Comments for American Un-Exceptionalism at http://www.thecatholicthing.org , comment 1 to 27 out of 20 comments http://www.thecatholicthing.org Tue, 21 May 2013 16:03:06 +0100 FeedCreator 1.7.3 http://www.thecatholicthing.org/columns/2013/american-un-exceptionalism.html#comment-15389 There is no statement so simple yet so stark and often repeated by Schall and Voegelin...Plato's words that you can't have a good society without good people. - stanley Tue, 15 Jan 2013 14:22:14 +0100 http://www.thecatholicthing.org/columns/2013/american-un-exceptionalism.html#comment-15277 @brad miner As I suspected it mostly comes down to the HHS mandate since everything else you mention is boiler plate pro-abortion policy that would have come from any Democratic administration. That and fear about what else is coming. I think the HHS mandate was a terrible idea politically and gratuitous substantively. I expect that it will be overturned in the courts. But I think you're kidding yourself if you think that 1) the broader health reform idea was unique to Obama and 2) only Obama among Democrats was interested in expanding access to birth control...both are things that the Democratic party has long been pushing for. I think if the ACA passed under President Hillary Clinton we'd be looking at much the same thing. And don;t think that Biden didn't help shape the policy. Maybe you're right about the trajectory of this but I see it as overblown to interpret this as an attack on the ChurchI see it as less an attack on the Church than the clash between a state interest and the freedom of a religious institution--the kind of clash that is inevitable in a pluralistic democracy and a clash that is working against the Church because her doctrines on birth control are unpopular. But then again, maybe you all a right. But I'm not convinced yet. - fleshman Wed, 09 Jan 2013 17:49:04 +0100 http://www.thecatholicthing.org/columns/2013/american-un-exceptionalism.html#comment-15276 @FLESHman You have picked a telling pseudonym: Now the works of the flesh are obvious: immorality, impurity, licentiousness, idolatry, sorcery, hatreds, rivalry, jealousy, outbursts of fury, acts of selfishness, dissensions, factions, occasions of envy,* drinking bouts, orgies, and the like. I warn you, as I warned you before, that those who do such things will not inherit the kingdom of God. In contrast, the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, generosity, faithfulness, gentleness, self-control. Against such there is no law. Now those who belong to Christ [Jesus] have crucified their flesh with its passions and desires. If we live in the Spirit, let us also follow the Spirit. (Galatians 5:19-25) - Spirit-Life Wed, 09 Jan 2013 15:14:55 +0100 http://www.thecatholicthing.org/columns/2013/american-un-exceptionalism.html#comment-15274 @fleshman: There are other TCT contributors more able than I to make the case, but for now I'll respond to your almost casual comment that any other Democrat would have made the same direct attack on the Church. Who? Joe Biden or Hillary Clinton? On what evidence? Obama supports embryonic stem-cell research; Planned Parenthood; funding overseas abortions; same-sex "marriage;" and the Mandates, which not only call for free birth control but also abortifacient drugs. And what does Karl Rove have to do with it? BTW, I don't disagree with your appraisal of American Catholicism's own cultural malaise, but the current occupant of the White House is demonstrably the most anti-Cayholic ever -- and I suspect there's more to come, especially since the Mandate gambit worked (in the sense that it rallied "cultural" Catholics to his side). - Brad Miner Wed, 09 Jan 2013 11:34:14 +0100 http://www.thecatholicthing.org/columns/2013/american-un-exceptionalism.html#comment-15273 The American experiment was a big gamble--let people do what they want, mostly, while trusting that they'll rather do what they ought. I won't say that it was a failure, because it wasn't. But does anybody doubt that America will become a greater force for evil in the world if it fails to re-embrace a society of virtue and faith? I can see no other solution. So what do you do as a Catholic, as a conservative? Do you try to repair the Titanic's gaping hole? Do you prepare for a complete rebuild of the country that will come inevitably if the country breaks down? Do you move? These are dramatic, heady questions, and they used to be silly. Now they're real. - ChrisofColorado Wed, 09 Jan 2013 11:28:33 +0100 http://www.thecatholicthing.org/columns/2013/american-un-exceptionalism.html#comment-15272 @brad miner Maybe you could write a column explaining why you believe Obama is the most anti-Catholic president in history for those in your audience who are unconvinced of this but at least are willing to give you a hearing. I'll forewarn you that his support for legalized abortion and the HHS birth control mandate by themselves constitute pretty thin evidence in support of this in my mind. This is the sort of thing we'd likely have gotten with any Democratic president. Yes, Obama's reelection campaign was polarizing (as was the awful Democratic convention) but you all forget that it was Karl Rove who pioneered the strategy of ceasing to try to persuade anyone in the middle but rather using amped up rhetoric aimed at just turning out one's own hardcore supporters. Now the Democrats are doing the same thing better than Rove. As you sow so shall you reap! So my main response is that this sounds alot like broader anxiety and disappointment in the cultural and political direction of the country as a whole and the problems in the Church's public image which Obama himself has had very little to do with. And as someone who is old enough to remember and in fact particpated in the over-the-top anger and paranoia which infected the Catholic right back when Clinton was president (which seemed to magically subside when Bush became president) my response this time around is "this too shall pass." - fleshman Wed, 09 Jan 2013 10:48:41 +0100 http://www.thecatholicthing.org/columns/2013/american-un-exceptionalism.html#comment-15267 It cannot be avoided that the period that Fr Schall argues embodied America at its most exceptional, was also the period during which America was the most venimously anti-Catholic. - Sean Barlow Wed, 09 Jan 2013 09:42:40 +0100 http://www.thecatholicthing.org/columns/2013/american-un-exceptionalism.html#comment-15264 @fleshman: You write: "I fail to see why TCT has so much invested in blaming Obama for it or using him as a symbol for all that is wrong with the country . . ." My view -- and I believe it's shared by others in and around TCT -- is that Mr. Obama is the most anti-Catholic president in American history. This is to imply nothing about any virtues remaining in the GOP. - Brad Miner Wed, 09 Jan 2013 08:30:16 +0100 http://www.thecatholicthing.org/columns/2013/american-un-exceptionalism.html#comment-15263 @Tony Good arguments about lower cap gains rates. The stated purpose is as you contend, but what has happened instead is that a nontrivial number of finance workers have learned to book earned income as capital gains and avoid payroll taxes completely while paying often far lower rates than guys like you and me who work for a living outside of finance. ALso it's not clear to me how much Mitt Romney's stock portfolio and offshore accounts really contribute much to the domestic economy in the way you suppose. Seems like mostly deferred consumption for his grandkids. But this issues here are very complicated and we won't solve them here. The public's perception of fairness is important in taxes is important and if a lot of people have learned to game the system this is not good. But efforts to clean up the current tax regime are not socialist and indeed are long overdue. To your (and the piece's) main point...yes there is a cultural and moral decline in America which is happening for many reasons mostly having to do social and economic changes over the past 50 years--which have been very good for some people and segments of the country but bad for others. It's much more than about sex as there have been many other changes as well. Alot could be said about its exact causes and cures but I fail to see why TCT has so much invested in blaming Obama for it or using him as a symbol for all that is wrong with the country or treating national election results as a barometer of the nation's health (the fever always strangely seems to spike during Democratic presidencies). All of these problems were here when the GOP was in power as well and would persist if Romney had won the election. These trends have been long in the making and we should not kid ourselves that the other party has a solution to them either. - fleshman Wed, 09 Jan 2013 08:08:36 +0100 http://www.thecatholicthing.org/columns/2013/american-un-exceptionalism.html#comment-15258 It is correct to say that it is not *only* the Marxists - the global elite consist of plutocrats working hand in hand with Marxists (hand in hand with Islamists - a three legged stool). That's part of the dialectical whack-a-mole (whack-a-marxist?) game - as soon as you try to target one of the legs of the stool, say Marxism - they say hey but look the problem is Wall Street. Then when you focus on the bankers, Islamism rears its terrorist head. And yes, there is plenty of evidence for there being a conspiracy among these elements. Wall Street funded the Bolsheviks, Hitler, etc. KGB trained the terrorists - and lives on in Putin! Soros is funding every institution of destruction known to man to level America. Prof. Esolen is correct in identifying sexual liberation as a key weapon. Alan Keyes has written a great book about the destruction of American via the destruction of the black family. It's called "Masters of the Dream". Put that together with Jones' "Libido Dominandi - Sexual Liberation and Political Control", and you have more than sufficient understanding of what has happened to America. - Sue Wed, 09 Jan 2013 05:15:54 +0100 http://www.thecatholicthing.org/columns/2013/american-un-exceptionalism.html#comment-15246 If you all think I reacted too negatively to Fr. Schall's piece it is in part because this is Obama's American exceptionalism quote which gave rise to the tired Republican attacks which Father repeats here. Does this sound like the caricature being attacked? There's plenty to attack Obama on but this isn't one of them! Here: I believe in American exceptionalism, just as I suspect that the Brits believe in British exceptionalism and the Greeks believe in Greek exceptionalism. I'm enormously proud of my country and its role and history in the world. If you think about the site of this summit and what it means, I don't think America should be embarrassed to see evidence of the sacrifices of our troops, the enormous amount of resources that were put into Europe postwar, and our leadership in crafting an Alliance that ultimately led to the unification of Europe. We should take great pride in that. And if you think of our current situation, the United States remains the largest economy in the world. We have unmatched military capability. And I think that we have a core set of values that are enshrined in our Constitution, in our body of law, in our democratic practices, in our belief in free speech and equality, that, though imperfect, are exceptional. Now, the fact that I am very proud of my country and I think that we've got a whole lot to offer the world does not lessen my interest in recognizing the value and wonderful qualities of other countries, or recognizing that we're not always going to be right, or that other people may have good ideas, or that in order for us to work collectively, all parties have to compromise and that includes us. And so I see no contradiction between believing that America has a continued extraordinary role in leading the world towards peace and prosperity and recognizing that that leadership is incumbent, depends on, our ability to create partnerships because we create partnerships because we can't solve these problems alone. - fleshman Tue, 08 Jan 2013 19:36:58 +0100 http://www.thecatholicthing.org/columns/2013/american-un-exceptionalism.html#comment-15243 To the fleshman: THINK. Why is passive income taxed at a relatively low rate? Why? If I earn money from my work, I pay taxes on it, right? Now I can bury that money under my mattress, and pay no more taxes. Good for me. But how does that help anybody else? The government WANTS me to take a chance and invest my money. Now, I may LOSE by investing. I may lose a lot. I may lose my whole investment. If I do, does the government give me a rebate? Not a bit of it. So then, if I do invest -- and other businesses NEED me to invest, because it's where they get their capital from, investors -- why should I, in justice, pay any more taxes at all, if I'm fortunate and the business I invest in makes a profit? Well, I do pay taxes on it -- what are called Capital Gains Taxes. But if you want investments to cave in, just raise those Capital Gains RATES, to make the mattress look better and better. Obama gave the game away when he said that he would want to raise tax RATES even if that meant LOWER REVENUES to the government. And our revenues, the "take", have been low, because of the recession, high unemployment, and the no-go "recovery". I take myself as an example, and figure that I can't be the only guy out there thinking as I do. I have a family to take care of, and one dependent in particular who may need a big nest-egg long after I'm gone. I am NOT going to sit quietly and let Uncle Sam devour his living. I think, too, you have missed entirely the point of Father Schall's essay. Have you read Plato and Aristotle? Do you know the passages he has in mind? We are, right now, a profligate, ignorant, and vice-ridden people. We will therefore have leaders who are also profligate (when we need them to be frugal), ignorant (when we need them to be wise), and vice-ridden (when we need them to be virtuous). Example: the ONE thing, overwhelmingly, that has destroyed the black family in the US and is now ruining the last pillars of the working class family in the US has been the sexual revolution. But that revolution hasn't "hurt" the welfare state; it feeds it. And it is the one thing that the Left defends to the very death -- and the so-called Right, outside of some Catholic and evangelical circles -- are too scared to touch. It WILL bring us down; it must; vice has destroyed many an empire, and will destroy ours too. - Tony Esolen Tue, 08 Jan 2013 17:25:31 +0100 http://www.thecatholicthing.org/columns/2013/american-un-exceptionalism.html#comment-15242 Let's see the stock market is up 60% since 2009, corporate profits are way up, while, according to the Fed labor's share of the national income is at a post WWII low...as by the way are federal taxes as a share of the GDP.. And with carried interest rules we've got Mitt Romney and Paris Hilton paying a lower effective tax rate than truck drivers and nurses' aides. and all this despite Obama and his latent "Marxism." If this is Marxism I'd love to hear what Father Schall or anyone else thinks capitalism would look like. I'm not the one drinking the kool aid here or repackaging right-wing pseudo facts as some sort of classical wisdom. - fleshman Tue, 08 Jan 2013 16:48:28 +0100 http://www.thecatholicthing.org/columns/2013/american-un-exceptionalism.html#comment-15237 It is interesting that a commenter mentions the communist association with the Abraham Lincoln School in Chicago, because the one pillar that could be said to represent our "exceptionalism", the inalienable rights announced in the Declaration, were left out (deliberately?) of the Constitution. Which left the original sin of slavery which was not wiped out till Lincoln. Even after that, the racism that got baked into the South because we flubbed the Constitution persisted, and the Marxists used that Constitution-baked racism to choke our country. So whereas I would always have maintained the exceptionalism of the US because of the Declaration, I now see that the Constitution was her illegitimate stepchild. We should not have let Madison bake slavery into our country. - Sue Tue, 08 Jan 2013 10:20:18 +0100 http://www.thecatholicthing.org/columns/2013/american-un-exceptionalism.html#comment-15235 What ‘was’ American Exceptionalism? In times past I think it is reflected in the admiration other nations and peoples had for this country and its people, who lived in relatively greater freedom/liberty than other nations. But freedom/liberty then had a different meaning. It meant the ability and freedom to do what is right, i.e., objectively true. That translated into greater personal freedom and independence as well as responsibility. Americans were then not moral relativists in any significant way. As we lapsed into moral relativism, we have lost many of our freedoms to a socialist type of government in the expectation that the government will take care of us. We have become too self centered rather than pursuing the common good, even if it requires personal sacrifices, and thus have lost our Exceptionalism. We are fooling ourselves into thinking that government entitlements increase our freedoms. - senex Tue, 08 Jan 2013 09:48:08 +0100 http://www.thecatholicthing.org/columns/2013/american-un-exceptionalism.html#comment-15234 Thank you, Fr. Schall. Much more could have been said. You restrained yourself remarkably well. I agree completely with your conclusions. Regarding our not-so-distant future, I will paraphrase President Reagan: "It's 1936 in America." The first time I heard Obama speak, not knowing a thing about him, I said to my husband, "He doesn't think like an American." It must have been his use of language and as much what he didn't say as what he did, but, as time went on, I thought, more and more, that he did not think like someone who was raised to love and honor his country, its Constitution, or its founding principles. - Maggie-Louise Tue, 08 Jan 2013 09:37:26 +0100 http://www.thecatholicthing.org/columns/2013/american-un-exceptionalism.html#comment-15231 @ Fleshman: To insist that Mr. Obama holds no views that are Marxist, etc is asking us to believe in superstition. Fr. Schall is defying the monolithic propoganda machine that is constantly grooming Mr. Obama's flimsy facade. And behind this facade is David Axelrod, just like Mr. Obama, is a child of radical leftist parents. Axelrod’s mother, Myril Bennett Axelrod, worked for the left-wing New York newspaper, PM, in the 1940s. PM was penetrated by Stalinists and others who promoted the Communist Party agenda. PM‘s Washington correspondent, I.F. Stone was identified as a Soviet agent both in the “Venona” documents and also by former top KGB operative Oleg Kalugin. Whether Axelrod’s mother was a Communist, or just a Soviet sympathizer at PM, doesn’t matter. If Axelrod’s mom was working for PM in the 1940s, that indicates a politics that is profoundly hostile to American values of respect for individual liberty rooted in rights from God, and liberty subordinated to Trust in God. As a student at U. of Chicago David Axelrod worked as a political reporter for the Hyde Park Herald. There Axelrod connected with Don Rose and David Canter. Both of whom were associated with the Communist Party and other far-left organizations. David Canter’s father, Harry Canter, was a member of the Communist Party USA. He was secretary of the Boston Communist party, and in 1930, he ran for governor of MA on the Communist Party ticket. In 1937, at the invitation of the USSR, Canter moved his entire family to Moscow for 5 years, until he returned to Chicago in 1937. In 1944 the Democratic-run 78th Congress issued a investigative report of front-groupscalled "Investigation of Un-American Propaganda Activities in the United States.” In it, Canter is listed as, among other things, a teacher at the Abraham Lincoln School, a Chicago-based CPUSA front that instructed pupils in the teachings of Marx and Lenin. David Canter followed in his Communist father’s footsteps...a 1970 congressional investigation report of the Democratic-run Congress, “Guide to Subversive Organizations and Publications,” lists David Canter 25 times. David Canter and Don Rose started the Chicago-area community newspaper called Hyde Park-Kenwood Voices. Hyde Park-Kenwood Voices editorialized for the abolition of the House Committee on Un-American Activities (HUAC), whose investigations had exposed the pro-Soviet subversive activities of both David Canter and his father Harry. During the Viet Nam War, Hyde Park-Kenwood Voices published pro-Hanoi articles by SDS members based in Chicago. Don Rose was also associated with SDS, from which Bill Ayers’s terrorist splinter group Weather Underground spun off in 1969. Rose and Canter played were “mentors” to David Alexrod. David Canter’s son Marc Canter has been quoted that a letter of recommendation from Don Rose helped Axelrod land a job as a reporter for the Chicago Tribune. - Chris in Maryland Tue, 08 Jan 2013 07:52:50 +0100 http://www.thecatholicthing.org/columns/2013/american-un-exceptionalism.html#comment-15230 Well said, Father. What am I to believe, my lying eyes and ears...or, the Kool Aid drinkers/commenters who have expressed themselves herein? Think I'll stay with my lying eyes and ears! I'm reminded of the old saying, "If it looks like a duck, sounds like a duck, waddles like a duck, and otherwise acts like a duck, it likely is a duck." Moreover, from my view, a three point electoral margin hardly makes for a "mandate"...seems to me the margin reflects a significantly fractured electorate in need of unifying leadership (which to date is clearly absent). - Seanachie Tue, 08 Jan 2013 07:51:45 +0100 http://www.thecatholicthing.org/columns/2013/american-un-exceptionalism.html#comment-15229 I totally agree with Fr. Schall. To Fleshman, I can only say that if you don't think Obama is a socialist, then you don't know what socialism is. Regarding Social Security: In theory I support a social safety net, but it has to be sustainable, and it should be a minimum floor that does not discourage individual thrift. The plan in place today is not sustainable as it pays much more in benefits than is paid in by people over the years. It needs to be redesigned. To not do so is irresponsible, and this is a greater risk to financial security than having no program at all. Regarding Iraq: That is a tough call, and good people can disagree. I think Saddam Hussein was a monster, and leaving him in power would have led to a many more people being killed and injured. Our brave soldiers helped bring about as orderly a transition of power in that country as I think could have been hoped for. But I understand that others may disagree and it was not a clear-cut call. But looking at Syria, I think the death toll of innocents in Iraq would have been greater had a similar situation unfolded. - athanasius Tue, 08 Jan 2013 06:30:45 +0100 http://www.thecatholicthing.org/columns/2013/american-un-exceptionalism.html#comment-15228 Good for you Fr. Schall! It takes courage to stand up for your beliefs, a quality you have displayed in abundance. The worst characteristic of the current administration, in my opinion, is its disrespect for the rule of law. The evidence of this disrespect will be with us for some time to come. We are drifting toward authoritarianism. Pray for us Father. - Ray Hunkins Tue, 08 Jan 2013 06:09:06 +0100