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free trade & free markets general freedom ideological culture individual achievement media and media people national politics & policies

Parker and the Pope

Kathleen Parker is far from my favorite columnist, but her Sunday column comparing Pope Francis and presidential aspirant Sen. Bernie Sanders regarding their shared message on economic fairness and equality of outcomes was well worth the effort.

She treats the men differently. She gives Pope Francis a pass because, as a religious leader, he “wants to raise consciousness about our obligation to the less fortunate,” while bashing Sanders, the politician, who “wants to restructure America’s economic institutions to ensure that money trickles down — mandatorily rather than charitably.”

“Let’s face it, most of us work hard … for a paycheck.” So Parker pointedly asks, “As the tax man chisels away at such monetary rewards, where goes the incentive to work hard?”

How persuasive — encouraging actual, real-​world achievement — would a Sanders Four Year Plan be?

Addressing the Pope’s harsh words for individualism, Parker argues, “The ‘rampant individualism’ that Francis condemns is precisely what has driven American ingenuity, entrepreneurship and a level of prosperity unmatched in human history.”

Precisely.

In other words, maybe — just maybe — we did build it. Through our own sweat and toil. Individualism is decidedly not big government. And it is not public-​private crony capitalism, either.

So, considering that it was America’s laissez-faire-ism that created such great wealth and prosperity, which presidential candidates are promising a return to more robust and vivacious individualism?

Not the ones promising everything. Nor the one promising the “best deal.”

The job of the next heroic leader will be to shovel whole layers of intrusive government out of our way.

Parker seems on board, boasting, “This is common sense.”

Hey, wait a second, Kathleen, that is my line. I’m Paul Jacob.


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Kathleen Parker, Pope Francis, Bernie Sanders, economic fairness

 


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Common Sense general freedom ideological culture

No Reconciliation with Communism

Pope Francis met with Fidel Castro over the weekend.

It’s not the first time the Bishop of Rome has met with a dictator, in Cuba or elsewhere. But it is the first time this particular pope has done so.

Next stop on this tour? The United States.

The pope’s most pointed words were directed not to the Communist nation but south by southwest, to Colombia, from where hail contestant parties to peace talks (the government versus leftist insurrectionists) now being held in Havana. The pope wishes no breakdown in the talks, urging that the world cannot afford “another failure on the path of peace and reconciliation.”

Pope Francis has been credited with the thawing of cold war relations between the United States and Cuba, and, for his part, praises both parties for the detente, which he has dubbed “an example of reconciliation for the whole world.”

But Cuba remains under tyranny; the people cannot speak freely and are impoverished under the thumb of socialistic regulation. The pope may not be seeing elements of causality here, of teleology, of purpose: Cuba’s poverty is not caused by the American embargo, really, but by a pernicious attachment to outdated ideas of government supremacy over people.

Unfortunately, many of the pope’s most famous remonstrances about capitalism suggest that he may be closer to the Castro brothers’ oppressive Marxist ideology than to a more liberatory approach.

While the pope publicly prays for reconciliation, Americans would be better off if we repudiated reconciliation with destructive ideas that too easily get packaged as “humane” and “Christian” when they are really, and deeply, precisely the opposite.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.


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Pope, Castro, Vatican, Cuba, collage, photomontage, illustration, Paul Jacob, James Gill, Common Sense