Hope I didn’t give you the wrong impression by citing the “Strangers No Longer” pastoral letter and William Chip’s article in First Things. Members of the Catholic Church have fed the poor, educated the ignorant, ministered to the diseased and contagious, etc. over the centuries and done so out of a selfless desire to follow the teachings of Jesus Christ. Catholics have taken many “hits” for that sexual abuse “thing”, celibacy and male priests, papal infallibility and what have you.

My wife, a devout Presbyterian, wonders why we pray to Virgin Mary and why we will voluntarily enter a small confessional to reveal our deepest and darkest secrets to a priest. I, in turn, wonder at the mysterious theological significance of bringing casseroles to every Presbyterian church function and fundraiser; also, the Presbyterians’ mass, public confessions during services seem a little too impersonal given my background. But, the Presbyterians are great at hymn singing, I like their music, even more than the Doobie Brothers if you can believe that.

One thing I do see in common is that both Catholics and Presbyterians have a real fixation on helping others, particularly those less fortunate financially. It must be one of those religious things, there’s no other way to explain it. After forking over a hefty portion of their income to the government, these religious nuts fork over additional money, and voluntarily at that, to help others without thought of the many desirable alternatives there are for what little the government leaves us.

The weird part is no one in the media seems interested in this form of charity, it’s a little too personal I guess. Charity is supposed to be impersonal, administered by the government’s priests and civil service acolytes. I think what Chip was getting at in his comments is that the bishops have a little of the liberal “let the government do it” sickness as well.

Silly conservative politicians have nothing to offer, as they keep emphasizing earning an honest living, having a good moral grounding and living by a code of personal responsibility.

Let’s see a show of hands: how many of you inner city voters would like to get educated, learn a trade and work hard to make something of yourselves, abandon your criminal ways, become more responsible, settle down with a stable husband or wife and raise fine children who will contribute to our future? Don’t be shy; come on, now.

OK, OK; So how many of you would rather do nothing and wait for me to come back with some bags of money I’m gonna take from the rich white capitalists the Reverand Wright says are responsible for your misserable lives? You get a little taste and those rich bastards get what they deserve. How’s that sound to you?

Now that’s the enthusiasm I’m looking for!

“…liberals don’t ‘tolerate any behavior no matter how outlandish’.”

You’re right. I was thinking only of “outlandish” behavior when I made that comment. Expressing conservative and/or religious, especially Christian, ideas is not tolerated by the self-proclaimed tolerant.

“…liberals are very astute in devising rhetorical tactics…”

This is because evil must be made to appear to be good to get people to accept and support it.

I can’t understand why the myth persists that the Catholic Church provides nothing to those in need.
http://www.catholiccharitiesusa.org/NetCommunity/Page.aspx?pid=777&srcid=193 . Its parochial schools are the model of what the people want public schools to be. The basic policy of the Church is that no child will be denied a Catholic education for lack of ability to pay, so tuition assistance is provided (in many cases tuition is waived) for those who are unable to pay.

But you have to remember that the Church, like the government, has no money of its own; it has to get it from its people, only it must rely on voluntary contributions, not mandatory taxes. Take just one charity, one that I work for, the Society of St. Vincent de Paul. We provide assistance for food, rent, utility bills, medical bills, auto repair, and just about any other type of bill. Sometimes this assistance is to a fault. Several examples come to mind: my conference once paid for a bus ticket for a woman to go to Los Angeles to meet up with her boyfriend who was in jail. Her reason: he was the only man who didn’t treat her bad. The other case was paying for a family’s motel bill and giving them food (what we paid for was their vacation). But at least we’re not funding expensive consultants to do studies on the effects of providing sandals for gay ex-nuns with a foot fetish. Most of our assistance goes to the truly needy. Contrast that with the (rumored) 19 cents of each government welfare dollar reaching the poor. Could this be because charity is designed to encourage people to become more self-sufficient, whereas welfare is designed to encourage more dependence?

I can only speculate what Jefferson meant by what he said.

You’re right on, as usual and your point that liberal promises are ever expanding is sound. Although I understand (and agree with) what you were driving at, I would note that liberals don’t “tolerate any behavior no matter how outlandish”. Try voicing religious references within your prepared speech during a high school commencement ceremony. And the chances that a subject like “intelligent design vs. evolution” would be taught or even mentioned within a public school classroom in the near future are the same as those of a white man with an Alabama accent being elected the next mayor of Detroit. Certain behaviors simply aren’t going to be tolerated by liberals.

Liberals do take the intellectual position that “if a little tolerance is good, then a lot of tolerance is even better.” Amazing, in the sociological sense, is that Americans are so gullible as to believe it – the most ridiculous liberal promises are normally considered in a serious vein. Promises that should make any mature adult laugh out loud receive sober scrutiny by our fellow citizens. I think partly the reason for this constant disconnect from reality is that liberals are very astute in devising rhetorical tactics – they subtly separate the promise from the means needed to obtain the goal.

For example, William Chip writing in “First Things” notes that American Catholic and Mexican Bishops have issued a joint pastoral letter “Strangers No Longer” that favors tolerance of mass immigration from Mexico into America (and it’s also ethically hazy on whether American law should prevent illegal immigration). While Chip makes various points regarding what’s wrong with the bishops’ collective position, the point that caught my eye was where he says the Catholic Church isn’t promising to take on the task of educating all the children of illegal immigrants in Catholic schools – nor are they promising to provide all illegals with free health care in Catholic hospitals. Naturally, the bishops are all for educating the children of illegals and providing them free health care, but not at their expense. Left unsaid in “Strangers No Longer” is that Americans’, but not the Catholic Church’s, wealth should be spent on such education and health care. So, the promise is that these immigrants will contribute greatly to our society, but the bishops aren’t willing to lay their organization’s tithes and capital wealth on the line to prove it.

And so it goes with most liberal promises – in their view sound principles underlie their liberal philosophy but they’re never eager to pledge their personal fortunes to prove it. What liberals have long realized is that many Americans will support the liberal agenda because there’s something in it for them personally. Free health care, protection of union jobs, public welfare projects that are an open invitation to graft and corruption, etc. – the same liberal formula always works for the same reason. Person A gets something at the expense of Person B and Person B had better agree with the enabling law – because active resistance by Person B is the one behavior that won’t be tolerated.

And, ever since the Enlightenment, liberals have gotten a free ride when it comes to empirical facts that contradict their beliefs. Mainly, it’s a case of ideological rationalism overpowering reality on their part. Kay Hymowitz, a writer frequently featured in “City Journal”, notes that 2006 marks the tenth anniversary of welfare reform. While welfare reform hasn’t completely eliminated dependence on government hand-outs, the success of the reform law and associated programs has exceeded all expectations.

Yet, Hymowitz states, the majority of liberals still refuse to accept that fact. The liberal Children’s Defense Fund constantly jiggers the numbers to prove that welfare reform hasn’t really worked. Somewhere in America, hordes of children are homeless, living on the streets and begging money from strangers for their next meal – they’re convinced that the success of welfare reform, a violation of all liberal predictions, must be an illusion. Other liberal sociologists claim improvement in the economy (even during the recession that started in 2001) has masked the underlying problem and these positive results are only temporary – doom is just around the corner. Facts mean nothing, successful results mean nothing when they come up against liberal principles and beliefs.

Thomas Jefferson said the only cure for too much freedom is more freedom – but what if Jefferson was wrong? Americans won’t accept any suggestion that large organizations shouldn’t publicly advocate wide ranging social programs they aren’t personally willing to sacrifice for or fund. “Freedom of Speech” trumps all common sense, no matter how irrational the promise. Catholic bishops and liberal advocacy organizations can endlessly spout nonsensical prescriptions for society’s improvement without ever chucking the minimum 25 cent ante into the poker pot. They even expect praise for their efforts to arbitrarily harness the resources and control the lives of others.

Maybe Jefferson should have said “the only cure for too much freedom is more freedom – unless it destroys us first”. I can’t offer facts, but do have an intuitive feel America will survive the liberal “sickness”. I just hope I’m still around to see it.

“…the liberal agenda is about helping people, about tolerance, about fairness. Then, as the decades passed, the liberal agenda couldn’t deliver on its many promises.”

Could this be because its many promises kept expanding to the absurd? Forty years ago we weren’t talking about homosexuality being a civil right, much less gay “marriage”. The problem is in the nature of liberalism itself: by definition it is ever-demanding and ever-expanding because its guiding principle is tolerance über alles. [To paraphrase Auster], … once liberal tolerance rather than traditional morality became its guiding principle, and the resulting non-judgementalism was accepted by a willing society, we had ultimately to tolerate the presence of evil itself because any behavior, no matter how outlandish, became acceptable.

40 years ago, many Americans believed exactly the same thing – the liberal agenda is about helping people, about tolerance, about fairness. Then, as the decades passed, the liberal agenda couldn’t deliver on its many promises. The constantly repeated formulas didn’t work their magic and people reacted in a very predicable way – they stopped believing after first passing through disappointment followed by skepticism.

The decades that represent the flowering of feminist ideology have taken their toll on the female dragons of old guard – the Steinems, the Sheehys and the Erica Jongs. Despite sagging body parts and rapidly dwindling sexual encounters, the guardians of feminist ideology are still living the dream, but they’re the only ones. Jong’s daughter became a depression afflicted teenager with a drug problem – not the once promised liberated woman following in her mother’s footsteps. Another feminist icon, Jane Juska has a son who, unnoticed by Juska, dived in the deep end of the pool but hadn’t yet learned to swim – then the poor kid went on to become a drugged out homeless person living on the streets of Berkeley. Rather than liberating and enlightening their neglected progeny, the children of these feminists often turned out to be psychological basket cases.

For inner-city black Americans, the same pattern can be observed. Currently, Detroit’s mayor is in the news fighting an indictment for perjury following a sex scandal. A Detroit City Council meeting recently erupted into an alley-cat fight with one councilwoman referring to the council president as “Shrek” while screaming epithets during an uncontrolled tirade captured on You Tube. And, Detroit’s problems go far beyond self-serving clowns within city government.

Detroit’s schools graduate less than 35% of high school kids, unmarried teenage girls having kids, often by more than one father, are endemic throughout the city and Saturday night murders are still one of Detroit’s favorite forms of recreation. Many Detroit homes are abandoned and banks are selling mortgage foreclosures in blocks of 50 and 100 houses, some selling for as little as $1,800. Numerous schools have been permanently closed, the city is broke as usual and residents earn money by mining copper and other metals from abandoned schools and homes. Detroit makes many third world countries look appealing by comparison.

None of this was supposed to happen according to the liberal formulas. Once black Detroiters could determine their own fate without the discrimination and oppression of the white population, the formula predicted only success and a glorious future. Starting subsequent to the 1967 riots, the federal government poured money into Detroit but it was like rain in the desert, quickly absorbed and then vanishing without a trace. Wealthy coalitions formed to revitalize Detroit and built multi-story monuments to their progressive liberalism on the river front while the inner city deteriorated. Today, wildlife has returned to Detroit’s inner city finding homes and fodder among the vast deserted tracts of abandoned homes and factories. Sometime in the future, hunting licenses may be issued to harvest wild game in what was once a thriving American city.

Yet, the liberals haven’t abandoned the formulas although the bitterness is becoming increasingly evident. Money, always the final solution they claimed, was never given in sufficient quantity – how many hundreds of millions is sufficient was never defined however. With the Democrats sniffing victory in the presidential and congressional elections, it’s not surprising that “liberal talk” is emerging in aggressive tones while finding conservative boogeymen under every rock. People still half-believe in the promises – or so the liberals think. But it’s becoming harder to ignore the frustration within the general population.

Long a liberal mouthpiece, the Detroit Free Press is finding it very difficult to excuse the obvious fruits of liberalism. And the Free Press’s readers, including many inner-city blacks, are despondent and increasingly bitter with the obvious deterioration of their city. Liberals can’t easily abandon the dream, too much has been invested. So, harsh language describing those who oppose their liberal sermons should come as no surprise. Fly in to Detroit and observe the physical results of decades of liberal concepts and policies and you’ll quickly understand why old guard liberals are so defensive – and so belligerent.

Also, I hope someone pursues the angle that SH rules in practice create a hostile work environment. I have observed that when a man is merely accused, everyone [including his own management] else avoids him like people avoided Jews in Nazi Germany. A man is even intimidated into remaining silent and not ask questions in SH training classes for fear of being targeted.

I would like to get the opinions of any lawyers out there. Thx.