Sorry Bishop...

I have heard the saying on the right not only from good hearted, well meaning Christians, but also from the pulpit, and from the USCCB itself one too many times. Not that they care what I think, but I need to get this off my chest anyway. The problem with the statement is not that it is false, but that it is a straw man. The implied (or often expressed) followup to the statement is that if you are not a communist or socialist, or if you are patriotic, then you don't want people to have healthcare or food. That is not true at all. Let's not confuse lack of support of a government program or political party be confused with a lack of wanting to solve a problem.

Sorry, but government-run healthcare, and in general federal government run programs are NOT part of nor are they even compatible with Catholic social justice. Let me explain.

The catechism defines social justice as:

SOCIAL JUSTICE
1928 Society ensures social justice when it provides the conditions that allow associations or individuals to obtain what is their due, according to their nature and their vocation. Social justice is linked to the common good and the exercise of authority.

and goes on to add

I. RESPECT FOR THE HUMAN PERSON
1929 Social justice can be obtained only in respecting the transcendent dignity of man. The person represents the ultimate end of society, which is ordered to him:

What is at stake is the dignity of the human person, whose defense and promotion have been entrusted to us by the Creator, and to whom the men and women at every moment of history are strictly and responsibly in debt.³⁵

1930 Respect for the human person entails respect for the rights that flow from his dignity as a creature. These rights are prior to society and must be recognized by it. They are the basis of the moral legitimacy of every authority: by flouting them, or refusing to recognize them in its positive legislation, a society undermines its own moral legitimacy.³⁶ If it does not respect them, authority can rely only on force or violence to obtain obedience from its subjects. It is the Church's role to remind men of good will of these rights and to distinguish them from unwarranted or false claims.
1931 Respect for the human person proceeds by way of respect for the principle that "everyone should look upon his neighbor (without any exception) as 'another self,' above all bearing in mind his life and the means necessary for living it with dignity."³⁷ No legislation could by itself do away with the fears, prejudices, and attitudes of pride and selfishness which obstruct the establishment of truly fraternal societies. Such behavior will cease only through the charity that finds in every man a "neighbor," a brother.
1932 The duty of making oneself a neighbor to others and actively serving them becomes even more urgent when it involves the disadvantaged, in whatever area this may be. "As you did it to one of the least of these my brethren, you did it to me."³⁸
1933 This same duty extends to those who think or act differently from us. The teaching of Christ goes so far as to require the forgiveness of offenses. He extends the commandment of love, which is that of the New Law, to all enemies.³⁹ Liberation in the spirit of the Gospel is incompatible with hatred of one's enemy as a person, but not with hatred of the evil that he does as an enemy. 

The problem with those words is they are very vague. What is someone's "due"? What rights flow from man's dignity as a creature? It is very easy to interpret those words, as many in the USCCB and in America, as supporting the notion of government run health care, government run education, unrestricted illegal immigration, government run welfare programs - in short a socialist state with nearly unlimited economic control. That is not what the catechism is saying at all.

To see what's really being talked about we need to go read the documents cited in the text above; in particular Pacem in Terris. I encourage the reader to read the whole encyclical, but here are some excerpts (ellipses where I have elided parts of the text for brevity's sake, I have emboldened certain key phrase you can read to skim over this):

Rights

11. But first We must speak of man's rights. Man has the right to live. He has the right to bodily integrity and to the means necessary for the proper development of life, particularly food, clothing, shelter, medical care, rest, and, finally, the necessary social services. In consequence, he has the right to be looked after in the event of ill health...

Rights Pertaining to Moral and Cultural Values

12. Moreover, man has a natural right to be respected. He has a right to his good name. ... He has the right, also, to be accurately informed about public events.
13. He has the natural right to share in the benefits of culture, and hence to receive a good general education...

The Right to Worship God According to One's Conscience

14. Also among man's rights is that of being able to worship God ... and to profess his religion both in private and in public. ...

The Right to Choose Freely One's State in Life

15. Human beings have also the right to choose for themselves the kind of life which appeals to them...
16. The family, founded upon marriage freely contracted, one and indissoluble, must be regarded as the natural, primary cell of human society. ...
17. Of course, the support and education of children is a right which belongs primarily to the parents

Economic Rights

18. In the economic sphere, it is evident that a man has the inherent right not only to be given the opportunity to work, but also to be allowed the exercise of personal initiative in the work he does
19. ...Women must be accorded such conditions of work as are consistent with their needs and responsibilities as wives and mothers....
21. As a further consequence of man's nature, he has the right to the private ownership of property, including that of productive goods. ...

The Right of Meeting and Association

23. Men are by nature social, and consequently they have the right to meet together...

The Right to Emigrate and Immigrate

25. Again, every human being has the right to freedom of movement and of residence within the confines of his own State. When there are just reasons in favor of it, he must be permitted to emigrate to other countries and take up residence there....

Political Rights

26. Finally, man's personal dignity involves his right to take an active part in public life...
27. As a human person he is entitled to the legal protection of his rights,...

Much of it sounds an awful lot like the US Constitution. And if you stop reading the encyclical there you could erroneously come to the conclusion that Pope John XXIII. Sorry for the length of these passages. Same rules as above:

Duties

28. The natural rights of which We have so far been speaking are inextricably bound up with as many duties, all applying to one and the same person...
29. Thus, for example, the right to live involves the duty to preserve one's life; the right to a decent standard of living, the duty to live in a becoming fashion; the right to be free to seek out the truth, the duty to devote oneself to an ever deeper and wider search for it.

Reciprocity of Rights and Duties Between Persons

30. Once this is admitted, it follows that in human society one man's natural right gives rise to a corresponding duty in other men; .... Hence, to claim one's rights and ignore one's duties, or only half fulfill them...

Mutual Collaboration

32. ... it is useless to admit that a man has a right to the necessities of life, unless we also do all in our power to supply him with means sufficient for his livelihood.
33. Hence society must...  provide men with abundant resources. ...

Sounds great so far... here's where it all goes south for the USCCB, globalists, etc.

An Attitude of Responsibility

34. Man's personal dignity requires besides that he enjoy freedom and be able to make up his own mind when he acts. In his association with his fellows, therefore, there is every reason why his recognition of rights, observance of duties, and many-sided collaboration with other men, should be primarily a matter of his own personal decision. Each man should act on his own initiative, conviction, and sense of responsibility, not under the constant pressure of external coercion or enticement. There is nothing human about a society that is welded together by force. Far from encouraging, as it should, the attainment of man's progress and perfection, it is merely an obstacle to his freedom.

The encyclical goes on like that for a while. There are a couple of other paragraphs that I would like to point out:

48. Hence, a regime which governs solely or mainly by means of threats and intimidation or promises of reward, provides men with no effective incentive to work for the common good. And even if it did, it would certainly be offensive to the dignity of free and rational human beings. Authority is before all else a moral force. For this reason the appeal of rulers should be to the individual conscience, to the duty which every man has of voluntarily contributing to the common good. But since all men are equal in natural dignity, no man has the capacity to force internal compliance on another. Only God can do that, for He alone scrutinizes and judges the secret counsels of the heart. 

Responsibilities of the Public Authority, and Rights and Duties of Individuals

60. It is generally accepted today that the common good is best safeguarded when personal rights and duties are guaranteed. The chief concern of civil authorities must therefore be to ensure that these rights are recognized, respected, co-ordinated, defended and promoted, and that each individual is enabled to perform his duties more easily. For "to safeguard the inviolable rights of the human person, and to facilitate the performance of his duties, is the principal duty of every public authority.

I have a saying along those lines "there is no grace in paying taxes." We have come to a point where people think only in material terms. If we take money from the rich and give it to the poor, that is justice. But that is injustice. The rich man has not done a good act, nor has anyone. And the poor do not need our money as much as our care.

Let me make this perfectly clear. According to the principles of Catholic social justice, the duty of government is NOT to provide for the poor, but to ensure the rights and freedoms of its citizens to do so is respected. The role of the individual is to provide for the poor. Government programs walk over and inhibit the rights and duties of both the provider and receivers of material goods.

Thomas Sowell explains the false notion of social justice more succinctly and elegantly than I can.

Catholic social justice consists of caring for the needs of your neighbor. You, yourself, caring for the needs of your neighbor. Forcing everyone to pay money to a (corrupt) government in the hopes that they will be a moral force is folly, yet the USCCB and other well meaning but ignorant Christians keep fighting for programs like government run healthcare, then are "shocked" and dismayed to find out they have give up the right to life of the unborn and elderly. What exactly did they think would happen?

The USCCB support government programs to stop sex trafficking. Sounds good until you realize that they also receive the money and run some of the programs. Add to that the fact that they oppose border restrictions, ensuring a lively and continued source of sex trafficking and it begins to look less like social justice and more like self serving.

And as someone pointed out, each and every government dollar comes with strings that no religious value be attached to it. So far from preaching the Gospel and fulfilling the great commission to "make disciples of all nations" every time the USCCB endorses a government program rather than taking the initiative and enable Catholics to do the work privately, they restrict and opposes the only legitimate mission they have in the world.

So yes, I do want people to have health care and food. But unlike you I am will to do it myself and unwilling to take money from others by force to give to an organization which disrespects and degrades individuals. What are you willing to do in the name of social justice?

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Thoughts on Mass Violence, Guns, etc.

Once again there is a mass shooting. Once again there are calls for more federal gun control laws. Why not? We've been told that the US has the most guns in the world, and that these kinds of things don't happen in other countries, and that the laws proposed are "common sense" and will protect us from this kind of violence, if it weren't for the NRA lobbyists controlling things. I'd like to take this opportunity to explore some facts.

First off, yes, the US does have more guns than any other country. Almost one third of the US population owns guns. Even here in gun-phobic NJ one eight of the population owns guns. But the US is not unique in having mass killings, or even mass shootings. In fact the US ranks 66th in mass shootings, and all of the countries with more mass shootings than the US have stricter gun laws, most of them already have the proposed US gun control laws. Also, anti gun groups outspend the NRA on lobbying.

Guns are involved in some 35000 deaths a year, most of them suicides. Of the 14000 gun involved homicides in the US each year, most are gang or drug related. All rifles account for less than 300 deaths and mass killings account for less than 200 deaths. In Chicago alone in the past weekend, more people have been shot in gang-related violence than in all the recent mass shootings combined. Why do the mass shootings make headlines and nobody talks about Chicago? Because the mass shootings happen to the "right" kind of people (rich whites) and the Chicago gang violence happens to the people we don't care about (mostly poor blacks). Yes, I'm bringing in the race card here, because it fits. If Chicago gang violence affected rich people at concerts and malls it wold make national headlines as well.

I'm not suggesting mass shootings are "ok" or we shouldn't care about them, I'm saying we should care more about the poor people being massacred in our inner city streets than we do about the slight risks of our celebrities and the upper class.

If the goal is to save lives, the laws should focus on suicides, gangs, drugs and hand guns. Yet NONE of the proposed gun laws address these issue at all. This excellent article points out that the following gun laws cannot affect the gun suicide rate at all:

• Magazine size restrictions: You only need a magazine size of “one” to kill yourself.
• Waiting Periods: Statistics do not show that people buy guns to commit suicide. They’re either use one they already have, or choose a different method.
• Banning certain classes of firearms, such as semi-automatic rifles or handguns: You only need the most basic functioning firearm possible to kill yourself.
• Tax bullets: You only need one bullet to kill yourself.
• Blanket gun confiscation: Won’t work, and they admit it won’t work, except all those times when they don’t.
• Mandatory gun confiscation of depressed people: Terrible, terrible idea, because it would only cause fewer people to go to the doctor for their depression symptoms, making the problem worse instead of better.

I will note "Red Flag" laws fall into this last category. More on them later...

Let's revisit the mass shooting problem for a moment. Of all the mass shootings I am aware of, the murderer either got his gun legally, passing a background check, or was unable to pass a background check and so got the gun illegally. None of them. Zero. Not one, bought a gun legally without a background check. Yet we're told "universal" background checks will solve the problem.

On the contrary, universal background checks ARE a problem. First off, they result in a de facto $100 tax per gun, meaning that they disproportionately prevent poor people from defending themselves (like the poor people in Chicago). Secondly, when implemented strictly, as in Washington state, they prevent safe storage of guns and gun safety. Thirdly, they have been shown to be ineffective.

Out of some 30000 people who failed a background check in the past few years, almost all of them have been mistakes (e.g. law abiding citizens denied their rights) and of the few cases where a felony was committed nobody has been prosecuted. The conclusion is that there is no evidence showing that background checks affect crime. Criminals do not purchase guns through legal means.

What about an "Assault Weapon" ban. The first problem is that there is no such thing as an "assault weapon." There is such a thing as an "assault rifle" which is strictly controlled in the US, banned in some states, and even in states where they are legal, purchasers must go through an 18 month federal process of background checks and paperwork. Assault weapons, on the other hand, are a made up political term which varies, but usually includes any gun which is popular, in order to ban the widest variety of guns. Also note that the US had a nation-wide assault weapon and "high capacity" magazine ban in effect for ten years. The result was that there was no decrease in crime or deaths. In other words, these laws provably do not save lives.

What about so-called "Red Flag" laws? Surely if citizens could point out the violent people in their midst and have their guns confiscated we would all be safer. No. First off, even without red flag laws, citizens can report to the police people who they believe are going to harm themselves or others, and the police are authorized to take appropriate steps. In the case of the most recent mass murder, for instance, he threatened a neighbor with a rifle and police were called. Ultimately nothing was done. Police couldn't find the man and it was not considered worth following up, apparently. In other words, existing laws were not followed.

Rather than saving lives, I am aware of at least one case in which red flag laws have killed people. It stands to reason, if you are a law abiding citizen, who owns guns to defend yourself from a home invasion, when police execute a non-knock raid in the wee hours, that you are going to think it is a home invasion. That kind of thing will get people killed, either by the homeowner mistakenly shooting police or by police shooting the homeowner. The way most of these laws are written they are a license to legally SWAT gun owners, with expected results.

To make matters worse, red flag laws allow victims' families to sue people who could have "red flagged" shooters, meaning that you can be held responsible for a coworker or neighbor who commits a crime, and also ensuring that the maximum number of people are falsely flagged. What happens when one is falsely red flagged? Well, assuming they are not killed in the police raid, they need to spend about $30000 in legal fees to get their lives and property restored (probably damaged, as various cases have shown), and of course the states' costs in all this come form the tax payers. No, red flag laws, apart from being unconstitutional, are a bad idea and will not stop criminals.

What changes will provable reduce mass shootings? First off, stop rewarding the murderers with fame and fortune. Almost every mass murderer has been a copycat killer, and many have even stated so in their manifestos. They see this act as their shot (no pun intended) at making a difference in the world and being remembered forever.

Second, get rid of gun-free zones, and allow national concealed carry. Some 98% of all mass shootings occur in gun free zones, and many of the murderers admit that the sought out a gun free zone because they knew they wouldn't meet armed resistance. The fact is that there are bad people out there, but the fact is that most people are good. Gun free zones will stop law abiding people from being armed because they follow the law. Someone who intends to kill someone will not be stopped from carrying the means to do so merely be a sign.

Despite propaganda (that's what it is) claiming that concealed carry will increase crime, people who carry concealed weapons for self defense are among the most law abiding in the nation - more law abiding than police. Why not let them defend themselves?

Of course mass shootings will still happen. These things will only reduce the number of deaths, not eliminate them. And as I have pointed out, mass shootings are a drop in the bucket. What can we do about the larger problem? Regarding suicides, while gun suicides are a large number, there is no evidence that removing guns affects the suicide rate. Even in countries like Japan, which has a very low number of guns, the suicide rate is higher than in the US; the methods simply change. I am not an expert on the issue of suicide prevention so I will not speculate as to the best way to reduce the suicide rate, but I will note that among faithful practicing Catholics the suicide rate is negligible. Spread the Gospel, folks!

As for gang and drug related killings, again I am not an expert, but I think if we enforce the laws, and protect whistle blowers it would help. Legalizing drugs would not. As I understand it, the gang problem is related to the breakdown of families and the lack of fathers. This in turn is actual racism, in the form of social programs that target minorities and encourage this behavior. Again I'll note that among faithful practicing Catholic families the divorce rate is negligible. Spread the Gospel!

Lastly, for people who claim that we should endure anything, give up any right, to keep people safe and save lives note that the one federal law that has been proven to save lives, more than any of these other laws, was the national 55 MPH speed limit. In addition, a national 55 MPH speed limit would reduce carbon emissions. Why aren't the gun hating, climate loving people of America pushing for that law?

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