Posted on by WanderingNation

A Catholic Response to Overturning Roe v. Wade

This evening, in an unprecedented leak, Politico broke the news, based on Justice Alito’s majority opinion, that the U.S. Supreme Court intends to overturn the landmark Roe v. Wade decision.

Here, I am not planning on making my thoughts known on the legality of such an action, how it will affect the American political landscape, or any other political question. Suffice it to say, as a Catholic (and one who was adopted to boot), I think that this is a wonderful, life affirming decision, and I am deeply grateful that we can take a step towards ending the murder of the unborn.

What I would like to talk about is how Catholics, and hopefully all Christians, can respond to this landmark decision (should it come to pass). To paraphrase G. K. Chesterton, the mistake that both liberals and conservatives make in regards to Catholic perception is that liberals want pity without responsibility, and conservatives want responsibility without pity.

For many women, abortion is done out of desperation. This does not excuse the murder of the unborn, but desperation is not something that we should discount or mitigate. For many, particularly the poor and single, motherhood is terrifying. If you can barely take care of yourself, how can you take care of a child?

This is where Catholics must take an active role. If we are to ban abortion, as we should, we also need to support the mothers and children that are born – regardless of their situation. If a child is born out of wedlock, both the mother and child deserve care and love. There is no excuse, no matter the situation, that allows for the callous discarding of either mother or child.

If we are to encourage a truly caring and equitable society, as we should, moving to ban abortion is only the first and most basic step. It is also the easiest. The next steps that need to be taken need to come from a place of compassion, love and care for all living life, as hopefully support for pro-life legislation did as well. For women who are struggling to give care to their children (or any parent, for that matter), it is not the duty of a Catholic to judge how they ended up in this place of precariousness, or how the parental actions led them to need help. No. It is simply the duty of the Catholic, and of all Christians, to provide love, support and, crucially, material support.

For children that are born into desperate situations, or tenuous ones, or challenging ones, or good ones, or loving ones, or any situation at all – they deserve and are entitled to the support of the entire Christian community.

If this decision truly does get enacted, and this wonderful change does happen in our society, we, as Catholics, must remember that this is only the first step. Care for the downtrodden, the poor, the defenseless and all those on the margins of society. Now is not the time to celebrate victory – if victory has even truly been achieved. Now is the time to take the truly Christian approach and help those in need.

Posted on by WanderingNation

A Criticism of the Presidency:

Representation

A Criticism of the Presidency:

Representation

              An oft levied and completely factual criticism of the presidency has been in reference to the individual in the office. This argument has been accurate for a long time. And, even if it had never been accurate, and each single president had been a Just president, the criticism that I have of the presidency would still be valid. This argument is based on the premise that no person, no matter their intentions or the office they hold, has the ability or right to make a decision that will affect another person negatively (or even positively), as defined by that person’s own subjective emphasis on what is positive and negative.

              While the individual who holds office is important and has impact on our lives, that is only true out of an outdated idea of the correct form of government. That idea is that it is possible for an individual, in an office that has direct impact on 328 million people, can in any meaningful (or even meaningless) way have knowledge of what decision will have the most positive impact on all of those people. No matter if even, somehow, 99.9% of those 328 million were positively affected, there would be over 3 million people who were harmed. One is too many.

               So how do we do this? In a logically sound world, the premise above means that there should be no individual who has any authority over another. It is a rare sight indeed, when something created on paper can be implemented into our day to day lives. What is needed is not some state of complete anarchy, but a separation. What is necessary is for our republic to separate into individual states (countries), while maintaining peace, and allowing for the interdependence of each individual state to be left to the individual states themselves – for a mutual agreement, as between sovereign nations.

              If peace under this system can be maintained and even strengthened, then it should, in line with the argument made earlier, be that the negative impact of rulers can be reduced from impacting 328 million human souls down to the individual number of every state. It is not a removal of injustice, nor should it be considered the end state, only a step towards the further reduction of injustice.

              Self-determination, at its base, is the most fundamental right of each human being on this planet – to make decisions in their own self-interests, and for whatever ends they please. This is a frightening right, as it allows for those near and around us, those filled with ill-intent, to make their wills infringe on ours. This is necessary, for nothing has ever been worthwhile when earned without a struggle. Self-determination is synonymous with struggle, earning its place as the most fundamental human right. To struggle is not to be isolated. When we bring our self-determined selves together, through a synchronicity of will, we achieve a higher purpose. Having someone, or a group of people infringe upon that right, especially when they believe they are doing what is the interests of those they will decide about, is the ultimate perversion of human will.

Reducing the say one has over another, in any form or fashion, is a step that should be taken if one ever tries to reduce the injustice in the world.

Posted on by WanderingNation

The Necessity of Extremism

Honesty is frightening. Honesty with ourselves, and with others, is an extremely frightening thing. When we are radically honest, we often come to conclusions that we hold to be true that frighten us. These frightening conclusions are not something widely accepted, especially in today’s political climate. The most extreme we are allowed to be is which dementia ridden sex offender we will vote for, because voting for a socialist, or an anarchist, or a libertarian is just too damn much.

If we do not allow ourselves to engage in this radical honesty, change will never be enacted. The status quo will never change, and the theft of wealth, sanity, free time, the environment and our lives at large will never stop. Yet it is no surprise that we do not engage in this honesty. Our friendships, our reputations, our social circles, our livings and our very role in the society to which we belong depend on us fitting our opinions into a nice, neat little box that can be summed up in nice, neat little political slogans.

Speaking from a personal place, my politics, ideas, beliefs and spirituality are the farthest thing from being able to fit into a nice, neat little box. This is so with many of the people in my life as well, and I would imagine that it is quite the same for many of the people that are not in my life. For a person to truly be a complete human being, will be clashes inside of us. But our current political system does not allow for idiosyncrasies. It does not allow for quirks, or unlikely coalitions. It does not allow for oxymorons, confusion or internal conflict. And it certainly does not allow an upsetting of the status quo.

Rigorous and radical honesty will inevitably lead to the conclusion that the status quo is not sustainable. It is not honest, healthy, beneficial or good for the average person. And a corrupt and unsustainable status quo needs, more desperately than anything else, is extremists, of all shapes, colors, creeds and contradictions, working together.

Posted on by WanderingNation

The New American Republic

Abolish the concept of “one” central ruler. One of the main worries of George Washington was that the presidency would become too much like a monarchy, and it seems his worries were proved, at least partially, true. With the willful abdication of power by Congress and the Senate, placing a massive weight of influence on the Office of the President and the Supreme Court, the United States is much closer to a monarchy today than it was just after declaring her freedom from one.

There needs to be a balance of power – some of it needs to be in the hands of the people, but there cannot be too much. Just as there has been an abdication of power by congress and the senate, we can see the origination of this relinquishment of control in the voting public. Often by no fault of their own, the common voter has been manipulated, swindled, bribed and beaten into certain voting patterns by wealthy individuals and organizations. In today’s economy and world, these “wealthy individuals and organizations” are mainly comprised of corporations, both domestic and international. This is an indictment on the whole of our Republic, and it encourages us to re-imagine what the ideal form of government should be. It has been proven, from Rome to the U.S.A., that a Republic inevitably crumbles into an oligarchy. Direct democracy is simply mob rule, which is the quickest way to oppress any form of minority, from gender, religion, ethnicity or any other demarcation. A balance must be struck between the rule of the many and the rule of the competent. The Founding Fathers attempted to do this, but they did not foresee the devolution into corporatism, nor can they be blamed for this lack of foresight.

A separation from political parties and blind adherence to a singular economic strategy is a necessity. Neither Capitalism, Socialism, Communism, Feudalism nor any other economic system is capable of adequacy in a world with over 7 billion people and with pervasive globalization. A truly modern state is one that would implement the best of all economic systems, with the only requisite of implementation being that it provides the most benefit to her citizens, with no partiality based on dogma. On top of this, it is blindingly obvious to any modern American that there needs to be a remedy to the two-party system. It would be beneficial to keep in place the idea that all citizens have the right to hold office. At the same time, there needs to be an implementation of a competency check. If a surgeon is required to be licensed in order to have power over an individual’s life within the operating room, should not a politician be credentialed before being to have over the lives of hundreds of millions?

Those who are too poor to take care of themselves need a robust social safety net. Whether this be the infirm, the elderly, children, or those who are mentally and/or physically ill, no one should live in poverty. This will come at the cost of the rich. A progressive income tax needs to be put in place, targeting ultrawealthy individuals, but more importantly, targeting ultra-powerful and wealthy corporations. America has become strangled by corporate power, resulting in myriad injustices. Wealth is not inherently evil, but it becomes so when glorified and placed above the health of those without it. Wealth is a tool to achieve a goal, it is not a goal in and of itself. At least, it should not be.

We must eschew the pursuit of happiness and instead pursue contentment, for our contentment has been stolen from us. The growth and plenty that defined the American Dream has been destroyed by those that were blinded by the benefits of their actions, failing to see the consequences of those same said actions. Happiness is inherently frivolous and fleeting, based on any number of changing desires. Contentment is purchased by the sweat of the brow, while happiness is bought by the desires of the loins, the stomach and a desire to keep apathy at bay.

Our new American Republic must be planted in the soil that our forefathers cultivated, along with the root and trunks they so painstakingly nurtured. We must trim the frivolous, bigoted and antiquated branches from it, and water it with new ideas that have sprung from technological and moral advancement since 1775. This will be a lesson in discovering that which is worth saving, that which is worth pruning and that which is necessary to add. It is a daunting task.