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Author Topic: Is the Remnant Newspaper run by Jews?  (Read 893 times)

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Offline Pax Vobis

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Re: Is the Remnant Newspaper run by Jews?
« Reply #30 on: Yesterday at 08:41:02 AM »

Lad,
You’re conflating two different things Aquinas carefully distinguishes. Yes, we must judge actions using reason. But calling someone a “shameless grifter” is not a judgment of external acts; it is a claim about interior motive, habitual vice, and moral intent.
:facepalm:  Once again, you're being autistic.  Calling someone a name is an informal way of saying that person is ACTING like the name.  Like before, I called you a "snowflake";  I don't actually mean you are a snowflake, but that you're acting like one.

If one of your friends does/says something dumb, and you ask them "Are you an idiot?"  You don't ACTUALLY mean to label them (nor do you think they are) an idiot, with a low IQ.  It's a way of speaking in a non-formal way.  It's common language of the people.

So when someone calls Mr Matt a "shameless grifter", they don't ACTUALLY think he is that (because none of us knows him personally), we are just saying that he APPEARS to be acting like one, BASED ON HIS EXTERNAL ACTIONS.  Don't be autistic.  This is the common usage of language.  No one is being literal.

Online Ladislaus

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Re: Is the Remnant Newspaper run by Jews?
« Reply #31 on: Yesterday at 10:32:47 AM »
So ... if I had $5 for every time someone misinterpreted the notion of "internal forum" and "Who am I to judge?" ... I could retire.

We absolutely CAN judge a person's motives, to a certain extent, from information available in the external forum, or at least arrive a moral certainty about them. That's NOT what "internal forum" means.  Internal Forum, which even the Church does not judge, refers to the DEGREE OF CULPABILITY (OR MERIT) THAT A PERSON HAS IN THE EYES OF GOD.

I see someone holding a man at gunpoint and demanding that he turn over his wallet.

I can judge with moral certainty that his motive was to steal the man's wallet.  Now, PERHAPS I could be deceived ... but then with just a bit of additional investigation, all done in the external forum, I could interview the victim and indeed determine that he was robbed of his wallet by a man who INTENDED to steal it from him, and that they weren't, for instance, acting for some TV show, etc.

At that point, I could make a judgment that he wanted the man's money or credit cards.

Now, that COULD BE wrong, but it's a very likely explanation for events witnessed.  It COULD BE that he was after the man's Driver License, to do something else, like steal his identity.

Now, the next level of "internal" momtivation that can be investigated and discovered, all external forum is ... WHY did the man steal the money?  Perhaps he was greedy and wanted to buy something?  Perhaps he was a drug addict who needed a drug fix?  Perhaps he had hungry / starving children at home.  That too can be ascertained in the external forum, and let's say the guy looked high as a kite when he pulled off the robbery, it would not be judging to speculate that he likely was desperate for a drug fix.

But none of this is the line where we cannot judge.

What not being able to judge INTERNAL FORUM has only to do with the degree of guilt (or merit) that someone has in the eyes of God based on an almost infinite number of considerations that only God is capable of knowing and making, where even individuals themselves cannot judge their own internal forum.  Maybe this guy grew up in a broken home and was never taught that theft was bad, but that rich people who didn't share with the poor were bad.  Perhaps he had diminished culpability due to being driven by drug addiction.  THAT is what's meant by INTERNAL FORUM, their assessment of the guilt, their degree of guilty, or their lack thereof.

YOU CAN JUDGE motivation in the external forum.  If someone catches a man in bed with some woman other than his wife, you can safely judge that he was motivated by lust.  COULD you be wrong, absolutely speaking?  Well, I guess, but you're not precluded from speculating about it.  I mean, with the same odds as winning the huge lottery jackpot, it could be that the woman held a gun to his head and forced him to do what he did.  Or, I guess that she could be blackmailing him.  But those types of explanations are relatively rare, and you're not required to withold a judgment that the guy was motivated by lust, AND with just a tiny bit more work in the external forum, you can rule out the outlier allegations, but you are not required to rule out the outlier possibilities to avoid "judging".

As for accusing Matt of grifting, that can be pieced together easily to the point of being almost morally certainty by simply observing his behavior, his language, his posting.  Grifting, of course, simply means that you're motivated in large part by making money, and that this motivation will "influence" what they say or do, and you can make this judgment by, oh, who they cancel and why (+Vigano), what he allows people to say or not say, on his forum, what he himself will say and not say, where he contradicts himself, or witholds obvious conclusions that no one can really deny, just because of the impact of his audience.  When someone makes his entire living off of their "influencer" role, there's an inherent "conflict of interest", where there's a tension between their need to make a living and their desire to do the will of God and to speak the truth.

But, what you're really attempting to determine is whether one commits calumny by speculating about an individual's motivatins out loud or in public.

No.  Why?  Simply because everybody KNOWS that you're speculating and that you don't have some "hidden knowledge" that you're revealing.

So, for instance ... if I see some guy acting effeminate, with limp wrist, lisping, you know, showing all the textbook signs of sodomitical inclinations ... is it detraction to wonder out loud whether he's at least inclined toward sodomy?  No, since pretty much everyone is asking the same question, and it would require some mental illness to pretend that you don't see or notice it, and you are not required to NOT notice it.  Sodomitical inclination, of course, is a special case anyway, since any right the individual might have to his good name is offset by the potential risk that he might pose to others, and so people should be aware of it, and it's not wrong to even shout it from the roof tops, so that some naive or unsuspecting individual doesn't let this guy take their son camping or the like.  You can judge when behavior suggests a risk, or a possible problem.

Public interest and potential harm to others can outweigh a person's right to a good name.

AND ... Michael Matt checks that box also.  See, most of us know that Matt does a great deal of harm to the Catholic faith, where he's encouraging people to recognize the Conciliar Church as the Catholic Church, and he's made outrageously heretical assertions like "the Catholic Church now endorses sodomy", etc.  In addition, he prevents people who might otherwise flee that Whore of Babylon and got to a Traditional chapel by defending it and continuing to recognize it as Catholic.  Matt is sitting there in the pot of hot water that being brought to a boil, and when other people say, "man, it's getting hot in here, I think I'll get out now," Matt will chime in with "nah, it's good for your health, as the heat just opens your pores", or to others standing outside, Matt say, "come on in, the water's fine".  Matt is doing grave damage to souls, so we almost have a duty to call out his duplicity, his grifting, his errors.

If I were alive at the time of Martin Luther and caught him in a secret act of sodomy, for instance, I would not only be permitted but would be obligate it to broadcast it far and wide and tell everyone I knew that Luther's a perverted deviant.  Why?  To DISCREDIT HIM, since he was destroying souls.

If you understand that the sin of calumny is and detraction are based on a person's RIGHT TO A GOOD NAME, that's the principle, then Martin Luther would use that good name or good reputation to LEAD SOULS TO HELL, then he's LOST his right to that good name.  Period.  It's like in the US you have a right to bear arms, but if I know that some guy is going to go murder someone, I could confiscate and steal his gun, so violating not only his "Constitutional Right" but also his right to own his own property.

Between Matt being a public figure, an influencer and one who's doing damage, not only is it PERMITTED but even OBLIGATED for us to speculate far and wide about any impure and dishonest motives that might drive him, in order to offset he harm he's doing.

Now, if I knew someone who had defects or sins who did NOT pose any harm to others, THEN I have no reason to and on right to judge and speculate, and especially if he's a private person, since at that point you're engaging in what's known as Gossip.

So your allegations of impropriety fail every single test related to detraction and calumny.  In fact, I submit that by defending Michael Matt, you could be doing harm.

Let's say, again, that there's some priest who's effeminate, limp wristed, lisping ... someone highly suspect of having inclinations against nature, if you were to try to shout down and silence people who were saying ... "watch out for that guy, since I think he's a fag", if on account of your efforts people let their guard down and then he assaulted one of their young boys, then YOU are the one who will be judged for aiding and abetting his crimes.


Re: Is the Remnant Newspaper run by Jews?
« Reply #32 on: Yesterday at 11:54:11 AM »
:facepalm:  Once again, you're being autistic.  Calling someone a name is an informal way of saying that person is ACTING like the name.  Like before, I called you a "snowflake";  I don't actually mean you are a snowflake, but that you're acting like one.

If one of your friends does/says something dumb, and you ask them "Are you an idiot?"  You don't ACTUALLY mean to label them (nor do you think they are) an idiot, with a low IQ.  It's a way of speaking in a non-formal way.  It's common language of the people.

So when someone calls Mr Matt a "shameless grifter", they don't ACTUALLY think he is that (because none of us knows him personally), we are just saying that he APPEARS to be acting like one, BASED ON HIS EXTERNAL ACTIONS.  Don't be autistic.  This is the common usage of language.  No one is being literal.

Appealing to ‘common language’ does not remove moral responsibility for what words actually signify. In Thomistic ethics, speech is judged by its object, what is asserted about a person, not by claiming afterward that it was merely informal. Calling someone a ‘shameless grifter,’ even rhetorically, attributes habitual vice and interior intent; Aquinas treats that as judgment about the person, not merely the act (ST II–II q.60; q.72 on injurious words).


If you mean only to criticize external behavior, then describe the behavior. Once you assign a vice-term, you move from analysis to moral imputation. Saying ‘I don’t literally mean it’ does not change the species of the act, because words naturally signify what they signify. Thomism does not excuse unjust speech under the category of sarcasm or slang.

So the issue isn’t tone-policing or literalism, it’s precision. Critique actions as much as you want; but attaching vice-labels and then hiding behind ‘informal language’ is exactly the confusion Aquinas warns against.



Re: Is the Remnant Newspaper run by Jews?
« Reply #33 on: Yesterday at 12:02:21 PM »
So ... if I had $5 for every time someone misinterpreted the notion of "internal forum" and "Who am I to judge?" ... I could retire.

We absolutely CAN judge a person's motives, to a certain extent, from information available in the external forum, or at least arrive a moral certainty about them. That's NOT what "internal forum" means.  Internal Forum, which even the Church does not judge, refers to the DEGREE OF CULPABILITY (OR MERIT) THAT A PERSON HAS IN THE EYES OF GOD.

I see someone holding a man at gunpoint and demanding that he turn over his wallet.

I can judge with moral certainty that his motive was to steal the man's wallet.  Now, PERHAPS I could be deceived ... but then with just a bit of additional investigation, all done in the external forum, I could interview the victim and indeed determine that he was robbed of his wallet by a man who INTENDED to steal it from him, and that they weren't, for instance, acting for some TV show, etc.

At that point, I could make a judgment that he wanted the man's money or credit cards.

Now, that COULD BE wrong, but it's a very likely explanation for events witnessed.  It COULD BE that he was after the man's Driver License, to do something else, like steal his identity.

Now, the next level of "internal" momtivation that can be investigated and discovered, all external forum is ... WHY did the man steal the money?  Perhaps he was greedy and wanted to buy something?  Perhaps he was a drug addict who needed a drug fix?  Perhaps he had hungry / starving children at home.  That too can be ascertained in the external forum, and let's say the guy looked high as a kite when he pulled off the robbery, it would not be judging to speculate that he likely was desperate for a drug fix.

But none of this is the line where we cannot judge.

What not being able to judge INTERNAL FORUM has only to do with the degree of guilt (or merit) that someone has in the eyes of God based on an almost infinite number of considerations that only God is capable of knowing and making, where even individuals themselves cannot judge their own internal forum.  Maybe this guy grew up in a broken home and was never taught that theft was bad, but that rich people who didn't share with the poor were bad.  Perhaps he had diminished culpability due to being driven by drug addiction.  THAT is what's meant by INTERNAL FORUM, their assessment of the guilt, their degree of guilty, or their lack thereof.

YOU CAN JUDGE motivation in the external forum.  If someone catches a man in bed with some woman other than his wife, you can safely judge that he was motivated by lust.  COULD you be wrong, absolutely speaking?  Well, I guess, but you're not precluded from speculating about it.  I mean, with the same odds as winning the huge lottery jackpot, it could be that the woman held a gun to his head and forced him to do what he did.  Or, I guess that she could be blackmailing him.  But those types of explanations are relatively rare, and you're not required to withold a judgment that the guy was motivated by lust, AND with just a tiny bit more work in the external forum, you can rule out the outlier allegations, but you are not required to rule out the outlier possibilities to avoid "judging".

As for accusing Matt of grifting, that can be pieced together easily to the point of being almost morally certainty by simply observing his behavior, his language, his posting.  Grifting, of course, simply means that you're motivated in large part by making money, and that this motivation will "influence" what they say or do, and you can make this judgment by, oh, who they cancel and why (+Vigano), what he allows people to say or not say, on his forum, what he himself will say and not say, where he contradicts himself, or witholds obvious conclusions that no one can really deny, just because of the impact of his audience.  When someone makes his entire living off of their "influencer" role, there's an inherent "conflict of interest", where there's a tension between their need to make a living and their desire to do the will of God and to speak the truth.

But, what you're really attempting to determine is whether one commits calumny by speculating about an individual's motivatins out loud or in public.

No.  Why?  Simply because everybody KNOWS that you're speculating and that you don't have some "hidden knowledge" that you're revealing.

So, for instance ... if I see some guy acting effeminate, with limp wrist, lisping, you know, showing all the textbook signs of sodomitical inclinations ... is it detraction to wonder out loud whether he's at least inclined toward sodomy?  No, since pretty much everyone is asking the same question, and it would require some mental illness to pretend that you don't see or notice it, and you are not required to NOT notice it.  Sodomitical inclination, of course, is a special case anyway, since any right the individual might have to his good name is offset by the potential risk that he might pose to others, and so people should be aware of it, and it's not wrong to even shout it from the roof tops, so that some naive or unsuspecting individual doesn't let this guy take their son camping or the like.  You can judge when behavior suggests a risk, or a possible problem.

Public interest and potential harm to others can outweigh a person's right to a good name.

AND ... Michael Matt checks that box also.  See, most of us know that Matt does a great deal of harm to the Catholic faith, where he's encouraging people to recognize the Conciliar Church as the Catholic Church, and he's made outrageously heretical assertions like "the Catholic Church now endorses sodomy", etc.  In addition, he prevents people who might otherwise flee that Whore of Babylon and got to a Traditional chapel by defending it and continuing to recognize it as Catholic.  Matt is sitting there in the pot of hot water that being brought to a boil, and when other people say, "man, it's getting hot in here, I think I'll get out now," Matt will chime in with "nah, it's good for your health, as the heat just opens your pores", or to others standing outside, Matt say, "come on in, the water's fine".  Matt is doing grave damage to souls, so we almost have a duty to call out his duplicity, his grifting, his errors.

If I were alive at the time of Martin Luther and caught him in a secret act of sodomy, for instance, I would not only be permitted but would be obligate it to broadcast it far and wide and tell everyone I knew that Luther's a perverted deviant.  Why?  To DISCREDIT HIM, since he was destroying souls.

If you understand that the sin of calumny is and detraction are based on a person's RIGHT TO A GOOD NAME, that's the principle, then Martin Luther would use that good name or good reputation to LEAD SOULS TO HELL, then he's LOST his right to that good name.  Period.  It's like in the US you have a right to bear arms, but if I know that some guy is going to go murder someone, I could confiscate and steal his gun, so violating not only his "Constitutional Right" but also his right to own his own property.

Between Matt being a public figure, an influencer and one who's doing damage, not only is it PERMITTED but even OBLIGATED for us to speculate far and wide about any impure and dishonest motives that might drive him, in order to offset he harm he's doing.

Now, if I knew someone who had defects or sins who did NOT pose any harm to others, THEN I have no reason to and on right to judge and speculate, and especially if he's a private person, since at that point you're engaging in what's known as Gossip.

So your allegations of impropriety fail every single test related to detraction and calumny.  In fact, I submit that by defending Michael Matt, you could be doing harm.

Let's say, again, that there's some priest who's effeminate, limp wristed, lisping ... someone highly suspect of having inclinations against nature, if you were to try to shout down and silence people who were saying ... "watch out for that guy, since I think he's a fag", if on account of your efforts people let their guard down and then he assaulted one of their young boys, then YOU are the one who will be judged for aiding and abetting his crimes.
Lad,

You’re trying to baptize license into virtue. Thomism does not do that. Aquinas never teaches that “public harm” gives you a moral warrant to speculate “far and wide” about impure motives, hidden controllers, or interior dishonesty. What he teaches is the opposite: when evidence is insufficient, the just man inclines to the better interpretation, because judgment is an act of justice, and justice is not fed by conjecture (ST II–II q.60).

Your whole structure depends on a false move: you slide from “we may judge public acts” to “therefore we are obligated to impute motives.” That does not follow. Judging an act is one thing; assigning a vice, a motive, or a secret coordination is another. “Grifter,” “duplicitous,” “shameless,” “controlled,” “impure motives,” are not descriptions of externally verifiable acts; they are moral readings of the man. In Thomistic terms you are not merely evaluating material objects (“he banned comments,” “he wrote X”), you are asserting a formal object: that he acts from dishonesty, greed, malice, and interior corruption. That is precisely the species of rash judgment Aquinas condemns when a man “forms an evil opinion of another without sufficient cause” (ST II–II q.60 a.2).

Your “internal forum” lecture is also a dodge. Nobody claimed the internal forum means “we can never infer anything.” The point is that you are treating vice-labels and motive-imputations as if they were simple empirical observations. They are not. “He took the wallet” is an externally ascertainable fact. “Therefore he is a shameless grifter” is a moral characterization, and “therefore we are obliged to broadcast suspicions widely” is a still worse step: it proposes a rule that authorizes detraction as a method. Aquinas does not permit you to convert probability into moral certitude just because you dislike the man’s influence. “Moral certainty” is not “I feel strongly,” and it is not “patterns I prefer.” It is proportionate evidence that excludes reasonable alternatives. You have not produced that; you’ve produced narrative.

Then you claim “public interest can outweigh a person’s right to a good name,” and you use that as a blank check to discredit. That is not Thomism; that is utilitarianism with incense. The right to a good name is part of justice, and justice is not overridden by vibes. Yes, there are rare cases where warning others is necessary to prevent imminent harm, and then the rule is strict: you must have solid grounds, you must speak to those who need to know, and you must use the least harmful means consistent with the end. What you are defending is the opposite: maximal publicity, maximal insinuation, minimal evidence. That is not “protecting souls”; it is training yourself to enjoy suspicion.

Your analogies make the error obvious. You keep reaching for criminals with guns and hidden predators, as if disagreeing with a journalist’s ecclesiology is the same category as stopping a violent assault. That’s not an argument; it’s emotional smuggling. Thomism distinguishes ends and means. Even a good end does not justify unjust means. “He harms souls, therefore I may invent, broadcast, and intensify suspicions about his motives” is exactly the kind of reasoning Catholic moral theology rejects. If you truly believe a claim is heretical, refute it. If you truly believe an act is unjust, demonstrate it. But if you cannot prove interior corruption, you do not get to staple it onto him as a convenient explanation.

And your attempt to excuse name-calling as “common language” is worse, not better. In Thomism, words have objects. Injury by speech is a real species of sin precisely because language signifies. You cannot morally cleanse a vice-term by saying “I don’t literally mean it.” If you choose the term “grifter,” you have chosen a term whose meaning is dishonest exploitation for gain. If you choose “shameless,” you have chosen a term that imputes a settled vice. That is why Aquinas condemns these moves: they are not neutral “observations,” they are moral accusations disguised as banter.

Finally, you accuse others of “aiding and abetting” crimes if they insist on evidentiary restraint. That is moral blackmail. Thomism does not say “silence is complicity” as a general rule; it says you are bound to truth, justice, and charity in speech. If you want to warn, you must warn truthfully, proportionately, and without imputing what you do not know. Your method is the opposite: you demand the right to speculate publicly and widely, then you call restraint “harm.” That is not Catholic moral theology. That is passion looking for a theology to hide behind.

So here is the clean Thomistic line: you may judge public acts and refute public errors. You may not treat conjecture as evidence, nor suspicion as duty, nor detraction as “protecting souls,” nor vice-labels as mere “informal language.” If you have proofs, present them. If you have only patterns and irritation, then the Thomistic answer is simple: restrain your tongue, because justice does not run on insinuation.



Offline Pax Vobis

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Re: Is the Remnant Newspaper run by Jews?
« Reply #34 on: Yesterday at 12:49:12 PM »

Quote
If you mean only to criticize external behavior, then describe the behavior.
:jester:  All criticisms are based on external behavior.  No one (except autist people) actually think it’s possible to judge/know someone’s thoughts.  


A “shameless grifter” is a great description of his behavior.  No one can know if he actually is and all normal people don’t speak as if they could know.  All name calling is based on behavior.