GMOs To Go?

I recently wrote an article, GMO Labeling: The Obvious Libertarian Solution. The gist of my article was that using voluntary GMO labeling as a marketing tool to give people what they want is a great libertarian solution that neither forces nor prevents private industry from communicating with its customers. I also noted that I have … Read more

GMO Labeling, the Obvious Libertarian Solution

Unfortunately, the debate over GMO labeling continues in the form of “to label or not to label” and is focused on the federal government. As is typical, stipulating that this is an issue on which the federal government should decide for all, has backfired. Calls for GMO labeling at state, local and federal levels has … Read more

To Vax or Not To Vax? Podcast of April 21, 2016 Show

Hour 1 Hour 2 This was the article by Dr. Don Miller about childhood diseases and cancer-resistance that I found interesting: MMR Vaccine: Risks & Benefits Here’s the book about the youngest person with narcolepsy, which resulted from an additive in a UK vaccine: Waking Mathilda   And for a swan dive into the rabbit … Read more

Captive Institutions

Yesterday I posted a great video in which an Irish writer, Gearoid O Colmain, reporting from France, explained beautifully what is happening in the world today. He really nails it and puts it succinctly, so I didn’t want to put a caveat on my endorsement of his report, but there is one thing that’s been rankling … Read more

What To Make of Pope Francis?

RETRANSMISSION OF OSS102 TO PROVIDE DIFFERENT CROP - In this photo provided by the Vatican paper L'Osservatore Romano Tuesday, Jan. 7, 2014, Pope Francis is placed a lamb around his neck as he visits a living nativity scene staged at the St. Alfonso Maria de' Liguori parish church, in the outskirts of Rome, Monday, Jan. 6, 2014. The Epiphany day, is a joyous day for Catholics in which they recall the journey of the Three Kings, or Magi, to pay homage to Baby Jesus. (AP Photo/Osservatore Romano, ho)
RETRANSMISSION OF OSS102 TO PROVIDE DIFFERENT CROP – In this photo provided by the Vatican paper L’Osservatore Romano Tuesday, Jan. 7, 2014, Pope Francis is placed a lamb around his neck as he visits a living nativity scene staged at the St. Alfonso Maria de’ Liguori parish church, in the outskirts of Rome, Monday, Jan. 6, 2014. The Epiphany day, is a joyous day for Catholics in which they recall the journey of the Three Kings, or Magi, to pay homage to Baby Jesus. (AP Photo/Osservatore Romano, ho)

In the interest of full disclosure, I will tell you, I am a practicing Catholic and I raise my children Catholic, but I’m not a great Catholic. I follow the rules of the Church to the best of my ability and try to live by the spirit of Christ’s teachings, but I struggle with faith and am not versed in every nuance of the Church’s tenets. I do, however, respect those Catholics who still keep the faith in the same tradition my parents upheld and I benefit greatly from the culture they create in the Catholic community.  For this reason, I never want my skin-of-the-teeth Catholicism in any way to diminish the Catholic culture or reflect poorly on it, so I try to stay away from public discussions on religion. Recently, however, many people of different creeds and political stripes have asked me what I think of Pope Francis, and I’m happy to respond, but I must emphasize, this is, of course, only my opinion. I’m not trying to represent the Church or libertarians, or preach or criticize–I’m just recording my observations for those interested in reading them.

I always give the Pope the benefit of the doubt, but boy are my doubts mounting! Here are the main issues I have with some of the positions the Pope is reported to have taken….

Redistributing Wealth 

Not too long ago, I sifted through all the relevant writings I could reasonably assess in order to see if any Pope had openly advocated for government redistribution of wealth. From what I could tell, many had come close but no Pope had gone all the way–until now.

This alarms me. The modern state’s use of violence and the threat of violence to take property from its rightful owners (assuming there are any objective laws left in this world, there are clearly defined rightful owners at least of the fruits of their labor) and give it to someone else not only breaks the sixth and eighth commandments, but also makes it impossible for able-bodied producers to live Christ’s exhortation to charity as well as reduces the poor from a default state of virtue (assuming money really is the root of all evil), to being receivers of stolen goods.

As progressive taxation comes closer to absorbing all surplus wages and putting them at the disposal of the modern state, even the highest earners may no longer have the means to engage in meaningful charity. And with what result? The governments in the United States, for example, spend approximately 40% of the country’s production (GDP), the vast majority of which is redistribution of wealth.

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Talk About "In A Nutshell!" The big picture in 75 seconds

This whole thing is worth watching – it’s great – but the BIG PICTURE is distilled down to 75 seconds from 11:34 to 12:49.* A note on political philosophy: From what I can tell by listening to these guys a number of times, they are socialists** who feel that the right role of government is … Read more