"Still waiting for Duplo to explain why one company can charge $4 for 60 pills and another can charge $165."

I'm still waiting to find out why the customers do not walk to the next pharmacy or check the Internet to compare prices, Harry. And neither option involves some fundamental flaw with capitalism....as you still eveade explaining!

You have yet to share your alternative to a capitalist drug manufacturing and retailing system with us, Harry.

Tell us how this problem will be solved without capitalism.

"It's just "Capitalism"....right?" That's what you posted without explanation.
Enlighten us, Oh Harry!

No wonder beekeeping was a fad among the (ahem!) more artistic and esoteric types in the 80's. Royal jelly!

It's an ideal, Tor. It would really never work if you think about it.
In fact, the more you think about that appraoch the more you will see society disintegrate in your imagination! It would be like an ever increasing army of narcs and accountants stomping out every individual decision.

Neither would I, Tor. Maybe that's the reason millions are killed in marxist countries and people like us are far less 'motivated' to do so. Even the South American dictators are much more judicious in the application of mass murder.
Scary stuff. We are somewhat jaded by peace and harmony....at least the harmony of agreeing on a system of sober decisions.

I have always thought that if narcs find one joint or a line of coke on a boat and take the property because of that, then they should do the same to banks that launder drug money.
Boy, would that industry change fast!
Unfortunately, European, Canadian, Asian and South American banks would take up the vacuum.
That's the problem with cash. It only represents something and is not actually that thing (in this case, drugs). Going after the cash makes it flow like water elsewhere because it represents the desires of people.

Harry, do you ever engage in discussion or is every post a sneer?

The formation of all we call Western Civilization happened in this period. The "Dark Ages" were not dark because of the Church, which was slowly converting Europe from paganism and various, sometimes very ugly, heresies. It was not as if Constantine (the Arian heretic) had unleashed a tyranny upon all Europe in the form of a military Roman Catholic Church and all the continent instantly changed.
Nope. The Chruch took almost until the 13th Century to find any real ascendancy in Europe. That is fact, not sneer.

Then the culture actually grew, especially through the universities the Church founded and Her efforts at almost all times to keep the kings and princes from warring.

Go ahead, sneer again, but at least Wiki before you make a fool of yourself. Even better, read a history book.

"Nice non-sequiter. Try to focus on the topic at hand, mmmm'kay?"

I did. You made a snide remark about capitalism's effect on drug costs, right? Follow, Harry?
I pointed out that the inevitable conclusion MUST be that where capitalism does not exist, like North Korea, the variety and availability of drugs MUST be better. I mean, that's what your remark implied.
So you prefer non-capitalist drug research and manufacture? Do tell, Harry. Why not put your cards on the table and share your wisdom with us.

Tell us all how Harry would solve this problem, and I hope it is more than a sneer and evasion this time.

And to save the lazy the trouble:

"8. Whoever exalts race, or the people, or the State, or a particular form of State, or the depositories of power, or any other fundamental value of the human community -- however necessary and honorable be their function in worldly things -- whoever raises these notions above their standard value and divinizes them to an idolatrous level, distorts and perverts an order of the world planned and created by God; he is far from the true faith in God and from the concept of life which that faith upholds."

Since the nazi canard comes up so often, I'll link directly to an encyclical written by the man the left calls "Hitler's Pope":

"I thought the female body had ways of preventing that."

That's true, but it can weeks to grow enough leg and armpit hair.

People Magazine might lose its entire European market??

I bet where there is no capitalism, say North Korea, these drugs are available all over for 'free,' right, Harry?

Not usually, Helium. Most are missionaries who are simply sick of seeing the lower castes of Indians peed on. Some became Marxists but most liberation theology types just posited Christianity mandates opposing a government for these abuses.
It WAS the radical liberationist wing that caused the head smashers to start taking out anyone sounding remotely like those ones.
The orthodox teaching of the Church is to do everything legal to alleviate such suffering, but the clergy should avoid political alignments that could provoke deadly reactions in such countries. They can have their own views, but not from the pulpit or all hell (literally) can break loose.

"Those 2,000 went to better paying jobs!"

The NY Times Business Section

But first Obama had to tell the groups and the press to rise from their knees before him so he could address them.

Oh! BTW, Punchy. Google "Papal Encyclicals Online." You will find two encyclicals by separate Popes against the Nazis.
Encyclicals are ex catherdra and the highest and most binding instruction for the faithful to follow. To accuse the Church of somehow fostering the Nazis is just plain incorrect.

"..the Imperialism of Rome had not infiltrate the faith is ridiculous and it took Vatican 2 to bring back the faith to what its roots, I do not see how you can deny this."

I've read the documents of Vatican II and saw nothing resembling this, Punchy. But one of the worst abuses of the post Vatican II era had nothing to do with the Council itself, but everything to do with fringe conservative and liberals interpreting the teachings of the Council in a ludicrously self-serving way. So many misconceptions have been taught as a result and I always urge people to actually read the documents, easily available in book form and online.

"..a history of turning a blind eye to some of the worst dictators in Latin America if not out right supporting them."

Just as they try to do in the Far East today, because thousands might be killed if the situation is not handled deftly. My grandfather was in Mexico during the 20's and saw not one newspaper article in English or Spanish that told him the churches had been shut and clergy were in hiding. A kid brought him to a home where the Sacrament was there with permission for the faithful to gives themselves Communion in extremis.
Google Fr. Miguel Pro. The photos of his martyrdom are online from this era.
Good thread!

"my wife has incurable cancer. Her mom just died of cancer. These are hard times."

Ouch! I'll keep you and her in my prayers, Path.

"My dad died a year later---I always wondered whether my brother's death had something to do with it."

Think of the worst emotional pain you have endured and multiply it by 100. There is nothing as completely debilitating as the loss of a child, and it is even harder on the mother than the father.

"If somebody gets arrested and we hand them over to MoI they're going to get their balls hooked, electrocuted or they're going to get beaten or raped up the ass with a coke bottle or something like that,"

He takes them to Castro Street and turns them loose?? Poor guys.

P.S. The schisms between government and Church in Latin American countries have been there since Cortez wrote the Emperor begging him to side with the Church in these conflicts. It is not the exclusive property of "liberation theology" adherents.

"The nature of the Church had changed with Constantine's declaration in 324 A.D. that the Catholic Church would be the official Church of the Roman Empire, thereby making it the "persecuting Church," with the Crusades, the Spanish Inquisition and complicity with Nazism among the numerous crimes which flowed from this."

An astonishing example of either ignorance or willful distortion.
Constantine allowed Christianity to practice freely and became a Christian himself. He later, however, recalled Arianus joined the Arian heresy, hardly a "Catholic" thing to do. St. Athanasius put up serious resistance the creed named after him is his great legacy.
In time, the Arian heresy would cover all Europe except Rome and to the south. Slowly (over centuries) the Catholic Church regained predominance over this heresy.
If you want to find the churches that admire Constantine, only the Orthodox to my memory do. Maybe the Copts but I am not sure of that.
Constantine was baptized on his death bed, but by an Arian priest, which is why the Roman Catholics never considered him anyone to venerate as a Christian.
How this fake you cite turned that into Nazism the Crusades and the now largely considered mythical Spanish Inquisition is a masterpiece of lying.

Let's see, the 13th Amendment outlawing slavery went into effect right after the Civil War. It made slavery illegal.
The draft lasted until after the Viet Nam War.
Yet conscription was slavery?

The sneerers who coined the phrase "Dark Ages" were almost all educated in the universities founded by the Church during those ages, too.

Suuuuure, Rcade. And if this had been revealed about Bobby Jindal the thread would have 300 posts by now because it would be so 'relevant.'