Fixing the Moral Deficit, Biblical Principles for Debt Reduction

Chuck Colson
Chuck Colson
by Chuck Colson –
Thirty-five years ago, my friend Ron Sider published Rich Christians in an Age of Hunger, a very influential book at the time. While I haven’t always agreed with Ron, in fact, we’re poles apart politically, I have no doubt of his integrity, his wisdom and his desire to bring biblical truth to all aspects of life.

That’s why so I’m happy that Ron has turned his attention to one of the most pressing issues of our time: our national debt.

His new book, Fixing the Moral Deficit, is the result of his reflections on the issue. As the title suggests, for Ron, the ballooning national debt isn’t simply a matter of accounting. According to him, there are three “crises” operating here: the first is the deficit crisis, the result of government spending more than it collects in taxes; the second is a poverty crisis, in which the bottom 20 percent become poorer, while the top twenty percent get wealthier.

Together, he says, these add up to a third crisis—which he calls the “justice crisis”–in which we “put current expenditures on our grandchildren’s credit cards,” which Sider calls “flatly immoral.” Amen. [Read more…]

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Socialism without Guns

Greece communism socialism by Larrey Anderson –
As their economic orgy fades to its inevitable end, the people of Greece find themselves in a country that resembles more of a debtor’s prison than a representative democracy. The Greeks have sold their freedom for a mess of pottage. If the United States is not careful, we could soon find ourselves in a very similar situation.

Unlike the former Soviet Union, there was no violent Marxist “revolution” in Greece. Freedom was taken from the country’s citizens without a single shot being fired. The Greeks squandered their freedom by electing, time and again, politicians who promised an unsustainable socialist utopia. The Greeks committed political suicide by creating socialism without guns. [Read more…]

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Catholic Social Doctrine and the Market Economy: Free Persons and Free Markets

Free Markets Catholic Church by Andrew M. Greenwell, Esq.
The free market must operate within certain moral, institutional, and legal norms, or else it becomes something other than a free market. The free market is not an autonomous, free-for-all area exempt from moral law or from the hand of positive law. The market must always be protected and kept free, and it must be safeguarded from those who would seek to use it wrongly, whether by fraud, manipulation, abuse of economic power, or monopolization. It operates within the Rule of Law. …

The social doctrine of the Catholic Church undeniably puts great emphasis on the free market as a valuable, indeed “irreplaceable” economic and social institution. (Compendium, No. 349) Drawing largely from John Paul II’s encyclical Centesimus annus, the Compendium of the Social Doctrine of the Church is bullish on the free market and supports it as the best general means to assure proper allocation of scarce economic resources, of achieving economic efficiency, and of benefiting the common good.

The free market is an institution of social importance because of its capacity to guarantee effective results in the production of goods and services.  Historically, it has shown itself able to initiate and sustain economic development over long periods.  There are good reasons to hold that, in many circumstances, “the free market is the most efficient instrument for utilizing resources and effectively responding to needs.” [Read more…]

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The American Left and the Erosion of Public Discourse

American Left Socialism Communism progressives by Steve McCann –
Much has been made of the precipitous decline in the level of discourse in the United States. Many attribute this to the coarsening of the language and the ever-widening gulf between the various factions in the political spectrum. However, these factors are a symptom of a current underlying and foundational dilemma: the inability of not only the general public, but nearly all of the so-called societal leaders and opinion-makers to generate an original thought, as well as a stubborn refusal to use reason and logic when confronted with irrefutable facts and arguments.

These traits can be explained, insofar as the general public is concerned, as the consequence of their subjection for the past forty years to a woeful and deliberately incomplete education bordering on indoctrination. However, this factor does not fully explain many of the so-called best and brightest falling into the same abyss and being unable to coherently expound on an original thought or concept. While this is true for a few on the conservative side of the political spectrum, it is overwhelmingly the case among those who self-identify as liberals or progressives. [Read more…]

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Issa: Distorting the Debate of Religious Freedom

Darrell Issa: Distorting the Debate of Religious Freedom by Rep. Darrell Issa
Let’s make something perfectly clear: I support a woman’s right to use contraceptives. I don’t question whether women and men have a right to use contraception — I believe they do. This is not about religious freedom versus contraception but about religious freedom versus unconstitutional mandates.

When Congress granted broad powers and authority to the Obama administration through the 2010 health care overhaul, it was never explained that the administration would use those powers to launch an assault on religious freedom. [Read more…]

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Darrell Issa, Orthodox Congressman, On Religious Freedom

Darrell Issa (Republican) - Orthodox Christian
Darrell Issa (Republican)

Congressman Darrell Issa is an Orthodox Christian politician (Republican) from California. As a member of the House of Representatives he spoke out against Obama’s HHS healthcare mandate that infringes on the religious liberty of all Americans. He is not afraid to stand up and speak up for what is right and just. Here is Rep. Darrell Issa’s statement from a hearing on “Separation of Church and State” held on February 16, 2012:

Date: Feb. 16, 2012
Location: Washington, DC

Americans of all faiths have a right to practice their religion free from the fear of persecution or harassment from their government. Our nation’s founders believed this and enshrined religious freedom into the First Amendment to the Constitution.

While some Americans may not feel that government mandates forcing them to pay for contraception are an infringement on their religious beliefs, others consider it to be an assault against their freedom of conscience. A government policy that encroaches on the conscientious objections of religious groups concerns all Americans who value the protections of the First Amendment. [Read more…]

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Something deadly this way comes: the insatiable appetite of the Culture of Death

Albert Mohler
Albert Mohler
by Albert Mohler –
The debate over abortion comes down to one essential issue — the moral status of the unborn child. Those making the case for the legalization of abortion argue that the developing fetus lacks a moral status that would trump a woman’s desire to abort the child. Those arguing against abortion do so by making the opposite claim; that the unborn child, precisely because it is a developing human being, possesses a moral status by the very fact of its human existence that would clearly trump any rationale offered for its willful destruction.

This central issue is often obscured in both public argument and private conversations about abortion, but it remains the essential question. We have laws against homicide, and if the unborn child is recognized legally and morally as a human being, abortion would be rightly seen as murder.

In the main, abortion rights advocates have drawn the moral line at the moment of birth. That is why, even with our contemporary knowledge of the developing fetus, abortion rights activists have persistently argued in favor of abortions right up to the moment of birth. Anyone doubting this claim needs only to consider the unified opposition of leading abortion rights advocates to restrictions on late-term abortions. [Read more…]

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Two There Are: The Church, the State and the Dangers of Radical Secularism

Church vs State God vs Secularism by Andrew M. Greenwell, Esq. –
Both Church and State have public voices; both sing a song. The Catholic, both a citizen and a member of Christ’s faithful, hears both songs and both voices, for he or she knows there are two. But like St. Thomas More’s last words as he approached the scaffold and imminent death, the Catholic is “the King’s good servant, but God’s first.” One song, one voice in particular, the voice of God, the vox Domini Iesu Christi, holds him in absolute thrall. …

“Duo sunt,” said the 5th century Pope Gelasius I in a famous letter to Emperor Anastasius, “quibus principaliter mundus hic regitur.” “Two there are by which this world is ruled.” Pope Gelasius I merely reformulates what is the teaching of our Lord, and which is part of reality, of what is, in the political world for those who bask in the benefit of Revelation. “Render unto Caesar that which is Caesar’s, and to God the things that are God’s.” (Matt. 22:21) Since Christ came into this world, the Christian knows that there are two public songs, and not just one, in the world.

The Catholic accepts the duo sunt as part of social reality. There is therefore in the Catholic mind, both Church and State, and a natural and necessary separation of Church and State. But this separation of Church and State does not imply subordination of Church to State. Quite the contrary, the State and the Church are coordinate powers each with its proper sphere. [Read more…]

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The New Scar on My Soul

human life is precious abortion is murderby anonymous –
Abortion is not an excision of a featureless bunch of cells; it is infanticide. It is not painless for the child, and anyone who says otherwise is a liar. We have revived the practice of child sacrifice to the new deities of casual sex and convenience. We rationalize the reality of murder by altering our perspective of the nascent life through euphemisms like “fetus” or descriptions of “a clump of cells”…just like the Nazis convinced themselves that the people screaming as they were shot or gassed were “Untermenchen,” subhuman, and therefore guiltlessly exterminated. …

My soul carries a new scar. The pain is fresh and keen, and I know that while time might see the pain fade, I will never fully recover from what I’ve seen, and done. For I have failed, intentionally and knowingly, in the first duty of a parent: protecting the lives of two of my children.

My wife and I wanted children; alas, we needed IVF treatment to realize this dream. Several cycles and multiple embryo implantations later, we welcomed our blessing from G-d, who is the light of our lives. [Read more…]

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Pro-Abortion Snowe Retires, Will Pro-Lifers Win the Senate?

Olympia Snowe Pro-Abortion Abortion Advocate
Olympia Snowe Pro-Abortion Advocate (voted pro-abortion 46 times)
by Andrew Bair –

Late Monday afternoon, Senator Olympia Snowe (R-ME) sent shockwaves through Washington when she announced she would not seek reelection to the US Senate in November.

Snowe, long known as a centrist, cited the “partisanship” of Washington as the reason for her decision. While pro-life advocates may not hold Snowe in the highest regard, her Senate seat was viewed as a safe Republican seat heading into the November elections. Keeping Maine in Republican hands becomes a much more difficult task with Snowe out of the picture.

In 59 scored pro-life votes by the National Right to Life Committee, Snowe voted pro-abortion 46 times. Some of her worst offenses include voting against the ban on partial-birth abortion, against the Unborn Victims of Violence Act, against the Mexico City Policy, in favor of federal funding of Planned Parenthood and in favor of federal funding for embryonic stem cell research. [Read more…]

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