Sept. 30, 2015 - Freedomain Radio - Stefan Molyneux
17:30
3087 Pope Francis vs. Karl Marx | Who Said It?
Recently Pope Francis visited the United States and some of his statements were a bit - interesting. In light of Pope Francis leaving his gold throne in Vatican City to lecture Congress and the American people about income inequality - we present to you the debut edition of: Who said it? Pope Francis or Karl Marx? Can you tell the difference between the leader of the Catholic Church and the revolutionary socialist philosopher? Freedomain Radio is 100% funded by viewers like you. Please support the show by signing up for a monthly subscription or making a one time donation at: http://www.fdrurl.com/donateGet more from Stefan Molyneux and Freedomain Radio including books, podcasts and other info at: http://www.freedomainradio.com
Hi everybody, it's Stefan Wallen from Freedom Main Radio.
I hope you're doing well.
Yes, it's that time.
It's time to play Pope or Marx.
You may have noticed Pope Francis leaning a little bit, trending a little bit towards the left, a little bit towards socialism, in the same way that my hair trends a little bit south on the body to form itself into near-perfect pubic hair configurations around my mouth.
Marx, of course, originally Jewish.
Jesus, of course, originally Jewish.
The Pope may have got confused and is worshipping the wrong Jew.
I would go with beard length, but everybody has their own standards.
Let's start right away.
You can score this yourself at home, and you can try and figure out whether this is Marx or Pope.
Here's the first quote.
Are you ready?
One, for each new class which puts itself in the place of one ruling before it, is compelled, merely in order to carry through its aim to represent its interests as the common interests of all the members of society, that is, expressed in ideal form.
It has to give its ideas the form of universality and represent them as the only rational, universally valid ones.
Pope or Marx?
Pope or Marx?
Yes!
That's right.
That was Karl Marx.
Now, number two.
A little trickier.
Number two.
When at the core of the system, we don't have men, but money.
When money becomes an idol, men and women become nothing more than instruments of a social system dominated by profound unbalances.
Answer.
Yes, that was Pope Francis.
In other words, a guy wearing an outfit that looks pretty much like a giant gold tea cozy, sitting on a gold throne in a country with the tightest immigration restrictions in the known universe, is complaining about money and inequality.
Oh wait!
I actually have another one.
Okay.
Guy who claims to be the only human being alive to have a direct pipeline to omniscience is complaining about inequality.
All right.
Good to know.
Here's number three.
Are you ready?
Working for a just distribution of the fruits of the earth and human labor is not mere philanthropy.
It is a moral obligation.
Moral obligation.
Answer!
Pope Francis.
You might, as I have in the past, been quite a fan of religion in terms of its focus on free will and choice and willpower as a whole.
You see, on the Marxist side, we have economic determinism.
If you're born poor, you get to stay poor.
And if you're born rich, well, you get to stay rich, which is nonsense.
The classes churn pretty regularly, particularly in a free market society.
So the Pope Francis might be about talking about what Jesus said, which was everyone who would follow me...
Take all your belongings and sell them and give all your money to the poor and follow me bareback, pretty much.
No, he's not talking about that.
He's talking about being a fan of the coercive, government-based, redistributionist welfare state.
And that is not exactly the same as a free will.
That is not giving people the chance to say yes or no, merely forcing them to give money to others.
This is pretty much Buffalo Bill making a skin suit out of taxpayers.
Um...
This is like Buffalo Bill saying to you from Silence of the Lambs when you're cowering in a deep pit that you have a moral obligation to provide him with a woman's skin.
It rubs the lotion on its skin or else it gets the hose again.
Yes, it gets the hose, my pretty.
Actually, getting the hose, a fairly common Catholic priest phrase.
Let's move on, shall we?
We are now talking number four.
Pope or Marx?
Are you ready?
While the earnings of a minority are growing exponentially, so too is the gap separating the majority from the prosperity enjoyed by those happy few.
Marx or Marx?
Yes, in fact, that is Pope Francis complaining about inequalities in wealth distribution.
The CIA estimates the Vatican City's 2011 revenue to be $308 million.
$308 million?
Rounding error in Department of Defense, but a fair chunk of change.
Oh, except, of course, that the Vatican City only has a population of 800 people, so its nominal GDP per capita is over $365,000.
So it's one of the richest states on the planet by this measure.
So I think income inequality might be a little bit focused on the Vatican, but it's great that Mr.
Goldlam made Liberace suit is...
Lecturing absolutely everyone else in the known universe about evening things out.
I have a direct pipeline to God, but inequality is a really bad thing.
All right, number five.
Pope or Marx, are you ready?
Quote,"...some people continue to defend trickle-down theories, which assume that economic growth encouraged by a free market will inevitably succeed in bringing about greater justice and inclusiveness in the world." Marx
or Pope?
Yes?
That is Pope E.F., Pope Francis, talking again about his deep knowledge of economics and the free market.
You know, it's great.
If I could just say, it's never been proven anywhere, anytime, and it's complete fantasy, I guess I could win every debate as well.
It's good that he's not bringing a huge amount of facts to bear on the issue, otherwise the entire superstructure of Christendom might fall in on itself, should the same standards be applied.
Now, Recently, the Pope addressed Congress.
Ah, two superstitious meetings of the unminds.
And he's really talking about inclusiveness.
You need to include people.
Well, a bit of a challenge, you know, under Catholicism, unless you follow Catholicism and give the priest money and obey what the priest does, you go to hell.
If you don't happen to be born in a land where the good word of Jesus has made its way, If you happen to be born in the past before Jesus, well, you don't really get to go to heaven.
Not the most inclusive philosophy that I've ever heard of.
But let's move on to number six.
Pope or Marx?
Quote, Yet we desire even more than this.
Our dream soars higher.
We are not simply talking about ensuring nourishment or a dignified sustenance for all people, but also their general temporal welfare and prosperity.
This means education, access to health care, and above all, employment, for it is through free, creative, participatory, and mutually supportive labor that human beings express and enhance the dignity of their lives.
The other goods which are destined for our common use.
Marx or Pope?
Yes!
That is Pope Francis.
Okay.
Let's just get a principle across here that everybody needs to understand.
Pope F, I'm talking to you.
Are you ready?
Okay.
You are not a moral person because you have a whiny wish list.
Of everything you want for the human race.
I want world peace.
I want every hungry child to have a pony to eat.
I want all the wonderful things.
I would really like it if rain clouds poured out lemonade so that we could get something to drink if we're thirsty.
And I'd really like it if there were no earthquakes.
You know what else would be great?
It'd be great if volcanoes pushed out skittles.
Well, not too many skittles, because, you know, it's really bad to get cavities.
I wish there were no such thing as cavities.
Wouldn't that be wonderful?
I'm a moral human being because I have a whiny wish list.
I have no way of actually finding a way to achieve it.
I'm just going to put out a moral wish list and then hope that everyone thinks that I'm a good person because I want nice things to happen in the world.
Let's move on to number seven.
Quote...
Everyone who knows anything of history also knows that great social revolutions are impossible without the feminine ferment.
Social progress may be measured precisely by the social position of the fair sex.
So, this is the argument that you need to rile up women and call their situations and stations unjust and oppressed and patriarchy-bound in order to get social revolution.
Okay.
Pope or Francis?
Actually, KM. That's Karl Marx talking about the need to respect the rights of women just before he basically raped his maid, left her pregnant, and kicked her out into the snow, and followed all of that lovely behavior up by refusing even to acknowledge his bastard child.
Because, you know, exploitation of the workers, totally evil.
Number eight!
A woman enjoys intercourse with her man as she fantasizes being raped by three men simultaneously.
Answer!
Yes, out of left field.
That's Bernie Sanders.
Now, to be fair, by woman, he means taxpayer, and by three men raping her, he means three burly, ponstachioed men named legislative, executive, and judicial.
Boom!
That's how we do it here at Freedomain Radio.
Let's move on to the next number.
Number nine.
Are you ready?
Pope or Marx?
Quote,"...today everything comes under the laws of competition and the survival of the fittest, where the powerful feed upon the powerless.
As a consequence, masses of people find themselves excluded and marginalized, without work, without possibilities, without any means of escape." Does that sound like economic determinism to you?
Okay, does that sound like the Catholic imperative of free will and moral choice?
No!
The answer is that Pope Francis is talking about this.
Now, it seems a bit odd to me that Pope Francis would want to get rid of the poor, given that that's the basic crop of Christendom, and in particular Catholicism.
I quote to you from the good book itself, Quote, again I tell you, it is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for someone who is rich to enter the kingdom of God.
So, you're supposed to be poor to get into heaven, but if we eliminate poverty, somehow we're doing a really good thing.
The meek shall inherit the earth.
No, let's just give them lots of money so they're neither meek nor poor, and thus make sure that heaven doesn't get overpopulated.
Let's move on to number ten.
Pope or Marx, quote, a political society endures when it seeks, as a vocation, to satisfy common needs by stimulating the growth of all its members, especially those in situations of greater vulnerability or risk.
Marx or Pope?
That's right, that was Pope Francis once more talking about...
The need for collective, coercive, socialist action to save people from X. Let's throw a few more quotes in just to see where they land.
We can no longer trust in the unseen forces and the invisible hand of the market.
Unseen forces?
You're the Pope!
That's your whole business model!
That's the whole thing that you...
Unseen forces!
Prayer!
Faith!
Heaven!
Hell!
All of the imaginary angel-beating wings that distract and disorient the civilization as a whole...
Unseen forces?
No longer trust in the unseen forces?
I think that's all you're bringing to the table, dude.
Unseen forces, magic and bullying with the imaginary illness called original sin that only you have the cure for.
If you no longer trust in unseen forces, why are you talking?
You're not the Pope!
You're a guy in a weird hat!
It is not the consciousness of men that determines their being, but on the contrary, their social being determines That determines their consciousness.
You see, that's economic determinism.
You're entirely shaped.
Like water poured into a vessel, you're entirely shaped by your social and economic circumstances.
Does that sound like the Pope?
You've got no chance of getting out.
Your poor sucks to be used.
Stay there.
You're like a fossil in a sedimentary lair.
You've got no will to get up.
That was not the Pope.
That was, in fact...
Karl Marx.
And this is where the Pope is.
No free will, no choice, no rejection of the need for stuff, but fundamentally economic determinism.
Quote, human beings and nature must not be at the service of money.
Let us say no to an economy of exclusion and inequality where money rules rather than service.
That economy kills.
That is Pope Francis.
See, Pope Francis has a problem with the free market.
Now, In the free market, if I tell you that you have an imaginary disease and then I say, give me 10% of your money for the rest of your life for me to magically provide a brain cure for your imaginary disease, that's called fraud.
Particularly if I say it to children and say that they're born with an imaginary disease, just give me 10% of their money and come to my house and sing for me and I'll cure you of this imaginary disease.
That's called fraud.
So what is the Pope selling?
The Pope is selling heaven.
Any proof of heaven?
No.
What is the Pope threatening with you?
Hell.
He's threatening you with hell.
Obey me.
Pay me the money.
Don't question me, because remember, I have a pipeline to the divine.
Or, you will burn in hell forever.
It is a death threat.
It is a torture threat that he is selling.
He's attempting to bribe you with something that doesn't exist.
And he's attempting to threaten you with something that doesn't exist.
So what is the Pope selling?
The Pope is selling a vehicle of salvation to a place that doesn't exist.
And he is issuing eternal torture and death threats to you should you fail to obey.
Now, like most people I have not read...
My Apple iTunes agreement in great detail, but I'm pretty sure there are no death threats or torture threats in there should I fail to comply with any of its irrational demands.
I don't think so.
So, you see, the Pope is concerned that people are serving money.
People are serving money and not being good.
What is the Pope selling?
Why do people give the church money?
Well, they're attempting to bribe their way, into getting imaginary cures for imaginary illnesses.
That's called fraud.
And so if the Pope is so hostile towards money, stop taking money.
It's very simple.
Stop selling things that you don't own and can't prove.
Stop telling children they're born with imaginary illnesses and then offering to cure them with your magic spells for the rest of their life should they cough up 10% of their income to you every month.
That is vicious and wicked.
Now, He doesn't understand economics, of course, because he's a highly ornate con man.
But economy is just another word for reality.
Human desires are infinite, resources are finite, and we have to have some way of matching infinite human resources to finite goods and services in the known universe.
And the way that we do that is through voluntary trade and through price.
That's how the economy works.
Look, If you had a cell phone data plan that was really fast and unlimited, how much would you use?
How much would you use?
You know that the first thing you do is hook up your computer and look for ultra-high-definition porn.
Wait, is there ultra-high-definition porn on the internet?
Let me click on it.
Oh.
Oh!
Oh, that's not good.
I don't want all the holes to be pores.
Oh, my eyes!
In high def, all human sex just looks like alien porn.
Thank you so much for watching.
Marx or Pope, please put your comments and suggestions below.
And of course, if there's quotes that we've missed, please let us know.
I'd be happy to do another show.
One last thing that I wanted to say.
It subscribes to this channel or it gets the hose again.
