Comments for Phillip Blond in Washington at http://www.thecatholicthing.org , comment 1 to 5 out of 5 comments http://www.thecatholicthing.org Fri, 24 May 2013 12:44:04 +0100 FeedCreator 1.7.3 http://www.thecatholicthing.org/columns/2011/phillip-blond-in-washington.html#comment-8811 There's a lot to discuss here, but I'll just make one point. Those huge organizations and institutions, whether you're talking about business or law or government or education serve in this way or that the liberal/left agenda. Quite simply, there is no way a Barack Obama or Hillary Clinton will relinquish those media which mediate everything from abortion to affirmative action to diet regulation to same-sex marriage to the sexualizing of the young to, well, meddling of every kind. When I think of Cass Sunstein's book, NUDGE, I can't help but think that it is a short distance from nudge to noodge. And that noodging can be bruising indeed. Anyone who has ever worked for a nonprofit "advocacy" organization knows that too many are mostly make work for mischief-makers. (At least that was my experience at the Children's Defense Fund). - Graham Combs Mon, 07 Nov 2011 09:06:33 +0100 http://www.thecatholicthing.org/columns/2011/phillip-blond-in-washington.html#comment-8809 Blond's argument sounds very Chestertonian. The first step in moving in the desired direction is focus on the Catholic principle of subsidiarity. Devolving functions from the federal govt to the states and then hopefully to local govts would return power and responsibility to individuals, who could then focus on voluntary associations to meet local needs. Devolving the private sector would be helped by a greater appreciation of charitable and non-profit organizations by market advocates. We should also consider eliminating all taxes and regulations for businesses below a certain size. - duke Mon, 07 Nov 2011 06:21:26 +0100 http://www.thecatholicthing.org/columns/2011/phillip-blond-in-washington.html#comment-8806 It is true that locales did not do well protecting the air and the water; I am not at all sure that it had anything to do with local government per se. But it is odd to accuse local governments of not having protected civil rights -- the odious Jim Crow laws must be what Carney has in mind -- when what we have now is almost no civic government whatsoever, and utterly routine intrusions into the affairs of families, schools, municipalities, churches, and every other nearby institution you can name. Then finally it is a slander to say that medical care was not ensured. One of the things we might want to reconsider is what guilds and small chapters of fraternal organizations used to do, pooling their moneys to hire their own doctors. - Tony Esolen Sun, 06 Nov 2011 14:42:38 +0100 http://www.thecatholicthing.org/columns/2011/phillip-blond-in-washington.html#comment-8801 Interesting, thanks for the synopsis. There is not enough thought about corporate centralization on the right as opposed to government centralization. The critique of corporations on the left generally lead to regulations which actually strengthen large corporations at the expense of smaller competitors. "Local communities didn’t protect the environment, ensure civil rights, and provide medical services to the vulnerable" - when the government acts towards one of these ends nowadays, you can be pretty sure its doing something evil. - Ben Horvath Sat, 05 Nov 2011 06:23:27 +0100 http://www.thecatholicthing.org/columns/2011/phillip-blond-in-washington.html#comment-8800 It should be obvious to any casual observer of the popular ideologies of the 20th Century that it is not possible to end disparity. In fact it is worse than that. Those who claim to represent equality of outcomes, in all cases assume powers and comforts above and beyond those of the collective. They are too important to the push for equality to participate in it. Meanwhile we are living through a kind of moral Great Depression. The equation that radical individualism leads to statism which leads to radical individualism is an important insight. An irony is that radical individualism leads to a loss in an individual's dignity in every sense of the word. In reality, a radical individual is expendable. - Other Joe Sat, 05 Nov 2011 04:41:11 +0100