Author: Jeff Cassman

Have You Met Each of the Seven ‘Cry Room Mom’ Personas?

Posted on by Jeff Cassman

Yesterday I spent some time in the back of the church with #13F1.25 who, like her older sisters, thinks she is in charge. It’s not the first time I’ve been the only father in the back with a bunch of mothers. It IS the first time I’ve seen all 7 Cry Room Mom Personas simultaneously, even though there is no cry room.

1) the newish Mom who is overly protective and glares at me for letting my toddler roam out of arm’s reach or get too close to her (older than my) child, 2) the 30ish mom who is pregnant and has what appears to be 6 children under five, 3) the 20ish mom who is trying to nurse a screaming infant but is so worried about her modesty she’s brought a queen-sized comforter from home that infuriates the infant and draws attention to both, 4) the mom who brought all four of her kids (ages 11, 8, 5, 3) to the back and the infant is the best-behaved, 5) the mom who loudly threatens her badly behaved toddler but doesn’t actually ever discipline, 6) the mom whose choice of a summer dress failed to anticipate the possibility she would be crawling around on all fours in the back of the church in front of a father of 13, and of course my personal favorite, 7) the comatose mom who neither participates in Mass nor pays any attention to her toddler who clearly has a vocation to be … Read the rest

Why Do Christians Struggle with Economics?

Posted on by Jeff Cassman

“Here is a theory (with a debt to Rothbard, Hoppe, Kinsella, et al.) about why this situation persists. People who live and work primarily within the religious milieu are dealing mainly with goods of an infinite nature. These are goods like salvation, the intercession of saints, prayers of an infinitely replicable nature, texts, images, and songs that constitute non-scarce goods, the nature of which requires no rationing, allocation, and choices regarding their distribution.

None of these goods takes up physical space. One can make infinite copies of them. They can be used without displacing other instances of the good. They do not depreciate with time. Their integrity remains intact no matter how many times they are used. Thus they require no economization. For that reason, there need to be no property norms concerning their use. They need not be priced. There is no problem associated with their rational allocation. They are what economists call “free goods.”

If one exists, lives, and thinks primarily in the realm of the non-scarce good, the problems associated with scarcity — the realm that concerns economics — will always be elusive. To be sure, it might seem strange to think of things such as grace, ideas, prayers, and images as goods, but this term merely describes something that is desired by people. (There are also things we might describe as nongoods, which are things that no one wants.) So it is not really a point of controversy to use this term. What really requires explanation

… Read the rest

Can You Be a Christian and “NeverTrumper” Simultaneously

Posted on by Jeff Cassman

Uncomfortable questions to share with your friends who claim to be Christian and simultaneously boast of being “Never Trumper” but never bothered declaring themselves “NeverObama”.

Imagine if a right-wing version of Robert Mueller, backed by a properly pro-Trump legal team, had sent former President Barack Obama the same sort of questions that Mueller allegedly delivered this week to President Trump. The special counsel might dress them up in legalese, innuendo, and with perjury-trap IEDs, thereby casting suspicion with the mere nature of the questions.

If so, the interrogatories might run like the following—

https://amgreatness.com/2018/05/04/what-if-mueller-questioned-barack-obama/… Read the rest

Contra the Social and Economic Justice Warriors

Posted on by Jeff Cassman

A significant number of modern Catholics are consumed with revolutionary ideas about social ‘justice’, and while a smaller but equally dangerous group are obsessed with economic ‘justice’, both have adopted what is essentially humanistic materialism.

Here is an authentic Catholic approach to life:

“I met a Catholic once who was the most different person I ever saw. That’s really what keeps me searching among his co-religionists. Met him on a bus going out to Chicago and he gave me his address but I lost it. Worst mistake I ever made.

This Catholic was married and about thirty. We got talking about economic security and birth control. His theory was that God is not bound by a rotten economic system and that if you did what was right and just you’d turn up with enough meals a day to keep going, and anything else that was really necessary. He kept quoting “Seek ye first the kingdom of heaven and all these things will be added unto you.” He claimed it really meant something and that he’d tested it out.

For instance, he had five kids and his economic position had all along been what you might call precarious. This was just after the depression, and he and his family had been through it without missing a meal and with a few extras at Christmas time.

His jobs hadn’t been ideal, but not bad either. He had quit twice in protest against injustices to other people; so you couldn’t say he had

… Read the rest