mentalblog.com comments:
"Social Justice" was the slogan of the leftist anti-semite Father Coughlin.
"Social Justice" is a slogan used by leftists who want to substitute their own narrischkeit for the wisdom of a free market.
The real justice is justice for individuals. It means that an individual has the freedom to make his own decisions about the direction of his life, and he has the freedom to keep the fruits of his endeavors.
And it is in the Anglo-American societies in which the free market had its greatest and freest developemtn, that the greatest good for the greatest number of people has been in fact achieved.
Whereas in those socialist societies that proclaim their sanctimonious belief in "Social Justice," the result is invariably poverty, famine, tyranny, and war.
Before Stalinism was the murderous tyranny of Lenin, the vengeful and violent murderous tyranny of Trotsky contra Kronstadt, the murderous tyranny of the Reign of Terror, and the multiple crimes of socialist societies wherever they were established.
The Neviim NEVER argued that a tyrannical all-powerful state should provide "social justice" for poor widows and orphans. The Neviim demanded that INDIVIDUALS recognize their INDIVIDUAL responsibility to take care of their fellows. That is quite a different thing altogether. The message of the Prophets is not the precursor to socialism, it is socialism's antithesis -- under socialism, with faith in the "social justice" state, human compassion withers, and individuals no longer feel any real motivation to be their brother's keeper.
I thought it was very generous of you to put up my comment as a post and to express your point of view by a reasoned reply and not by an insult or a rant. Deuteronomy and other parts of chumash have enough admonitions about tzedek, tzedek tirdof as you well know. I mentioned Hosea for scholarly reasons which I won't elaborate, as well as to pay my respects to the American Reform tradition who have kept the vision of social justice alive and for whom Hosea is central.
As readers of your blog know there are many faults with Reform, but this is one of their strengths, and they deserve credit for trying to maintain some critical distance from which to preach a progressive philosophy.
I would conjecture, though I have no way of really knowing, that in most Reform Temples they would ask the Rubashkins and Pinters to leave and they would be totally shunned.
Gandalin helped me clarify my thoughts about this. Indeed both reform and orthodox lost culture of personal responsibility. It is always about the efforts to donate or influence a central institution. Perhaps I didn't understand fully the term "social justice". I always meant personal responsibility.
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