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).The above originally appeared at LewRockwell.com.
Altruism in its most despicable form. And those who preach it and advocate it's enforcement become themselves the very paragons of the selfishness they claim to abhor.
ReplyDeleteAltruism in its most admirable form is merely a subset of enlightened self-interest or individualism as so simply and eloquently enunciated
in the quote by Hayek.
Pope Francis is a Satanic Zionist Jesuit Globalist. Look at how corrupt Rome is. Jesus would have to clear the temple of all this Satanic filth again!
ReplyDeleteThe Christian doctrine of original sin is collectivist. The God in the OT authorized lots of barbarism. The verses of Romans 13: 1-7 are as pro state as there can be. The Catholic Church either was the state or an authoritarian part of them in many places for much of Christian history, often waging holy wars. That’s not pro individualism.
ReplyDeleteAlso, Thomas Jefferson wrote the following in a letter to Thomas Cooper on February 10, 1814:
"For we know that the common law is that system of law which was introduced by the Saxons on their settlement in England, and altered from time to time by proper legislative authority from that time to the date of Magna Charta, which terminates the period of the common law, or lex non scripta, and commences that of the statute law, or Lex Scripta. This settlement took place about the middle of the fifth century. But Christianity was not introduced till the seventh century; the conversion of the first christian king of the Heptarchy having taken place about the year 598, and that of the last about 686. Here, then, was a space of two hundred years, during which the common law was in existence, and Christianity no part of it."
http://www.let.rug.nl/usa/presidents/thomas-jefferson/letters-of-thomas-jefferson/jefl227.php
The God of the OT also strongly advised the Israelites against the adoption of a king and the centralized state that would generate, 1 Samuel 8. I would argue that is the clearest passage on political philosophy in the entire Bible, and any other passage that deals with the state, such as the Romans passage, or Jesus saying "Give to Caesar what is Caesar's, and to God what is God's," should be read in the context of that statement. Which is to say, to have a state is a rebellion against God's will, but if you do have one, don't stir up trouble, rather live in such a way that demonstrates that the existence of a state is pointless and at best redundant, and if it makes bad decisions, those bad decisions will by their own nature cause the state's downfall and dissolution, see Deutoronomy's discussion of blessings and curses. As for the barbarism, that's one way to read it, but you also have to consider the overall brutishness of the era, the Canaanite culture they would have had to live alongside of practiced many forms barbarism in its own right, starting with human, particularly child, sacrifice and slavery. The choice was, either eradicate the massive perversion of humanity, or live along side it and likely be co-opted by it. You can argue the choice in that decision, but you have to recognize that option 2 isn't terribly moral either as it allows this behavior to persist. As for original sin, there are a lot of different interpretations of that doctrine and not all go in that direction. As for your argument against the Catholic Church's authoritarianism through history, yeah that's definitely there. All I could argue on that front is that the authority it accrued and wielded is a gross perversion of the message of the Gospel, but by no means the intended outcome of what Jesus calls people to, which is sad.
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