Pope Francis Takes On Capitalism And Inequality

[Tacenda]

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/12/02/pope-francis-homeless_n_4373884.html

 

Popes leaves at night to minister to the poor. I hope no nut case wants fame by hurting this great pope.  I always picture the Catholic Pope in a bullet proof glassed vehicle.  This is unreal, to see him doing this.      

[CV75]

I want the health care of France. The education of Norway. The banking of Iceland.

...the pupusas of El Salvador... the whoopee pies of Maine...

[thesometimesaint]

...the pupusas of El Salvador... the whoopee pies of Maine...

 

True.

[Calm]

CV, a well explained position, good work.

[CV75]

CV, a well explained position, good work.

Thank you for your thouights, too!

[T-Shirt]

I want the health care of France. The education of Norway. The banking of Iceland.

When I was in France, if there was a medical emergency the Mission President quickly flew the missionary to Geneva, they did not want French doctors working on missionaries.

[3DOP]

No, they did NOT. The Federalists won that argument. Hamilton, writer of the US Constitution, argued quite vociferously for the expansive use of the Commerce Clause to force states to do Federal bidding. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Necessary_and_Proper_Clause

 

I think I agree with you tss! That is why for what little it is worth, I would be on the Patrick Henry side of the Constitution argument, rather than the side, which as you correctly point out, won. If I may make a point, it would be that all agree that history is filled with examples of winning sides also being the impractical/imprudent/wrong side. It isn't enough to merely win. 

 

I guess Mormons have some prophecy about "the Constitution hanging in the balance", right? That kind of implies that the Constitution is good. I don't know if very many LDS could for that reason be comfortable with being the Anti-Federalist that I tend to be. Nevertheless, tss, it seems like many LDS are open to Anti-Federalist ideas, wouldn't you say?

 

3DOP

Edited December 4, 2013 by 3DOP

[Stone holm]

I think I agree with you tss! That is why for what little it is worth, I would be on the Patrick Henry side of the Constitution argument, rather than the side, which as you correctly point out, won. If I may make a point, it would be that all agree that history is filled with examples of winning sides also being the impractical/imprudent/wrong side. It isn't enough to merely win. 

 

I guess Mormons have some prophecy about "the Constitution hanging in the balance", right? That kind of implies that the Constitution is good. I don't know if very many LDS could for that reason be comfortable with being the Anti-Federalist that I tend to be. Nevertheless, tss, it seems like many LDS are open to Anti-Federalist ideas, wouldn't you say?

 

3DOP

Certainly many are open to standing the Constitution on its head, no doubt about that.

[emarkp]

Hamilton, writer of the US Constitution

I think you misspelled "Madison" there....

[halconero]

Joke: Why not look at the Canadian constitution instead of the American one for a change?

 

Serious: Why do we talk about the United States, the American constitution, and the economic situation there so much?

 

Corporatism, the concentration of wealth, equitable distribution and how the Gospel acts as a lens on all of these exist within other countries.

[thesometimesaint]

I think I agree with you tss! That is why for what little it is worth, I would be on the Patrick Henry side of the Constitution argument, rather than the side, which as you correctly point out, won. If I may make a point, it would be that all agree that history is filled with examples of winning sides also being the impractical/imprudent/wrong side. It isn't enough to merely win. 

 

I guess Mormons have some prophecy about "the Constitution hanging in the balance", right? That kind of implies that the Constitution is good. I don't know if very many LDS could for that reason be comfortable with being the Anti-Federalist that I tend to be. Nevertheless, tss, it seems like many LDS are open to Anti-Federalist ideas, wouldn't you say?

 

3DOP

I place great value on your opinion.

 

I like Patrick Henry, he was a bit of a rabble-rouser, like me. But he was dead wrong on a number of issues. Our actual experience with the Articles of Conferation doomed them to a relic of history.

 

Fortunately, or unfortunately, history tends to remember the winners. What is truly amazing to me is that we have not only survived in our attempts at self government. We have become the template for the world. Sure we have plenty of problems, but our form of government isn't one of them.

 

Which has always baffled me. IF the US Constitution was inspired by God, and I believe its principles are. Then how on Gods' green earth can we reject what its writers say without very good cause?

 

The so called "White Horse Prophecy" has never been accepted by the Church. My reading of Scripture is that every nation of earth will fail, including ours. This earth will be ruled by a king, the returned Christ. In the mean time I want a say in how I am governed.

[Calm]

The white horse prophecy is not identical to the hanging by a thread prophecy, the latter is seen as somewhat credible in my opinion depending on the claims while the former is seen as nonsense:

http://en.fairmormon.org/Joseph_Smith/Prophecies/White_Horse_prophecy

[Anijen]

My liberal friends would like me better if I wasn't a capitalist. Just saying.

[mfbukowski]

I think I agree with you tss! That is why for what little it is worth, I would be on the Patrick Henry side of the Constitution argument, rather than the side, which as you correctly point out, won. If I may make a point, it would be that all agree that history is filled with examples of winning sides also being the impractical/imprudent/wrong side. It isn't enough to merely win. 

 

I guess Mormons have some prophecy about "the Constitution hanging in the balance", right? That kind of implies that the Constitution is good. I don't know if very many LDS could for that reason be comfortable with being the Anti-Federalist that I tend to be. Nevertheless, tss, it seems like many LDS are open to Anti-Federalist ideas, wouldn't you say?

 

3DOP

LDS tend to be overwhelmingly politically conservative.

Clearly all are not, but I think the majority clearly are. The conservatives among us see the constitution as preserving individual freedoms against governmental intrusion.

Edited December 5, 2013 by mfbukowski

[Stone holm]

LDS tend to be overwhelmingly politically conservative.Clearly all are not, but I think the majority clearly are. The conservatives among us see the constitution as preserving individual freedoms against governmental intrusion.

That is I believe basically the same as what the liberals believe. The problem is a differing concepts of what constitutes freedom.

[3DOP]

LDS tend to be overwhelmingly politically conservative.

Clearly all are not, but I think the majority clearly are. The conservatives among us see the constitution as preserving individual freedoms against governmental intrusion.

 

According to my picture of things, historically speaking, there were those who feared that the Constitution was too intrusive. That is why the Constitutionalists had to include a Bill of Rights. But the Federalist promoters of the Constitution weren't primarily concerned about civil liberties. They wanted a formidable central government, and not for bad reasons. I am not arguing that the Articles of Confederation were perfect as they stood. There were problems that needed and could have been solved by amending the law that preceded the Constituion.  I therefore can not consider the Constitution a conservative document (I think TSS and I would agree on this). I do not see Madison, Jay, or Hamilton as conservatives. 

 

As a side note, there is no way in the hot place that the States would have ratified the Constitution had they known, per the strange but now accepted interpretation of Abe Lincoln, that they were forfeiting the right to secede. 

 

I wouldn't get heated about a thing like this now. You can't change history and I feel much less passion about this than I have in the past. Que sera. Still, I just don't think most Americans realize that as far as hanging from a thread goes, the Constitution was never more precarious than when those concerned for states rights and civil liberties feared and opposed it for reasons which seem to be have been justified by subsequent events. I think the anti-Federalist crowd would have screamed much louder if they could have foreseen what the "United States" would do to the "Sovereign States" using the Constitution as a club.   

Edited December 5, 2013 by 3DOP

[Duncan]

not to be a prude but what does any of this have to do with the Church?

[teddyaware]

According to my picture of things, historically speaking, there were those who feared that the Constitution was too intrusive. That is why the Constitutionalists had to include a Bill of Rights. But the Federalist promoters of the Constitution weren't primarily concerned about civil liberties. They wanted a formidable central government, and not for bad reasons. I am not arguing that the Articles of Confederation were perfect as they stood. There were problems that needed and could have been solved by amending the law that preceded the Constituion.  I therefore can not consider the Constitution a conservative document (I think TSS and I would agree on this). I do not see Madison, Jay, or Hamilton as conservatives. 

 

As a side note, there is no way in the hot place that the States would have ratified the Constitution had they known, per the strange but now accepted interpretation of Abe Lincoln, that they were forfeiting the right to secede. 

 

I wouldn't get heated about a thing like this now. You can't change history and I feel much less passion about this than I have in the past. Que sera. Still, I just don't think most Americans realize that as far as hanging from a thread goes, the Constitution was never more precarious than when those concerned for states rights and civil liberties feared and opposed it for reasons which seem to be have been justified by subsequent events. I think the anti-Federalist crowd would have screamed much louder if they could have foreseen what the "United States" would do to the "Sovereign States" using the Constitution as a club.

At least to me, the anti-Federalists have been totally vindicated. They warned that future

generations would likely either misunderstand or deliberately twist the original intent of the

Federalists, as expressed in the Constitution, thereby ushering a tyranny said Federalists seemed to be

unable to anticipate. For example, the Federalists didn't seem to realize the simple phrase "promote

the general welfare" would be seized upon by future generations to mean something totally at variance

with what they intended it to mean (i.e. even handed treatment of all the states with no favoritism

shown or given to any special interest groups). Sadly, there are many today who believe that clause

gives them cart blanche to give the central government powers that were not specifically enumerated in the Constitution. In a nutshell, the abuse of that one clause has undermined the clear intent of the

main body law codified within Constitution. The anti-Federalists knew the devil was in the details, and

it was the ambiguity of some of the Constitution's wording that gave the devil the opportunity to dance on the graves of the Founders.

Edited December 5, 2013 by teddyaware

[teddyaware]

Deleted

Edited December 5, 2013 by teddyaware

[Alan]

LDS tend to be overwhelmingly politically conservative.

 

 

In my experience this appears to be true of US saints, but certainly not true of the rest of us (the majority).

In my ward I think the "conservative" label could be accurately applied to less than 10% of the membership.

[3DOP]

not to be a prude but what does any of this have to do with the Church?

 

I explained that I thought there was some LDS prophecy, unofficial perhaps, but nevertheless mentioned once in a while, that has to do with the U.S. Constitution.

 

When you say "The Church", you mean LDS, right? It seems like it only started being specifically LDS when the Constitution began to be discussed. Before that, it was specifically about the pope and nobody seemed to mind that. I think there were comparisons with LDS ideas on these subjects with Catholic ideas. I don't know why this should cause heartburn for you. Maybe you should try to get the mods to shut it down?

[3DOP]

At least to me, the anti-Federalists have been totally vindicated. They warned that future

generations would likely either misunderstand or deliberately twist the original intent of the

Federalists, as expressed in the Constitution, thereby ushering a tyranny said Federalists seemed to be

unable to anticipate. For example, the Federalists didn't seem to realize the simple phrase "promote

the general welfare" would be seized upon by future generations to mean something totally at variance

with what they intended it to mean (i.e. even handed treatment of all the states with no favoritism

shown or given to any special interest groups). Sadly, there are many today who believe that clause

gives them cart blanche to give the central government powers that were not specifically enumerated in the Constitution. In a nutshell, the abuse of that one clause has undermined the clear intent of the

main body law codified within Constitution. The anti-Federalists knew the devil was in the details, and

it was the ambiguity of some of the Constitution's wording that gave the devil the opportunity to dance on the graves of the Founders.

 

Very good...

 

This is the problem that Traditional Catholics like me have with the ambiguous and verbose documents of Vatican II. Worse yet, after documents like these are adopted they are freely misinterpreted against the meaning of the Authors. Concern to maintain the intent of the authors is lost. Anything that can be forced to fit under the letter of the law becomes the authority. The legislation that follows comes from what ever spin a subsequent free wheeling generation should like to put upon it for sake of greed, convenience, power, or some other private agenda. Eventually, nobody cares if you can prove that someone hundreds of years or even decades ago didn't intend the interpretation that is given. At that point, "the law" is whatever the ruling power has been doing already.

 

With Vatican II, you would think that Traditionalists are against it because of what the Fathers intended to authorize. Not really. In most cases, a strict adherence to the fairly obvious meaning of the Fathers of the Council would be satisfactory to us. For example, in the name of Vatican II, without citing any references because there are none, to justify what Vatican II supposedly teaches, all kinds of abuses have occurred to the liturgy and to seminary formation. Traditionalists are marginalized by a Church in the West which has ignored what the Second Vatican Council actually said about the liturgy and seminary formation. I can prove it to anybody that isn't biased against Catholic Tradition.

 

I see it as a problem when the children lose respect for the fathers. In our age of scientific advancement, we have imagined that people in the past were unintelligent. Maybe they didn't know how to get to space or program a computer. But a nation and a religion that disdains and ignores the wisdom of their fathers are doomed to become something else that the Fathers would want to disown.

 

Regards,

 

3DOP

Edited December 5, 2013 by 3DOP

[Stone holm]

I explained that I thought there was some LDS prophecy, unofficial perhaps, but nevertheless mentioned once in a while, that has to do with the U.S. Constitution.

 

When you say "The Church", you mean LDS, right? It seems like it only started being specifically LDS when the Constitution began to be discussed. Before that, it was specifically about the pope and nobody seemed to mind that. I think there were comparisons with LDS ideas on these subjects with Catholic ideas. I don't know why this should cause heartburn for you. Maybe you should try to get the mods to shut it down?

One of the problems with prophecies of that sort, whether it was or was not official, is what exactly are they predicting. Both sides of the political spectrum could claim that the Constitution is being threatened by the other side.

[thesometimesaint]

According to my picture of things, historically speaking, there were those who feared that the Constitution was too intrusive. That is why the Constitutionalists had to include a Bill of Rights. But the Federalist promoters of the Constitution weren't primarily concerned about civil liberties. They wanted a formidable central government, and not for bad reasons. I am not arguing that the Articles of Confederation were perfect as they stood. There were problems that needed and could have been solved by amending the law that preceded the Constituion.  I therefore can not consider the Constitution a conservative document (I think TSS and I would agree on this). I do not see Madison, Jay, or Hamilton as conservatives. 

 

As a side note, there is no way in the hot place that the States would have ratified the Constitution had they known, per the strange but now accepted interpretation of Abe Lincoln, that they were forfeiting the right to secede. 

 

I wouldn't get heated about a thing like this now. You can't change history and I feel much less passion about this than I have in the past. Que sera. Still, I just don't think most Americans realize that as far as hanging from a thread goes, the Constitution was never more precarious than when those concerned for states rights and civil liberties feared and opposed it for reasons which seem to be have been justified by subsequent events. I think the anti-Federalist crowd would have screamed much louder if they could have foreseen what the "United States" would do to the "Sovereign States" using the Constitution as a club.   

 

Good Morning 3DOP.

 

Madison thought that a separate Bill of Rights was a duplication of what he already saw in the Constitution. It wasn't until the 20th Century that the Courts came to see the Bill of Rights as applying to the individual citizen. The Bill of Rights itself refers to the prohibitions on Congress and says nothing about what the individual State can do.

 

I'm not convinced that the Founders knew of a way to modify the AoC enough to preserve the union. Washington complained of their insufficiency during the American Revolutionary War, and the issue of slavery just about doomed the whole enterprise. Individual states could issue money that was accepted only in that state. These are just 3 of the problems the Founders faced with AoC. I'm not too sure that even today we could do much better. Back in the late 1960's and early 1970's groups of young college students would ask ordinary citizens to sign the Bill of Rights. They got very few takers.

 

Where these men perfect? Not by a long stretch. But they did a truly remarkable thing. Due largely to the writings of Thomas Paine(An Atheist) they started a nation where the people were sovereign and not a God or King, Prince or Pope. 

 

I definitely wouldn't consider them conservative by our modern day standards. They were trying desperately to form a nation. Incidentally based on English law, but free of British rule. Individually they were men of money, power and influence. Thus by our standards of today they were neither liberal nor conservative.

 

Actually George Washington in the Whiskey Rebellion should have settled the issue of cession once and for all. We took it up again in the 1830's with the Nullification Crisis. Abraham Lincoln fought the bloodiest war(more killed than in all other US involved wars combined) in American history over cession in the 1860's. Even today we have certain state officials claiming the right of nullification and cession. As though 600,000 American dead wasn't enough.

 

Under the Constitution States aren't sovereign. Federal law always takes precedence. So it is a VERY BIG CLUB. IMNTBHO the Anti-Federalists were doomed from the beginning. We would have devolved into a loose collection of fiefdoms run by whomever had the most serfs. 

[thesometimesaint]

Very good...

 

This is the problem that Traditional Catholics like me have with the ambiguous and verbose documents of Vatican II. Worse yet, after documents like these are adopted they are freely misinterpreted against the meaning of the Authors. Concern to maintain the intent of the authors is lost. Anything that can be forced to fit under the letter of the law becomes the authority. The legislation that follows comes from what ever spin a subsequent free wheeling generation should like to put upon it for sake of greed, convenience, power, or some other private agenda. Eventually, nobody cares if you can prove that someone hundreds of years or even decades ago didn't intend the interpretation that is given. At that point, "the law" is whatever the ruling power has been doing already.

 

With Vatican II, you would think that Traditionalists are against it because of what the Fathers intended to authorize. Not really. In most cases, a strict adherence to the fairly obvious meaning of the Fathers of the Council would be satisfactory to us. For example, in the name of Vatican II, without citing any references because there are none, to justify what Vatican II supposedly teaches, all kinds of abuses have occurred to the liturgy and to seminary formation. Traditionalists are marginalized by a Church in the West which has ignored what the Second Vatican Council actually said about the liturgy and seminary formation. I can prove it to anybody that isn't biased against Catholic Tradition.

 

I see it as a problem when the children lose respect for the fathers. In our age of scientific advancement, we have imagined that people in the past were unintelligent. Maybe they didn't know how to get to space or program a computer. But a nation and a religion that disdains and ignores the wisdom of their fathers are doomed to become something else that the Fathers would want to disown.

 

Regards,

 

3DOP

 

I see Vatican II as the Catholic Church attempt to remain relevant in our age. Interesting the Pope of a hundred years ago said essentially the same things a Pope Francis is saying.

 

The good Catholic Fathers are some of the most intelligent men I know. Lack of knowledge in a particular subject is no sign of unintelligence, just  a lack of knowledge in that subject

 

While I certainly don't disrespect the Catholic Fathers, the few I personally know are very good men. I just don't agree with some of their religious tenets