Conservatives Do Believe in Social Justice. Here’s What Our Vision Looks Like.

Novak was committed to rightly ordered liberty and cared deeply about the principles and practices that produce it. His enormous body of work emphasized the cultural prerequisites for political and economic freedom, as he stressed that economic conservativism and social conservatism are indivisible.

In the words of Heritage Foundation founder Ed Feulner, “Michael forced those of us trained in the dismal science of economics to explain that we should be more than ‘free to choose’—rather we should be free to make good free choices.”

Last year, I was the recipient of the Acton Institute’s Michael Novak Award for “outstanding scholarly research concerning the relationship between religion, economic freedom, and the free and virtuous society.” Upon receiving it, I delivered the annual Calihan Lecture in London, England, at a conference on “The Crisis of Liberty in the West.”

The first half of the lecture discussed challenges to freedom in terms of bad intellectual defenses of economic freedom, collapsing communities, and cronyism. The second half discussed a natural law account of economic freedom, a natural law account of social justice, and some concluding thoughts about anthropology and virtue.

Part of the argument that I advance in the lecture is that economic freedom is meant to give us the space to fulfill our economic duties, the duty to work to support our families, the duty to work hard and be a good employee so as not to waste our talents or our employer’s time and money, the duty to serve our customers, and the duty to serve our communities.

Economic freedom was to allow people the space to fulfill these duties. So rightly understood, social justice is about fulfilling our duties to the various societies of which we are a part, and it is about the state respecting the authority of the many societies that make up civil society.

The family is a natural society with its own nature and integrity. Because of the natural reality of the family, we have certain obligations.

If you are a husband or a wife, you have certain duties to your spouse. If you are a parent, you have certain duties to your children, regardless of whether or not you ever chose them. And children, not Social Security administrators, have duties to their parents, especially as they age.

It is the natural reality of father and child, mother and child, that creates the relationship of authority and responsibility.

This places limits on what the government can do. The government is not free to recreate the family. The government is not free to usurp the authority of parents over the education of their children or adult children over the care of their elderly parents.

The same is true for religious organizations, especially if you believe that your church has a divine origin and a divine creation. This means government is not at liberty to recreate your church, to recreate its authority structure, or to recreate its teaching authority—that your church is something that is entrusted with a stewardship.

None of this, however, says that the state has no role to play in economic justice, just that it must respect the proper authority of society—a society of societies—as it does so. And this means that it must also respect the proper authority of economic societies—employees and employers, consumers and producers.

But while respecting their authority and the markets that allow them to interact and fulfill their duties, government can perform certain welfare activities, as Friedrich Hayek taught us, without distorting market signals and processes.

Insofar as government programs are intended to ameliorate the forces of globalization and new technologies distort markets, they are likely to simply make matters worse by prolonging the dying process of outdated industries and preventing the necessary transitions.

What a natural law account of social justice would suggest are policies that would empower more people to engage for themselves in the market and flourish.

Consider education. Some “taxation is theft” libertarians say children should receive whatever education their parents, extended families, and charities can provide and that there is no role for government to play. Liberals say the education of children is a matter of public concern, and thus government should run schools and most children must attend them.

Conservatives have traditionally said, yes, education is a matter of public concern, but justice requires us to respect the authority of parents, and whatever assistance we provide must empower, not replace, them.

Hence conservative support for school choice: vouchers, education savings accounts, and charter schools—programs that help all students get the best education they can without giving the government an unhealthy monopoly on schools.

Consider the standard false dichotomy: If taxation is theft, then we should just leave health care to the market and charities; if health care is a matter of public concern, then government should run it and finance it—the typical libertarian and liberal pitfalls.

The conservative alternative has been to create markets in health care while empowering patients to choose, whether through premium support, health care vouchers, tax credits, or what have you.

The details of the policy need not bog us down. The concept is what matters. We need to make markets work better and work for more people by empowering more people to be market actors—empower more people to take control of their own lives and flourish.

So now the question is what can be done for working-class families, especially for workers who find their skills less and less marketable in ever-changing markets because of the forces of globalization and new technology.

We need to think about the justice in the distribution of costs and benefits of the creative destruction of free trade and globalization and how best to smooth out the rough patches. We need to think through the appropriate roles of various institutions:

In a certain sense, the economic challenges I discuss in my Calihan Lecture can be classified as partly the result of a deindustrialization making way for the knowledge economy.

If Leo XIII’s “Rerum Novarum,” which inaugurated modern Catholic social thought, was a response to the industrial revolution, what we now need is a response to the deindustrial revolution.

What to do is a question for policymakers. That we need to think about what to do is a demand of justice, and the principles of natural law should inform how we think about it.

Free people are not equal. Equal people are not free.

“A gun is like a parachute. If you need one, and don’t have one, you’ll
probably never need one again.”

The definition of the word Conundrum is: something that is puzzling or
confusing.

Here are six Conundrums of socialism in the United States of America:
1. America is capitalist and greedy - yet half of the population is
subsidized.

2. Half of the population is subsidized - yet they think they are victims.
3. They think they are victims - yet their representatives run the
government.

4. Their representatives run the government - yet the poor keep getting
poorer.

5. The poor keep getting poorer - yet they have things that people in other
countries only dream about.

6. They have things that people in other countries only dream about - yet
they want America to be more like those other countries.

1. We are advised to NOT judge ALL Muslims by the actions of a few lunatics,
but we are encouraged to judge ALL gun owners by the actions of a few
lunatics.

2. Seems we constantly hear about how Social Security is going to run out of
money. But we never hear about welfare or food stamps running out of money
! What’s interesting is the first group “worked for” their money, but
the second didn’t.

3. Why are we cutting benefits for our veterans, no pay raises for our
military and cutting our army to a level lower than before WWII, but we
are not stopping the payments or benefits to illegal aliens.

“If you do not take an interest in the affairs of your government, then you
are doomed to live under the rule of fools.” – Plato

No need for conundrums (Sorry so long—don’t read if you don’t want to—I am just “thinking” like usual (It is my hobby!!!).

Free people are treated equally under “Rule of Law” and that is the only “equality” guaranteed in our justice system (our Constitution). The Marxists are trying to force “equal” outcomes. and trying to make men interchangeable with women (to emasculate males, to collapse culture). It is removal of Right Reason and Reality from Just Law (impossible).

Right Reason and Natural Law are essential to our Justice System. Reason was removed in 1912—to promote irrationality—which we see today—total removal from Truth (God) and Reality (science). It was on purpose, by the Cultural Marxists to flip Good and Evil so they could collapse Western Civ. and USA. Create “evil” irrational people and you destroy culture. All schools normalize vice in our children now, to destroy Natural instincts with “Sex Ed” to warp desires and understanding of male and female and make it completely irrational and meaningless (devoid of morality), and make understanding Natural Law (common sense) impossible, so that Slavery will be Freedom, and Boys can be Girls, etc.

Socialism is unconstitutional because it is theft of private property to punish Virtue and reward Vice or sloth in most cases. It normalizes slavery in all children who “live” in a socialized nation. A true Just Law has to promote “public virtue” ONLY-—otherwise it is unjust law and unconstitutional. BUT we allowed in 1913 to literally destroy our Constitution with the Federal Reserve and the Marxist “income tax” which will force a “socialized” worldview in the masses. Laws will direct the “thinking” of the masses. Schooling (and movies by the sodomites in Hollywood) will control the minds and desires and “thinking” of the children if they are not versed in Classical Christian education. Even then, to fight cultural rot, is almost impossible since all our institutions are now controlled by Marxists who lie and will punish and destroy anyone who professes Christian Ethics and Natural Law Theory (Our Constitution). (Have to censor speech and ideas to control the ignorant masses).

Like the mandatory “publik schools” became Top Down indoctrination centers; all the textbooks and curricula since John Dewey forces a Marxist “lens” on children: the system normalizes operant conditioning into dependency, just programming children and expect them to regurgitate the lies and disinformation that is embedded along with “group-think” caused by the system of the one-age prison-type emasculation system. Children only learn to FEAR disagreeing with the herd. (Tribal mentality) so they will be cowed by the culture for life (or in prison).

Socrates stated the ONLY reason for “education” was to develop Virtue in children, for without Virtue, there is no freedom possible. (That is understood in Lockean philosophy and Natural Laws.) Now schools destroy virtue formation in all children on purpose. It is the design of the Prussian system of operant conditioning devoid of Truth (God)/Reality since it is an artificial, stress-filled programming removed from the people who love the child and should protect their minds from the insane assault that destroys critical thinking and only leaves “snowflakes” (mentally puerile, stilted, emotional cripples (slaves for the State).

There is no such thing as “Social” Justice. No modifier is needed with the word, Justice, which is always an individual concept; collective cultures kill and destroy individuals who “think outside of the box” since the days of Socrates and Jesus and Voltaire and Locke, etc. That is why we have INDIVIDUAL Natural Rights from God, that predate government. Individualism v. Collective/Socialism/Tribalism/Islam.

There is no way to have individualism (Natural Rights from God only) with a “socialist” system where you are forced into “associations” even as a very young children and not allowed free choice (agency/Free Will) EVER when it comes to human interactions. Children never are allowed unstructured, true, reality-based, natural family-based situations like the Davy Crocketts who developed agency and true critical thinking. Their brains were not conditioned and forced into “group” think in an artificial institution removed from parents and nature, where they NEVER practiced “thinking for themselves”. Virtue takes practice and moral role models. Children have no ability to do that in most homes now, because of working mothers, TV “programming” and “daycares”—that socialization to destroy individualism and trust and bonds to parents, so they are incapable of flourishing and emotionally crippled for life (warped worldview of male/female paradigm (Truth/God)).

The Bill of Rights is essential to dignity and humanity for every individual. Capitalist systems are the ONLY system which can be “Free”. All other “Systems” create slaves for the State. A socialistic school system is making socialists only. They removed male teachers like in the 1800s to the irrational female to feminize and emasculate little boys, destroy role models for males (as they tear down all heroes/males, as they have destroyed the Natural family to make boys into emotional cripples.

To collapse civil society, you have to destroy Virtue in the males (and females who will kill their own babies) which is being done in the skool system, as I type, and by our unjust, evil (socialistic) “Laws” which should all be “null and void” according to Justice Marshall. Destroying Virtue is easy to do with children. It takes extreme time and effort to teach and parent your children so they learn virtue. They need to practiced it in reality, inside the Natural family, so common sense and wisdom can exist (the understanding of Natural Laws and Natural instincts in human beings so relationships can flourish).

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