Political Cortex: Brain Food for the Body Politic

At the same time, we must remember the old adage, "Love the sinner; hate the sin." Part of what it means to love the sinner is to discourage him from sinning again and to give him incentives to do good. The Church teaches that every government has an obligation to work to purify its society of inducements, or temptations, to evil. Unfortunately, our American government has seriously neglected this obligation. From the legalization of abortion, contraception, divorce, homosexuality, euthanasia, and torture which encourage those crimes against human life, to bad TV shows, movies, Internet sites, magazines and Satanic music which inspire immorality, to a hyper-capitalist mass market system which promotes greed and unbridled consumerism, inducements to evil have become firmly rooted and defining traits of our culture. One person's bad example does not excuse the other person's responsibility for evil, but it puts the bad idea in his head, tempting him to commit a sin he would not have otherwise thought of committing. The Lord says in the prophet Ezekiel that if a human being fails to warn the wicked person of his evil ways, he himself will go to Hell. If so, how much more will the person who leads or encourages another to sin deserve an evil end.

One particular characteristic of our Western society--greed--tempts, or provokes, much of the anti-Western terrorism from the Middle East and the Muslim world. Instead of benefiting the people at large, our purchase of petroleum from the Middle East has generally enriched despotic rulers (as in Saudi Arabia) and Western oil tycoons. Furthermore, the general influence of American mega-corporations abroad has been highly detrimental, forcing hundreds of thousands of local small businesses to close, creating an ever larger and ever poorer worldwide underclass, and heedlessly threatening the global natural environment. These persistent negative effects of American big business have created a groundswell of resentment in the Middle East and Muslim countries, prompting a handful of disgruntled individuals to resort to acts of terrorism. Although the greed of Western commercial leaders does not justify attacks on innocent Western civilians, it is nevertheless unquestionably responsible for encouraging them. And the United States government is unquestionably responsible for allowing its enormously influential foreign policy to be dictated by the dishonest, despotic, unjust, undemocratic (and, dare I add, "evil," to steal Hannity's thunder) force of boundless mega-corporate greed.