Answering questions at Boston College O’Neill Library
In the United States, the victim does not decide what kind of punishment is appropriate and when it should be delivered. Although the brothers’ abuse claims were substantiated by others, the parents should have been allowed to defend themselves (or plead guilty) in a courtroom. Self-defense is sometimes necessary, but one’s life must be in immediate danger. And it doesn’t help one’s defense if one first blames the murder on the mob.
Short answer: no. Taxes are how societies arrange to pay for the things that are necessary but don’t make sense to do privately, like interstates and armies and post offices. Almost all human societies have had them in some form, and complaints about them are as old as recorded history. bit.ly/bc-taxes. What, how, and how much to tax, however, are really interesting ethical questions to explore. You might try a few of these sources: bit.ly/bc-tax-justice
The Wall is not sure. Those are both pretty Western takes, although very popular. Perhaps you could add in some postcolonial theory and liberation theology to your analysis. Here are a couple of suggestions: bit.ly/bc-decolonizing, and bit.ly/bc-lt
There’s no getting around it, people have done mean things and said judgmental things. A good many others have done heroic things and said things that were honest, thoughtful, and/or caring. I recommend seeking out more of the latter, and attempting to avoid the former as much as you can. If you can’t avoid it, perhaps you can meet it with equanimity & silence, kind of like a wall. Meanness expects (and thrives on) mean responses. Starved of reaction, it often recedes.
Nothing should ever have permanence other than change. No revolution has the right ideas for every generation. Some revolutions have the right ideas for that generation.
This is a difficult topic and so far a great failure of the United States. There have been too many school shootings here: if you search for “school shootings” and “stop OR prevent” in databases such as Academic OneFile, Education Research Complete, and PsycInfo, you will find that a good amount of research has been done. Perhaps a viable solution will be one that includes several different strategies, from better training and education to recognize those who may be in trouble, to better mental health services to help them, to better gun control laws, and so on (see this article and references in PolitiFact for a summary: bit.ly/stop-shootings). It will not be easy; educating ourselves (but beware of bots and trolls online) and talking is a good first step, but it does seem as though many lawmakers are not really willing to be part of the solution. We must keep talking and learning, speak out, vote for candidates who will address the issue. And we must continue to support those who have been victims of gun violence. Students in Parkland FL are leading the charge, with a planned march in DC (and one is apparently being planned here in Boston as well: bit.ly/marchforourlivesboston) as well as other events: bit.ly/walkout-shootings.
That would be a good question to ask Father Leahy. BC’s public position is similar to arguments made by Columbia (bit.ly/bc-columbia) recently. A BC FAQ (bit.ly/bc-unionfaq) addresses questions about Catholic social teaching and other issues from the administration’s perspective. The BC Graduate Student Employees Union addresses those issues this way: bit.ly/bc-grad-union. You might also be interested in the work of the Catholic Labor Network (bit.ly/bc-CLN), and this brief history of Catholic institutions and collective bargaining in America: The Jesuit Review (bit.ly/bc-am).
One of the Wall’s acolytes reports that this phrase dates back to before World War II in Britain. Urban Dictionary and Wikipedia have pretty good articles, and there are lots of awesome tattoos online.
A very ambitious New Year’s resolution! However, the move to a service-oriented society leaves much less value in owning “production”. And the proletariat is also shrinking (at least in “first-world” countries), so there is less labor available to help you with your goal. You may have better luck if you resolve instead to empower the middle class to end income inequality.
The Cardinal of Boston, Sean Patrick O’Malley, wrote a blog entry about civility in response to the President’s comments: bit.ly/Cardinal-civility. Many other officials–especially of the nations and regions named–have responded as well. A group of African ambassadors called the comments “outrageous, racist and xenophobic,” and it is on the agenda of the upcoming African Union meetings in Addis Ababa next week. The Haitian ambassador said the comments were “misinformed or miseducated” about Haiti. There has been no officially released statement by BC; however, many universities, BC included, hosted events honoring Martin Luther King this week; perhaps honoring him was response enough.
