FOX NEWS

Friday, May 18, 2012

OUR PROBLEM IS NOT IMMIGRANTS


"And why should Hispanics vote Republican? 
The majority of Hispanics are among that half of the population that pays no income tax. Why should they vote for a party whose major plank is that it will cut income taxes? 
Hispanics benefit disproportionately from government programs." 
Has The Bell Begun To Toll For The GOP?

If the Republicans want to get the Hispanic vote there's one sure way to do it; embrace the teachings of the Catholic Church instead of Ayn Rand. Unlike many Americans, for the most part Mexicans are very serious about faith and that faith is Catholicism. If the GOP would only stop playing games with the faith issue and embrace it they'd get the Mexican vote. Paul Ryan has been explicit in how his Catholic faith influenced his budget plan. The leader of the house, also a Catholic, should take that ball and run with it. The GOP needs to understand Catholic social teaching and how government properly exercises it's responsibilities. If it can both talk the talk and walk the walk it'll get the Mexican vote and make America a far better country.

Buchanan is right. America is no longer the white Protestant stronghold it was and it'll never be that again. But that doesn't mean it should lose it's soul, it's historic Christian nature, the thing that has allowed it to prosper. In fact, I'd argue that to embrace Catholicism is to embrace true Christian thought and the philosophical muscle that tore down the pagan world.

Our real problems today are of a spiritual nature, not a material one. The material problem derives from the breakdown of Christendom. We've moved away from God and towards mammon. We've thrown aside the traditions that supported our society. And with them we've thrown away any chance of an ordered and productive world.

It doesn't make any difference whether America is white, black or brown. What does matter is that the ideals that America was founded on are preserved and applied. And those ideals are the ideals of Christendom, the ideals of the Catholic Church. Sure, they may have been brought here by Protestants but those Protestants were the beneficiaries of the 1500 years of Western thought that was developed by the Church and before her by the Greeks and the Jews, all the way back to Abraham.

Our system and the parties that benefit from it are corrupt. They've been corrupted by materialism - power and profit taking the front while the people and their God given rights and responsibilities are trod into the dust. The problem isn't the Mexicans or any other group that comes here. The problem is us. We've bought into the promise of material salvation and now we're going to reap the results of that decision in collapse and misery. America has become a hollow shell. We're no better than all the material wonders we advertise, all glitter and promise but nothing of substance.

We've gladly traded the transcendence and freedom of Christendom for the rot and decay of materialism. We follow Rand or Marx, both promising happiness through the material world. One holds up the corporation and the other the state, like a priest raising the Blessed Sacrament above the altar.

So get ready because like the Jewish people in the Old Testament we're about to reap the fruits of our disobedience and disbelief. We have free will and we can choose our own path. But there are consequences for choosing poorly. Salvation doesn't come from a material choice, from politics, power or wealth. It comes from a spiritual choice, choosing truth over lies.

We've made our choice and we're about to get what we asked for.

8 comments:

  1. "The problem is us. We've bought into the promise of material salvation and now we're going to reap the results of that decision in collapse and misery."

    In 1908, The Times newspaper asked a number of authors to write on the topic: “What’s wrong with the world?” GK Chesterton’s answer at that time was the shortest of those submitted. He wrote simply:

    “Dear Sirs, I am.”

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  2. Chesterton was brilliant, especially when it came to boiling a complex issue down to the very nub. I'm also a real big fan of Hillaire Belloc. I'm reading "Crisis of Civilization" now. What a fantastic piece of work!

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  3. Being a Baptist, I won't agree with the GOP needing to basically embrace Catholicism, but I certainly would rather see a Catholic president than the muslim we have, or the mormon we may get.

    BTW, are you aware that you are using word verification?

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  4. Thanks, Gorges. It's been quite awhile since I posted anything so I wasn't aware of the verification thing. I'll fix that.

    I'm not suggesting that we become a Catholic country, though as a Catholic I'd not have a problem with it. At least for the country. It would be the Church that would suffer the greatest harm. It may be a divine institution but it's run by men so it'll be corrupted with that much power.

    It's happened before.

    I'm more interested in seeing our country maintain it's roots in Christendom. Embracing Catholic social teaching without embracing the faith would do just that.

    But it seems we've chosen materialism, whether from the Progressive left or the Fascist right. Both look to the material world for their comfort. One wants to take everything from the "rich" and redistribute it to themselves through government power. The other wants to take everything too, and it uses government just as egregiously through tax law, banking regulations or lack thereof, zoning laws, special deals bribed from our elected officials and on and on. Then finally, when all else fails, by placing our descendants in a state of permanent servitude through debt to back up the "too big to fails".

    The only answer to this is to return to Christendom and reject the worship of the material world. Return power to the families and local communities where it belongs and where we can keep an eye on it.

    But I'm afraid we've gone too far for that now. The education system, most likely by design, has failed to provide a true classical education so most don't even understand what they've lost nor do they have the critical thinking skill necessary to understand the arguments as to why we should return to it.

    So, I'm thinkin' God's going to smack us 'longside the head with a 2x4 to get our attention. It's the pattern that we see over and over in both secular history and the Bible.

    Get ready to say hello again to the Dark Ages...on steroids!

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  5. Maybe the Dark Ages, maybe the latter days. I tend to think the second option!

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  6. It's about time you started commenting again. Now that Ioannes has shut down his blog for the time being, you needto pick up the slack. Go for it, Cata!

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  7. Thanks, Steve. I don't know if I'm going to do much posting of any sort anymore. I've just kind'a lost interest. There's just so much more that I need to attend to.

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