It truly astounds me that there are quite a lot of supposedly traditionalist Catholics who actively promote coercive redistribution of wealth. They do not seem to realise that this is fundamentally antithetical to Christian virtue. For instance, you can regularly witness supposedly traditionalist Catholics stating that government-run healthcare (which they often even call "free healthcare") is essentially good, and only impossible at present because of countless numbers of irresponsible degenerates who parasitically leech off the system. They explicitly state their belief that in a conservative, Christian society, government healthcare would be fine and dandy.
I must disagree, and when I recently expressed that disagreement (indeed on the subject of so-called "free healthcare"), I was asked to explain my reasoning. Naturally, I did so quite gladly. What will follow here is a somewhat more expansive and refined version of my initial reply. I think it might be of some use to share it publically.
The fact of the matter is that the position of these supposedly traditionalist Catholics perplexes me. They defend a system that is parasitical in its very core by claiming that it would be good if only the parasitic excesses were somehow removed from it. Do they not understand that the system itself fosters that parasitism, and that it therefore legitimises the degeneracy associated with it? And do they not comprehend that this in itself is enough to condemn the system of "government healthcare" wholly and unequivocally?
Even if they somehow fail to notice this, or have some excuse about how their proposed alterations to the system would curb those excesses... their arguments are purely utilitarian. Now, utilitarianism is indisputably the morally hollow creed of the modernist; of the man-as-machine, of the culture that reduces society to a mere collection of inhuman processes. If they were truly traditionalists, and if they were truly Christian, and certainly if they were truly Catholic, then they would know that utilitarianism is in no way a valid argument. Instead, they would know to look elsewhere-- namely to the tradition of natural law.
If they did this, they would soon realise that their premises are flawed and their ethics clouded. After all, "free" healthcare simply doesn't exist. It may perhaps be true that the system of state-enforced redistribution could get somewhat more viable if you were to remove all the "useless eaters" (as the commies themselves put it), but that doesn't make it free. It's still based on the theft and redistribution of wealth by the government. Not only that, but to see people as "useless eaters"—rather than the victims of sin who deserve our human and personal compassion—is in itself deeply disturbed.
We may say, therefore, that some "utilitarian fix" for the system of government healthcare can at best make it "just" immoral, instead of immoral and flat-out impossible in the long term. If that is the best case scenario of the approach that these supposed traditionalist Catholics advocate, then how Christian is their approach, really? Should they succeed in getting it done (which is doubtful in itself), would we then be justified in calling that a victory of virtue? I think not. On the contrary.
Let there be no doubt: there are countless admonitions in the Bible for all of us to practice charity and kindness, but none that allow us to steal from others, give away the wealth of those others, and then pride ourselves on that ill deed. In fact, "thou shalt not steal" is fairly clear. When one steals in order to be a false-faced benefactor, one is guilty not only of theft, but of a twisted and self-aggrandising pride. That it is purportedly done with good intentions matters not one bit, since we know very well that those good intentions have ever paved the road to hell...
It does not matter whether this twisted act of theft is carried out for the sake of healthcare, subsidies, welfare or any other goal that should theoretically be noble. Evil means cannot bring about good ends. To sanction evil in the name of doing good is precisely the easy way to get it done, the way of abusive power... the Satanic way of doing things. The way we must reject. The way of the just, conversely, entails that we ourselves must take responsibility for the things that we believe must be done, instead of mandating government thugs to steal from others.
One may at once conclude the obvious, then: that it is our personal, Christian duty to actively extend a hand to others. And that to provide healthcare is not a governmental task, but a communal responsibility. I do not think that I need to explain to these Catholics that the best way to do this on any scale beyond the directly interpersonal is almost invariably to do it via the Church. Indeed, the irresponsible hand-over of all power and all manner of social missions to the state has terribly injured the Church in its social capacity. The Church once had the capacity to bind social work and spiritual work together into one sacred mission. The state is wholly unspiritual (in fact it is anti-spiritual), and now the social and the spiritual are too often divided by a great chasm.
Removing all aspects of social welfare from the abusive hands of the government, and returning them to a multitude of communal networks and societies—most of them Christian in nature—will quite literally do wonders for society. When such concerns are returned to the hands of organic, rather than artificial communities, we will soon see a far greater respect for the human soul. A government is a system, a machine, a great automaton. It is defined by regulation and policy, and to its method of operation, such things as mercy and charity can only ever exist in the abstract. If we want virtue to be tangibly expressed (to be made real in the world) we must not put our faith in government, but in each other. Community must replace bureaucracy, and in many cases, Church must once again replace State.
As a further consideration, I would urge Christians to keep in mind that the current government-funded (so actually theft-funded) healthcare is also government-controlled healthcare. And then you ultimately end up with true horrors. For instance, with cases in which the government "experts" can decide when infants (such as in the now infamous case of Alfie Evans) are to be "terminated". This, I would argue, is the very depth of depravity. That sort of evil becomes possible when the state is raised up to be almighty, and to exert authority over all aspects of life. To avoid it, we must ensure that responsibility and authority remain in the hands of moral actors, instead of soulless bureaucracies.
All of this is why government healthcare is always inherently immoral, and furthermore why every sort of overbearing government (including all possible manifestations of forced wealth redistribution) are always evil.
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