Forget The President, What About The Marijuana?

[Winchester]

[quote name='Apotheoun' timestamp='1352541983' post='2507655']
Yeah, moral busybodies like Pope John Paul II and Pope Benedict. I know you don't like hearing this, but the Church is not Libertarian on moral issues (e.g., on abortion, "gay marriage," decriminalization of drugs, etc.).
[/quote]
So what's the time in jail for masturbating in the shower?

[Anomaly]

Apo, Financial considerations are a factor to argue For abortion, gay marriage, and recreational drug. The second half is the defense personal freedoms vs cooperation as a community within social mores. It's extreme susidiaryism vs extreme communalism.

[Apotheoun]

[quote name='Aloysius' timestamp='1352557913' post='2507712']
And I am all in favor of it, and I am not a libertarian, nor an anarchist like many here are.[/quote]
I am happy to hear that, because both of those political theories are problematic.

[quote name='Aloysius' timestamp='1352557913' post='2507712']I'm not even a Capitalist, actually.[/quote]
Yes, I know that. If my memory serves me, you used to be a Distributist.

[quote name='Aloysius' timestamp='1352557913' post='2507712']Your reading of my posts has lacked subtlety at best.[/quote]
I have tried to take you at your word. Perhaps I have misread your posts, but you seem to be writing in a standard form of English, and so I doubt that to be the case.

[quote name='Aloysius' timestamp='1352557913' post='2507712']Nothing I have said is in any way condemned by the Church.[/quote]
Since the Church opposes decriminalization of drugs, and since you have not provided me with any magisterial or papal sources (or even patristic ones) that support your position, I stand by what I have said. I find your position untenable as a Catholic.

Edited November 10, 2012 by Apotheoun

[Anomaly]

[quote name='Winchester' timestamp='1352557974' post='2507713']

So what's the time in jail for masturbating in the shower?
[/quote]what is the jail time for masturbating in public or movie theater?

[Winchester]

[quote name='Apotheoun' timestamp='1352550057' post='2507665']
The Church - unlike the Libertarian Party - says that the State is duty bound to oppose any and all attempts to legitimize deviant behavior (e.g., "gay marriage"), and that any person who fails to do what he can to prevent laws or actions that approve of this disgusting immorality has failed to live as he should as a Catholic.
[/quote]

[quote][size="3"]Yet, with the discernment of a true mother, the Church weighs the great burden of human weakness, and well knows the course down which the minds and actions of men are in this our age being borne. For this reason, while not conceding any right to anything save what is true and honest, she does not forbid public authority to tolerate what is at variance with truth and justice, for the sake of avoiding some greater evil, or of obtaining or preserving some greater good. God Himself in His providence, though infinitely good and powerful, permits evil to exist in the world, partly that greater good may not be impeded, and partly that greater evil may not ensue. In the government of States it is not forbidden to imitate the Ruler of the world; and, as the authority of man is powerless to prevent every evil, it has (as St. Augustine says) to overlook and leave unpunished many things which are punished, and rightly, by Divine Providence.(10) But if, in such circumstances, for the sake of the common good (and this is the only legitimate reason), human law may or even should tolerate evil, it may not and should not approve or desire evil for its own sake; for evil of itself, being a privation of good, is opposed to the common welfare which every legislator is bound to desire and defend to the best of his ability. In this, human law must endeavor to imitate God, who, as St. Thomas teaches, in allowing evil to exist in the world, "neither wills evil to be done, nor wills it not to be done, but wills only to permit it to be done; and this is good."(11) This saying of the Angelic Doctor contains briefly the whole doctrine of the permission of evil.[/size][/quote]
That's from Libertas.

[Aloysius]

Leo XIII

Edited November 10, 2012 by Aloysius

[Aloysius]

[quote name='Winchester' timestamp='1352558213' post='2507720'][quote]
[url="http://www.phatmass.com/phorum/index.php?app=forums&module=forums&section=findpost&pid=2507665"][img]http://www.phatmass.com/phorum/public/style_images/phatmass/snapback.png[/img][/url]Apotheoun, on Today, 07:20 AM, said:

The Church - unlike the Libertarian Party - says that the State is duty bound to oppose any and all attempts to legitimize deviant behavior (e.g., "gay marriage"), and that any person who fails to do what he can to prevent laws or actions that approve of this disgusting immorality has failed to live as he should as a Catholic.[/quote]

[Quote]

[size=3]Yet, with the discernment of a true mother, the Church weighs the great burden of human weakness, and well knows the course down which the minds and actions of men are in this our age being borne. For this reason, while not conceding any right to anything save what is true and honest, she does not forbid public authority to tolerate what is at variance with truth and justice, for the sake of avoiding some greater evil, or of obtaining or preserving some greater good. God Himself in His providence, though infinitely good and powerful, permits evil to exist in the world, partly that greater good may not be impeded, and partly that greater evil may not ensue. In the government of States it is not forbidden to imitate the Ruler of the world; and, as the authority of man is powerless to prevent every evil, it has (as St. Augustine says) to overlook and leave unpunished many things which are punished, and rightly, by Divine Providence.(10) But if, in such circumstances, for the sake of the common good (and this is the only legitimate reason), human law may or even should tolerate evil, it may not and should not approve or desire evil for its own sake; for evil of itself, being a privation of good, is opposed to the common welfare which every legislator is bound to desire and defend to the best of his ability. In this, human law must endeavor to imitate God, who, as St. Thomas teaches, in allowing evil to exist in the world, "neither wills evil to be done, nor wills it not to be done, but wills only to permit it to be done; and this is good."(11) This saying of the Angelic Doctor contains briefly the whole doctrine of the permission of evil.[/quote][/size]
That's from Libertas.


That's from Libertas.
[/quote]

Leo XIII. FTW. Like a boss.

[Apotheoun]

[quote name='Winchester' timestamp='1352558213' post='2507720']
That's from Libertas.
[/quote]
It is interesting that you see [i]Libertas[/i] as supportive of Libertarian ideals, when it has always been held that it condemns both anarchism and libertinism.

By the way Pope Leo also said this rather non-Libertarian comment in the same document: "What has been said of the liberty of individuals is no less applicable to them when considered as bound together in civil society. For, what reason and the natural law do for individuals, that human law, promulgated for their good, does for the citizens of States. Of the laws enacted by men, some are concerned with what is good or bad by its very nature; and they command men to follow after what is right and to shun what is wrong, adding at the same time a suitable sanction. But such laws by no means derive their origin from civil society, because, just as civil society did not create human nature, so neither can it be said to be the author of the good which befits human nature, or of the evil which is contrary to it. Laws come before men live together in society, and have their origin in the natural, and consequently in the eternal, law. The precepts, therefore, of the natural law, contained bodily in the laws of men, have not merely the force of human law, but they possess that higher and more august sanction which belongs to the law of nature and the eternal law. And within the sphere of this kind of laws the duty of the civil legislator is, mainly, to keep the community in obedience by the adoption of a common discipline and by putting restraint upon refractory and viciously inclined men, so that, deterred from evil, they may turn to what is good, or at any rate may avoid causing trouble and disturbance to the State."

After all, the popes have always asserted that the State has coercive power, and is duty bound to use it in defense of the common good.

Edited November 10, 2012 by Apotheoun

[Winchester]

[quote name='Apotheoun' timestamp='1352558677' post='2507725']
It is interesting that you see [i]Libertas[/i] as supportive of Libertarian ideals, when it has always been held that it condemns both anarchism and [s]libertinism[/s].

[s]By the way Pope Leo also said this rather non-Libertarian comment in the same document: "What has been said of the liberty of individuals is no less applicable to them when considered as bound together in civil society. For, what reason and the natural law do for individuals, that human law, promulgated for their good, does for the citizens of States. Of the laws enacted by men, some are concerned with what is good or bad by its very nature; and they command men to follow after what is right and to shun what is wrong, adding at the same time a suitable sanction. But such laws by no means derive their origin from civil society, because, just as civil society did not create human nature, so neither can it be said to be the author of the good which befits human nature, or of the evil which is contrary to it. Laws come before men live together in society, and have their origin in the natural, and consequently in the eternal, law. The precepts, therefore, of the natural law, contained bodily in the laws of men, have not merely the force of human law, but they possess that higher and more august sanction which belongs to the law of nature and the eternal law. And within the sphere of this kind of laws the duty of the civil legislator is, mainly, to keep the community in obedience by the adoption of a common discipline and by putting restraint upon refractory and viciously inclined men, so that, deterred from evil, they may turn to what is good, or at any rate may avoid causing trouble and disturbance to the State."

After all, the popes have always asserted that the State has coercive power, and is duty bound to use it in defense of the common good.[/s]
[/quote]
No. I see him as not supporting an all powerful state attempting to stamp out sin.

Libertines believe the actions are acceptable. I don't. Never have. Tired of your slanders.

Edited November 10, 2012 by Winchester

[Apotheoun]

Winchester, the Eastern Churches have a principle, called oikonomia, which is similar to the one you referenced in the text written by Pope Leo XIII, but that principle, when applied to a canon or law, does not vitiate the law in question, that is, it does not abolish it; instead, it simply lets the bishop (or another person in authority) give the person who is receiving the dispensation time to get his act together. It is not a permission to simply sin, or break a specific law in perpetuity, but is an allowance of time for reformation of character. Oikonomia is not permanent, and the person must change, and should he be obstinate the bishop (or whoever may be in authority) will withdraw the allowance and apply the sanction of the law in full.

Edited November 10, 2012 by Apotheoun

[Aloysius]

I like what Leo XIII has to say in both directions and think we have every standing to have a spirited debate about the pro's and con's of drug related laws and criminalization on their own merits, ie what is the best most effective way of dealing with drug problems and addiction problems, does it make sense to throw a bunch of money at it and kill a lot of people over it and break up a lot of families over it or should there be a more balanced approach especially on low level drugs like marijuana? but none of that has magisterial citations so it's no better than a pro-abortion argument, right?

[Apotheoun]

[quote name='Winchester' timestamp='1352558885' post='2507727']
No. I see him as not supporting an all powerful state attempting to stamp out sin.

Libertines believe the actions are acceptable. I don't. Never have. Tired of your slanders.
[/quote]
Well, you don't have to read my posts if you don't like them. And I am not saying that the State must stamp out every possible sin; instead, I am simply pointing out that the Church has officially rejected the idea that drugs should be decriminalized. I don't have a problem with the Church's position.

Edited November 10, 2012 by Apotheoun

[Apotheoun]

[quote name='Aloysius' timestamp='1352559322' post='2507731']
I like what Leo XIII has to say in both directions and think we have every standing to have a spirited debate about the pro's and con's of drug related laws and criminalization on their own merits, ie what is the best most effective way of dealing with drug problems and addiction problems, does it make sense to throw a bunch of money at it and kill a lot of people over it and break up a lot of families over it or should there be a more balanced approach especially on low level drugs like marijuana? but none of that has magisterial citations so it's no better than a pro-abortion argument, right?
[/quote]
Certainly you can have a debate on the issue of drug decriminalization, but the Church has already stated that its position is to oppose any and all attempts to decriminalize drug use and drug trafficking. Neverhteless, you are free to disagree with the Church on the matter, but personally I will stick with what the Church teaches.

Edited November 10, 2012 by Apotheoun

[Aloysius]

The Church doesn't teach that the war on drugs should be conducted the way it is being conducted. The Church has no more taught against drug legalization than it has taught that the state must administer healthcare, even though the popes have been in favor of such a position. You are blurring the lines of Church teaching when you act like disagreeing with the Pontifical Council on Healthcare is equivalent to disagreeing with the Church. I also disagree with the Pontifical Council on Justice and Peace, the level to which you are raising these endorsements of particular policies to what the Church teaches, and acting like disagreeing with those particular statements is the equivalent of disagreeing with the Church, paints a very dim picture of what the Church really is IMO.

[Apotheoun]

[quote name='Aloysius' timestamp='1352560101' post='2507737']
The Church doesn't teach that the war on drugs should be conducted the way it is being conducted. The Church has no more taught against drug legalization than it has taught that the state must administer healthcare, even though the popes have been in favor of such a position. You are blurring the lines of Church teaching when you act like disagreeing with the Pontifical Council on Healthcare is equivalent to disagreeing with the Church. I also disagree with the Pontifical Council on Justice and Peace, the level to which you are raising these endorsements of particular policies to what the Church teaches, and acting like disagreeing with those particular statements is the equivalent of disagreeing with the Church, paints a very dim picture of what the Church really is IMO.
[/quote]
Al, now all you need to do is supply the papal or curial documents that approve of drug decriminalization. So far you haven't done that.