For its proponents, “social justice” is usually undefined. Originally a Catholic term, first used about 1840 for a new kind of virtue (or habit) necessary for post-agrarian societies, the term has been bent by secular “progressive” thinkers to mean uniform state distribution of society’s advantages and disadvantages. Social justice is really the capacity to organize with others to accomplish ends that benefit the whole community. If people are to live free of state control, they must possess this new virtue of cooperation and association. This is one of the great skills of Americans and, ultimately, the best defense against statism.

Pope Leo XIII said in 1890, regarding “equality” which is used a lot by liberals and progressives these days to justify massive takeovers of industry and private wealth:

“Therefore, let it be laid down in the first place that in civil society, the lowest cannot be made equal with the highest. Socialists, of course, agitate the contrary, but all struggling against nature is in vain. There are truly very great and very many natural differences among men. Neither the talents nor the skill nor the health nor the capacities of all are the same, and unequal fortune follows of itself upon necessary inequality in respect to these endowments.” and,

“Such inequality is far from being disadvantageous either to individuals or to the community. Social and public life can only be maintained by means of various kinds of capacity for business and the playing of many parts; and each man, as a rule, chooses the part which suits his own peculiar domestic condition.”

The fact that we’re unequal is a benefit, “for to carry on its affairs, community life requires varied aptitudes and diverse services. And to perform these diverse services, men are impelled most by differences in individual property holdings.” This becomes his defense of the crucial role of the ownership of private property for incarnate beings like ourselves. If we were angels, we wouldn’t need property. But if a human being is going to be free, he has to own his own stuff; he has to have a place to which he can repair that somebody can’t take away from him.

Thus, Leo XIII did not mean by “social justice” equality. On the contrary, Leo held that it’s good that there’s an unequal society. Some people are fitted for different kinds of work, and it’s wonderful to be able to find the work that fits your talents. This had been an argument that the founders of the United States used to justify a commercial system: that it provided more opportunities for a wider range of skills than farming life did, so it allowed a much larger range of talents to mature and to develop as people found different niches for themselves.

Equality is against nature and against the whole range of human gifts. Human gifts make us necessarily unequal in some sense.

Naturally, God is not impressed by the talents of any human being. No matter how great anybody’s talents are, they don’t come anywhere close to God, who created all beauty and all power and all energy and all ability. In that sense, in the eyes of God, we’re all equal. Relative to God, the differences between us aren’t important in the way God sees us. But in terms of looking at each of us realistically in our social roles, we are very different, and that’s what makes society work. Not everybody has to be slotted to be a cog in a machine.

If the state has all the responsibilities, it gains all the power, and how do you stop that? In Rerum Novarum, Leo XIII predicted nine different things that would happen under socialism, and they all did if you looked at it after 1989, after the fall of the Wall. Everything he predicted came true, from the drive for equality resulting in the forced uniformity, the killing of creativity and originality, and the breakdown of the whole system. There was practically no invention of new wealth or new products for the world market . If the Soviets wanted a new technology or a new tool, they had to steal it, and they became very good at that. But they were always a generation or two behind.

The Popes, had described social justice as a virtue. Now, a virtue is a habit, a set of skills. Imagine a simple set of skills, such as driving a car. The social habit of association and cooperation for attending to public needs is an important, newly learned habit widely practiced, especially in America. Social justice is learning how to form small bands of brothers who are outside the family who, for certain purposes, volunteer to give time and effort to accomplishing something. If there are a lot of kids who aren’t learning how to read, you volunteer for tutoring.

Tocqueville said the most fascinating and insightful thing about America: namely, that wherever in France people turned to l’Etat, and wherever in Britain people turned to the aristocracy, in America people got together and formed associations. They hold bake sales to send missionaries to the Antipodes, to build colleges. They invent a hundred devices to raise money among themselves. That’s what a free people do. That’s what a democracy is.

The first law of democracy, Tocqueville wrote, is the law of association. If you want to free people, for them not to be swallowed up by the state, you have to develop in them the virtue of cooperation and association. It’s not an easy virtue to learn at first, but it soon becomes a vast social phenomenon.

It’s not at all uncommon for 30 college students to show up for a presidential campaign in, say, New Hampshire and organize the whole state for their candidate. They’ve never done that before, but they know how to use a Rolodex, and they can very soon organize an entire state. It’s a skill they learned. It’s one of the great skills of Americans.

These days, social justice means forced compassion through taxation of others in the name of justice. It means equality where equality was never meant to exist. Common good means the rights of individuals are trampled for the benefit of others. It means distribution or redistribution of the fruits of labor of others when that was never intended and certainly not why the founding fathers came here to create this country. Quite the opposite. The Germans, the Soviets, and the Italians all attempted what liberals attempt now through Marxism, Socialism and Fascism ideas, legislation and regulations. It failed then, and it will fail now.

Social justice to a liberal now means “whats in it for me” whether they admit it or not. I’ve never seen a liberal or progressive say to a salary increase or promotion for example – “no thanks, give it to that lower person that works over there.” They have great compassion with other people’s wealth, but not with their own. Hypocrites all.

Sounds like this STN person may be just unhappy in life. Making broad unsupported claims and personally denigrating people who can factually argue a point or compose a large and growing segment of the population is a clear sign of what you indicate. Sounds like the someone doing the “Egyptian”.

I think that Glenn Beck fellow actually wrote a book about it – Arguing with Idiots or something like that.

Armed with facts, more and more Americans are learning about and rejecting what these hypocrite socialists advocate – which turns out to be nothing more than a simple money and power agenda. That may be why all the crooked deals on so called “healthcare” were done behind closed doors after Obama promised to broadcast the entire process on C-Span.

Happy New Year.
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He spews a lot of BS about “personal responsibility” and “everyone just pay for everything on their own” and “it’s all the fault of those OTHER people—the lazy ones” and accepts absolutely no responsibility as an American citizen. Somehow, being a member of our country isn’t seen as anything good in the twisted view of “Jim”; it’s only seen as something “costing me money”.

“Jim” doesn’t seem to understand the responsibilities of citizenship. Like a small child who can only understand “MINE” and “MY STUFF” and “MY MONEY”, he apparently has no sense of the shared responsibilities of American citizenship. He also appears to be out of touch with the common-sense recognition that only together, sharing the costs and responsibilities, can each of us have a better life.

No matter how wealthy you are as an individual, you’ll never have the money to protect our planet; you’ll never have the money to build a network of roads, bridges and tunnels; you’ll never have the money to educate all of our children for a more productive society. And so forth.

There are some people who look at a human being and say, “That’s just a collection of individual cells that happen to be near each other.” There are others that see each individual cell as an important life in itself, but also, in combination, forming one entity that allow all of them to survive.

Only through an intelligent balance of public and private wealth can each of us have an opportunity for a good life. Anyone who thinks all wealth should be public is an idiot. Anyone who thinks all wealth should be private is an idiot. We need both, not just one.

There is no private company that can deliver a letter, anywhere in the country, for 43 cents. None. If there were, they’d undercut the Postal Service. They can’t do it. If I’m wrong, go start a private company that can. I’ll be the first to patronize them.

If a private company can run trains better than AMTRAK, why haven’t they? Maybe they can’t? You see, many vital public needs can’t be met by the “We Must Make A Profit” mentality. Among these, education, police, military, fire fighting, roads, bridges, postal service, trains and much, much more.

And, the private, for-profit insurance companies have proven they can’t deliver health care to all citizens at a reasonable cost. Why? Because they see health care as just another “investment opportunity” as opposed to helping people with a vital need.

In time—and it make take decades—private, for-profit “health insurance” companies will not exist. They only hang on now because they and their lobbyists have bought off enough congressmen and senators with legal bribes (a.k.a. “campaign contributions”) so that they can keep the Gravy Train running at the expense of we citizens and all other businesses.

I run a small business. I consider the “health insurance” companies my worst enemy. They only care about maximizing profits, which means screwing us.

Tort Reform? What a joke. Medical lawsuits are responsible for 1 to 3 percent of the costs of health care. This is just an industry talking point—propaganda paid for by the insurance companies to try to confuse the public and shift focus from the real issue—lousy or no care, at very high prices, dictated by the insurance company monopoly.

If you want to hand over your money to the big insurance companies—who will definitely deny what you need AND stick you with an enormous bill when it’s over—be my guest. Get out of the way of we the majority who prefer a public option that is available to all citizens on a voluntary basis.

Finally, the idea that Obama is a “liberal” is so dumb. Only a right-wing ideologue would believe that. Obama has been exceedingly moderate/corporate centrist in his policies. Only someone who watches Fox “News” would believe otherwise. Please, don’t undercut your own credibility with such claptrap.

The present system has many flaws but what is currently proposed is far worse. They didn’t even address tort reform? That’s because the trail lawyers are the single largest contributor to the Democratic party. Who is buying off who? Yes, let’s have health care reform but take it in incremental steps over the next decade that are well thought out, including how it will be paid.

Also, you’re pretty good at name-calling. But didn’t someone tell you, early on, that it doesn’t advance your argument when you do that?

And, for someone who claims to be diligent and disciplined, I suggest you learn some English grammar. Using phrases like “Our generation had pride, and we wanted to earn what we got…” and using “American’s” when “Americans” would be correct tends to undercut your credibility.

Are you certain you aren’t an “illegal alien”, who is having clear difficulties with our language?