Moral Choices Faced by the Electorate

Tomorrow we will get to choose who will oversee the continued social, moral and cultural decline of Ireland during the next few years.

That the decline might be stopped is unlikely – at least if stopping it is dependent on anything that we are being promised.

What are on offer are some goodies in return for quietly acquiescing to the long dark night of decay. A tax concession here or there, shorter hospital queues, better infrastructure… none of it will stop the rot that is eating away at the moral and social fabric of this country.

Even if TDs could deliver on their lavish promises, they amount to no more than short term material benefits, and come at the high price of longer term cultural decline.

No candidate knows what the future holds economically. Those who claim they do are not being honest.

Who knows, for example, if introducing a new tax will raise the desired revenue? It could just as easily lead to social unrest, new tax avoidance schemes or other unforeseen consequences that would nullify any projected benefits.

In the end, not only abortion, definition of marriage and the like are moral issues. Pretty much everything in politics, as in other areas of life, involves a choice between what is morally right and what is morally wrong.

Even economic policies boil down to moral choices. We generally don’t know whether they will work or not. So the question is, or at least should be: are they morally right or wrong?

Of course there are certain policies that lead to foreseeable consequences – spending money we don’t have and that we can’t repay will only lead to bankruptcy.

And that is a moral choice too. To borrow what we know we can’t repay is stealing. Dumping the repayments onto future generations is stealing from those future generations – generations that might never be.

Property tax provides a good example of the moral choices involved in tax issues.

It was estimated that it would raise a certain amount of revenue for the exchequer. And maybe it did.

But it is impossible to isolate its impact in order to calculate the knock-on effect in various other areas of the economy, such as VAT revenue, property values and Stamp Duty. There are too many factors involved to make this calculation accurately.

What we do know is that it is an immoral tax. A home is the fruit of a person’s labour, paid for with after-tax income. So for starters property tax is double-taxation.

Property tax is effectively an income tax, and an unjust one at that. We can’t give 0.18% of our home to the Revenue Commissioners. Instead we have to give the monetary equivalent which, if we are fortunate, comes from our income. But the €315 tax that the average home owner pays is a much larger percentage of the wages of someone on low income than of the wages of high earners.

Furthermore, it is confiscatory. Imagine the outcry if the government decided to take 0.18% of all money in the bank – not just on interest, but on capital as well. It would clearly be seen as theft. Isn’t property tax the same?

So the choice is a moral one rather than an economic one.

Our almost obsequious compliance with the EU’s every directive is something that is decided by our political elite. And a morally baneful decision it is, too. Do we benefit from it? Financially: some do; some don’t. Morally and culturally the whole country suffers.

As it is for politicians, so it is for us, the electorate. Our decision in the polling booth is based on a moral choice.

We can vote for someone who pretends to know how to extricate Ireland from the looming world economic downturn, and who will continue the disastrous social policies of the current government. Or we can choose to vote for someone who sees politics from the perspective of morality.

Candidates with a moral conscience, in so far as they are available, are our best bet for the future.

Elections, Politics and a Vision for the Future of Ireland

Great leaders are characterised by this trait: they have a vision of how the world could be. Through this vision people are inspired to follow them, and through it their followers get a glimpse into the future.

A real leader knows the aspirations of his people – often more clearly than the people themselves know them. He knows how to express them in words that all can understand. He shares their hopes and fears, their joys and sorrows.

True statesmen never lack this quality.

Sadly such statesmanship is absent from Irish politics. Promises there are aplenty. But no vision!

To be fair to Irish politicians, this problem is not exclusively our own. It is universal.

In fact, it is an inherent weakness in democracy that the horizons within the political system rarely stretch beyond the next election. And nobody seems to know how to change this.

But why are statesmanship and vision lacking?

Do our political parties consider vision and idealism to be extravagant and useless indulgences?

Are they afraid of being labelled visionaries, as if that were synonymous with delusional star gazers?

Or are they just incapable of elaborating an ideal?

St. Paul was a man
with a vision - to convert
the gentiles to Christ.

Couldn’t they strive, for example, for a society in which people have the time and freedom to develop their natural God-given talents; a society in which, to the maximum degree compatible with public order and the common good, individuals, families, communities and regions would enjoy autonomy to look after their own affairs?

Couldn’t they envision the role of government as one of facilitating the life, growth and aspirations of the people, in accordance with the principle of subsidiarity?

In so far as our politicians appear to have any vision, it is the opposite of the above and could be expressed thus: “We cannot trust these ignorant and dishonest people to be responsible for themselves or their neighbours. That is why they need smart people like us to create a society in which every little thing they do is regulated and controlled.”

At least they are smart enough not to put it like this in the approach to an election. Instead they hide such a vision under mountains of statistics, percentages and figures, as if the only function of government was to run the economy. But the underlying vision is still implicit in their thinking.

Either way the vision would have legislative consequences. In the first case it would be to limit the involvement of government in the lives of people to what is strictly necessary. In the second case it would be to continue to multiply laws, regulations and controls until the people are asphyxiated by the burden.

But maybe our political elite really does believe in the Marxist idea that a country is nothing more than an economy, and that each human being is no more than a cog in this great machine – thus the focus on numbers, percentages and rates.

This idea certainly doesn’t appeal to the majority of citizens. We think of ourselves as more than mere cogs with a utility function – even if our government doesn’t.

The vision, if any, that emerges from election propaganda, it is a consequence of economic policies, and not a driver of them.

That some want to get rid of USC or reduce waiting times in hospitals is great, and might even provide us with some slight hint of their ideals. But wouldn’t it be simpler to tell us what, in their minds, the future holds? From that we could deduce all their policies. They wouldn’t even need a manifesto.

Policies should follow vision; not the other way around.

The world we aspire to live in should guide our actions and our policies. What is the use of economic or social policies if we don’t know to what end they will lead us?

As man is more than a mere blob of flesh, any vision that guides his life needs to encompass more than the economy; more than just material things.

One thing that makes it so difficult for politicians to develop a vision that goes beyond the material is that their mindset is so materialist. The world they live in is too.

A vision should cover all aspects of life – the intangible ones, the imponderables, and the spiritual, as well as the material. Politicians are not accustomed to think on this level, and so they generally lack 

any real vision for the future.

The human soul needs more than monetary benefits. It needs hope. It needs sociability. It needs freedom. It needs to be able to raise itself up above the banal things of this earth.

These are messy concepts for government to have to deal with, at least compared to tax rates, public expenditures and hospital queues, all of which are quantifiable in numbers and times.

In his poem, The Fool, Padraic Pearse after referring to “a dream that was dreamed in the heart, and that only the heart could hold” goes on to ask: “What if the dream come true? And if millions unborn shall dwell in the house that I shaped in my heart, the noble house of my thought?”

We shall never get to live in the noble house of the thought of the current political leadership of Ireland – because there isn’t one!

Gang Warfare – Symptom of a Deep Malaise in Irish Society

The brazen assassinations that took place in Dublin recently have shocked the country. An honest look at the root cause of the escalation of crime to this level might leave us even more shocked.

The situation in which we find ourselves is the fruit of a profound moral crisis.

And it doesn’t just touch the criminals. That robbery, murder and drug pushing are immoral is obvious. The whole of society is affected by this crisis.

Even among the majority who don’t steal and murder, the attitude towards sin and crime has softened over the years. This is a direct consequence of the loss of the sense of good and evil; right and wrong.

How did our society morph from one that had a strong sense of justice less than fifty years ago, to one in which the notions of good and evil, truth and error, right and wrong have been marginalised if not completely abandoned?

In the days of the legendary Garda Jim Brannigan (and no doubt, others like him) no one objected to his rough justice. And although we mightn’t want a return to his ways, few would deny that the streets of Dublin were a lot safer then than they are now – except for criminals.

Many factors have influenced this transformation.

Before political correctness became a popular term, liberal media and left wing politicians pushed hard for a more understanding approach towards criminals. Old fashioned ideas like punishment of crime were gradually replaced with so-called situational ethics.

Mitigating circumstances suggested leniency for lesser crimes. “The poor fellow! His father was a drunkard and used to beat him up… He lived in an area of high unemployment…” Etc.

But if mitigating circumstances excuse small theft, why not more serious crimes? Why not excuse burglary, mugging and more violent crimes in the same way? Where does it end?

Certainly not with murder, nor even terrorism! There is usually some apologist for the poor murderer, sympathising with his awful upbringing. Or for the jihadi who blows someone up, we have to take into account the terrible conditions and oppression that he suffered as a child.

And what about the victims? Is there no sympathy for them?

The softening of public opinion and the court system towards ever more serious crimes naturally encourages criminals to advance through the same stages to more and more serious crimes.

Of course not every shoplifter will get involved in organised crime or become a murderer. But there is little in the system, other than what is left of his own conscience, to stop him from going down that path.

Meanwhile, at the other end of the spectrum between sympathy and punishment, justice is getting squeezed out.

Murder is no longer a capital offence – not even the murder of a Garda. If the punishment for murder is diminished, then punishment for lesser crimes will inevitably also diminish. Eventually the whole concept of punishment for crime will wither away.

Even in the Church, once the guide of society in matters of good and evil, the hierarchy has failed to insist on the existence of the moral law and our obligation to obey it.

In part this failure is due to a loss of credibility as a consequence of scandals in the Church. But it is also due to a crisis of doctrine instigated by a large and progressive element within the hierarchy. It runs parallel to the crisis in society, and worse, it bears some responsibility for our social ills.

Instead of teaching right and wrong, a large proportion of the hierarchy prefers the famous formulation of Pope Francis: “Who am I to judge?”

For sure one robber can’t judge another robber to be bad. But he should judge robbery to be bad, and then take the appropriate steps to amend his life.

We cannot judge the state of another person’s soul. But we can and must judge actions. Otherwise how are we to decide what we should or shouldn’t do?

There is so much confusion around this distinction between judging people and judging actions that in last year’s debate on same-sex “marriage” many Catholics felt they should vote Yes as it would be judgemental and even hypocritical not to do so. And they got little proper guidance on the matter from the hierarchy.

Likewise Catholic politicians voted for abortion – the most extreme of violence inflicted on the most defenceless of victims – and once again without much opposition from the hierarchy.

All in the name of a more tolerant society!

A more appropriate question than “Who am I to judge?” – at least in the face of crime – would be: “Who am I to tolerate?”

Who are we to tolerate muggings, shoplifting, burglaries and other crimes, especially if we are not the victims?

It would be easy for us to forgive and forget if an elderly lady gets mugged and is left scarred for life, both emotionally and physically. But we don’t have a right to forgive it, unless we are the victim. We don’t have a right to tolerate it.

Who is a judge to dole out leniency instead of punishment for crime? It wasn’t him that was robbed or shot or left living in fear. Who is he to tolerate crime?

But alas, even the judiciary seem to have caught the “Who am I to judge?” fever, at least if the leniency with which criminals are so often treated is anything to go by. A judge is called a judge for a reason. His job is to judge. He is paid – highly paid – to judge.

What then is the solution?

One suggestion is to have more Gardaí, more armed Gardaí, or new armed units. Maybe. But most crimes happen in the absence of Gardaí. Civilians, not on-duty Gardaí, are normally the victims of crime.

Besides (and by way of exception to the above assertion) Dublin’s streets never had more armed Gardaí than in the wake of the Regency Hotel shootings, but that didn’t prevent the murder of Eddie Hutch. Armed Gardaí may indeed have a role to play. But it is a limited one, and is not without its own dangers.

It would certainly be an undesirable fruit of crime prevention if An Garda Síochána were to transmute, even partially, into a military force. Ultimately that could be a greater danger to society than the criminals themselves, as it would further wear away the delicate balance of powers that is necessary in a free society.

A Garda can no longer punch a criminal, like in the days of Jim Brannigan, but soon he will be able to rip you to shreds with his high powered machine gun if he considers you a threat.

Others tell us that it is more education that will solve the problem and end the crime spree. Once again, maybe it will help. But there are indications that education alone won’t put an end to crime.

For example, a news story from yesterday reported that the Gardaí found €8,400 worth of ecstasy powder in a car on route to supply students enjoying Rag Week in UCG. And that was just one car. And the drugs were destined for people who have already had a primary and secondary education.

Enough education, policing and armed policing to break the exchequer forever wouldn’t suffice to stop organised crime.

The only solution is a return to a moral order, to a society that has a strong sense of right and wrong – sufficiently strong to punish crime at its incipient stages, before it gets completely out of hand.

“The Labour Party is the moral backbone of the government”

The above title is not so much a joke as a quote from a Labour Party conference speech by Anne Ferris, TD – at least according to an Irish Times article mostly about how Ms Ferris could wallpaper a room with her hate mail. On second thoughts, maybe it is a joke.

By the way, most people who campaign on controversial issues could wallpaper their houses with the hate mail and vicious comments they receive. On some issues feelings run strong, and the debate tends to get heated. We just have to try not to be so thin skinned about it.

But back to the issue at hand, neither of the words “moral” nor “backbone” fit well with the Labour Party.

If the concept of morality still has any meaning, then presenting Labour as a model of it is beyond satire.

Not only did the Labour Party support all the socially harmful and morally objectionable legislative proposals of the coalition government, but in many cases it was the source of them.

Labour policies are still rooted in socialism – an ideology that has been condemned by the Church because, among other reasons, it explicitly rejects the idea of an objective moral order.

The party’s policy on Catholic patronage of schools is an example of this. The Church teaches that there is an objective moral law; that we are obliged to obey it; and that there are negative consequences for ignoring it. And Labour tries to prevent, to the maximum extent possible, that moral law from being taught to school children.

If the crime rates are high today, imagine what they will be like after another generation reared on the socialist idea of morality.

Socialism itself is morally bankrupt. It is a statist ideology, favouring state control in all areas of life, and undermining individual moral responsibility.

So it was natural for the Labour Party to support the so called Children’s Rights referendum, through which the state extended its reach into the private life of the family.

Was it moral for the government to steal €1.1 million of public monies to advocate for one side in that referendum? At least one Labour party minister was peeved that the Supreme Court found against the misuse of these public funds.

Does anyone really consider legalisation of abortion to be the moral solution to crisis pregnancy? Pragmatic maybe, but moral – definitely not! Redefining marriage – and at the same time redefining equality – is another example of Labour Party moral philosophy at work.

And here are some more: taxing the homes of people struggling to pay a mortgage and make ends meet; bailing out wealthy but imprudent investors and making future generations pay the price;
spending vast amounts of money they don’t own in order to build their socialist dream;... the list could go on.

So much for morality and the Labour Party... what about backbone?

The term backbone is usually attributed to people or parties for displaying courage. What courage did it take for Labour to promote its leftist and immoral ideology? Did they have to face condemnation and harassment from international bodies? Did they have to face tremendous opposition from the media?

Perhaps it would have been more accurate for Ms Ferris to have stated: “The Labour Party is the ideological driving force behind this spineless coalition government.”