This essay responds to an Austin Hill article, “Note To Catholic Bishops: Obamanomics Is Evil, Too”, and to resulting comments posted at http://townhall.com/columnists/Column2.aspx?UrlTitle=note_to_catholic_bishops__obamanomics_is_evil,_too&ns=AustinHill&dt=10/11/2009&page=full&comments=true&submitted=true#postComments

Before the Reformation, Governments didn't do much to aid the poor; most government action, where it existed, was in ensuring just laws governed internally, and in prudently conducting affairs of state to internationally advance the national well-being. Charity? The Catholic Church's established monasteries (and such) cared for the down’n’out with large land holdings, herds of cattle/sheep/etc, and lots of crops. From these sources, the Catholic Church also attended to aged people’s retirement needs. Most Church holdings were staffed by monks (& nuns & such) who worked as much as they prayed; some became corrupt (as Luther pointed out), becoming rich even as they aided the poor and elderly. 

Then, in the Reformation, kings grew desperate to fund their wars. They sent assessors to the monasteries (and like places), then sent troops to seize all that was of value to the King. The former social safety net was no more; kings spent the wealth on affairs of state, not on citizens. The monks, nuns, etc were even displaced (most of the time) from their former lands. The poor became poorer. Kings (especially in England) created Debtors Prisons to horrible and yet so well described by Charles Dickens and others. 

Since giving up on healing the Reformation’s rifts, the Catholic Church has gotten into a habit of advocating to governments to help the poor. (Funny how socialists owe even that philosophical thought to the Catholicism that they despise.)

I assess government has no proper role in wealth redistribution; socialism has everywhere proven to be little more than a political front for political power grab, and has proven to have *nothing* to do with the general welfare of all citizens. On the contrary, charity is the proper realm of free-will offerings, not of forced taxed coercion. Governments should concentrate on Rule of Law (internally) and affairs of state (externally). Governments would then leave religious & secular charities unhindered in their proper role of caring materially & spiritually for those who are poor in wealth & spirit. Most especially, the government is wasteful in directly competing with private charities, pitting inefficient impersonal taxation against directly effective in-person free-will offerings. Government exerts a monopolistic & coercive effect in its ‘competition’ against charities, and yet is one of the most grossly inefficient mechanisms for relieving the plight of the poor. As European experience has proven since 1950, government welfare has hardly elevated the poor, but done yeoman’s work in impoverishing the middle class.

I assess the Catholic hierarchy is wrong when advocating governments ‘care’ for their people in any manner of direct handouts (welfare, medicare, etc). Perhaps it’s time for the Catholic hierarchy to investigate ways of encouraging governments to simply get out of the way.

Could hardly be worse than what happens today.

Personal Stimulus:

2008, Bush:  $1,800.00 ($1.8 thousand)

2009, Obama:  $250.00 ($0.3 thousand)

  - Difference:   Obama gives me $1,550.00 ($1.6 thousand) less … one seventh …

Corporate Stimulus (Aprox):

Bush:          $1,630,000,000,000.00 ($1.6 trillion)

Obama:       $3,160,000,000,000.00  ($3.2 trillion)

   - Difference:   Obama deficit spending, just on stimulus: double Bush’s.

Allegations:

  - 2008:  Bush Jr was quite clear he was refunding peoples' taxes; his detractors claim the tax refund amount was too paltry to have bothered with. What is “one-seventh of paltry” ?

  - 2009:  Obama cannot account for where stimulus monies went; his detractors claim at least a significant amount of it went to his 2008 Campaign political supporters; we do know that Obama has closed down GM & Chrysler dealerships that have been profitable, if they failed to adequately support Obama in 2008.

Capitalism, unregulated, has led to Robber Barons and concurrent treatment of workers as merely another cost of production. The point: greed led to dehumanization of fellow men (& women & children also in sweatshops even if not in the mines too). Caveat: is such dehumanization inevitable? Have all cases of relatively unregulated capitalism led to such excesses?

We often hear capitalism works on a recognition of greed’s power. 

 - Greed can be seen as an inherent evil. Greed has perennially been one of the 7 Deadly Sins (pride, greed, lust, anger, gluttony, envy, sloth).

 - What is greed? Greed is the drive to improve one’s lot in life, taken to extreme. Definition: “an overwhelming desire to acquire or have, as wealth or power, in excess of what one requires or deserves” (Webster’s New Riverside University Dictionary).  Therefore, a simple desire to improve one’s lot in life is NOT Greed, any more than eating for health & nourishment, is a desire to be a glutton.

 - Effects. Greed, unchecked, led to Robber Barons at least in the USA and in Britain. Some capitalists, like some of any group, will become fanatics. Are robber barons capitalism’s fanatics, or at least one brand thereof? We may not know the answer, but we do know that far from all capitalists become robber barons.  Probably, for every robber barron (or, today, 'golden parachute executive), we can find at least one noted philanthropist to match.  Philanthropists are but one example of the opposite of a robber baron.  But even more basically, greed is not the all-consuming factor in capitalism.  Capitalism’s essence, seen in all the  is that it allows each person to use natural talents to better his lot in life – and the lot of those he cares about or does honest business with. Just as eating tends to gluttony in many, capitalists often tend to greed of robber barons.  

 - Analogy time. Greed is much like an amazingly attractive force. A tool one can use: capitalists can simply avoid the excesses of greed. But there are possibilities still, when one finds himself already far down the path to greed, and greed becomes overwhelmingly powerful. He can make the moral decision to shear away from greed’s sucking force. That decision can be codified into law, just as is codified the morality to not steal or kill in any other ways. 

I spent 20 years in uniform. In 20 years, I was betrayed. I swore an oath to 'support and defend the Constitution of the United States against all enemies, foreign and domestic'. While I 'manned the walls', somebody let the enemies under the walls and into the courtyard: fellow countrymen have allowed internal rot to erode the force & effect of the constitution I defended. Outright betrayal.

Still, a point to amplify: betrayal from arrogance 'reaching across the aisle' to the usual liberal suspects.

As a conservative, I have a memory that I'm not afraid to use. I remember the lies & duplicities of liberals & outright admitted socialists, of 'compassionate conservatives', and of would-be conservatives who behave as if having tumbled gyroscopes for their Jiminy Crickets. Being conservative also means I believe in an immutable standard of right versus wrong, that I'm not ashamed to call a lie a lie, and that I insist all should stick to the agreed rules, like the constitution ... or leave us.

No, the 80% change I want is to take the kid gloves off against those who throw mud to see what sticks. I want to lose the politically correct veneer: the politics of personal destruction is NOT in calling a lie a lie, it's in telling the lie in the first place. Those who speak plainly, unashamed to point out the lies, those are the candidates I'm willing to vote for and support. Conservatism does this. Conservatives will send a Packwood packing just as quickly as sending away a Studds, while the liars will join against Packwood, but circle wagons around a Studds. 

Most of America doesn't give a hoot about 'partisan politics' so much as we want integrity we can trust ... integrity that forbids betrayal. ENOUGH with lies and all the rest of Relative Morality's hidden praise of duplicity!

Conservative victory, the phoenix of integrity ... we need it.

Anybody ever notice that Republican success in national elections is directly related to how conservative the Republican is???!!! ('DumbOxBellowed' blog shows details in a featured essay.)

I wish the 2008 ticket was Palin-Anybody, with a cabinet including Thompson, Gingrich, Alexander, Keyes, DeLay, Lott, Santorum, Thune, etc. (I remember how some of them were tarred & feathered, run out of DC on a rail, then exonerated. THAT is the politics of personal destruction.) No human is perfect, but a cabinet like those names would probably keep each other true to politics of service, away from politics of self-embellishing duplicity. 

It was liberals who enabled – mandated – Fannie & Freddie & all the rest, to create this mess. Obama’s record and intentions are like his fellow liberals: more government to solve a problem created by too much government already.  How can this crisis possibly be benefitting Obama???  Does nobody know the truth???  Possible.  McCain sure isn't telling the real story.  Broadcast media sure won't.  Obama Campaign certainly has nothing to gain, everything to lose ... from truth.

B. The Guilty Parties.

The way it seems to have played out: 

   1. Liberals mandated that Fannie, Freddie, and other banks must find ways to qualify folks with very low incomes and no significant savings, to give them mortgages they couldn’t possibly ever pay off – whether the former standard mortgage or the newfangled interest-only mortgage. Politicians, like Frank, Pelosi, and the rest, must have gone home with such a warm glow that night: they'd legislated wealth redistribution, and corporate America not only has to absorb the price, but also the effort of generation & oversight, and bear the ‘burden of proof of enough low-income mortgages’ to regulators!

   2. Liberals mandated that Fannie, Freddie, and other banks be legally allowed to write mortgages for interest-only payments. Wow! American dream! And banks didn’t fuss too much either … Occupant gets a house much bigger & plusher than he can ever pay for, because his legal mortgage payments are now within his budget … even though he’ll never actually own the house since you never pay a dollar towards principal! Banks write mortgages for homes they never relinquish title to. Wow! Anybody heard of ‘rent’? Always wanted my landlord to be my bank … so I can pay for all the repairs myself …

   3. Then the mortgage bubble starts growing. Ordinary folks seeking ordinary homes financed with ordinary mortgages find the prices getting sky-high for the value of home to be gotten. But all the national economic numbers were looking up, with more & more Americans became homeowners … of homes they’d never be able to pay for and truly own.  

C. Other solutions.

Why couldn’t we just free up money for credit without a government buy-up? 

     - We could indefinitely suspend corporate taxes, assuring executives they’d have at least a 3-month notice before a phase-back-in would commence. 

     - We could terminate all capital gains taxes.  What good are capital gains taxes when the economy is tanked and there are no gains to generate taxes on anyway? Yet, free up the expectation of losing all that cash to tax, and you conversely increase incentive to invest, thus investors ‘find’ cash for loans and all that …

E. How it *could* happen. But won’t.

It seems McCain & Palin would fight corruption in DC.  Probably won't get the chance.

    - But McCain won’t allow the campaign to raise their voices now, naming names. 

Conclusion: insanity.

Insanity: doing the same thing over & over again, and expecting a different result.

    - Politicians want us to believe the government bailout will solve the problem of too much government involvement. Insanity.

    - McCain wants to believe he can remain his old conservative-confounding, liberal-enabling self, and somehow win in November 2008. Insanity.