Pope Francis Does Not Understand...

[John Reece]

I only wish I were as wise as you seem to think I am.

Evidently you are wise enough not to do what Pope Francis is doing.

[One Bad Pig]

market-based solutions like Cap n' Trade

[Sam]

Really?

Source: Emissions Trading. Wikipedia.

Emissions trading or cap and trade ("cap" meaning a legal limit on the quantity of a certain type of chemical an economy can emit each year) is a market-based approach used to control pollution by providing economic incentives for achieving reductions in the emissions of pollutants.

© Copyright Original Source

Both the Reagan and Bush administrations pushed out Cap n' Trade solutions to emissions problems. Republicans were still proposing it as a viable strategy as recently as 2008.

[seer]

Thomas Sowell:

Any serious look at the history of human beings over the millennia shows that the species began in poverty. ?

In 1900, only 3 percent of American homes had electric lights but more than 99 percent had them before the end of the century. Infant mortality rates were 165 per thousand in 1900 and 7 per thousand by 1997. By 2001, most Americans living below the official poverty line had central air conditioning, a motor vehicle, cable television with multiple TV sets and other amenities.

A scholar specializing in the study of Latin America said that the official poverty level in the United States is the upper middle class in Mexico. The much criticized market economy of the United States has done far more for the poor than the ideology of the left.

.

Read more at http://www.wnd.com/2015/09/the-left-...89MymOhu95D.99

[John Reece]

The Left Has Its Pope

The Left Has Its Pope, By Thomas Sowell at Townhall:

Pope Francis has created political controversy, both inside and outside the Catholic Church, by blaming capitalism for many of the problems of the poor. We can no doubt expect more of the same during his visit to the United States.

Pope Francis is part of a larger trend of the rise of the political left among Catholic intellectuals. He is, in a sense, the culmination of that trend.

There has long been a political left among Catholics, as among other Americans. Often they were part of the pragmatic left, as in the many old Irish-run, big city political machines that dispensed benefits to the poor in exchange for their votes, as somewhat romantically depicted in the movie classic, "The Last Hurrah."

But there has also been a more ideological left. Where the Communists had their official newspaper, "The Daily Worker," there was also "The Catholic Worker" published by Dorothy Day.

A landmark in the evolution of the ideological left among Catholics was a publication in the 1980s, by the National Conference of Catholic Bishops, titled "Pastoral Letter on Catholic Social Teaching and the U.S. Economy."

Although this publication was said to be based on Catholic teachings, one of its principal contributors, Archbishop Rembert Weakland, said: "I think we should be up front and say that really we took this from the Enlightenment era."

The specifics of the Bishops' Pastoral Letter reflect far more of the secular Enlightenment of the 18th century than of Catholic traditions. Archbishop Weakland admitted that such an Enlightenment figure as Thomas Paine "is now coming back through a strange channel."

Strange indeed. Paine rejected the teachings of "any church that I know of," including "the Roman church." He said: "My own mind is my own church." Nor was Paine unusual among the leading figures of the 18th century Enlightenment.

To base social or moral principles on the philosophy of the 18th century Enlightenment, and then call the result "Catholic teachings" suggests something like bait-and-switch advertising.

But, putting aside religious or philosophical questions, we have more than two centuries of historical evidence of what has actually happened as the ideas of people like those Enlightenment figures were put into practice in the real world -- beginning with the French Revolution and its disastrous aftermath.

Both the authors of the Bishops' Pastoral Letter in the 1980s, and Pope Francis today, blithely throw around the phrase "the poor," and blame poverty on what other people are doing or not doing to or for "the poor."

See the rest of this article here , or here.

[One Bad Pig]

Really?

Source: Emissions Trading. Wikipedia.

Emissions trading or cap and trade ("cap" meaning a legal limit on the quantity of a certain type of chemical an economy can emit each year) is a market-based approach used to control pollution by providing economic incentives for achieving reductions in the emissions of pollutants.

© Copyright Original Source

Wikipedia? Really?

Both the Reagan and Bush administrations pushed out Cap n' Trade solutions to emissions problems. Republicans were still proposing it as a viable strategy as recently as 2008.

That Republicans were proposing it at any time is a non sequitur. The "cap" bit is wholly anti-market, and there would be no "trade" without the "cap."

[Sam]

Wikipedia? Really?

That Republicans were proposing it at any time is a non sequitur. The "cap" bit is wholly anti-market, and there would be no "trade" without the "cap."

Cap and Trade has always been considered market based. You're not going to find many encyclopedias (is Conservapedia still around?) That disagree. What you're saying is that C&T is not pure free-market but that's not what "market based" means.

[John Reece]

Pope Francis's Crusade Against Fossil Fuels

From Forbes.com:

Pope Francis's Crusade Against Fossil Fuels Hurts The Poor Most Of All

See 2-page article + many supporting links here.

Concluding paragraphs:

There are some 3 billion people in the world who have next to no energy, and 1.3 billion who have no electricity whatsoever. If their lives are to improve, humanity will need to use more fossil fuels, not less. That is a moral imperative.

Thus, whatever our religion or lack of it, if we care about human life we should demand that any moral leaders recognize the moral case for fossil fuels.

[John Reece]

Cap and Trade has always been considered market based. You're not going to find many encyclopedias (is Conservapedia still around?) That disagree. What you're saying is that C&T is not pure free-market but that's not what "market based" means.

For generations ― for at least as long ago as George Orwell's generation ― the left has been misusing words and terms, and thereby over time redefining words and terms, to mean things quite different from what things actually are.

The usage you cite is one of countless examples of subtle forms of verbal deception without which the left would not be nearly as successful as it has been in modern times.

[Sam]

For generations ― for at least as long ago as George Orwell's generation ― the left has been misusing words and terms, and thereby over time redefining words and terms, to mean things quite different from what things actually are.

The usage you cite is one of countless examples of subtle forms of verbal deception without which the left would not be nearly as successful as it has been in modern times.

as a market-based solution is incontrovertible history. That many in that bloc are now denouncing it as anything but market-based is a fine example of Orwellian thought, if we're using the comparison. We've always been at war with Eastasia, after all.

[John Reece]

as a market-based solution is incontrovertible history. That many in that bloc are now denouncing it as anything but market-based is a fine example of Orwellian thought, if we're using the comparison. We've always been at war with Eastasia, after all.

I see that you are correct; the concept originated with a Reagan administration official, C. Boyden Gray:

http://www.smithsonianmag.com/air/th...7zpRpWp2DGl.99

[Jichard]

I was a fan of prior popes and was predisposed to think well of Francis; however, Pope Francis has been a major disappointment to me.

George Will expresses some of what I find to be disillusioning about the papacy as represented by Francis.

Bleak House) and other matters.

Read more at: http://www.nationalreview.com/articl...rty-capitalism

Is this the same George Wil who was sputing nonsense about how scientists were predicting an imminent ice age in the 1970s?

Guess it's no surprise to see him peddling some of the same conservative talking points about how the science is not settled, but Galileo was mocked!!!, and so on.

[Jichard]

market-based solutions like Cap n' Trade

Really?

Source: Emissions Trading. Wikipedia.

Emissions trading or cap and trade ("cap" meaning a legal limit on the quantity of a certain type of chemical an economy can emit each year) is a market-based approach used to control pollution by providing economic incentives for achieving reductions in the emissions of pollutants.

© Copyright Original Source

Both the Reagan and Bush administrations pushed out Cap n' Trade solutions to emissions problems. Republicans were still proposing it as a viable strategy as recently as 2008.

Are you expecting some folks to know what they're talking about before commenting? Some folks are just on here to mindlessly laugh and mindlessly Amen other people's laughter.

as a market-based solution is incontrovertible history. That many in that bloc are now denouncing it as anything but market-based is a fine example of Orwellian thought, if we're using the comparison. We've always been at war with Eastasia, after all.

I see that you are correct; the concept originated with a Reagan administration official, C. Boyden Gray:

http://www.smithsonianmag.com/air/th...7zpRpWp2DGl.99

[John Reece]

Good Question!

MIAMI PRIEST TO POPE FRANCIS: WHY CONDEMN CAPITALISM SO STRONGLY, BUT NOT COMMUNISM?

El Nuevo Herald

See the whole story here.

[Spartacus]

The Left Has Its Pope, By Thomas Sowell at Townhall:

Pope Francis has created political controversy, both inside and outside the Catholic Church, by blaming capitalism for many of the problems of the poor. We can no doubt expect more of the same during his visit to the United States.

Pope Francis is part of a larger trend of the rise of the political left among Catholic intellectuals. He is, in a sense, the culmination of that trend.

There has long been a political left among Catholics, as among other Americans. Often they were part of the pragmatic left, as in the many old Irish-run, big city political machines that dispensed benefits to the poor in exchange for their votes, as somewhat romantically depicted in the movie classic, "The Last Hurrah."

But there has also been a more ideological left. Where the Communists had their official newspaper, "The Daily Worker," there was also "The Catholic Worker" published by Dorothy Day.

A landmark in the evolution of the ideological left among Catholics was a publication in the 1980s, by the National Conference of Catholic Bishops, titled "Pastoral Letter on Catholic Social Teaching and the U.S. Economy."

Although this publication was said to be based on Catholic teachings, one of its principal contributors, Archbishop Rembert Weakland, said: "I think we should be up front and say that really we took this from the Enlightenment era."

The specifics of the Bishops' Pastoral Letter reflect far more of the secular Enlightenment of the 18th century than of Catholic traditions. Archbishop Weakland admitted that such an Enlightenment figure as Thomas Paine "is now coming back through a strange channel."

Strange indeed. Paine rejected the teachings of "any church that I know of," including "the Roman church." He said: "My own mind is my own church." Nor was Paine unusual among the leading figures of the 18th century Enlightenment.

To base social or moral principles on the philosophy of the 18th century Enlightenment, and then call the result "Catholic teachings" suggests something like bait-and-switch advertising.

But, putting aside religious or philosophical questions, we have more than two centuries of historical evidence of what has actually happened as the ideas of people like those Enlightenment figures were put into practice in the real world -- beginning with the French Revolution and its disastrous aftermath.

Both the authors of the Bishops' Pastoral Letter in the 1980s, and Pope Francis today, blithely throw around the phrase "the poor," and blame poverty on what other people are doing or not doing to or for "the poor."

See the rest of this article here , or here.