Papal Death Penalty Update; a Respectful Dissent

Recently, Pope Francis announced, that “the death penalty is now inadmissible,” and that the church’s teaching on the death penalty, as set out in section 2267 of the church’s catechism, has been updated.


Here are the five changes, and my comments.


1. “The death penalty is inadmissible because it is an attack on the inviolability and dignity of the person.”


If the state, after a full and fair trial, and exhaustive appeals, can’t impose the death penalty because of “the inviolability and dignity” of the murderer’s person, how can other agents of the state be permitted to kill?

How can a police officer kill a terrorist who is threatening to execute hostages? How can an officer shoot the armed robber who first shoots at the officer? After Pearl Harbor, how could our soldiers and sailors kill Japanese soldiers and sailors?

If the death penalty is inadmissible because it is an attack on the inviolability and dignity of the person, aren’t the responses of our police officers, and our soldiers and sailors also inadmissible as attacks on the inviolability and dignity of the terrorist, the armed robber, and the Japanese soldiers and sailors?

Or are such killings permitted out of necessity?


2. “The dignity of the person is not lost even after the commission of very serious crimes.”
What exactly is “the dignity of the person?”

It cannot be the same thing as the life of the person. Does the act of murder extinguish the dignity of his victim’s person, or only terminate his victim’s life?

“Dignity” is defined as the “quality of being worthy of honor or respect.” Does the murderer deprive his victim of being worthy of honor or respect? Does the murderer forfeit his own right to be deemed worthy of honor or respect?

Or is the pope saying that human life is sacred?

Is not God alone sacred? Worthy alone of adoration? Is man sacred if there is no God? Without his connection to God? Does not the power of life and death belong to God? Doesn’t the murderer usurp God’s power over life and death?

The church has always taught that murder is mortal sin, and that the mortal sinner loses God’s friendship. If man is sacred only by virtue of his connection to God, what becomes of that dignity when man severs his relationship with God?

But, then, if you deny the existence of God, is anything sacred?


3. “A new understanding has emerged of the significance of penal sanctions imposed by the state. “

Exactly what is this new understanding?

In the years when I was on the bench, sentences were imposed to protect the pubic, punish the defendant, deter the defendant and others from committing like crimes, and rehabilitate the criminal.

Additionally, sentences were required to be “proportionate” to the severity of the offense.


4. “More effective systems of detention have been developed, which ensure the due protection of citizens.”

A murderer is serving three life sentences without the possibility of parole for murdering and dismembering three children, ages 3 to 5. The murderer then murders a prison guard, and while he is awaiting trail for that murder, he murders a second guard. If the death penalty cannot be imposed, what meaningful penalty is there which “ensures due protection of citizens” — including guards?

Whether additional life sentences are served concurrently or consecutively, isn’t every life sentence after the first meaningless? How are four more meaningless life sentence “proportionate” to the four additional murders?

Where the only meaningful and proportionate sentence is a death sentence, then the death sentence is both reasonable and necessary to protect the public.


5. “More effective systems of detention have been developed which do not definitively deprive the guilty of the possibility of redemption.”

Is he referring to the murderer asking God for forgiveness? Statistics show that in Texas a murderer spends an average of 15.6 awaiting his execution. Isn’t that sufficient time for a murderer to ask God’s forgiveness?

Or by redemption, is the pope referring to rehabilitation? Richard Speck raped, tortured and murdered eight student nurses. Is the pope saying that if the parole board decided Speck was rehabilitated after 10 years he should have been paroled?

I have never believed that the death penalty should be the sentence in all cases of murder. I believe, however, it should be the penalty where it is the only sentence that is “necessary” and “proportionate.” In that, I am entirely consistent with Section 2266 of the church’s catechism. I suggest, the church’s catechism is now inconsistent with itself.

If only the death penalty is “proportionate” to the crime, then it must be “admissible,” and the now-repealed Section 2267 had it right.

Posted: QCOline.com Aug. 23, 2018

Copyright 2018, John Donald O'Shea

Was JFK Right About Tax Cuts? If so, so Is Trump

When candidate Donald Trump promised 4 percent growth for the U.S. economy in September of 2016, CNN scoffed, “Trump promises 4 percent growth. Economists say no way.”


In an Oct. 11, 2016 op-ed, CNN continued, “No chance, say 11 economists surveyed by CNNMoney. ‘No, pigs do not fly,’ says Robert Brusca, senior economist at FAO Economics, a research firm. ‘Donald Trump is dreaming.’


“So what’s realistic? The San Francisco Fed estimates the ‘new normal’ for annual economic growth to be 1.5 percent to 1.75 percent.”


Once elected, President Trump promised that if his tax plan were enacted, although taxes rates would be cut, there would nevertheless be an increase in federal revenues and a decrease in the deficit.


This increase in revenues would occur because the economy would grow, and businesses would see greater profits and pay more in taxes, not withstanding the lowering of the tax rates.


Now, the president’s first prediction, that the economy would take off, seems to be coming true to anyone with an open mind.


On July 27, the Department of Commerce announced that the “U.S. gross domestic product advanced by 4.1 percent in the second quarter of 2018.” CNN now dismisses that 4.1 percent growth rate, trotting out economists who now claim that it is “unsustainable.” Probably the same 11!


Trump disagrees and says the 4 percent growth rate is sustainable and promises “it will get even better.” So who are you rooting for, the President or CNN?


But assuming that the President’s first prediction that economic growth would take off if his plan were approved is coming true, what about his prediction that the deficit would be reduced?


The belief that a decrease in tax rates could result in increased federal revenues, and a decrease in the deficit, is not an original Trump idea. President John F. Kennedy made the same prediction 56 years ago.


On December 14, 1962, Kennedy in an address to the Economic Club of New York laid out his case for a cuts in individual and corporate federal income taxes rates.


Kennedy explained, “Our true choice is not between tax reduction, on the one hand, and the avoidance of large federal deficits on the other. It is increasingly clear that no matter what party is in power, so long as our national security needs keep rising, an economy hampered by restrictive tax rates will never produce enough revenues to balance our budget — just as it will never produce enough jobs or enough profits.



“Surely the lesson of the last decade is that budget deficits are not caused by wild-eyed spenders, but by slow economic growth and periodic recessions, and any new recession would break all deficit records.


“I repeat: our practical choice is not between a tax-cut deficit and a budgetary surplus. It is between two kinds of deficits: a chronic deficit of inertia, as the unwanted result of inadequate revenues and a restricted economy, or a temporary deficit of transition, resulting from a tax cut designed to boost the economy, increase tax revenues, and achieve, I believe ... this can be done — a budget surplus. The first type of deficit is a sign of waste and weakness; the second reflects an investment in the future.”


Kennedy believed that high tax rates stifled the economy. He believed that lowering the tax rates would, in the short run, decrease tax revenues. But in the long run, lowering tax rates would unshackle the American economy.


He believed that if the government took less money from the private sector, the private sector would have more money to invest, expand, and hire workers. He believed in the long run that an expanding economy would produce far greater profits and far greater tax revenues sufficient to cut the deficit and even balance the budget.


To put this in concrete terms, the George W. Bush Presidential Center in 2013 projected that a 4 percent growth rate for 10 years would produce an additional 10 million jobs, $3 trillion in revenues, and a 30 percent reduction of the deficit. (And that does not take account of repatriated dollars.)


Trump is using Kennedy’s playbook. I have always believed Kennedy was right. If Kennedy was right, Trump is going to come out of this looking of a lot smarter than CNN’s gaggle of dismissive economists.

Posted: QCOline.com Aug. 16, 2018

Copyright 2018, John Donald O'Shea

Trump a Free Trader, Not a Protectionist

Last week President Donald Trump, at a joint press conference with the European Union’s senior trade representative, Jean-Claude Juncker, announced a trade deal with the EU.


“This was a very big day for free and fair trade, Trump said. “We agreed today ... to work together toward zero tariffs, zero non-tariff barriers, and zero subsidies on non-auto industrial goods. We will also work to reduce barriers and increase trade in services, chemicals, pharmaceuticals, medical products, as well as soy beans. ... The EU will begin almost immediately to buy a lot of soy beans from our farmers .... The EU also wants to import more liquefied natural gas from the U.S. .... They will be a massive buyer.”


What the president said was confirmed by Juncker: “I had an intention to make a deal today, and we made a deal today.”


So, is the president a free-trader or a protectionist?


Trump has taken on two issues, the U.S. trade deficit, and tariffs. The issues are related, but distinct.


Here’s a simple illustration of a trade deficit:


A sells Chevy automobiles. B sells snowblowers. B buys a Chevy from A and pays $30,000. A buys a snowblower from B at a price of $500. B has a trade deficit of $29,500. A has a trade surplus of $29,500.


Kimberly Amadeo of balance.com writes, “The United States ... [total] deficit in goods and services was $566 billion in 2017. Imports were $2.895 trillion and exports were only $2.329 trillion. The U.S. trade deficit in goods [excluding services] was $810 billion. The United States exported $1.551 trillion in goods. The biggest categories were commercial aircraft, automobiles, and food. It imported $2.361 trillion. The largest categories were automobiles, petroleum, and cell phones.”


The U.S. has its largest trade deficit with China. We import about $505 billion worth of goods from China. China imports about $130 billion worth of goods from us. The U.S. deficit is therefore about $375 billion. China’s trade surplus is $375 billion.


There is some good, and some bad in that relationship. The relationship is good for American consumers. They might be able to buy an American-made TV for $500. They, however, may be able to buy a comparable Chinese-made TV for $400.


But the relationship is bad for U.S. workers. If American consumers are buying enough Chinese-made TVs, American TV manufactures may go out of business for lack of sales, or relocate their businesses to China, or Mexico where labor is cheaper and where they can build TVs for the American market to compete with Chinese imports.


Furthermore, buying all our manufactured goods from foreign countries may be very bad in the case of a national emergency.


We won WWII largely because our auto manufactures adjusted their assembly lines to build planes, ships and tanks. If there are no American manufacturers, that won’t be possible in the case of the next national emergency.


That situation is exacerbated when the foreign country imposes a tariff on U.S. goods entering their country. If a Canadian consumer can buy a gallon of U.S. milk imported into Canada at $2 per gallon, he may not be able to afford buying that same gallon of milk if a 200 percent Canadian tariff raises the price of that milk to $6 a gallon.


The U.S. dairy farmer gets no benefit from the $4 added to the price of his milk by the tariff. And worse, if the price of milk is $6 rather than $2, the U.S. dairy farmer will sell less milk to Canada. It’s the Canadian dairy farmer who benefits. He can sell his milk at $5.90 per gallon, and beat the $6 price of U.S. milk.


The agreement with the EU demonstrates that when the president says, “I want free trade, not tariffs,” he means it.


For the president, U.S. tariffs are a tool to force the reduction of foreign tariffs. He wants free trade; reciprocal trade.


If a trade war develops, China, by raising tariffs, can keep $130 billion of U.S. exports out of China. We can keep $505 billion of Chinese exports out of the U.S.


If that happens, U.S. consumers will pay a little more for U.S. goods. U.S. manufacturers will find it easier to compete.


U.S. exporters will be hurt, unless our government protects them during the war. (U.S. farmers export about $12.4 billion of soybeans to China.)


China’s economy will face depression.

Posted: QCOline.com Aug. 2, 2018

Copyright 2018, John Donald O'Shea