[SOC] Politics, Christian Democracy, Sweden, and Catholic Social Teaching

I get one question these days. Who are you going to vote for, Charlie? The answer to that one is a simple one. I am voting for no one. Naturally, people fill in the blank with "Mitt Romney." Apparently, words don't mean anything anymore.

My last ballot was cast for Ron Paul, and I would like to leave it that way. When you vote for an honest man, voting for slimebags makes you sick inside. Both Obama and Romney are slimebags. I can't vote for either, and I won't. I would rather my useless vote be forfeited than to have either one of those liars be able to claim they ever had my support.

I don't think voting or holding elected office really changes anything. Ron Paul's revolution has mostly been a moral revolution. Unfortunately, it has not extended beyond his committed base of supporters, and it probably won't. In Europe, Daniel Hannan has preached a similar message that has been disregarded. The reason things do not change is because of the moral temperament of the people. We live in an age where people want to live at the expense of others, and we will reap the calamity of that foolish proposition extended to an entire nation or continent.

My conversion to Catholicism has affected my political thinking since politics is naturally an extension of morality. As an atheist, I subscribed to a libertarian worldview because atheism for me was fundamentally about freedom. Most atheists tend to be progressives because they subscribe less to freedom and more towards materialist values and supposed enlightened minds able to reason perfectly. Catholicism finds a lot of problems in both libertarianism and progressivism.

There are a lot of libertarians who are also Catholic. The two most prominent ones that spring to mind would be Tom Woods and Judge Andrew Napolitano. But their viewpoints suggest more of a conservative than a libertarian worldview. Gary Johnson is an atheist libertarian, and this is reflected in his support of gay marriage and a pro-choice outlook on abortion. Neither Woods nor Napolitano support abortion rights and are pro-life. Ron Paul is also pro-life.

You can't be Catholic and libertarian. Those two worldviews are in opposition. This doesn't keep certain Catholics from claiming to be libertarian. But there libertarianism is quite distinct from the libertarianism of someone like Gary Johnson or the pot smoking crowd over at Reason or the atheistic flavor espoused by Ayn Rand and her devotees. The reason you can't be both libertarian and Catholic is because the fundamental cornerstone of libertarianism is individualism, and Catholicism rejects individualism.

Individualism stresses that it is the individual that is or should be sovereign. The individual is the cornerstone of society, and the individual should enjoy a minimum of interference from other individuals in matters of politics, religion, economics, and morality. This philosophy carried to its ultimate end was embodied in the person and work of Ayn Rand. The result of her philosophy was that she was a flagrant adulterer, a drug abuser, and held a disdain for anything resembling altruism. Even the characters in her novels are without children since rearing children or having a family requires a high degree of selflessness. If everyone lived in this way, life would literally be hell on earth. And no libertarian or Objectivist can be consistent in this individualism since the advance of liberty requires a high degree of selflessness and altruistic endeavor. This is reflected in Ron Paul who clearly is influenced more by Christian teaching than by Ayn Rand.

Catholics reject individualism, but they do not embrace collectivism either. This is something I learn repeatedly in my Catholic studies. The Catholic worldview is balanced between extremes. The individual has importance in the Catholic worldview because of the imago Dei. We are all made in the image of God. As such, even an unborn child has value in the eyes of the Church. The life of the unborn has greater value than the lifestyle of the mother of that child. Conversely, the value of a human life is dependent upon God. This is why Catholics and libertarians can find so much common ground because they both place a high degree of value on the individual. But Catholicism must reject the sovereignty of the individual. Only God is our true sovereign. As such, you can't be Catholic and libertarian because Catholicism rejects individualism.

There is freedom in Catholicism. Catholicism embraces free will. You have the freedom to do good and to do evil. What you don't have is the freedom to define what is good or evil. This was the serpent's lie to Eve in the garden. In knowing good and evil, she could become like God. No such thing happened. No freedom or happiness flowed from that disobedience. This is the frustration of the libertine. In doing what we want, we only want more in an endless cycle of dissatisfaction. This is the nature of concupiscence. It always wants more and is never satisfied.

This dissatisfaction is at full display in the United States. The USA is a land that has enjoyed unprecedented freedom and prosperity. It is also the most dissatisfied nation to ever exist with unprecedented rates of divorce, drug addiction, incarceration, suicide, and materialist consumerism. For a people who have so much, why are so many so miserable? The good life just isn't so good.

True freedom is the ability to do what is right and just. There are many ways to live, but there is only one right way to live. St. Augustine gets it right when he says that our hearts are restless until they find their rest in God. People explore an array of substitutes, but none of them are ever satisfying. Likewise, once Eve and Adam tasted of the forbidden fruit, they were barred from the Tree of Life. This story is replayed in our lives again and again. We can choose our way and and dissatisfaction, or we can choose God's way and life. But you can't have both.

I see the Western world headed for a collapse. This will be a social and economic collapse. This is not the calamity it would seem since such collapses are often what is needed for a reordering of the world back to its principles. This happened to the Soviet world, and things are better there for it. The right ordering of society requires a Judeo-Christian ethic.

There is no political party or group or individual here in America that perfectly represents or defends the Catholic political viewpoint. Often, Catholics divide over emphasis, so those most strongly against abortion side with Republicans while those most concerned for the poor side with Democrats. The result is that Catholics are divided on the issues so much that you now have two Catholic candidates on the two tickets defending things that Catholics find indefensible. This would be abortion, unjust war, and cuts to social spending while benefiting the rich with tax cuts.

Catholics do have an option in Europe under Christian Democracy. Christian Democracy is the mirror opposite of libertarianism. Libertarians are socially progressive and economically conservative. Christian Democrats are socially conservative and economically progressive. A libertarian will support your right to an abortion, but you have to pay for it yourself. A Christian Democrat will oppose abortion but will support a universal healthcare system that would provide for prenatal care. But like libertarianism, Christian Democracy is not a viable option in the American two party system. You can check out the CDU here.

If your morality is Christian, then your politics must also be Christian. Because the various parties have some chunk of truth in them and reflect some moral aspect of the Christian faith, many Christians especially Catholics find common cause with these people. The problem is that this common cause comes at the cost of compromise. This how you get a Joe Biden defending abortion while being personally opposed to it while Paul Ryan praises Ayn Rand. While libertarians are committed but insufficient in numbers to make a difference, Catholics are sufficient in numbers but insufficient in commitment to make a difference. And this is how evil triumphs.

If there is a weakness in the Christian Democratic worldview, it might be economics. How can you have a robust capitalist economy while also having a social safety net? Sweden seems to have answered that one. They have both, and coincidentally, this blend of social welfare and capitalism is the platform of the Christian Democrats in Sweden.

The problem with all the other political viewpoints is that they divorce themselves from the Christian worldview. Libertarians are correct on property rights, but they are incorrect on social responsibility. Progressives pursue social responsibility but at the expense of property rights. Conservatives defend traditional morality when it comes to your body but not your wallet. And government expenditure should be for the benefit of all and not just for some. Yet, this is where our current calamity will come from as everyone seeks to take but prefers not to give.

The reason I liked Ron Paul and still like Ron Paul is because of his frank honesty. He opposes war and abortion and bailouts to corporations. Catholics could find a lot to like in a libertarian like Ron Paul, but his libertarianism is contrary to Catholic Social Teaching. I am finding that it isn't so much the system that is malfunctioning so much as the morality or the lack of morality in that system. Greece has social welfare, and it is collapsing while Sweden and Germany are not. Both Sweden and Germany are governed or have been governed by Christian Democrats. Christian Democracy has not been as successful in Greece.

My thinking on all these things is evolving, and I may have gotten some facts wrong. But I am attempting to soothe the cognitive dissonance between my faith and my politics. What I can say is that the current two party system does not reflect the Catholic worldview, and Catholics need to stop compromising with it.

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