Everyone has almost a practiced habit of lamenting the incivility of politics today, and that's not altogether wrong. The conversation is uncivil, often emotional, and illogical.
On the other hand, there is a privilege inherent in telling everyone else to calm down. Personally, I get angry when real issues of justice are at stake. I don't want to sing Kumbaya, politically speaking, with those who don't recognize children in the womb as persons, or who think separating families at the border as a punitive measure to discourage illegal entry is acceptable. As a consequence, the memes telling us all to just "get along" are patronizing and stupid.
I know I find default libertarianism kind of stupid. A sort of dependence on the fact that large segments of the populace could and would find various instances of federal government conduct excessive, silly, or otherwise injurious to some notion of individual liberty has the curious effect of obscuring the fact that libertarianism is completely outside the pale of the Catholic philosophical tradition. If the public presentation of a philosophy is focused upon winning "converts" among the politically engaged in our country on all sides, the reality that libertarianism undermines political authority as such is hidden from view.
Pipe dreams about radically limited government don't sound too correct or reasonable to people who need the government, practically speaking.
What is political authority--that is, government--for? We need to have theoretical and philosophical conversations about that, before we have conversations about "the issues". Especially when "the issues" are nothing more than hooks for us to express our mutual disdain for the opposing "tribe."
On the other hand, there is a privilege inherent in telling everyone else to calm down. Personally, I get angry when real issues of justice are at stake. I don't want to sing Kumbaya, politically speaking, with those who don't recognize children in the womb as persons, or who think separating families at the border as a punitive measure to discourage illegal entry is acceptable. As a consequence, the memes telling us all to just "get along" are patronizing and stupid.
I know I find default libertarianism kind of stupid. A sort of dependence on the fact that large segments of the populace could and would find various instances of federal government conduct excessive, silly, or otherwise injurious to some notion of individual liberty has the curious effect of obscuring the fact that libertarianism is completely outside the pale of the Catholic philosophical tradition. If the public presentation of a philosophy is focused upon winning "converts" among the politically engaged in our country on all sides, the reality that libertarianism undermines political authority as such is hidden from view.
Pipe dreams about radically limited government don't sound too correct or reasonable to people who need the government, practically speaking.
What is political authority--that is, government--for? We need to have theoretical and philosophical conversations about that, before we have conversations about "the issues". Especially when "the issues" are nothing more than hooks for us to express our mutual disdain for the opposing "tribe."
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