Review: 'Red, White, Blue and Catholic' | National Catholic Reporter

Review: 'Red, White, Blue and Catholic' | National Catholic Reporter by MSW. MGB: The remarks on citizenship sound like an ad for the Knights of Columbus, which, while civic, is hardly neutral in its brand of citizenship.  Indeed, it is downright partisan.



His remarks on the free market are no shock and are as contradictory to Catholic doctrine, especially Caritas in Veritate, as one would expect.



I don't buy MSW's comments on the inconsistency of how either side deals with freedom.  The hierarchy-libertarian axis of cultural theory, which combines low-group/low-rules libertarians with high group/high rules hierarchists is classic Republicanism, just as high group/low rules egalitarians are classically Democratic.  Catholics fit in both spaces - with the clergy especially in the hierarchist space and Catholic Charities in the egalitarians with the Catholic Worker Movement.



Social Security let grandma have a place of her own, rather than forcing her to live with her children.  Divorce did not arise when that began, it was with us constantly before that - Catholics just did not notice because the clergy made is seem that divorce was forbidden.  AFDC and now TANF don't force out-of-wedlock children into orphanages or adoption.  That is probably a good thing too, since most don't stay poor forever.  His remarks on the low-wage labor market will give libertarians pause, as they should.  It sounds like he is in the fight for 15 camp.  If he is telling MSW things that MSW does not want to hear on the unlikelihood of any legal protection from the unborn that goes much beyond the status quo, then perhaps MSW should listen.



This book seems to justify a GOP without the harshness of Trump and his followers - or possibly a move of some of it to the Clinton wing of the Democratic Party, which would likely divide the Democrats into a Bernie and Hillary wing.  It has happened before and will likely happen again.  I don't see the Bernie wing picking up on his ideas or ideals - it will be much more muscularly socialist.