Posted on 12/02/2013 7:41:24 AM PST by SeekAndFind
Forget the debate over whether Obama is a socialist.
Now we’re discussing whether Jesus is for big government. Or, to be more accurate, the Pope has started a debate about whether free markets are bad, particularly for the poor.
Samuel Gregg of the Acton Institute wrote about the underlying theological issues in an article for National Review, but I hope I also contributed to the secular aspect of the debate in this BBC interview.
Editor's Note: I'm Catholic... Conservative, Traditional Catholic. Mitchell's right; Pope wrong. This is not a matter of doctrine. We are all free to disagree with the Pope. In this instance he's just another dude with an opinion.
The first thing I said was the rather obvious point that there’s a lot more to life than accumulating wealth.
My most important point was that capitalism is the only successful model for creating broadly shared prosperity and I used examples from the Pope’s home region of Latin America to show that nations with more economic liberty are far more successful.
But I emphasized that supporters of freedom have a challenge because many people mistakenly associate capitalism with cronyism and bailouts for big business. In reality, free markets are a system based on voluntary exchange and private property, which means no special favors for any industry or company.
To bolster my point that economic growth is the best way to help the poor, I cited Hong Kong as a role model, both for creating growth and for enabling upward mobility.
My second most important point, which came near the end of the interview, was that genuine compassion is when you give away your own money, not when you vote for politicians who will use coercion to redistribute other people’s money. I should have used the opportunity to cite the data showing that Americans are far more compassionate – in the right sense – than their European counterparts.
I’m sure “Libertarian Jesus” would have agreed.
Now we need to get others to climb on the freedom bandwagon. I suspect that Pope will be more receptive to that message than politicians, though the Vatican sometimes has been very good on these issues and at times very disappointing.
P.S. I was worried I made up a word when I stated that I wanted to make a “theologic” point, but it’s actually in the dictionary, so I got lucky. But even if it turned out it wasn’t a word, it wouldn’t have been nearly as embarrassing as the time in the 1990s when I wanted to say “annals” and pronounced it “anals.”
P.P.S. Thomas Sowell has some insightful analysis on whether Obama is a socialist.
Are you now the judge over Christ?
** trickle-down theories**
Exactly what is mistranslated.
The most convenient take is to call it a bad translation, and run with it.
The Pope Is Wrong about Capitalism: Flea Markets Are Best for the Less Fortunate
Free market Capitalism provides the greatest good for the greatest number, including Catholics.
And then there’s that - no excuse for being an ignorant socialist any more...one must take full responsibility for advocating systems and actions that have failed miserably for the world’s poor. There’s the world we wish we were in and the world we are actually in. An old boss of mine once said “You gotta do well if you want to do Good” (meaning good deeds). Shooting down the producers sure isn’t going to help anything but concentrate power and control into the hands of a very few evil people, IMHO. The Vatican hopes to be the one that brings in the NWO/Global Govt.
???????????????
Take two aspirin and call me in the morning if it doesn’t improve.
The pope could be caught sodomizing a choir boy and catholics would say he was taken out of context.
“The Vatican hopes to be the one that brings in the NWO/Global Govt.”
Yeah, that’s the ticket, a global government run by the Pope! As far as “wealth redistribution” is concerned, the Pope and Obama are on the same page. Abortion, not so much!
Thanks! That translation is more encouraging than others I’ve seen. At least you can take that as traditional exhortation of Catholic businessmen to do the right thing.
The "mistranslated" part was from edwinland in post 39.
Imho most of us know far too well what they meant by "some people" who "defend trickle-down theories" that are "never been confirmed by the facts". We have to put up with that tired old song and dance all the time on loony left wing forums.
It's a crock.
To be clear, the major mistranslation is changing the term “by itself” to “inevitably”. This change eliminates a possible interpretation that the free market needs to be supplemented (presumably by institutions such as the Church) rather than replaced, to bring about equality and inclusion. I have no objection to that proposition.
My friend says that the original Spanish is literally “spill over”. I don’t think “trickle-down” is a mistranslation exactly, but the problem is that trickle-down is usually used by opponents of the free market, so it has a lot of cultural baggage which he may or may not have intended when he wrote the letter in Spanish.
The overriding problem however is with the extreme left-wing straw man that accuses normal people of being anarchists for merely wanting reasonable control over the fruits of their labor. It's unfair and uncalled for and it's path to Marxism.
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