26 Jun Sachs warns U.S. that Pope will show us how wrong individual rights are
Add Jeffrey Sachs to the list of “Most Dangerous People.” Maurice Strong, George Soros and Al Gore move over, make room for the Social Justice arm of evil personages. As the Catholic magazine, “America”, describes him, he is director of The Earth Institute, Quetelet Professor of Sustainable Development and Professor of Health Policy and Management at Columbia University in New York City. He is also special adviser to U.N. Secretary General Ban Ki-moon on the Millennium Development Goals and author of The End of Poverty (2005). His most recent book is The Age of Sustainable Development (Columbia University Press, 2015).
That list alone should tell you a lot about Sachs, but a recent article he wrote in “America” titled “Living the Gospel in the land of liberty,” gives the details. He, and ostensibly, the Pope agree that, We face, therefore, a moral crisis, not a material crisis. We face a problem not of means but of ends. As Aristotle might have said, we have the techne (the technological know-how) but not yet the phronesis (the moral wisdom) to choose survival over death. We are trapped by an indifference that ironically has been magnified by America’s exaggerated defense of liberty at the expense of virtue. Words do matter; and the Gospel teachings, like the teachings of Aristotle, Buddha and Confucius, about the path to happiness through compassion can become our guideposts back to safety.
Sachs says, “We are trapped by an indifference that ironically has been magnified by America’s exaggerated defense of liberty at the expense of virtue.” We Americans aren’t virtuous? Which country is first in line to give time, energy, materials in every disaster? Which country shells out billions in foreign aid? To regain our so-called lost virtue, Sachs says we must sacrifice our individual rights to the state – the state being the U.N. We have both virtue and liberty and we intend to keep them.
No thank you, Mr. Sachs, will have no intention of sacrificing our individual rights, not now, not ever.
LIBERAL ACADEMIC SAYS AMERICA’S FOUNDING DOCUMENT OUTMODED
By Cliff Kincaid in Barbwire
“Top Vatican adviser Jeffrey Sachs says that when Pope Francis visits the United States in September, he will directly challenge the “American idea” of God-given rights embodied in the Declaration of Independence.
Sachs, a special advisor to the United Nations and director of the Earth Institute at Columbia University, is a media superstar who can always be counted on to pontificate endlessly on such topics as income inequality and global health.”