Michael Savage attacks the pope for saying limits exist to free speech, ends up saying the same thing

Michael Alan Weiner

Michael Savage attacked the pope yesterday for two things: for stating that there are limits to freedom of speech, and for opining that human beings bear some responsibility for global warming.

Savage found the first idea an affront to the First Amendment of the US Bill of Rights ("Congress shall make no law abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press"), wondering how the pope never heard of it.

The pope in his capacity as the vicar of Christ on earth, however, wasn't telling Congress to abridge the freedom of speech of anyone. He was simply reminding Christians everywhere (and chiding the secularists of France and the United States especially--hello Hugh Hewitt) to restrain their own speech as a matter of spiritual principle, in obedience to the teaching of Jesus:

"Hear and understand: not what goes into the mouth defiles a man, but what comes out of the mouth, this defiles a man. ... [W]hat comes out of the mouth proceeds from the heart, and this defiles a man. For out of the heart come evil thoughts, murder, adultery, fornication, theft, false witness, slander. These are what defile a man; but to eat with unwashed hands does not defile a man."

-- Matthew 15:10f, 18ff.

The pope was reminding the world that there is a higher law than the laws of France or the laws of the United States when it comes to what we say. Every Jew should be able instantly to recognize this idea, since practicing Jews frequently restrain their own speech as a matter of principle. They will often write "G-d" instead of "God" for fear of taking God's name in vain as the commandment in the decalogue warns. More to the point, every Jew should already grasp the Jewish basis for the Christian idea of self-restrained speaking because it comes from the prophet Jeremiah who said that "the heart is evil above all things". And neither do Jews have any excuse to be surprised by the doctrine since it is well worked out by the rabbis in the doctrine of "the evil inclination" which must always be guarded against.

Michael Savage, however, is lately more interested in removing the guards, indeed in "unprotected talk", rather than in the circumspect speech implied by his well-known motto of borders, language, culture. Freedom of speech as understood absolutely by civil libertarians is at war with that, because it leads to open borders, many languages and multiculturalism. Savage should understand by now that such libertarianism is incompatible with conservatism, and that when it comes to mental disorders, liberalism does not have a corner on the market.

The coup de grace came yesterday when Savage turned to the global warming statement made by the pope. Savage said he objected to the pope addressing a matter that had nothing to do with religion because it was outside the pope's area of expertise, outside his scope, as Savage put it, which it certainly is.

But isn't that nice. The pope exercises his freedom of speech on a matter not expressly religious and Savage all of a sudden wants to limit it, obviously because he disagrees with it but also because the pope is not an expert. But the pope has every right to speak his nonsense in the United States, whether religious or otherwise. The point of criticism on this matter should be on the substance of what the pope says, not on his role as pope supposedly "pontificating" about it.

In this still Protestant country, the pope is viewed as nothing more than a man who is no different from us, whether he speaks about the teaching of Jesus or anything else. We can say that the pope is right about the limits to freedom of speech as he stated them, and that he is probably quite mistaken about the human role in global warming, because on both counts we can look into the matter and decide for ourselves from the evidence.

We read, mark, learn and inwardly digest, but unless we do, we risk appearing Christians or Jews or Americans in name only.

Pope Francis reminds everyone that freedom of speech is not absolute

Quoted here:

"If my good friend Dr. Gasparri says a curse word against my mother, he can expect a punch," Francis said, throwing a pretend punch his way. "It's normal. You cannot provoke. You cannot insult the faith of others. You cannot make fun of the faith of others."

"There are so many people who speak badly about religions or other religions, who make fun of them, who make a game out of the religions of others," he said. "They are provocateurs. And what happens to them is what would happen to Dr. Gasparri if he says a curse word against my mother. There is a limit."

Surviving "innocents" at Charlie Hebdo say they vomit on all their new supporters!

Liberalism believes in nothing!

Quoted here:

“We have a lot of new friends, like the pope, Queen Elizabeth and (Russian President Vladimir) Putin. It really makes me laugh,” Bernard Holtrop, whose pen name is Willem, told the Dutch centre-left daily Volkskrant in an interview published today.

France’s far-right National Front leader “Marine Le Pen is delighted when the Islamists start shooting all over the place,” said Willem, 73, a long-time Paris resident who also draws for the French leftist daily Liberation.

He added: “We vomit on all these people who suddenly say they are our friends.”

Sorry Mark Judge, the original punk rockers of Christendom were Lutherans

Why can't Mark Judge write a decent opener? He starts off, here, with this:

"With the takeover of liberalism and secularism in the West, Catholicism is now a subculture."

What he means is:

"With the takeover of the West by liberalism and secularism, Catholicism is now reduced to a subculture."

And it's too bad, too, because the rest of what he writes is worth reading . . . if only he could imagine a subculture. You know, like Lutherans. The original punk rockers of Christendom, who shouted like Joey Ramone 

I don't like sacraments

I don't like celibates

I don't like priests and nuns

I don't like what the pope has done

Well I'm against it

The truth is Catholics could never be punkers and never have been. Being a punker requires being an individual, and saying no to something, like disco and rap, and instead Catholics have been busy for centuries saying yes to everyone and everything, absorbing every culture and every cult under the aegis of their big tent. It's been the secret to their success.

To take only the latest example, they see illegals coming across the border and immediately want to welcome the stranger, give them a shower, a meal and a place to sleep. The protestants see this and want to kick their asses all the way back to Guatemala.

Catholics aren't really against anything, and never have been.

That's why if they get their way, America is finished.

I'm against it. 

El Diablo: Communists and Christians drink from the same well

"I can only say that the communists have stolen our flag. The flag of the poor is Christian. Poverty is at the center of the Gospel. Communists say that all this is communism. Sure, twenty centuries later. So when they speak, one can say to them: 'but then you are Christian'".

Pope Francis pontificates, calls for legitimate redistribution of economic benefits by the State

In front of the UN this morning, quoted at length and discussed here:

"[E]quitable economic and social progress can only be attained by joining scientific and technical abilities with an unfailing commitment to solidarity accompanied by a generous and disinterested spirit of gratuitousness at every level. A contribution to this equitable development will also be made both by international activity aimed at the integral human development of all the world’s peoples and by the legitimate redistribution of economic benefits by the State, as well as indispensable cooperation between the private sector and civil society."

Ed Morrissey tap dances all around this:

"It’s clear, though, that he wasn’t calling for widespread and massive confiscation of wealth by governments."

Yes he is, while calling for it at every level knowing that that's not going to happen, and hiding behind the word "legitimate", a qualification foreign to the language of Jesus on the subject. 

Well, you first. The pope, the Vatican and the people of the Roman Catholic faith should take the lead: Let the redistribution begin with them, with the enormous wealth of the church. When we see them impoverishing themselves for the sake of the poor perhaps we'll take this more seriously.

Until then, this is just more pontificating.

What part of "that ye have" don't they understand?

"Sell that ye have and give alms." -- Luke 12:33

Papal iniquity: Let him who is without money among you cast the first stone

So the pope has tweeted that inequality is the root of social evil.

The redefinition of terms is startling, as if there were a difference between social evil and individual evil. The classic formulation from 1 Timothy 6 says the love of money is the root of all evil, so what we have here is a pope who is at best unanchored. According to Jesus, you cannot serve both God and Mammon.

Speaking of which, since the cost of Christian discipleship according to Jesus is personal poverty, when the fabulously wealthy papacy and the rest of the world's Catholics become as poor as the poor there will be reason to pay attention, but until then the pontweetification will remain just that, and disappear into the ether.

Next stop, an appearance on The Tonight Show?

Rush Limbaugh's comments on the pope have been nothing if not lazy, so what's new?

Rush Limbaugh's comments on the pope have been nothing if not lazy, which most of his comments are in this late period of his career, and which is why one week after he made them on the pope we are still hearing about them in the media and on his own radio show. If Rush is being talked about, it's there on the show that you're sure to hear about it, because relevance was never so hard to keep up as it is in these days.

Here's Rush this very day in fact, claiming Reuters translated "unfettered capitalism" from the pope's remarks when Reuters hadn't done any such thing, one of the many little half-truths which are the stock in trade of The Rush Limbaugh Program; that phrase "unfettered capitalism" was never in quotation marks in the original Reuters story:

Now, what I had was a Reuters story that was reporting via the translation of the Holy Father's remarks, and in that translation were "unfettered capitalism," a huge, huge hit on what the pope was said to have called "trickle-down," and a plea for leaders of the world to do something about "income inequality" and about poverty and so forth, as though no one's been doing that.  I remember when I saw it, I was really shocked.  I could not believe...

Here's the original Reuters story speaking of unfettered capitalism but not in quotation marks:

Pope Francis called for renewal of the Roman Catholic Church and attacked unfettered capitalism as "a new tyranny," urging global leaders to fight poverty and growing inequality in the first major work he has authored alone as pontiff.

The fact is Reuters skewed this story in the direction of "unfettered capitalism" while the pope never used the words "unfettered" or "capitalism", choosing instead "the absolute autonomy of the marketplace and financial speculation" as the "new tyranny".

Here's as close as the pope comes to "unfettered capitalism" (this is easy to find online, but Rush cannot seem to), who only spoke of "unbridled consumerism" and never once mentioned unfettered capitalism, which comes as a surprise to Rush when callers protest as one did just today:

60. Today’s economic mechanisms promote inordinate consumption, yet it is evident that unbridled consumerism combined with inequality proves doubly damaging to the social fabric. Inequality eventually engenders a violence which recourse to arms cannot and never will be able to resolve. It serves only to offer false hopes to those clamouring for heightened security, even though nowadays we know that weapons and violence, rather than providing solutions, create new and more serious conflicts. Some simply content themselves with blaming the poor and the poorer countries themselves for their troubles; indulging in unwarranted generalizations, they claim that the solution is an “education” that would tranquilize them, making them tame and harmless. All this becomes even more exasperating for the marginalized in the light of the widespread and deeply rooted corruption found in many countries – in their governments, businesses and institutions – whatever the political ideology of their leaders.

The pope's message, after all is said and done, is really quite simple, as all ideologies are, the difference being that his is a heavenly one, not a terrestrial. He's obviously uncomfortable with American Catholics of the conservative persuasion who have been allying themselves with what is commonly called libertarian ideology, the devotees of which Russell Kirk famously named the "chirping sectarians" of the conservative movement, Rep. Paul Ryan being a prominent contemporary example thereof. For Kirk, it was their ideological habit of mind which marked them out as outsiders of the movement because they could not abide the persistent lack of conformity to principle which is endemic to fallen, human nature in need of salvation, and substituted for it a bastardized, immanentized eschaton of infinite freedom:

208. If anyone feels offended by my words, I would respond that I speak them with affection and with the best of intentions, quite apart from any personal interest or political ideology. My words are not those of a foe or an opponent. I am interested only in helping those who are in thrall to an individualistic, indifferent and self-centred mentality to be freed from those unworthy chains and to attain a way of living and thinking which is more humane, noble and fruitful, and which will bring dignity to their presence on this earth.

In the final analysis, conservatism represents an acquiescence to the sad predicament of human existence against which libertarianism never stops revolting, and Christianity represents a temporal and by definition incomplete response of God to life in that world. But for libertarianism, incomplete just isn't good enough.

Rush Limbaugh Thinks The Pope Is Totally Wrong, Biting The Hand That Makes The Church Rich

Here:

[T]his pope makes it very clear he doesn't know what he's talking about when it comes to capitalism and socialism and so forth. ...

If it weren't for capitalism, I don't know where the Catholic Church would be. ... I have been numerous times to the Vatican.  It wouldn't exist without tons of money. ...

This is just pure Marxism coming out of the mouth of the pope.  Unfettered capitalism?  That doesn't exist anywhere.  Unfettered capitalism is a liberal socialist phrase to describe the United States. ... 

[R]eading what the pope's written about this is really befuddling because he's totally wrong -- I mean, dramatically, embarrassingly, puzzlingly wrong. ...

The Catholic Church, the American Catholic Church has an annual budget of $170 billion.  I think that's more than General Electric earns every year.  And the Catholic Church of America is the largest landholder in Manhattan.  I mean, they have a lot of money.  They raise a lot of money.  They wouldn't be able to reach out the way they do without a lot of money.

Larry Kudlow Says Pope Francis' Anti-Capitalism Is Wrong

Just now on his radio program at wabcradio.com, calling socialism and communism "godless".

Way to go, Larry.