{"id":3440,"date":"2019-12-22T11:27:12","date_gmt":"2019-12-22T11:27:12","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/maverickphilosopher.blog\/index.php\/2019\/12\/22\/subsidiarity-as-bulwark-against-the-lefts-assault-on-civil-society\/"},"modified":"2019-12-22T11:27:12","modified_gmt":"2019-12-22T11:27:12","slug":"subsidiarity-as-bulwark-against-the-lefts-assault-on-civil-society","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/maverickphilosopher.blog\/index.php\/2019\/12\/22\/subsidiarity-as-bulwark-against-the-lefts-assault-on-civil-society\/","title":{"rendered":"Subsidiarity as Bulwark against the Left’s Assault on Civil Society"},"content":{"rendered":"

David A. Bosnich, The Principle of Subsidiarity<\/a>:<\/span><\/p>\n

\n

One of the key principles of Catholic social thought is known as the principle of subsidiarity. This tenet holds that nothing should be done by a larger and more complex organization which can be done as well by a smaller and simpler organization. In other words, any activity which can be performed by a more decentralized entity should be. This principle is a bulwark of limited government and personal freedom. It conflicts with the passion for centralization and bureaucracy characteristic of the Welfare State.<\/span><\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

The principle of subsidiarity strikes a reasonable balance between statism and collectivism as represented by the manifest left-ward drift of Democrat administrations such as President Obama's, on the one hand,  and the libertarianism of those who would take privatization to an extreme, on the other.  The Left is totalitarian by its very nature, and as the Democrat party drifts ever left-ward, it becomes ever more totalitarian and socialist and ever more a threat to individual liberty and the private property that is its foundation.  <\/span><\/p>\n

Subsidiarity also fits well with federalism<\/a>, a return to which is a prime desideratum and one more reason not<\/em> to vote for Democrat candidates.  'Federalism' is another one of those words that does not wear its meaning on its sleeve, and is likely to mislead.  Federalism is not the view that all powers should be vested in the Federal or central government; it is the principle enshrined in the 10th Amendment to the U. S. Constitution: "The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the States, are reserved to the States respectively, or to the people."<\/span><\/p>\n

Whether or not you are Catholic, if you accept the principle of subsidiarity, then you have yet another reason to oppose the Left.  The argument is this:<\/span><\/p>\n

\n

1) The Left encroaches upon civil society, weakening it and limiting it, and correspondingly expanding the power and the reach of the state.  (For example, the closure of Catholic Charities in Illinois<\/a> because of an Obama administration adoption rule.)<\/span><\/p>\n

2) Subsidiarity helps maintain civil society as a buffer zone and intermediate sector between the purely private (the individual and the familial) and the state.<\/span><\/p>\n

Therefore<\/span><\/p>\n

3) If you value the autonomy and robustness of civil society, then you ought to oppose Obama and the Left.<\/span><\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

The truth of the second premise is self-evident.  If you wonder whether the Left does in fact encroach upon civil society, then see my post Obama's Assault on the Institutions of Civil Society<\/a>.<\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

David A. Bosnich, The Principle of Subsidiarity: One of the key principles of Catholic social thought is known as the principle of subsidiarity. This tenet holds that nothing should be done by a larger and more complex organization which can be done as well by a smaller and simpler organization. In other words, any activity … Continue reading “Subsidiarity as Bulwark against the Left’s Assault on Civil Society”<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[62,163,123,56,48],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-3440","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-catholic-corner","category-leftism-and-political-correctness","category-political-morality","category-politics","category-social-and-political-philosophy"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/maverickphilosopher.blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3440","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/maverickphilosopher.blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/maverickphilosopher.blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/maverickphilosopher.blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/maverickphilosopher.blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3440"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/maverickphilosopher.blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3440\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/maverickphilosopher.blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3440"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/maverickphilosopher.blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3440"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/maverickphilosopher.blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3440"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}