An aside: Before getting to today's subject, I ask you to take a look at the previous post. Tax revenues as a percentage of GDP in the U.S. are about 2/3 the average of the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development average. That's before the tax scam the Republicans just passed. Total taxation in the U.S. is 26% of GDP (and it's already been declining steadily since 2000). It's about 34% in the other wealthy countries. Which, by the way, are healthier, happier and less unequal than the U.S.
Now, as for the moral low ground, one occupant thereof is the recently deceased Bernard Law, the former Archbishop of the Diocese of Boston. He spent his career spouting off sanctimoniously about his version of sexual morality, which as it turns out did not include abstaining from raping children. The Boston Globe discovered that he had a regular policy of covering up for pedophile priests by moving them around from parish to parish, keeping their behavior a secret from parents and law enforcement. This led to the world eventually learning that this was the practice of the Catholic Church worldwide.
The church was in fact in essence a vast conspiracy to provide pedophiles with victims and protection. Everything else was window dressing. They rewarded Law with a cushy sinecure in Rome, by the way. As of now more than 6% of U.S. priests have been accused of child abuse. The figure in Australia is 10%. So don't let your kids near the priests.
Law is going to get a big fancy funeral presided over by the pope.
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4 comments:
Bishop Law knew, and having that knowledge that crimes were being committed and NOT reporting it to the authorities is probably a criminal act. Why he wasn't prosecuted by the authorities after this was learned is a mystery to me.
As for the tax harangue, making comparisons to Europe is not helpful. We are not Europe and we are not a "democratic socialist" nation.
Law was not prosecuted because he fled to the Vatican, out of reach of prosecutors.
What is wrong with being a democratic socialist nation? The European countries have, as I say, healthier, happier people than we do. Less poverty, longer lives, less disease, less inequality. Why is that bad?
My statement was that Americans are not like Europeans and I think that's true. Our culture is different. Our country was born through revolution against a big, intrusive and oppressive centralized government. That's why this country was constituted around federalism of the states.
If, in the future, voters decide they want cradle-to-grave care from the central government in exchange for less liberty and more collectivism, they can vote to make that change.
But for now, it appears that idea has become a tough sell for the Democratic Socialists.
GBB writes:
"Our country was born through revolution against a big, intrusive and oppressive centralized government."
Let's hope our history now repeats itself!
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