Prenatal Debt Slavery – Get on it Vatican!

In today’s world we still have one seemingly possible way of becoming a slave. Eliminating the current situation of tax serfdom has to be our priority, of course, but it is no reason for neglecting other terrible side-effects of state action. One such effect is debt slavery. And the debt slavery which results directly from state action is the enslavement of the young and the unborn – people who are not allowed to make decisions for themselves. If I decide to make myself a debt slave, so be it. I may deserve it. But forcing someone else to become such a slave is another thing entirely. The state borrows money and uses its future income (in the form of IOU’s) as collateral. This means that responsibility for money spent today is deferred onto people who will have to pay it off in the future. Children being born with into debt are essentially forced to pay for the folly of their ancestors. In private relations such a scheme would be unacceptable. I cannot buy a car by giving the car dealer a piece of paper which says that in twenty years my son will pay for it. Not only does it sound ridiculous, it is also deeply immoral. Some people have told me that I am not correct and that the current situation is more akin to when a parent dies and leaves his child a house with a mortgage on it. But this is not right either. Firstly, when a parent buys a house I don’t think he/she expects that the child will have to pay for it. It is more of an accident that the parent died before he was able to pay the whole thing off. Furthermore, an inheritor of a property with a mortgage can choose to not pay it and forfeit the property to the lender. Our children will not be able to do that with the state (at least not legally). And lastly, what we are leaving our children here is analogous to me leaving a useless wooden shack with no plumbing to my children only for them to find out that there is a million dollar mortgage on it – an amount that is multiple times the value of the shack. No reasonable human being would be expected to take such a deal; forfeiting the property would be a much better idea. The children are not obliged to pay off my debts because they did not voluntarily accept responsibility for them. This is all very clear.
There is also another moral argument to be made here, and another opportunity presents itself for me to lobby the Catholic Church, of which I am now a former member but still a great fan. So, if Catholics are so against abortion, which they claim to be, why don’t they oppose taking away other rights of the unborn? The right to life is important, but the right to life is not really anything other than the right to upkeep our bodily functions and our body is also part of our property. After all, what use is the right to life if the life we live is that of slavish servitude and dependence? The right of private property is an important part of the Catholic tradition. Therefore I think the Pope should condemn all public debts as stealing from the unborn, an action equivalent to abortion.

In the words of Thomas Jefferson, "the earth belongs to each of these generations during its course, fully and in its own right. The second generation receives it clear of the debts and incumbrances of the first, the third of the second, and so on. For if the first could charge it with a debt, then the earth would belong to the dead and not to the living generation. Then, no generation can contract debts greater than may be paid during the course of its own existence."

The Catholic Church is Weak and Corrupt

I see more and more people within the libertarian community expressing the view that religion is dangerous and that churches are instruments of evil. While this is to some extent correct, I would like to calm everyone down. Until relatively recently I considered myself a member of the Catholic Church. I also notice that it is the Catholic Church which gets attacked most often by libertarians (despite the fact the Catholic Church is actually the most libertarian of all churches). And the reason I left the Church was not that it was forcing people into anything or doing unlibertarian things. In fact, my reason was precisely the opposite. The Catholic Church hierarchy is not doing what it should be doing. It is not condemning evil people for doing evil things and it is not expressing or enforcing its views. Being a libertarian I am a strong believer in the power of ostracism, and I think we should all exercise that power. The Church should, in my opinion, be more consistent. It's positions on many issues are jumbled and incoherent. Furthermore, Church members (especially the clergy) are not doing what I think they should be doing - pointing our evil. We have lots of Catholics who seem to agree with some Church doctrines and completely ignore others. I personally know Catholics in the United States who vote for pro-choice political candidates or socialists of all kinds. These people are not not good Catholics and they should be condemned for what they are doing. But the Church refuses to do so. Today's Catholic intellectuals represent a pathetic mockery of their Scholastic predecessors.
I do not know if this situation is the result of the times - maybe religion as a whole is becoming outdated and is in its death throes? Nobody looks as majestic on their death bed as they did in the days of their youth (with the possible exception of King Elessar). Or maybe the reason is the same as the one in government - too many cushy beaurocratic jobs and the double-standard in judging behaviour. Either way, the Church needs urgent reform which I doubt will take place. Religion, just like the political sphere of life, has to be dismantled down to the personal and private level, where individuals will have control.

The Catholic Church and Politics

In recent times the Catholic Church has made a manifest effort to get as far away from politics as possible. The last few Popes have publicly stated that the Church advocates no political positions and have condemned priests or bishops who engage in any sort of political lobbying. In Poland priests or other Church officials who endorse politicians are severely criticized and treated as if they are people who do something wrong. But to me, this seems pretty shallow. The separation of Church and State does not imply that people involved in the Church cannot have any say in the State, nor does it mean that people who work for the State can't be members of the Church. Back in Communist days, this was indeed the case. If someone went to Church or declared themselves a Catholic, there was no way he (or she) would ever be allowed to work for the State. The separation of Church and State simply means that Church officials have no political administrative power and are not State officials (and vice versa - State officials are not Church officials). In England, for example, the Queen is both head of State and head of the Church of England. And nobody seems to have a problem with it, since the Queen no longer has any political power anyway...
But let's get back to the Catholic question: why can't the Church advise its followers (who are members of the Church) on how they should vote? For example, I think it is admirable when Church officials praise pro-life candidates and denounce pro-death candidates on the abortion question. I see nothing wrong with the Church endorsing such candidates ('pro-lifers')! In fact, I think it's very strange that the Church takes no position on political issues directly. I also think it is shameful for any Catholic to vote against the Church commandments. In the United States, for example, most Catholics vote for Democrats - why, I will never know...
I also don't know why the Church shouldn't be allowed to mandate its members to vote for someone or other. It's all purely voluntary! Labour unions regularly endorse candidates, and many labour unions are compulsory bodies. Now that is real vote extortion! Why do labour unions have more power and privilege than Churches do?
I recognize, of course, that even Catholicism itself is rather 'shaky' when someone tries to approach it systematically. For instance, St. Thomas Aquinas, who was probably the greatest Catholic theologian, believed that the soul only enters the foetus 6 weeks into the pregnancy for boys, and 8 weeks for girls. Clearly this would mean that abortion up to that time is allowed. There are also many other strains of Catholicism. I attend an Augustinian University and it is visibly very different traditionally from the Catholicism I was raised in as a child.

St. Thomas Aquinas was one of the greatest Catholic theologians and one of the most important philosophers in Western thought. He brought Aristotle back into the Western world. He recreated the logic of that great Greek - he dispelled the accursed Platonic mist which held down all Western philosophy. And it was he who said that "reason in man is rather like God in the world". That's right, REASON is our primary guide in this world. We have nothing else to support us, or back us.