Pope Francis Attacks Libertarianism

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Separatist
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Pope Francis Attacks Libertarianism

Post by Separatist »

http://www.targetliberty.com/2017/04/po ... anism.html

This is quite remarkable. Of all the political philosophies that exist, Pope Francis has singled out and attacked libertarianism.

“I cannot fail to speak of the grave risks associated with the invasion of the positions of libertarian individualism at high strata of culture and in school and university education,” the Pope said in an message sent to members of the Pontifical Academy of Social Sciences meeting in the Vatican, reports Breitbart.

“A common characteristic of this fallacious paradigm is that it minimizes the common good, that is the idea of ‘living well’ or the ‘good life’ in the communitarian framework,” Francis said, while at the same time exalting a “selfish ideal.”

According to Breitbart, members of the Pontifical Academy are currently engaged in a workshop bearing the title “Towards a Participatory Society: New Roads to Social and Cultural Integration,” which began Friday and will run through May 2.

Francis said that libertarianism, “which is so fashionable today,” is a more radical form of the individualism that asserts that “only the individual gives value to things and to interpersonal relations and therefore only the individual decides what is good and what is evil.”

Libertarianism, he said, preaches
that the idea of “self-causation” is necessary to ground freedom and individual responsibility.

“Thus, the libertarian individual denies the value of the common good,” the pontiff stated, “because on the one hand he supposes that the very idea of ‘common’ means the constriction of at least some individuals, and on the other hand that the notion of ‘good’ deprives freedom of its essence.”

Libertarianism, he continued, is an “antisocial” radicalization of individualism, which “leads to the conclusion that everyone has the right to extend himself as far as his abilities allow him even at the cost of the exclusion and marginalization of the more vulnerable majority.”

According to this mentality, all relationships that create ties must be eliminated, the Pope suggested, “since they would limit freedom.” In this way, only by living independently of others, of the common good, and even God himself, can a person be free, he said.

First, I only wish libertarianism was half as popular as the Pope seems to think it is on college campuses.

But more significantly, the Pope has a serious misunderstanding of the philosophy of libertarianism.

There is nothing in the philosophy that prevents people to join together in any type of activities they choose, be they religious, social, whatever. Further, the only "requirement" of libertarianism is that all members come together on the beautiful non-aggression principle. There is nothing that says individuals must live independent of one another that ties must be eliminated. Libertarians believe everyone is free to associate as much or as little as one desires.There is no requirement that libertarians must live independently of "even God himself."

As Mr. Libertarian Murray Rothbard wrote:
The fact is that libertarianism is not and does not pretend to be a complete moral or aesthetic theory; it is only a political theory, that is, the important subset of moral theory that deals with the proper role of violence in social life.
This is the beginning and end of the libertarian philosophy. That the Pope misses this point by a wide margin, greater than the one separating heaven and hell,is an understatement.

Further, libertarianism does not reject the idea of the common good in the sense of libertarians desiring the best political environment that would do the most good for the most people. That is, in a significant way, at the core advocacy of those who support libertarianism.

Finally, the idea that libertarianism is about the marginalization of the "more vulnerable majority." is an insult to humanity. The libertarian belief is that individuals do not need to be coerced by governments to be charitable, That at the core of humanity is a desire to be good and caring and that government attempts to use this core characteristic of humanity to institute coercion is evil.

Finally, when the Pope brings up that the majority are vulnerable, it suggests a hidden Marxist perspective the Pope has that capitalists are somehow taking advantage of all.

Here the Pope has left the world of social philosophy to wander into the world of bad economic theory. Marxist economic policies have led to more deaths, in the hundreds of millions, than any other belief.

It is astounding that the Pope would hang on to such a belief at the same time he attempts to do God's work in attempting to bring peace and harmony to the world.

Doesn't libertarianism and the non-aggression principle line up quite well with peace and harmony?

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Separatist
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Re: Pope Francis Attacks Libertarianism

Post by Separatist »

Pope Francis as a Self-Hating Christian
http://www.targetliberty.com/2017/05/po ... stian.html
By Thomas DiLorenzo

In his latest spewing of extreme hatred toward free societies Pope Francis ominously warned of the “grave risks” of an “invasion” of the ideas of “libertarian individualism.” He sounded as if this was his worst nightmare.

What the pope (and all of his fellow socialist/communists) fear is individualism as defined by the man who was perhaps the foremost authority in the world on the subject, F.A. Hayek. In The Road to Serfdom (pp. 67-68) Hayek explained, in 1943:
We are rapidly abandoning not the views merely of Cobden and Bright, of Adam Smith and Hume [i.e., free-market economics], or even of Locke and Milton, but one of the salient characteristics of Western civilization as it has grown from the foundations laid by Christianity and the Greeks and Romans. Not merely nineteenth- and eighteenth-century liberalism, but the basic individualism inherited by us from Erasmus and Montaigne, from Cicero and Tacitus, Pericles and Thucydides, is progressively relinquished. . . . the essential features of that individualism, which, from elements provided by Christianity and the philosophy of classical antiquity, was first developed during the Renaissance and has since grown and spread into what we know as Western civilization — are the respect for the individual man qua man, that is, the recognition of his own views and tastes as supreme in his own sphere, however narrowly that may be circumscribed, and the belief that it is desirable that men should develop their own individual gifts and bents. ‘Freedom’ and ‘liberty are now words so worn with use and abuse that one must hesitate to employ them to express the ideals for which they stood during that period. ‘Tolerance’is, perhaps, the only word which still preserves the full meaning of the principle [individualism] which during the whole of this period was in the ascendant and which only in recent times has again been in decline, to disappear completely with the rise of the totalitarian state” (emphasis added).

Serragon
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Re: Pope Francis Attacks Libertarianism

Post by Serragon »

Separatist wrote: May 2nd, 2017, 10:48 am http://www.targetliberty.com/2017/04/po ... anism.html

This is quite remarkable. Of all the political philosophies that exist, Pope Francis has singled out and attacked libertarianism.

“I cannot fail to speak of the grave risks associated with the invasion of the positions of libertarian individualism at high strata of culture and in school and university education,” the Pope said in an message sent to members of the Pontifical Academy of Social Sciences meeting in the Vatican, reports Breitbart.

“A common characteristic of this fallacious paradigm is that it minimizes the common good, that is the idea of ‘living well’ or the ‘good life’ in the communitarian framework,” Francis said, while at the same time exalting a “selfish ideal.”

According to Breitbart, members of the Pontifical Academy are currently engaged in a workshop bearing the title “Towards a Participatory Society: New Roads to Social and Cultural Integration,” which began Friday and will run through May 2.

Francis said that libertarianism, “which is so fashionable today,” is a more radical form of the individualism that asserts that “only the individual gives value to things and to interpersonal relations and therefore only the individual decides what is good and what is evil.”

Libertarianism, he said, preaches
that the idea of “self-causation” is necessary to ground freedom and individual responsibility.

“Thus, the libertarian individual denies the value of the common good,” the pontiff stated, “because on the one hand he supposes that the very idea of ‘common’ means the constriction of at least some individuals, and on the other hand that the notion of ‘good’ deprives freedom of its essence.”

Libertarianism, he continued, is an “antisocial” radicalization of individualism, which “leads to the conclusion that everyone has the right to extend himself as far as his abilities allow him even at the cost of the exclusion and marginalization of the more vulnerable majority.”

According to this mentality, all relationships that create ties must be eliminated, the Pope suggested, “since they would limit freedom.” In this way, only by living independently of others, of the common good, and even God himself, can a person be free, he said.

First, I only wish libertarianism was half as popular as the Pope seems to think it is on college campuses.

But more significantly, the Pope has a serious misunderstanding of the philosophy of libertarianism.

There is nothing in the philosophy that prevents people to join together in any type of activities they choose, be they religious, social, whatever. Further, the only "requirement" of libertarianism is that all members come together on the beautiful non-aggression principle. There is nothing that says individuals must live independent of one another that ties must be eliminated. Libertarians believe everyone is free to associate as much or as little as one desires.There is no requirement that libertarians must live independently of "even God himself."

As Mr. Libertarian Murray Rothbard wrote:
The fact is that libertarianism is not and does not pretend to be a complete moral or aesthetic theory; it is only a political theory, that is, the important subset of moral theory that deals with the proper role of violence in social life.
This is the beginning and end of the libertarian philosophy. That the Pope misses this point by a wide margin, greater than the one separating heaven and hell,is an understatement.

Further, libertarianism does not reject the idea of the common good in the sense of libertarians desiring the best political environment that would do the most good for the most people. That is, in a significant way, at the core advocacy of those who support libertarianism.

Finally, the idea that libertarianism is about the marginalization of the "more vulnerable majority." is an insult to humanity. The libertarian belief is that individuals do not need to be coerced by governments to be charitable, That at the core of humanity is a desire to be good and caring and that government attempts to use this core characteristic of humanity to institute coercion is evil.

Finally, when the Pope brings up that the majority are vulnerable, it suggests a hidden Marxist perspective the Pope has that capitalists are somehow taking advantage of all.

Here the Pope has left the world of social philosophy to wander into the world of bad economic theory. Marxist economic policies have led to more deaths, in the hundreds of millions, than any other belief.

It is astounding that the Pope would hang on to such a belief at the same time he attempts to do God's work in attempting to bring peace and harmony to the world.

Doesn't libertarianism and the non-aggression principle line up quite well with peace and harmony?
Pope Francis is a Marxist. Knowing this, it makes sense that he would attack libertarianism as it is the polar opposite of his ideaology.

It saddens me to think of the dedication and sacrifice of Pope John Paul II in attempting to eradicate communism, especially in Poland, only to see a communist wearing the robes today.

It is interesting that Reagan and John Paul fought communism hand in hand only to both be replaced about the same time by Obama and Francis, both devout Marxists.

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