Qui sta il confine tra la dittatura e la democrazia: la democrazia punisce i comportamenti, la dittatura non consente di esprimere liberamente le opinioni e le punisce

C’è un Vescovo, ad Alessandria!

mons. Guido Gallese, vescovo della diocesi di Alessandria



AGLI ALBORI DI OGNI DITTATURA TIRA IL VENTO DEL REATO DI OPINIONE, CON IL QUALE SI CERCA DI ELIMINARE CHI NON HA IL PENSIERO “CONFORME”


Come vescovo, ho il compito di guardare lontano, e a volte vedo delle cose che non riguardano soltanto noi cattolici, ma tutta la comunità civile. Scrivo per dare un segnale d’allarme finché siamo in tempo, finché l’astio delle parti non prende il sopravvento sul buon senso. Scrivo a tutti gli uomini di buona volontà e di intelligenza di qualsiasi parte politica o religiosa. Scrivo perché vedo nubi oscure profilarsi all’orizzonte.

L’immagine di riferimento. 

Il 20 agosto 2011 ero alla Giornata Mondiale della Gioventù del 2011 a Madrid. Ero Responsabile di Pastorale Giovanile e al sabato sera mi trovavo con due milioni di giovani alla veglia con il S. Padre all’aeroporto Cuatro Vientos, il più antico della Spagna. Già, Cuatro Vientos: un nome, una garanzia. Ad un certo punto sento soffiare con insistenza un vento proveniente da dietro di noi. Mi volto e vedo dense e oscure nubi con i tipici pennacchi filamentosi che arrivano fino a terra. Così appare la pioggia da distante. Il fatto che si trovassero proprio dalla parte dalla quale proveniva il vento significava che quelle nubi erano dirette verso di noi. Ci avrebbero messo circa 20 minuti. Ho passato voce ai giovani di organizzarsi a quattro a quattro: ciascuno di noi aveva in dotazione un telo di plastica. Uno sarebbe servito per coprire quattro zaini, uno per farci stare sopra quattro persone, preservandole dalle acque che avrebbero potuto scorrere o accumularsi al suolo, altri due per coprire, rimboccando il telo di sotto, i quattro giovani. In quel modo ci siamo salvati da un diluvio intenso e insistente che si è abbattuto sul campo interrompendo la veglia con Papa Benedetto XVI. A sei anni di distanza, con un altro ruolo, sono qui a fare sostanzialmente lo stesso: avvertire di un pericolo.

Le nubi all’orizzonte. 

In Francia la camera ha votato una legge che d’ora in poi consentirà di punire con due anni di carcere e fino a 30.000 euro di multa chi s’impegna per la vita e contro l’aborto usando anche i canali della comunicazione digitale.

Il vento che tira. È il vento di un reato di opinione e il vento che tira da quella direzione si chiama dittatura. Agli albori di ogni dittatura tira il vento del reato di opinione o di discriminazione, con il quale si cerca di eliminare chi non ha il pensiero “conforme”. Non potendo toccare i pensieri ci si limita a censurare le opinioni. E qui sta il confine tra la dittatura e la democrazia: la democrazia punisce i comportamenti, la dittatura non consente di esprimere liberamente le opinioni e le punisce.

La visione strategica. 

In questi anni come vescovo ho partecipato a molte giornate commemorative riguardanti la resistenza, l’olocausto, le foibe e altri momenti della vita civile che hanno fatto risaltare il bene della democrazia che abbiamo ereditato dai nostri padri a seguito di tragici momenti di perdita di essa nel nostro passato recente. Si sono scritte pagine di storia di altissimo valore a prezzo di grandi sacrifici. Oggi viviamo orgogliosamente nella nostra democrazia. Tuttavia essa è fragile, esposta com’è alle pressioni sociologiche della manipolazione di massa prima di tutto a livello della comunicazione sociale. È sotto gli occhi di tutti che non siamo in un’epoca di grandi statisti: un grande statista per esercitare il suo dono deve essere eletto. E per essere eletto deve essere un grande comunicatore. Questa dote, sempre più importante, sfronda in misura crescente il numero dei grandi statisti che possono mettere a frutto il loro talento. La nostra democrazia va difesa. E oggi l’attacco viene dalla parte della sociologia e della comunicazione sociale che, usate in modo improprio, possono diventare gli strumenti della manipolazione di massa e della dittatura.

Giocare d’anticipo. 

Ogni forma di dittatura va riconosciuta sul nascere, anche nelle sue nuove forme, prima che inneschi le sue mortali dinamiche di parte. Le idee delle dittature cambiano, ma lo stile rimane lo stesso ed è liberticida. Dobbiamo fare quadrato e dire di no al reato d’opinione, dire di no a ogni tentativo di impedire l’espressione delle proprie idee. Perché le nostre memorie civili, che sono patrimonio essenziale e irrinunciabile di tutti, cattolici e non, non vengano retrocesse a memorie di parte, valide e condivisibili soltanto per alcuni. Non temo la persecuzione. Temo la rassegnazione, che apre la strada all’orribile spettacolo del volto dell’uomo sfigurato dalla spietatezza.

Leggi tutto: ontologismi.wordpress.com

Fonte: lavocealessandrina.it

That is what true conservatism means, or it means nothing...

Essays of the Week

Restoring Popular Self-Government by George W. Carey The American strain of conservatism emphasizes popular government, taking care to provide for the rule of law, as well as to mark out the realms in which majorities can rule. It also provides yardsticks we can use to determine when it is that the prerogatives of the majority have been trampled upon by unaccountable judges. American conservatives, who take their bearings from our political tradition, are not at all reluctant in urging the American people to take back their heritage through the political processes available to them, even if this means being called “populists.” Nor are they afraid to denounce judicial tyranny as illegitimate, which it most surely is. The test for American conservatives in the years to come, oddly enough, will be the extent to which they are successful in restoring popular self-government... [MORE] On the Timelessness of the Tradition by Eva Brann The Bible is not passé, not of the past, in the sense of “bygone” insofar as faith may be failing, because its depths are thought-inducing for the faithful as well as the faithless—perhaps they ought to be ever more so for the latter. And similarly, the Bible is not out of fashion insofar as its prescriptions may be inapplicable to contemporary life because it is the very lesson book for thinking about what it means to duck out from under obedience to a divinity and to be driven only by the necessities of the world. The Bible is just the best example for my claim: None of the works of the Tradition are to be considered old, except insofar as in human works—not so much in human beings—old age often brings beauty...  [MORE] In Defense of Citizenship: The Silent Issue in  the Immigration Debate by Peter S. Rieth Equality under law underlies American citizenship, and so anyone can aspire to become an American, but the American citizen is by definition unequal to the non-citizen, and the legal aspiring immigrant is unequal to the illegal immigrant. The citizen and the legal immigrant are superior; the non-citizen and the illegal immigrant are inferior. To contend otherwise means to reason that the lawful aspirations of those who want to become Americans are equal to the unlawful aspirations of those who want to illegally take advantage of America. To view the two as equals is the definition of national suicide. To contend that viewing citizens and legal aliens as superior is discrimination is true, but it is the same type of discrimination as the distinction between prison guards and prisoners... [MORE] Poetry & Politics? by Glenn Arbery It is difficult to imagine great shifts in politics without great poetry informing them. During England’s rise to world power, for example, William Shakespeare’s imagination absorbed the political sphere so profoundly that his insight informs almost every conceivable political circumstance. Ambition, rivalry, questions of legitimacy in office, appeals to shifting popular judgment, delusions of power, agonized self-scrutiny—nothing escapes him. Not only can he write Richard II’s self-pitying vacillations, but he can also invent Henry V’s superb St. Crispin’s Day speech for the morning of the Battle of Agincourt. There is no evidence that Shakespeare ever held public office, but other poets were directly entangled in the public sphere, including the two great epic poets of Christianity, Dante Alighieri and John Milton... [MORE] Why So Many Leaks in President  Trump’s Ship of State? by Bruce Frohnen The myth of civil service neutrality, like the myth of an unbiased press, has fostered the growth of an arrogant, self-interested governing class and structure than can and will defend its own interests. One need not be a conspiracy theorist to recognize the need to set aside such myths and to subject, not just political aides, but administrators themselves, to standards of discipline and loyalty to duly elected officials. This means that administrations seeking to undermine the preferred institutional arrangements of what has come to be called the Deep State must be undermined, most obviously through the spread of (often false) stories that make for good copy in the legacy media... [MORE] It’s Washington’s Birthday,  Not Presidents’ Day by Gleaves Whitney Like Cincinnatus, George Washington put down his sword and took up his plow, making him the most trusted man in America. Delegates to the Constitutional Convention of 1787 selected him to be their president, knowing he would not abuse his position to aggrandize himself. And a grateful nation unanimously elected him president of the United States in 1789 and again in 1792, because they knew he would devote all his energies to serving the new nation. Washington, when convinced that he had done all he could to help the country, retired after two terms as president. True to principle, he relinquished the power that was his for the taking. It was an example of selfless leadership that inspires Americans and the world to this day. Why don’t more American children know that?... [MORE] Conservatism and the Culture by Robert H. Bork This is not a counsel of despair. There is no iron law that bad trends must continue in a straight line forever. Perhaps we will stop the seemingly inexorable growth of government control of our lives. Taking back the culture will not be easy, but religion rejects despair. The four cardinal Christian virtues, paralleled in other religions, are, after all, prudence, justice, fortitude, and temperance. These are quite enough to take back the culture. In our current cultural wars, perhaps the most important of the virtues for conservatives is fortitude—the courage to take stands that are not immediately popular, the courage to ignore the opinion polls. Otherwise, we will never change the polls. That is what true conservatism means, or it means nothing... [MORE] Who Is Steve Bannon? My Fatherland! Ten Classical Pieces About Home and Country The Crisis of the Humanities and Prospects for Revival So Many Opinions, So Little News Being Human in a Digital Age of Light & Darkness What Is Capitalism? Abraham Lincoln and the Dignity of the Presidency Support The Imaginative Conservative

After my wife’s insights, the Church’s teachings and Chesterton’s wisdom, the Confession began to make more sense to me.

What G.K. Chesterton and a Dear Friend Taught Me About Confession

by Tod Worner

God, the Father of mercies, through the death and the resurrection of his Son, has reconciled the world to himself and sent the Holy Spirit among us for the forgiveness of sins.

“Why should I have to go to Confession?”

I was being testy. And my wife knew it.

Now, this wasn’t my first misgiving about the Catholic Church. Nor would it be my last. Having married a “cradle Catholic” while personally been raised Lutheran, I had asked terse questions about church hierarchy, the veneration of Mary and the Saints, and the exclusivity surrounding the partaking of the Eucharist. For fourteen years, as we alternated Sundays between Lutheran services and Catholic Mass, my wife mounted a steady, winsome defense of the Catholic faith against my sometimes-earnest-oftentimes-chippy questions.
And now I had come around to the Sacrament of Penance and Reconciliation (hereafter referred to simply as Confession).

What is this Sacrament all about and why should I have to go?

My wife offered thoughtful answers - better than I ever appreciated. But beyond her considered insights, I was helped most by the brilliant pen of a Catholic convert, G.K. Chesterton, and the thoughtful comment by a dear friend.

Let me explain.

The Catholic Church is united by three primary realities: We are dignified children of God. We are fallen. We are redeemable through Christ. To find our way back from our waywardness to the true path, we must honestly recognize how we got lost, own our mistake and receive pardon. So…

First, we must recognize our sin. Chesterton offered this insight:

The great strength of Christian sanctity has always been simply this – that the worst enemies of the saints could not say of the saints anything worse than [the saints] said of themselves…Suppose the village atheist had a sudden and splendid impulse to rush into village church and denounce everybody there as miserable offenders. He might break in at the exact moment when they were saying the same thing themselves.

Second, we must humbly confess our sins and seek to mend our ways. In response to the pompous sneers of those dismissing Confession as morbid, Chesterton retorted:

The morbid thing is NOT to confess [your sins]. The morbid thing is to conceal your sins and let them eat away at your soul, which is exactly the state of most people in today’s highly civilized communities.

Third, we must recognize that the Church is charged by Christ as a minister of his Grace. As Jesus appeared to the disciples after his resurrection, he breathed upon them and said,“Receive the Holy Spirit. Whose sins you forgive are forgiven them, and whose sins you retain are retained.” (John 20:21-23). Chesterton would observe:

The real difference between the Church and State is huge and plain. The State, in all lands and ages, has created a machinery of punishment, more bloody and brutal in some places than in others, but bloody and brutal everywhere. The Church is the only institution that ever attempted to create a machinery of pardon.
The Church is the only thing that ever attempted by system to pursue and discover crimes, not in order to avenge, but in order to forgive them…[The Church’s] specialty – or, if you like, its oddity – was this merciless mercy; the unrelenting sleuthhound who seeks to save and not slay.

Finally, once we are absolved of our sins, we are called to heed the Holy Spirit and the guidance of the Church – a Church that has surely prayed over, wrestled over and been inspired to find the true path. This is the surest way to live as fully and faithfully as possible. As Chesterton would remind:

Nine out of ten of what we call new ideas are simply old mistakes. The Catholic Church has for one of her chief duties that of preventing people from making those old mistakes; from making them over and over again forever, as people always do if they are left to themselves… There is no other case of one continuous intelligent institution that has been thinking about thinking for two thousand years.

After my wife’s insights, the Church’s teachings and Chesterton’s wisdom, the Confession began to make more sense to me. But I didn’t truly get it until one evening after I walked out of Confession, I ran into a dear Catholic friend who simply and sincerely leveled his smiling gaze at me and said, “Well, just look at you with your spotless soul.”

That’s when it truly dawned on me.

That’s it.

A spotless soul.

That is why I should go to Confession.

Read more: www.ncregister.com

El padre Santiago Martín rechaza el error del superior de los jesuitas

EL SUPERIOR JESUITA Y LA DEMOLICIÓN DE LA FE

Con evidente referencia a las tremendas afirmaciones del padre Arturo Sosa, superior general de la Compañía de Jesús, en el sentido de que en tiempos de Jesucristo no había grabadoras para saber con certeza lo que dijo Nuestro Señor sobre el matrimonio, y por tanto podemos reinterpretarlo a conveniencia, el padre Santiago Martín advierte de que la «religión del supermercado» a la que conduce la «desmitificación» de la figura de Jesús significa la ruina absoluta de la Iglesia.

ver video aquí: www.religionenlibertad.com

El padre Santiago Martín rechaza el error del superior de los jesuitas

Luego de que el superior de los Jesuitas, Arturo Sosa Abascal, pusiera en duda las palabras de Jesús sobre la indisolubilidad del matrimonio respecto a que «lo que Dios unió, no lo separe el hombre».


(InfoCatólica) En un programa titulado «Bultmann sigue vivo» de «Magnificat TV» el conocido sacerdote y predicador Santiago Martín ha explicado en detalle el origen del error que ha llevado al superior de los Jesuitas, Arturo Sosa Abascal, a poner en duda las palabras de Jesús sobre la indisolubilidad del matrimonio.

A continuación, una transcripción de su explicación, pero puede también escuchar el programa a través del siguiente enlace.

Origen del Bultmannianismo

El final del siglo XIX y la primera mitad del siglo XX es considerada en filosofía la época de los llamados «padres de la sospecha». Filósofos de gran peso que pusieron en entredicho algunos de los principios en los que se basaba la sociedad anterior y que marcaron realmente su época. Gente como Hegel, Marx, Feuerbach, Nietzsche, Freud, quienes generaron dudas, sospechas e incertidumbre, y también, en el conjunto de las iglesias, más que todo en las iglesias protestantes, sobre todo en Alemania, se dejaron influir por este sentimiento de sospecha sobre aquellas cosas que habían sido las certezas y seguridades precedentes.

Sobre todo, se dedicaron a investigar la autenticidad de los evangelios y llegaron a investigar si realmente Jesucristo existió, y si el que existió es aquel que reflejan los Evangelios.

Distinción entre el «Jesús histórico» y el «Cristo de la fe»

Se empezó a hablar entonces de la diferencia entre el llamado «Jesús histórico» y el «Cristo de la fe». Una diferencia que cada vez se fue acentuando más, y llegaron a la conclusión de que los Evangelios eran «mitificaciones» de un personaje originario del cual prácticamente no podíamos saber nada.

A finales del siglo XIX Strauss (David Friedrich Strauss) concluyó que el «colmo» de la mitificación era el Evangelio de San Juan, y que este no tenía que ser tenido en cuenta en absoluto.

Posteriormente se «cargaron» el Evangelio de San Mateo y el de San Lucas, y después el único que quedaba que era el Evangelio de San Marcos lo desprestigiaron también.

Rudolf Bultmann
En este contexto, aparece una de las grandes figuras «desmitificadoras», Rudolf Bultmann, que no es tan antiguo en el tiempo. Bultmann muere en el año 1976, no estamos hablando de un personaje que se remota a la noche de los tiempos, sino que es relativamente reciente.

Es Bultmann quien concluye que «no hay nada que hacer». Es decir, que tenemos que «olvidarnos» del Jesús histórico, y que tenemos que acercarnos a los Evangelios como un relato «mítico» elaborado posteriormente, y sobre todo elaborado a raíz de la «invención» del cristianismo, que va a «hacer San Pablo». Según esta óptica ese «Cristo de la fe» no tiene nada que ver con la realidad. Que el «Cristo de la fe» es alguien que «nos han contado» pero que no existió realmente. Es decir, que el que existió, no es aquel que cuentan los Evangelios, que son libros simplemente «míticos» e «inventados» sobre todo por San Pablo.

Demolición durante el post-concilio

Con esta actitud de fondo, nos hemos enfrentado no solo al Concilio Vaticano II [que reafirma la historicidad de los Evangelios en su Constitución Dogmática Dei Verbum], sino al post-concilio, que es en el cual todavía estamos viviendo.

Naturalmente esta «demolición» de las raíces de nuestra fe y de la Palabra de Dios, esta demolición del cristianismo, no se ha hecho sin consecuencias. Las consecuencias han sido muy graves.

Religión del supermercado
Es lo que alguno denominó la «religión del supermercado». Tu vas con tu carrito de supermercado, y ves las estanterías más o menos repletas de productos, y vas eligiendo lo que a ti te conviene, en función de tus gustos, o en función de simplemente de que aquella marca te resulte más económica o esa otra marca, según tu opinión, te da mejor resultado.

Llegas con tu carrito a la caja, pero si en el camino a la caja te encuentras con alguien que te dice: «¿Cómo ha comprado usted ese detergente?, Ese no es bueno, mejor compre este otro», pues no hay ningún problema. Dejas ese producto, lo sacas de tu carrito, y vas y eliges otro o no eliges ninguno.

Es la religión del supermercado, en la que estábamos y por desgracia todavía estamos. Y esta religión del supermercado no es una religión solo para ti. Es decir, tu coges tu carrito y vas poniendo tus productos, quitas y pones tu antojo, ya sea quizá por la influencia que hacen en ti en el último momento o a lo largo de tu compra. Pero lo mismo está haciendo otro.

Ejemplos varios

Pongamos un ejemplo. A ti te parece muy importante y esencial insistir en que el Señor dijo «lo que hagas al más pequeño a mí me lo hicieron», el compromiso social, la ayuda a los pobres, y a ti te parece eso muy importante, muy bien. Pero a ti no te parece importante en cambio, que el Señor haya dicho «lo que Dios unió que no lo separe el hombre», que «el que se divorcia de su mujer y se casa con otra comete adulterio contra la primera», eso no te parece importante, entonces lo segundo, que no te parece importante, lo pones en duda, y dices: «¿Lo dijo Cristo?», primera cuestión, «no había grabadoras».

En el caso de que dijera algo parecido, «¿en qué contexto?, «¿quién lo escuchó?, ¿cómo lo entendió y cómo lo contó?, ¿cómo lo escribió el que años después lo escribió?» No merece la pena hacer un problema por eso.

Luego otro, con los mismos derechos que tu, con su carrito de supermercado, ha elegido otro producto y ha dicho «a mí eso sí me parece muy importante, pero no me parece importante que el Señor dijera «Tu eres Pedro y sobre esta piedra edificaré mi Iglesia», o que el Señor dijera «Tomad y comed que esto es mi cuerpo», o que Cristo resucitara, o que Cristo en la cruz nos dijera que es importante pedir ayuda para perdonar como Él estaba perdonando cuando exclamó «Padre, perdónales que no saben lo que hacen».

Es decir, la religión del supermercado es muy cómoda, pues es una religión a tu manera y a tu gusto, para que no te moleste, pero eso que tú haces lo puede hacer exactamente igual cualquier otro, y naturalmente eligiendo productos que a ti no te gustan nada pero que aquel alega que tiene el mismo derecho a hacerlo.

De esto se dieron cuenta, gracias a Dios, muchos, entre ellos, el profesor Joseph Ratzinger, después arzobispo Ratzinger, luego Cardenal Ratzinger, y después Papa Benedicto XVI.

Fue precisamente él quien denominó a este tipo de «religión» la «religión del supermercado» y el escribe unos de los mejores libros que se han escrito que son la trilogía sobre Jesús de Nazaret, y que yo recomiendo a todos que al menos lean el prólogo, o la introducción del primero de los libros, porque sitúa perfectamente el problema.

Es decir, nos dice cómo está la Iglesia en ese momento y las consecuencias terribles que tiene para todos, no solamente para los de izquierda o para los de derecha, la llamada «desmitificación» de Jesucristo, de decir que Jesucristo no existió, o que el que existió no tiene nada que ver con el que nos cuentan, o que el que nos cuentan hay que ver lo que dijo, si es que realmente nos dijo algo.

Sobre las palabras del Superior de la Compañía de Jesús

Por qué hablo de todo esto, porque eso es adonde estamos llegando. Poner en duda la Palabra del Señor, a propósito del divorcio, decir que hay que «reinterpretar a Cristo» porque «en aquella época no había grabadoras» abre la puerta sí o sí, sin ninguna duda, a poner en duda la palabra del Señor en otras cosas. No puedes pretender que lo que a ti te conviene poner en duda, sea lo único que se ponga en duda.

A ti te conviene poner eso en duda, por la razón que sea. Quizá porque tienes un concepto de la misericordia que te lleva a decir que hay que dar la comunión a todo el mundo. Pero tienes que ser consciente de que si tu pones en duda eso, estás permitiendo, con los mismos derechos, que otro ponga en duda otra cosa.

Para finalizar solo quisiera hacer una pregunta: ¿De verdad nadie se da cuenta de a dónde nos conduce todo esto?, ¿De verdad nadie se da cuenta del tipo de «demolición» de nuestra fe al cual estamos yendo?, es decir, a ese nihilismo, a esa falta absoluta de certezas, porque destrozando una parte del mensaje, porque nos «conviene» destrozarla, estamos empezando a destrozar el conjunto del mensaje.

Solo quiero hacer esta pregunta porque el tiempo presente es tan serio, que merece la pena que antes de seguir «destrozando» el cristianismo, nos paremos a pensar en qué es lo que estamos haciendo.

Fuente: infocatolica.com

Spending Reductions Must Come With Tax Cuts

Why Government Spending Matters More than the Size of the Deficit

by Frank Shostak


Budget deficits are often in the media spotlight. The budget deficit is defined as the difference between what the government spends and what the government collects. When the government spends more than it collects, a budget deficit exists. When the government collects more than it spends, a budget surplus emerges.

The conventional view is that one can show that budget deficits reduce national saving. National saving is typically defined as the sum of private saving (the after-tax income that households save rather than consume) and public saving. When the government runs a budget deficit, public saving is negative, which reduces national saving below private saving.

By generating surpluses, so it would appear, the government creates real wealth, thereby strengthening the economy’s fundamentals. This argument would be correct if government activities were of a wealth-generating nature.

Government Spending Doesn't Create Wealth

This is, however, not the case. Government activities are confined to the redistribution of real wealth from wealth generators to wealth consumers. Government activities result in taking wealth from one person and channeling it to another.

Various impressive projects that the government undertakes also fall into the category of wealth redistribution. The fact that the private sector didn’t undertake these projects indicates that they are low on the priority list of consumers.

Given the state of the pool of real wealth the implementation of these projects will undermine the well-being of individuals since they will be introduced at the expense of projects that are higher on the priority list of consumers.

Let us assume that the government decides to build a pyramid that most people regard as low priority. The people who will be employed on this project must be given access to various goods and services to sustain their life and well-beings.

Since the government is not a wealth producer it would have to impose taxes on wealth producers (those individuals who produce goods and services in accordance with consumers’ most important priorities) in order to support the building of a pyramid.

Whenever wealth producers exchange their products with each other, the exchange is voluntary. Every producer exchanges goods in his possession for goods that he believes will raise his living standard.

The crux therefore is that the exchange or the trade must be free and thus reflective of individual’s priorities. Government taxes are, however, of a coercive nature: they force producers to part with their wealth in exchange for an unwanted pyramid. This implies that producers are forced to exchange more for less, and obviously this impairs their well-being.

The more that pyramid-building that is undertaken by the government the more real wealth is taken away from wealth producers. We can thus infer that the level of tax, i.e. real wealth, taken from the private sector is directly determined by the size of government activities.

Observe that by being a wealth consumer, the government cannot contribute to savings and to the pool of real wealth. Moreover, if government activities could have generated wealth then they would have been self-funded and would not have required any support from other wealth generators. If this were otherwise then the issue of taxes would never arise.

The Effects of Surpluses on Inflation and the Money Supply

The essence of our previous analysis is not altered by the introduction of money. In the money economy the government will tax (take money from wealth generators) and disburse the received money to various individuals that are employed directly or indirectly by the government.

This money will give these individuals access to the pool of real wealth that is the total stock of goods and services. Government-employed individuals are now able to exchange the taxed money for various goods and services that are required to improve their lives.

What then is the meaning of a budget surplus in a money economy? It basically means that the government’s inflow of money exceeds its expenditure of money. The budget surplus here is just a monetary surplus. The emergence of a surplus produces the same effect as any tight monetary policy.

On this Ludwig von Mises wrote,

Now, restriction of government expenditure may be certainly a good thing. But it does not provide the funds a government needs for a later expansion of its expenditure. An individual may conduct his affairs in this way. He may accumulate savings when his income is high and spend them later when his income drops. But it is different with a nation or all nations together. The treasury may hoard a part of the lavish revenue from taxes, which flows into the public exchequer as a result of the boom. As far and as long as it withholds these funds from circulation, its policy is really deflationary and contra-cyclical and may to this extent weaken the boom created by credit expansion. But when these funds are spent again, they alter the money relation and create a cash-induced tendency toward a drop in the monetary unit's purchasing power. By no means can these funds provide the capital goods required for the execution of the shelved public works.[1]

Government Spending — Not Surpluses and Deficits — Is What Matters Most

Thinking that government spending is a wealth generator in itself, some will argue that the proper response to a government surplus shows there is no need to reduce spending, and that taxes should simply be reduced. But, a budget surplus — i.e. a monetary surplus — does not "make room" for lower taxes. Only if real government outlays are curtailed (i.e. only when the government cuts the number of pyramids it plans to build) can tax effectively be lowered. Lower government outlays imply that wealth generators will now have a larger portion of the pool of real wealth at their disposal.

On the other hand, if government outlays continue to increase, notwithstanding budget surpluses, no effective tax reduction is possible; the share of the pool of real wealth at the disposal of wealth producers will diminish.

For example, if government outlays are $3 trillion and the government revenue is $2 trillion then the government will have a deficit of $1 trillion. Since government outlays have to be funded this means that the government would have to secure some other sources of funding such as borrowing, printing money or new forms of taxes. The government will employ all sorts of means to obtain resources from wealth generators to support its activities.

What matters here is that government outlays are $3 trillion, not that the deficit is $1 trillion. For instance, if government revenue on account of higher taxes were $3 trillion then we would have a balanced budget. But would this alter the fact that the government still takes $3 trillion of resources from wealth generators?

We Must Build Wealth Before We Can Spend It

The critics of a smaller government will react that the private sector cannot be trusted to build up and enhance the nation’s infrastructure. For instance, the US urgently requires the building and upgrading of bridges and roads.

There is no doubt that this is the case. However, can Americans afford the improvement of the infrastructure? The arbiter here should be the free market where individuals, by buying or abstaining from buying, decide on the type of infrastructure that is going to emerge.

If the size of the pool of real wealth is not adequate to afford better infrastructure then time is needed to accumulate real wealth to be able to secure better infrastructure. The build-up of the pool of real wealth cannot be made faster by raising government outlays. As we have seen, an increase in government spending will only weaken the pool of real wealth.

The government can force various non-market chosen projects. The government, however, cannot make these projects viable. As time goes by the burden that these projects will impose on the economy through higher ongoing levels of taxes is going to undermine the well-being of individuals and will make these projects even more of a burden.

Spending Reductions Must Come With Tax Cuts

What about the lowering of taxes on businesses – surely this will give a boost to capital investment and strengthen the process of real wealth formation? This is what President Trump is being rumored to be considering. As long as this lowering of taxes is not matched by a reduction in government spending this will encourage a misallocation of capital.

The emerging budget deficit is going to be funded either by borrowings or by monetary pumping. Obviously, this amounts to the diversion of real wealth from wealth generating activities to non-wealth generating activities. Various capital projects that emerge on the back of such government policy are likely to be the equivalent of useless pyramids.

We have seen that one of the ways of securing the necessary funds by the government is by means of borrowing. But how can this be?

A borrower must be a wealth generator in order to be able to repay the principal loan plus interest. This is, however, not the case as far as the government is concerned, for government is not a wealth generator – it only consumes wealth.

So how then can the government as a borrower, producing no real wealth, ever repay its debt? The only way it can do this is by borrowing again from the same lender – the wealth-generating private sector. It amounts to a process whereby government borrows from you in order to repay you.

We can conclude that the only meaningful contribution the government can make to the pool of real wealth, and hence people’s living standards, is by focusing on a reduction in real outlays – not whether there is a surplus or a deficit. This in turn means the government must remove itself from business activities and permit wealth generators to get on with the business of wealth generation.

Source: mises.org

Cardinal Peter Turkson and two dozen US bishops attended the First US Regional Meeting of Popular Movements

Popular movements call for sanctuary, disruption; blast racism, ‘all forms of human hierarchy’


Participants in the First US Regional Meeting of Popular Movements issued a “message from Modesto” following a four-day meeting in the California city.

Cardinal Peter Turkson and two dozen US bishops attended the meeting, which was cosponsored by the Vatican’s Dicastery for Promoting Integral Human Development, the US bishops’ Catholic Campaign for Human Development, and PICO National Network.

“We believe that every human is sacred with equal claim to safe water, education, health care, housing and family-sustaining jobs,” participants said in their message. “Racism and all forms of human hierarchy, whether based on skin color, gender, sexual orientation, physical ability, arrest and conviction records, immigration status, religion or ethnicity are immoral.”

“Racism is stripping Black, Latino, Asian, Muslim, Native people of their humanity and fueling police abuse and mass-incarceration, and fueling a crisis of homelessness and displacement,” the message continued. “Raids and Trump Administration Executive Orders are scapegoating immigrants and ripping families apart.”

The participants added:

We understand that a small elite is growing wealthy and powerful off the suffering of our families. Racism and White Supremacy are America’s original sins. They continue to justify a system of unregulated capitalism that idolizes wealth accumulation over human needs. Yet too often our faith communities and religious leaders fail to heed the mandate to denounce greed and stand with the poor and vulnerable.

In response, the message proposes several actions, including

• “sanctuary”: “we urge every faith community, including every Catholic parish, to declare themselves a sanctuary for people facing deportation and those being targeted based on religion, race or political beliefs”
• “disrupting oppression and dehumanization”: “we must put our bodies, money and institutional power at risk to protect our families and communities, using tools that include boycotts, strikes, and non-violent civil disobedience”
• “bold prophetic leadership from faith communities”: “we ask our Catholic Bishops to write a covenant that spells out specific actions that dioceses and parishes should take to protect families in the areas of immigration, racism, jobs, housing, and the environment”
• “political power”: “to defend our families and protect our values we must build political power”

References:

• Message from Modesto
• San Diego bishop: ‘we must all become disrupters’ (CWN, 2/22)
• Cardinal Tobin decries populist racism, xenophobia (CWN, 2/21)

Read more: www.catholicculture.org