What Did You Say?

I am constantly disgusted with what I hear people say. They either parrot what they have heard someone say, or they have no clue what is really going on in the country. Considering the fact that we average less than 50% of Americans voting, the reasons are becoming more and more evident.

Jessie Waters, of the O’Reilly Factor, does on the street interviews and asks the public questions about our society, politics and entertainment. It astonishes me the number of people who cannot name the President, or know what is really going on in the world, or politics. Yet they can name entertainers, actors, and whatever they are doing. The lack of knowledge is a growing problem in America and one of the main reasons we are experiencing such a rapid decline in our society.

In the book of Hoses, chapter 4, verse 6, God is recorded as saying, “My people are destroyed from lack of knowledge.” (NIV). That has prompted me to add to the series of “Preparing to Vote” that my dad has started, and I have shared with you.

Often I ask people around me to define certain terms we hear politicians from the Left using on a regular bases. No one has been able to give a definition, yet they acknowledge they have heard the words or phrases. I believe the Left is counting on people NOT researching these words which unmasks their true intentions and beliefs.

So, in this edition, we will discuss the term, “Social Justice”. According to Wikipedia (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Social_justice) “Social Justice” is;

Social justice is justice exercised within a society, particularly as it is exercised by and among the various social classes of that society. A socially just society is based on the principles of equality and solidarity, understands and values human rights, and recognizes the dignity of every human being.^[1][2][3]

Social justice is based on the concepts of human rights and equality and involves a greater degree of economic egalitarianism through progressive taxation, income redistribution, or even property redistribution. These policies aim to achieve what developmental economists refer to as more equality of opportunity than may currently exist in some societies, and to manufacture equality of outcome in cases where incidental inequalities appear in a procedurally just system. The Constitution of the International Labour Organization affirms that “universal and lasting peace can be established only if it is based upon social justice.”^[4] Furthermore, the Vienna Declaration and Programme of Action treats social justice as a purpose of the human rights education.^[5]

The term and modern concept of “social justice” was coined by the Jesuit Luigi Taparelli in 1840 based on the teachings of St. Thomas Aquinas and given further exposure in 1848 by Antonio Rosmini-Serbati.^{[1][2][6][7][8]} The word has taken on a very controverted and variable meaning, depending on who is using it. The idea was elaborated by the moral theologian John A. Ryan, who initiated the concept of a living wage. Father Coughlin also used the term in his publications in the 1930s and the 1940s. It is a part of Catholic social teaching, the Protestants’ Social Gospel, and is one of the Four Pillars of the Green Party upheld by green parties worldwide. Social justice as a secular concept, distinct from religious teachings, emerged mainly in the late twentieth century, influenced primarily by philosopher John Rawls. Some tenets of social justice have been adopted by those on the left of the political spectrum.

Social justice from religious traditions

Judaism

Main article: Tikkun olam

In To Heal a Fractured World: The Ethics of Responsibility, Rabbi Jonathan Sacks states that social justice has a central place in Judaism. One of Judaism’s most distinctive and challenging ideas is its ethics of responsibility reflected in the concepts of simcha (“gladness” or “joy”), tzedakah (“the religious obligation to perform charity and philanthropic acts”), chesed (“deeds of kindness”), and tikkun olam (“repairing the world”).

Christianity

Catholicism

Main article: Catholic social teaching

Catholic social teaching consists of those aspects of Roman Catholic doctrine which relate to matters dealing with the collective aspect of humanity. A distinctive feature of the Catholic social doctrine is their concern for the poorest members of society. Two of the seven key areas^[9] of “Catholic social teaching” are pertinent to social justice:

• Life and dignity of the human person: The foundational principle of all “Catholic Social Teaching” is the sanctity of all human life and the inherent dignity of every human person. Human life must be valued above all material possessions.
• Preferential option for the poor and vulnerable: Catholics believe Jesus taught that on the Day of Judgement God will ask what each person did to help the poor and needy: “Amen, I say to you, whatever you did for one of these least brothers of mine, you did for me.”^[10] The Catholic Church believes that through words, prayers and deeds one must show solidarity with, and compassion for, the poor. The moral test of any society is “how it treats its most vulnerable members. The poor have the most urgent moral claim on the conscience of the nation. People are called to look at public policy decisions in terms of how they affect the poor.”^[11]

Even before it was propounded in the Catholic social doctrine, social justice appeared regularly in the history of the Catholic Church:

• The term “social justice” was adopted by the Jesuit Luigi Taparelli in the 1840s, based on the work of St. Thomas Aquinas. He wrote extensively in his journal Civiltà Cattolica, engaging both capitalist and socialist theories from a natural law viewpoint. His basic premise was that the rival economic theories, based on subjective Cartesian thinking, undermined the unity of society present in Thomistic metaphysics; neither the liberal capitalists nor the communists concerned themselves with public moral philosophy.
• Pope Leo XIII, who studied under Taparelli, published in 1891 the encyclical Rerum Novarum (On the Condition of the Working Classes), rejecting both socialism and capitalism, while defending labor unions and private property. He stated that society should be based on cooperation and not class conflict and competition. In this document, Leo set out the Catholic Church’s response to the social instability and labor conflict that had arisen in the wake of industrialization and had led to the rise of socialism. The Pope advocated that the role of the State was to promote social justice through the protection of rights, while the Church must speak out on social issues in order to teach correct social principles and ensure class harmony.
• The encyclical Quadragesimo Anno (On Reconstruction of the Social Order, literally “in the fortieth year”) of 1931 by Pope Pius XI, encourages a living wage, subsidiarity, and advocates that social justice is a personal virtue as well as an attribute of the social order, saying that society can be just only if individuals and institutions are just.
• Pope John Paul II added much to the corpus of the Catholic social teaching, penning three encyclicals which would deal with issues such as economics, politics, geo-political situations, ownership of the means of production, private property and the “social mortgage“, and private property. The encyclicals of Laborem Exercens, Solicitudo Rei Socialis, and Centesimus Annus are just a small portion of his overall contribution to Catholic social justice. Pope John Paul II was a strong advocate of justice and human rights, and spoke forcefully for the poor. He addresses issues such as the problems that technology can present should it be misused, and admits a fear that the “progress” of the world is not true progress at all, if it should denigrate the value of the human person.
• Pope Benedict XVI‘s encyclical Deus Caritas Est (“God is Love”) of 2006 claims that justice is the defining concern of the state and the central concern of politics, and not of the church, which has charity as its central social concern. It said that the laity has the specific responsibility of pursuing social justice in civil society and that the church’s active role in social justice should be to inform the debate, using reason and natural law, and also by providing moral and spiritual formation for those involved in politics.
• The official Catholic doctrine on social justice can be found in the book Compendium of the Social Doctrine of the Church, published in 2004 and updated in 2006, by the Pontifical Council Iustitia et Pax

Please go to the link provided above to read more.

Does this explain why President Obama and the Left say and vote the way they do? Can you get in with them and continue the conversion of the United States of America into a Social Justice Socialist (or worst) nation? Are you planning to vote? Are you going to be an informed voter based on our own research? Are you going to sit back and let it all go to hell? Patriot or Unconcerned, self-absorbed, uncaring human taking up space?