Monday, March 18, AD 2024 9:00pm

George Will: This Is What Liberalism Looks Like

George Will on ABC’s This Week last Sunday made three points in regard to the HHS Mandate “compromise” that are undeniably true:

 

 

Three points.

As Paul Ryan said to you, this is an accounting gimmick that they’ve done that in no way ends the complicity of Catholic institutions and individuals in delivering services they consider morally abhorrent.
Second. You asked the question, ‘How did this come about?’ George, this is what liberalism looks like. This is what the progressive state does. It tries to break all the institutions of civil society, all the institutions that mediate between the individual and the state. They have to break them to the saddle of the state.
Third. The Catholic Bishops, it serves them right. They’re the ones who were really hot for Obamacare, with a few exceptions. But they were all in favor of this. And this is what it looks like when the government decides it’s going to make your healthcare choices for you.

In regard to the Bishops they did fight hard for the Stupak amendment and they were aghast when it was defeated, but, in general, the Bishops loved the idea of national health care, with a restriction against funding abortions, even with a gang of anti-Catholics like the Obama administration at its helm.  What the Obama administration has done in regard to contraceptives and abortifacients was as predictable as the sun rising in the east and setting in the west.  I hope the Bishops have learned a lesson now about the dangers of the Church getting into bed with the Welfare State, but I doubt it.  I praise the Bishops for standing up to the Mandate and not being gulled by the “compromise” , but I think most of them still do not grasp that giving this type of power to Caesar inevitably will cause the Church to become a target of that power sooner or later, for modern liberalism is a vastly intolerant secular religion, and where they have the power, modern liberals will use the power of the State to enforce their orthodoxy.

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Art Deco
Art Deco
Tuesday, February 14, AD 2012 8:16am

I hope the Bishops have learned a lesson now about the dangers of the Church getting into bed with the Welfare State, but I doubt it….What the Obama administration has done in regard to contraceptives and abortifacients was as predictable as the sun rising in the east and setting in the west.

C’mon, Donald. Thomas E. Dewey did not institute this policy. Edmund Muskie did not institute this policy. Jimmy Carter did not institute this policy. It is a decision local to the current cohorts of soi-disant social reformers. We have had federally financed medical care for 46 years and had a network of municipal and veterans’ hospitals for decades prior to that. The sort of arrogance incorporated into the Administrations latest crime is not a structural feature of common provision of medical services.

Maggie McT
Maggie McT
Tuesday, February 14, AD 2012 10:45am

Yes. I’m glad Will called the bishops on their support for “universal health care.” I suppose I should admire their lack of guile, but honestly. Why would anyone think that any state which sets itself up as the sole proprietor of your healthcare would do otherwise? The land of nice, Canada, prohibits people from paying for their own healthcare. Why would the U.S. do differently, if given the chance? I sincerely hope the bishops have learned that freedom is best preserved in smaller, more local institutions.

Art Deco
Art Deco
Tuesday, February 14, AD 2012 10:57am

What the Obama administration did was not only predictable, but inevitable.

No, it was not. It was a clear policy choice and a bad one.

Modern liberalism, since the 1990?s, as feminists and gay rights advocates became increasingly influential, has had a hostility to Christianity in general, and Catholicism in particular, that was not overtly present in earlier manifestations of that creed.

True, but that is a cultural factor, not a structural one.

T. Shaw
T. Shaw
Tuesday, February 14, AD 2012 11:27am

A mythic committee set out to improve on the race horse. They invented a camel.

You can’t have a committee deciding on objective truth. What you get are loose interpretations and inconsistent applications.

The USBBC (conference/committee) set out to improve health care. The salvation of souls is so yesterday. They invented Obamacare and abortion/birth control mandates.

That is why we have the Pope.

If in 2008 the majority of US bishops (supposed to be our shepherds) had preached the Pope’s “Four Non-negotiables”, they might not be in their current embarrassing fix.

Will is right. When the shepherds gave the state the corporal works of mercy, they ceded their moral authority in that area.

They subordinated the salvation of souls to peace, justice, and aiding and abetting cynical political posturing.

Greg Mockeridge
Greg Mockeridge
Tuesday, February 14, AD 2012 12:22pm

Like I said before, until the bishops take responsibility for their part in bringing this about all their cassock ruffling over teh HHS mandate is not going to have the crtedibility it needs to have.

Greg Mockeridge
Greg Mockeridge
Tuesday, February 14, AD 2012 12:37pm

Some of you might find this article interesting:

http://ricochet.com/main-feed/American-Catholicism-s-Pact-With-the-Devil

Don the Kiwi
Tuesday, February 14, AD 2012 3:38pm

The principle of Subsidiarity is too easily abandonned.
That’s what western societies have been doing for the past 100 years or so – of course secularists will grasp the opportunity to impose more and more control over the people.

Sow the wind, reap the whirlwind.

GHU
GHU
Wednesday, February 15, AD 2012 9:43am

The Bishops forgot this:
“A government big enough to give you everything you want, is big enough to take everything you have.”
Thomas Jefferson

Here’s another article on this very subject:

http://wdtprs.com/blog/2012/02/well-heres-another-nice-mess-youve-gotten-me-into/

Mary Jane Fritz
Wednesday, February 15, AD 2012 12:53pm

Let’s talk about the root of the problem: “Faithful Citizenship” from the USCCB which
listed multiple issues worthy of consideration.

It did say that a person could not vote for a pro-abort IF they were doing so to promote
abortion. It should have said a Catholic could NOT vote for a pro-abort/choice candidate
period – St. Louis Bishop Robert Hermann told Catholics to vote pro-life and after the
2008 election wrote that if one made the mistake of voting for a pro-abort they should go to Confession. “FAITHFUL CITIZENSHIP” needs to withdrawn yesterday. Bishops should tell priests and laity to vote pro-life in the Primaries. Their silence is deafening!

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