for business reasons, returned to flooded house. A copper pipe had burst in a chase between 2nd-floor bathrooms. About $160K in damage to structure ($61K) and contents, paid for by their insurance company, who brought the suit. The homeowners had the $500 deductible tacked on, though they really hadn’t wanted to bring suit. (Indeed, the aforementioned building co. that the defendants were involved with did the restoration.) As one of my fellow jurors said, “If this were about $40K, we wouldn’t be here.” In February of ’07, when the builders still owned the building, temperatures were even lower, winds nearly as high, and the thermostat set even lower, yet the pipes didn’t freeze.

Element of negligence claimed: there was no “true wall” between the unheated attic space over the garage, and one of the bathrooms. This wall was the tub shower surround, with friction-fit insulation on the outside (attic side).  The inspector had made them take the kraft paper off that insulation as a fire hazard, as there was no wall covering it. This is on a southwest interior corner. The forensic engineer claimed that in the high wind conditions, air blew through the soffit and the insulation, under the void created by the rounding of the tub, and into the pipe chase. The pipes there were not insulated, because they didn’t have to be, being surrounded by interior walls…except that apparently that space was communicating with untreated air and should have been dealt with like a crawl space, OR there should have been wood or sheetrock blocking the air.

The installation was according to code, was passed, and the builders are quite meticulous about cosmetic detail. I don’t think that the loss of the paper backing was that big an issue; you lose some r value and gain some permeability. (In fact they had replaced the insulation with non-backed insulation.) But I was asked to believe that there was enough wind to force air up the soffit, blow 6 feet to that wall, go under the 6″ or so of insulation not backed on the bottom, be drawn under the tub and cool that chase to <32 for long enough for the pipes to freeze, with heat on at 60. A power failure alone wouldn’t have done it, because of the thermal mass of the house, though it was possible, given that the pipe was near to the garage and would lose temperature more quickly. But Ohio Edison no longer had or doesn’t keep outage information, and nobody asked about the clocks in the house.

What was annoying was all of the BS info being presented to sway the jury…arguments about whether it was actually 55 or 60 or should have been 68 per insurers’ recommendations, whether they should have turned the water off. (That wouldn’t have been BS had we gotten to proximate cause, I suppose.) The house felt tropical at 61-62 because of the moisture…wouldn’t it feel COLD at that temp? (not if it was the hot water pipe ruptured…as a perceptive juror pointed out.)   If OSB would have sufficed against the insulation, why not the fiberglass surround? Owners felt a draft under the vanity, but didn’t report it when they had reported other problems. And the lawyers sucked. I had so many questions that I couldn’t ask, things that seemed obvious, but they weren’t asking, because neither one had any knowledge of construction whatsoever.  The fact that I was even on this case and not voir dire’d off shows they’re hacks; they asked about insurance industry connections but not building trades. As it turned out, HALF the jury (3 males, including me, 1 female) had building trades connections of one sort or another. Not that it helped either side; we were split evenly. The plaintiff counsel was particularly slimy, not well organized, trading in emotionalism. The way he browbeat the defendants during cross of their testimony was shameful.

Had we gotten to compensation it would have been more interesting yet. One juror wanted to award the $500 deductible to the homeowner and that was IT. The defense had done a pretty good job of discrediting figures. (totalling out a non-depreciated $2500 Toro mower for rust? ) The family was in $144/day lodging for 5.5 mo, largely due to dawdling by the insurance co.

Anyway, at 10:30 today we finally got to discuss the case. Nobody else much wanted the job, so I became the foreman. An initial check showed 6 for the defense (6 out of 8 needed) but people wanted to talk it out. We had one guy (BME, had worked for NASA, had building experience) who was adamantly for the plaintiff, and another guy (builder) leaning that way, as well as eventually another woman. So it became 5-3. After some fairly loose discussion we broke for lunch. A bunch wanted to go to this sandwich place they had heard good things about, and they assured me there were veggie or fish options.  Well, they were out of tuna, and they no longer do the crab cakes because of prices, so they basically had no entrees, so I bid them adieu. Yeah, I could have made a meal of tomato soup and cupcakes, or have them invent a price for a cheese sub,  but why would or should I? Being out of menu items is shameful at any time; being out of your non-meat options on a Friday in Lent is inexcusable (though it was more likely ignorance than active prejudice). So I popped over to McD’s to try the Fish McBites (OK, not cosmic, probably better than the Filet-o-Fish.)

During lunch I had an idea to move things along. I pointed out that the real division in the jury was whether the definition of “workmanlike manner” was the building code, or some other standard. Everyone agreed that the code COULD be a standard. When I said, “If we didn’t have a building code, what would the standard be? How would we establish it?” nobody had any ideas.(And this was a pretty bright and not at ALL liberal crowd). It eventually became clear that the code was what we had to apply, and we eventually voted 7-1 for the defense. There’s a slightly incoherent element here, because we mostly agreed that the damn board should have been there. (it is now!) But there was also a freak element to the incident.  I later got called by one of the recalcitrant jurors who had been compelled to check the building code…and it doesn’t define what constitutes a wall (that was his personal issue.)

Afterwards he and I were talking to the defendants. In an amusing incident, I was referring to one of Plaintiff’s most egregious misstatements. “…’a wall you can walk through’? Uh, no; there’s a fucking TUB SURROUND there.”, and just then Plaintiff came out of the jury room.  After he passed, a defendant said, “You have GREAT timing”, clearly seeing Plaintiff hearing himself being mocked just made his day. Personally, I couldn’t look at him during closing arguments. That said, we did take care not to let that contaminate our judgement. But I’d have to say that the builders largely got off on a technicality. This same juror later talked to Plaintiff and told him everything he’d done wrong. “You’re a better man than I am, ” I said when he told me.

OK, here’s my advice for lawyers:
1, Don’t deal with snark or emotion. All we want is the facts. Be kind.

2. If part of the applicable law involves “workmanlike manner” and “ordinary care”and something passes code, you might want to offer evidence as to what else that is in the industry.

3. If you’re  a large national home insurance company, hire a lawyer with a clue about the building trades.

4. Enter the freaking building code into evidence.

5. If you’re defending builders, find a witness besides them to testify that they follow good building practice.

6. When you have to prove that “a reasonably careful person would have anticipated that an act…would likely result in some damage”, and your expert witness admits that it took him 2 weeks to find the problem, YOU have a problem.

7. Using the word “profit” as an epithet doesn’t fly in any part of Portage Co. east of the Kent city limits. Nor does trying to bring up the insurance co.’s profit margins (besides bringing an instant objection)

And last, a shout-out to my fellow jurors: there are great human beings, attentive, humane, and just, and it was a pleasure to work with them.

 

My Sandy Hook rant

For the sake of my Facebook friends, I’m going to try to get this out of my system now, and let it go:

F*** the children of Sandy Hook. You’ve played the compassion card once too often.

Don’t get me wrong. My heart aches just as much as yours does. Maybe more, because 6 and 7 is getting a little old for Limbo, and I have no way to know how many of those kids were baptised. To most of you, they just don’t exist anymore. I know they exist; the question is where, and in what state? I think of my own grandchildren, as far as I know unbaptized, and past the age of reason, and their grandfather, who hasn’t done squat about it. And because of that, what can I say to you anti-gun Christians who want to bulletproof children’s bodies, but not their souls? How can I know that the stopped clock of the Westboro heretics isn’t right for once, and those children are in Hell?

And those bodies? You gave the prudential decision on how best to protect school children from nutcases to a government which is down with killing children, and demands that I pay for others to do so. And you want to give them even more prudential power in that matter?  That didn’t work so well this time; do you think it will work any better the next time?  When that government which is cool with abortion comes for your mom, for the handicapped, for the Jews/blacks/conservatives/Presbyterians/whatever, what are you going to do, when they have all the guns?

But we’re going to water their graves with our sentimental tears, because 31st-trimester abortions are somehow worse than 1st-trimester abortions. I guess that until somebody loves you, you’re just a product of conception. And we’ll slick up the dance floor with their blood so everyone can do the gun-ban dance, so they can look righteous in public and be seen to have “done something.”

The worst are the businesses. Cerberus I cut some slack to, because they’ve taken a political shekel, and he who pays the piper calls the tune. But Walmart? Dicks? And especially Cheaper Than Dirt, flipping the bird at their customer base? Why the preemptory apology for something they had no hand in?

Virtually every mass shooter has been taking psychiatric medications with side effects of violence and delusion. Nobody in the mainstream media is talking about banning them. Freedom Group (makers of Nancy Lanza’s Bushmaster) had sales of $775 million in 2011. Novartis (maker of Fanapt, Adam’s drug) had sales of  $58 BILLION in 2011. You do the math. Big Pharma is a LOT bigger than Big Firearm, but just as culpable. [UPDATE: Lanza may not have been on Fanapt, but was probably on something else; my point still stands.]

Speaking of Nancy Lanza, how do you like the “survivalist” slur? They say that like it’s a BAD thing. Oh yeah, she was paranoid, so no wonder her kid was a nutbar.  It’s not paranoia if rational analysis shows you that we’re headed for trouble. And if your analysis doesn’t show you that, you’re not rational. Now, I’m not impressed with Mrs. Lanza as a prepper. With a $200k/yr divorce settlement and no job holding her down, there are much safer places she could have lived than New York City’s ileum (coastal NJ being its rectum). If she was harboring the mentally ill, why weren’t her guns locked up, preferably mostly off-premises? Why indeed (except for parental love) have a dangerous adult under your roof at all? We’ll never get an answer; survival FAIL.

Well, fine, friends. I’ve thrown dielectic at your rhetoric for five days now, to no avail.  I get better arguments out of those grandgirls: “Grampa, can I have some gun control?” “No. Why?” “Cause” “Cause why?” “Cause I want it.” You’re going to get your gun control, if not now, then in 6 months or a year when martial law is declared. And the guns will remain uncontrolled, and the shootings will continue, because I have a moral obligation to protect my family, and some people think they have no moral obligations at all. Have fun with your kitchen knives and baseball bats, when society collapses because of institutionalized sin.

Yesterday’s folly

The horror of the election is acute. I entertained hope that the large turnout meant a mass rejection of the folly and incompetence of the last 4 years. Alas, it was an embrace of that folly. So let us examine the fools.

1. Women. If I called one of you a cunt, you’d be quite offended, maybe even slap me in the face. Yet the Obama campaign employed exactly the same metonymy, reducing women to their “lady parts”. And sold you a nonexistent right to kill your children and have somebody else pay for it. And proclaimed your right to use and be used by a man, with no consequences, not even a $9 birth control bill. You were cheapened, and you accepted it.

2. Catholics.  Your bishops made it unequivocally clear that to support a candidate that supported baby murder on demand (and expected Catholics to pay for that) was a ticket to Hell. Yet HALF of all Catholics voted for Obama: NO real difference from other recent election cycles. What is wrong with you?

3. People who don’t know civics. “Romney is going to…” do all kinds of things that a President can’t do constitutionally. The office is “President of the Republic” not “Dictator for 4 years”.

Then there was the problem of not going after financial shenanigans. Romney himself needed to discuss reforming the casino that the markets have become. As a rich man, he was automatically considered the enemy. He is a decent, honorable man who put up one heck of a fight.  But he needed to show his decency in the financial sector.

Then there’s the social issues mess. The American public is depraved. So many of the issues decided proved that. But you can’t use punishment to reform the depraved; they won’t give you the job.  It’s hard enough to curtail the ways that government actively contributes to depravity.  The American Right falls for the temptation to substitute guns for Gospel.

We are screwed. We have called down God’s Judgement upon ourselves, in the usual way where God stands aside while our own deeds punish us. Have a fun next 4 years.

Back to the future

So what is this allergy that the Obots have about the 1950s?

This has been a recurring theme in the Obama campaign, and I really don’t understand it. It works because most Americans didn’t live through it and don’t know their history.

1950s: near full employment.  Married women didn’t HAVE to work (but could). Lower crime. Stable families. Much lower rate of divorce and out-of-wedlock births. HIgh point of the Catholic Church in America, and a better time for churches in general. Strong unions that weren’t Communist, and a Democrat Party that was not a wholly-owned subsidiary of the CPUSA. Real money made out of precious metals. Journalists who at least pretended to report. Millions of babies not being murdered in the womb. No War on Poverty programs creating a permanent underclass. A vigorous space program. Mail-order guns. Classical music on commercial TV and radio. Ven. Fulton Sheen. Few chain restaurants.

Negatives: segregation. Restricted access to birth control (not sure that’s a negative, but I’ll give it to them). The Cold War (we have one of those too, only it’s religious). High taxes to pay off WWII. Nightmares about mushroom clouds. More boring (but healthier?) food. The beginning of Richard Nixon’s career. Electric coffeepots that cost as much or more than the modern ones in fixed dollar terms, but brewed less good coffee (they did last longer though).

Technology doesn’t count. No society has ever willingly abandoned a technology, so if Romney takes us “back to the 50s”, we’ll still have Internet, cable, MRIs, etc.

Given that, just why again shouldn’t I regard this as a Romney campaign ad?

Why I’m NOT a Christian Democrat.

A Facebook friend posted a link to this essay, which I read because I really don’t understand Christian socialists. Well, I still don’t understand them. I have a feeling for them, maybe, but not an understanding. I understand more than I used to, when I started in the faith ; I’m willing to entertain the notion that government can be the vehicle for the fulfillment of moral imperatives. But I’m still not convinced that that’s the best decision prudentially, and I don’t think it’s the argument that the Left is actually making, since they generally argue against the intersection of morals and politics.

Ms. Dollar’s arguments, such as they are, amount to “I am a Democrat because they support all these good things.” It’s hard to argue against that; I want all those good things too. But as a Christian, I am responsible for my own actions, as are we all, and I will face my Judge to answer for the evils I have committed and supported.And my belief is that to vote Democrat is both to support evil, and not to support good. Let’s deal with the negative first.

The Democrat Party supports intrinsic evils, which we are forbidden to cooperate in.  First among these is abortion, which until 1930, Christendom universally condemned as murder. As a self-proclaimed theological conservative, Dollar should be standing with the past.  But I note that Dollar’s definition of “conservative” is “believes in the Nicene Creed”. That’s not the definition of a conservative; that’s the definition of a Christian. That’s been the filter between orthodoxy and heresy in Christendom for nearly 17 centuries, and if there are people whom Dollar accepts as Christian who do not believe in those propositions, both she and her church have major problems. (If she were truly theologically conservative, she’s be an orthodox Catholic, since the entire Reformation was an innovation.). She “align[s] myself with the political party that most consistently puts the interests of marginalized Americans on their national agenda.”  Yet the unborn are the most marginalized Americans of all,  since their very humanity is called into question; they are a “baby” or  a “fetus” depending on whether the mother wants them. To say “It’s not really murder” is like saying “It’s not really stealing,” the language of the justification is self-refuting. Even if one doesn’t know what a human is, somehow, the fact that the preborn class of humans are usually called “baby” should lead one to invoke the precautionary principle. Do you really want to appear before King Jesus saying, “I didn’t know” as He gives you perfect recall of your friend’s baby shower? It’s possibly unfair to note here that the Democrat Party was, historically, the party that marginalized Americans, if they were black.

Nor does Dollar get to hide behind the belief that “abortion is a personal matter”, because she accepts the notion that the State is an agent for her moral choices. If her obligation to feed the poor can and should be fulfilled by government, how much more her obligation to defend the defenseless and to act as a Good Samaritan? Even supporters of the most minimal forms of government agree that, if government has any legitimate function at all, it is to prevent or punish murder. There’s a limited exemption for self-defense, but to use that here would be to accept Murray Rothbard’s argument that the fetus is a parasitic invader that needs to be defended against… and hence not human. And if it’s human, then it’s not a moral actor in being where it is; nobody asks to be conceived. Worse is the unholy conjunction of abortion and charity which states that I have to pay for somebody else to kill their child, which means that abortion is no longer a “personal matter”, as there’s no conscience exemption.

This is not the only intrinsic evil supported by the Democrats. (I will gloss over the contraception issue, as most Christians no longer have a problem with it.) Their entire political philosophy and campaign strategy is based on envy, on the violation of the 10th commandment. It’s all about taking from those who have to give to those who have not. And the definition of “need” constantly expands. Our poor live what in much of the developed world would be considered a middle-class lifestyle. At what point are the poor no longer poor; at what point have we helped enough? I think we all agree that having to live under a bridge is unacceptable, but is there a right to fast food or discounted smart phones?

And the whole mechanism of wealth transfer can be morally questioned. Voting to aid the poor is not like pledging to United Way. In that case, one has a choice whether to contribute, and that choice doesn’t commit anyone else to do so. Indeed, one can get out of fulfilling one’s pledge. However, when you vote, that vote is binding on others who themselves chose otherwise.  And the State, unlike United Way, has guns; all state action is ultimately supported by armed force. Now, if I point a gun at you and request money, it’s a crime, even if I stick the contents of your wallet into a Salvation Army kettle. If I and a mob do so, it is still a crime; it may indeed be several crimes (inciting a riot, conspiracy). If a majority of the population were to do so, would it still be a crime? Why not? What is the magic whereby the State has a moral right to do this?  The Christian might cite Romans 13, but that begs the question of the moral standing of government action. Rom. 13:3-4 assumes we are dealing with just government. If we read 13:1-2 without the light of 13:3-4, we must assume that all governments without exception are ordained of God, including those of Hitler and Pol Pot, and equally to be obeyed, and there is no just-war right to revolution. Now, historically, the Church hasn’t had a moral problem with normal taxation, unless it reaches an oppressive level, so I will freely admit that this argument is ahistorical. Yet it offers a possible counterbalance for the prudential judgement of those who were not taught about solidarity and subsidiarity.

But  some of Dollar’s arguments are also ahistorical, particularly the distinction between “fairness” and “justice“. Indeed, by etymology, she has them reversed if there is any real distinction at all, since justice is legal whereas what is fair is a moral issue….probably more of the rotten fruit of Luigi Taparelli (The class-differentiation is built into the words : Latin vs. Germanic.) Quoting Matthew 20 here is a two-edged sword. God is “fair” exactly as the vineyard owner is. His covenant with us is to grant eternal life to those who repent and believe on His name, whether we do so from birth or on our deathbed, and regardless of how long we have labored in the vineyard. Like the early workers, we might be disturbed at God’s insane generosity to the latecomers. But we contracted for the penny because we need the penny, and can’t lose the chance through death.

She goes on to discuss “everyone giving out of what they have so that all have what they need (e.g., the Loaves and Fishes, Matthew 14:13–21).”  I’ve dealt with this heresy elsewhere (and it IS a heresy to deny what is clearly described as a physical miracle.). But in the State, not everyone gives what they have. The tithe was not a progressive tax, and the widow’s mite was praised because losing anything was a hardship for her. Clearly the centurions should have gone to a Pharisee’s house, and made him pay for her.

This brings us to the other big problem with government support of the poor: it’s not charity, and like bad money under Gresham’s Law, it tends to drive real charity out of the marketplace. You get no moral brownie points for voting for taxes. You get even fewer for paying them, except for those applicable to obeying the law. You aren’t paying out of the goodness of your heart; you pay them to avoid unpleasantness with the IRS which may well include losing your home or freedom. Paying your tax doesn’t change who you are. Now, we sinners don’t want to come up off the dime, and I am the worst in that regard. Some of us solve that problem by making the government force us to come off the dime. It’s somewhat like the closet gay legislator who wants more anti-gay laws because he doesn’t think he can keep it in his pants otherwise. Others of us solve the problem by just doing it. It’s a form of pump priming; as we give, giving gets easier. And it changes us, making us more like Christ, which for Christians is the name of the game. But there aren’t enough real Christians to maintain the poor? Uh, maybe you should take some of the effort you put into Get Out the Vote and put it into evangelization, as Jesus told you to.

“None of us practice a pure faith. Our faith is always influenced by both the Christian and wider cultures in which we live. ” As a statement of fact, I can’t disagree with that. After all, we don’t only read the Bible in Greek as the Muslims read the Koran in Arabic.  As a theological position, though, it runs up against Romans 12:2. I have to wonder whether Dollar’s religion is actually liberalism for which she uses Christianity as a justification, just as she (and I) might well question the extend to which my libertarian leanings might wag the Christian dog. But the goal should be, first, to find the pure faith, and then to prayerfully and objectively apply it to life, including political life.