Friday, June 10, 2011

Catholic budget morality

If one were to accept the standard and bogus kennilingus levels of consciousness about traditioinal religion they would, and do, miss significant contributions from the likes of Catholic theologians on matters like a moral budget process. For example, this blog from the North American Passionists discussed the moral implications of the conservative Ryan budget proposal. Here they, like Derrida and the postformal postmetaphysicists, understand false dichotomies in general and the specific dichotomy between deficit reduction and needed social services. On the notion of dichotomies in general note their language on how complements are held in tension, not in opposition:

"Going beyond any economic ideology the moral perspective of the Catholic faith has always opted for a creative harmony between values and principles that  exist in tension. Catholic social teaching seeks a balance between freedom and equality, between solidarity and subsidiarity. These are values whose tension will keep us on the balancing beam of social justice. Our recent blog post also demonstrate how creative solutions do exists that can help us strike this balance. What is required is an atmosphere of cooperation and civility in being open to the possibility of achieving this challenge. But instead the political forces on the right have developed this debate into an all or nothing argument forcing the American public to make a fabricated choice between deficit reductions or protecting social service programs to the poor and vulnerable."

The political forces on the right, and their "integral" apologists, are still stuck in metaphysical  dichotomies while even the Catholic church is going postmetaphysical, at least in some respects. Stick that in your altitude sickness pipe and smoke  on it a while.


As to the specifics of the Ryan budget, they are quite correct in the following, often missed by kennilinguists apologizing for the necessity of cuts to curtail a budget crisis created not by programs for the poor but by legislating providing for more rape and pillage of the economy by the rich:


"The budget that is proposed by Chairman Ryan and endorsed by members of the Republican Party violate the Right to Life by eliminating or severely limiting services essential to the poor and vulnerable while protecting the financial security of the wealthiest members of our society. This is a grave violation to the dignity of life. Nearly two-thirds of the huge budget cuts that are being proposed come directly from programs for lower-income Americans.... Deficit reduction is indeed an important issue and the Bishops and Catholic theologians agree that a responsible budget must address this priority. However what makes the Republican budget immoral is that while it claims to make service cuts with the purpose of reducing the deficit the proposed personal and corporate tax cuts that they propose almost completely undermine deficit reduction."

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