I’m sure that liberals do this to some extent too, but I’m always fascinated by how conservative intellectuals can find ways to take whatever the basis for their beliefs is — free markets, Burkean bells, Catholicism, you name it — and turn it into down-the-line support for Republican policies and opposition to Democratic policies. This is Robert George, the Princeton professor whom Andrew Sullivan claims would outlaw masturbation if he thought it was feasible:
Last spring, George was invited to address an audience that included many bishops at a conference in Washington. He told them with typical bluntness that they should stop talking so much about the many policy issues they have taken up in the name of social justice. They should concentrate their authority on “the moral social” issues like abortion, embryonic stem-cell research and same-sex marriage, where, he argued, the natural law and Gospel principles were clear. To be sure, he said, he had no objections to bishops’ “making utter nuisances of themselves” about poverty and injustice, like the Old Testament prophets, as long as they did not advocate specific remedies. They should stop lobbying for detailed economic policies like progressive tax rates, higher minimum wage and, presumably, the expansion of health care — “matters of public policy upon which Gospel principles by themselves do not resolve differences of opinion among reasonable and well-informed people of good will,” as George put it.
[….]Before the 2003 invasion of Iraq, he wrote an op-ed article in The Wall Street Journal arguing that the attack was not necessarily unjust and might even be a moral obligation. “On the evidence that Hillary Clinton voted for the war on and George Bush went to war on, I thought it was justified,” he told me.
The “rights” to education and health care are another matter, George told his seminar. “Who is supposed to provide education or health care to whom?” George asked. “Health care and education are things that you have to pay for. Resources are always finite,” he went on. “Is it better for education and health care to be provided by governments under socialized systems or by private providers in markets or by some combination?” Those questions, George said, “go beyond the application of moral principles. You can get all the moral principles dead right and not have an answer to any of those questions.”
But the argument for banning abortion and embryo-destructive research is “straightforward,” George told me several times.
Catholic bishops want to support Republicans because they themselves are conservatives. So they find some supposed intellectual luminary, some Daniel Plainview Chair of Christian Ethics, to cook up some high-minded clap-trap about why reproductive rights and stem cell research and teh gay are awful but the death penalty is okay, war is okay, and fucking the poor is okay.
New Yorker
Still happy to be an atheist, where I don’t use some invisible person in the sky to justify my value system.
Linda Featheringill
Luke 18:12.
Sad_Dem
Learn to do right!
Seek justice,
encourage the oppressed.
Defend the cause of the fatherless,
plead the case of the widow.
Sad_Dem
Do not mistreat an alien or oppress him, for you were aliens in Egypt.
JMG
The ability of the wealthy and powerful to hire lickspittles to tell them how wonderful they are is ancient and infinite. This guy George sounds like a real beauty. Has he ever argued that Princeton shouldn’t take federal money since it’s immoral?
Mnemosyne
Ah, yet another conservative Cafeteria Catholic, who ignores the Pope whenever it’s convenient for him.
I still haven’t figured out why using birth control makes a liberal Catholic into a “cafeteria Catholic” but cheerleading for the Iraq War against the very clear statement from the Pope that it was not a just war somehow makes you an even better Catholic who can disregard the Pope’s teachings whenever you please.
Midnight Marauder
Yikes! That is just grade-A douchebaggery right there. And I’m pretty sure comments like that explain trends like this:
Oh, and since we’re talking about Catholics and all:
beltane
It is ironic that unbelievers display more in the way of Christian humility than these religious wankers who like to claim divine sanction for their own petty prejudices. The Greek gods were fond of punishing humans for the sin of hubris. Too bad the American Jeebus doesn’t do the same.
Martin
Well, I think fucking the poor is okay with them only if you’re married and trying to have kids. I guess that would also require you to not be a community property state unless you were also poor.
Wait, aren’t all priests poor? Hmm…
Restrung
that’s how they win even when they’re losing. Character flow, IMO.
character *flaw*. heh
MAJeff
George is one of the founders of NOM and a prime organizer of the Manhattan Declaration. He is, in short, obsessed with fucking over queers, just like Nazinger.
Cat Lady
Using Ireland as an object lesson, there won’t be any Catholics under the age of 50 in 5 years. Catholicism is the sound of one hand fapping.
jrg
Yeah, because no other country in the world has universal healthcare. It can’t be done. Bombs are free, by the way – the baby Jesus climbs down the pentagon’s chimney and leaves them under the fetus tree.
NonyNony
@Martin:
You say in jest, but no. Most priests are decidedly not poor. In my life I have never known a priest who did not have some kind of semi-expensive hobby of some sort. One even collected sports cars (though he came from a rich family, so that may not have been on his salary).
They have their housing paid for, a food allowance, a clothing allowance, and on top of that they have a salary. If they had to raise a family on their salary it might be difficult (though no more difficult than for a Methodist or Baptist pastor), but since they’re required by their Church to not have a family they do pretty well by and large.
There is no vow of poverty required to be a Catholic priest.
Silver
Remember, fucking the poor in the ass doesn’t make you a fag.
That’s clearly spelled out in the gospels. Jesus clearly stated that the poor will always be here, so we can ignore them.
Also, when Jesus said suffer the little children, the best way to do that is to have priests fuck little boys in the ass. No lube please. Suffer, remember?
(I can misread fairytales as well as the next closet case in a dress, TYVM…)
bemused
High-minded clap-trap? Nothing high-minded in that clap-trap whatsoever.
Mark S.
I never heard of the Manhattan Declaration before. It’s the usual bullshit, but I was intrigued by this line:
Is this the new “reasonable conservative” position? “Of course we aren’t proposing outlawing divorce; we’re just against the discredited idea of ‘unilateral divorce.'”
I will be extremely disappointed if I don’t start seeing this term in Chunky Bobo columns.
eemom
As the antidote to this sort of thing, yesterday on Pacifica I heard John Le Carre read parts of his 2003 essay, “America Has Gone Mad.” Don’t know if it’s out there on youtube or something somewhere, but very much worth listening to if you can find it.
Ash Can
What a disgrace. I’d like to think that it wasn’t lost on the bishops in attendance that Jesus lit guys like this up early and often in the gospels, but I know better.
eemom
here
http://www.democracynow.org/2010/9/20/john_le_carr_the_united_states
Comrade Kevin
@Cat Lady:
Pretty much the only thing propping up the Catholic Church in Ireland is the large influx of immigrants from Eastern Europe.
Jim, Once
Recovering Catholic here. Nearing in on the The Big Ending, but OK with it all, including how I’ve tried to live my life (see comments 1, 2, and 3, above). Then a sister-in-law and best friend each decided that being born once wasn’t enough. In the last few years, I’ve been told:
1. “It’s too bad your mother is in Hell.” (When told that my mother died a Catholic, I was informed that she wasn’t a Christian – by both BAs.)
2. “All liberals are going to Hell – in fact, what they’re doing to this country and to our church convinces me they should all be shot.” (“Even me?” I asked. I was told she wouldn’t shoot me – but I WAS going to Hell, and she had decided to no longer pray for me.)
3. “‘The poor you have with you always.’ There’s no reason to waste my money on them.”
4. “You have no business teaching.” (For reasons I need not elucidate here.)
In my defense – I have never initiated these conversations, or even participated in them in a substantive way. Why would I ever engage in this kind of discussion with people like this?
I’ve never shared this in any forum – but it feels so … easeful … to do so here.
Ash Can
@Jim, Once: That’s disgusting. Shame on them.
Jim, Once
@Ash Can:
Thanks. I was pretty dumbfounded every time. And then I’m afraid I cried
Annie
Yes, let’s privatize education, so only the rich can afford education, and the poor can go back to working in sweat shops — men, women, and children. And, let’s get rid of children labor laws, so poor children can prove they have some productive capacity. Then, force the poor to go to church on Sundays — their only day off — to be preached at by priests and Ministers who tell them that their lot in life is God ordained.
These guys are corrupt fools who long for the days when we had a God ordained Aristocracy, and the poor were forced to be believers. While we are at it, get rid of birth control, which prevents the poor from breeding, thus, limiting the labor force.
Resources are only finite for the poor. Particularly when forced to give what little they have to support treats for the rich, including the religious hierarchy.
D-boy
Does any of this make sense to anyone? I mean WTF?
Cat Lady
@Jim, Once:
I assume you mean that you’re gravely ill. Good grief, that “Christians” would exhibit such deliberate cruelty to you, yet, who they hate seems to be more and more how Christians choose to define themselves these days. It’s beyond my ability to comprehend how the Jesus I learned about in childhood came to be the justification for that. There’s a sickness upon the land.
Some Sufi wisdom as you face the ultimate fear of the unknown, as we all will:
If the baby in the darkness of its mother’s womb were told: “Outside there is a world of life , with high mountains, great seas, undulating planes, beautiful gardens in blossom, a sky full of stars, and a blazing sun … ” The unborn child, knowing nothing about these marvels, would not believe any of these. Like us, when we are facing death. That’s why we’re afraid.”
Many blessings to you. Have no fear.
Jim, Once
@Annie:
Why I left, even though I was raised in the social justice/liberation theology wing of the church (even have a cousin killed in South America who’s in line for sainthood-like that’ll happen soon). What the church has become, I can no longer countenance. Nor can most of my family.
Jim, Once
@Cat Lady:
Thanks, sweetie. Yeah, I’ve been told I am (ill, that is). But it’s one of those things that nobody can really put a date on – and am doing well. I’ve had such a wonderful life – I’m grateful and lucky and living now.
Annamal
I would just like to express my suprise that no-one on balloon juice has yet featured Tim Minchin’s Pope song (googleable but really really not safe for work).
Mark S.
@D-boy:
It’s theologian porn.
ItAintEazy
@D-boy:
No, but since I’ve always been confronted by this line of argument from my Catholic sisters (among less innocuous ones, of course) it’s pretty much par for the course. The luxury of being a papist or any other religious nut is that you can employ just about any crackpot theory, spookism, or ten-cent sex counseling to justify your rank prejudices.
Jim, Once
@Annamal:
The only thing I would object to about this is that Ratzy is too cute in the video.
RSA
__
Because Gospel instructions like these…
And if any man will sue thee at the law, and take away thy coat, let him have [thy] cloke also.
One thing thou lackest: go thy way, sell whatsoever thou hast, and give to the poor, and thou shalt have treasure in heaven…
But I say unto you, That ye resist not evil: but whosoever shall smite thee on thy right cheek, turn to him the other also.
aren’t quite direct enough, are they?
Jim, Once
@ItAintEazy:
You poor thing. I, at least, have only one sister (out of five siblings) who still buys into this in any way – but not the way your sisters do. Wow.
WereBear
@Jim, Once: Well, who wouldn’t.
If it helps, they were made afraid of hell, and once you’ve shown yourself stubborn about giving up your soul, you are now someone who will drag them down with you; so they are driving you away.
Jim, Once
@WereBear:
And I’m happy to oblige them – but the sister in law is a problem. Close family, LURVS her brother (my husband), and we’ll be flying south to see her again. Both my husband and I are writing pre-emptive scripts. I’m trying to talk him into just one of us going, but she’s almost worse with him about all this – and he’s braver than I: told her he’s an atheist, and can we shut up about this now, please?
DougJ is the business and economics editor for Balloon Juice.
@D-boy:
It sounds a lot like the stuff Glenn Reynolds writes about robots.
Kyle
…where you get to be a morally-grandstanding arrogant asshole heaping scorn and cathartic hate on people who aren’t like you, while feeling no obligation to perform any act that isn’t selfish and self-centered.
Look, it’s all the arrogant judgementalism of religion, with none of those oh-so-inconvenient and unglamorous moral obligations!
burnspbesq
On this site, anti-Catholic bigotry is as natural as breathing. What is this, the fucking Know-Nothing Party?
mvr
I once took a class from the guy. I didn’t much like him then. Lawyer smart by which I mean talking fast and saying something that sounds OK if you don’t think too much is one of his skills. Not a deep thinker, but more committed to his conservative version of religion than he seems to be to the particular denomination to which he belongs. At the time (more than twenty years ago) had had at least a few student fans who had similar conservative views but grounded them in different religions. Kind of weird.
As I recall he was a witness in Bowers vs. Hardwick and was really deeply unfair to Martha Nussbaum in at least one thing he wrote about her because she was a witness for the other side. Her sin was to know more about Plato and Aristotle than those who argued that all the great philosophers thought gay sex was wrong.
DW
@burnspbesq: I was ringing the bells during the miracle of Transubstantiation while you were still sucking on your momma’s tit, so I don’t want to hear any whining about how mean people are to the Catholic Church. Perhaps you didn’t notice but a lot of the posters are ex-Catholics who are very familiar with the Catholic Church – some of us are even very fond of it. We can’t help noticing how corrupt the leaders and teaching have become. Want to be a Catholic but think it’ll be hard? Don’t worry – it’s easy! Pro-choice? IOKIYAR – just ask Giuliani and Arnie in California about it. Only Democrats get called on that. Two divorces? We’ll annul them – ask Newt for details. Worried about the poor? Hey, you don’t have break the bank for them. Abortion – not really a concern if you’re a man, is it? We’ll ask a nine year old rape victim to go through a pregnancy on pain of excommunication, but don’t expect us to break a sweat chasing the rapists. For all the supposed strictness, the Church asks little of heterosexual conservative men – certainly less than my mother and father expected from me.
I didn’t leave the Church. The Church left me.
j
I hope the Catholic bishops get all up in that politicking thing.
The US Treasury could use the tax revenue. Hey, nice chunk of Manhattan y’all are not paying taxes on, Cardinal hypocrite!
themann1086
@burnspbesq: Oh sod off, there’s a difference between hating the Church and hating Catholics.
Signed, another ex-Catholic
Joseph Nobles
@Jim, Once:
It’s so funny. I grew up believing that you could not be a Republican and a Christian at the same time. Imagine my surprise to discover it’s just the opposite…
Silver
@burnspbesq:
I don’t take morality lessons from someone who rails against moral relativism, wore a swastika, and covered up child molestation.
You apparently do. Ergo, you’re obviously a better person than me.
bob h
George being on the Princeton faculty so the likes of Steve Forbes will feel more charitable at Annual Giving time.
DougJ is the business and economics editor for Balloon Juice.
@burnspbesq:
How is it anti-Catholic bigotry for someone who was driven away from the Church by the crazy bishops to complain about the crazy bishops?
burnspbesq
@DW:
” I was ringing the bells during the miracle of Transubstantiation while you were still sucking on your momma’s tit”
Probably not. Mass was still in Latin when I was an altar boy.
“I didn’t leave the Church. The Church left me.”
With all due respect, that’s nonsense. You decided that fixing what is wrong with the Church would be too hard and take too long, and you gave up and walked away. I have nothing but disrespect for people who did that.
As for the rest of you, you’ve said nothing worthy of a response.
burnspbesq
Trying to fix what’s wrong with the institutions of the Church may be Quixotic, or Sisyphean, or both, but there’s too much at stake to stop trying.
burnspbesq
@DougJ is the business and economics editor for Balloon Juice.:
Perhaps “bigotry” was an unfortunate word choice, but if you’re not part of the solution, you’re part of the problem, and far too many non-Catholics and lapsed Catholics seem all too eager to assume that there is nothing to the Church but fancy shoes and pedophilia. I’m done sitting by and acquiescing in that ignorance.