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"To claim the existence of a right to abortion is a capital assault on the dignity of people"
"We feel like a wound pain of millions of people victims of a formidable deception have lost their jobs"
"We demand that those in positions of responsibility to prove more than his presumption of innocence"
The president of the Foundation for Analysis and Social Studies (FAES), José María Aznar, was today sworn in Monday, November 9, Professor of Ethics, Politics and Humanities, Universidad Católica San Antonio de Murcia.
Aznar has stressed in his speech that "we must be alert to the bad policy that disregards ethical boundaries."
FAES president also said that "to claim the existence of a right to abortion is a capital assault on the dignity of people and their right to life."
During the inaugural lecture of the 2009-2010 academic year has spoken, dedicated to 'The values in the current political life', José María Aznar said that "we all feel like a wound pain of millions of people who were victims of a formidable deception, have lost their jobs. "
In his view, "we must demand that those in positions of responsibility to prove more than his presumption of innocence."
Chair of Business Ethics, Politics and Humanities, created by the San Antonio Catholic University of Murcia in cooperation with the FAES Foundation, will feature other top-level speakers such as Vice President of the Chamber of Deputies of Italy, Rocco Buttiglione, the former ministers Jaime Mayor Oreja, Angel Acebes and Eduardo Zaplana, the president of the Region of Murcia, Ramón Luis Valcárcel, or the professor of the University of Bologna and consultant to Pope Benedict XVI, Stefano Zamagni, among others.
Below is reproduced the inaugural lecture of Aznar in the UCAM:
I want my first words of gratitude for the generous honor that makes me become part of the Catholic University of San Antonio as extraordinary professor of Ethics, Politics & Humanities.
I assume this responsibility with the will to exercise it in defense of the values and principles that have always believed and now call on us.
Talking about values in our political life is surely one of the most needed in today's Spain.
It seems clear that the weakening of the core values of good policy is at the root of many of our current problems.
I know that addressing the political from the perspective of values is for many an eccentricity.
They are wrong.
We must defend the core values of good policy and do it, like everything else, with determination and rigor.
In recent years Spain has become a country full of bad news and worst fears.
The sense of crisis, mistrust and confusion is very real and is more than justified.
We all share the concern about our destiny as a country and we all feel like a wound pain of the millions of people who were victims of a formidable deception, have lost their jobs and with it, see how it puts his life and his draft horizon.
No wonder many are torn between the perplexity and indignation, nor is it intended to be immediate solutions and magic remedies for what is much more than just a financial crisis.
Believe me when I say that this kind of magic solutions do not exist.
Countries do not improvise, do not build themselves or by accident.
Nor are destroyed without cause or perpetrators.
And that responsibility is not just the government, bad government.
Nor is it just politics.
The people build countries that join, which are prudent and consistent, which act with generosity, honesty and transparency.
And destroy those who divide, reckless, drop to the difficulties, selfish, and corrupt freeloaders.
Today I begin to be part of a young university community.
Many of you, and other young people who are no longer with us, probably you look at our nation strangely, without fully understanding what is happening or know what can be done.
Hoping perhaps that we, the older, say what we have to say about what happens.
And hoping to give the example we are obliged to give.
Among all that is important to do something that matters above all else: to preserve the future of Spain, our nation.
And the future is sitting in the classroom.
Is you young people.
And what we learn to be at this critical time in our country, teach what we know will largely depend on how and when to recover the lost course.
Because we have lost the path that led us to the historical success of Spain, forged over 30 years and various governments.
We all remember that success because we have lived and because he has been an example followed and admired around the world.
We do hard time.
And we have taken very little to lose because it is always easier to destroy than to build.
Just before you, young people, and especially for you, remember some basic things about politics.
And more so in an institution like this, which aims to train people and train them in respect for basic values.
We are forced to go back to basics.
Us and we demand the time required by the desire to leave a valuable legacy for Spain.
We must return to insurance principles, to the simple truths and core values.
Principles, truths and values that should settle the future of any nation that seeks to make its mark in history.
And I, for Spain, I want less.
Dear friends, dear young people:
We can look at politics in two ways: either we believe that there are values higher than the policy should serve, or believe that politics decides the values to which we are obliged to serve.
The first approach considers the policy as an instrument to serve the people and, therefore, lies in its dignity, an absolute limit and a bounden duty.
The second makes people a tool and puts the service of politics that decides for itself what are its limits and what is its meaning.
The first approach is good politics.
I've always tried to adopt it, and I've always fought the second, the bad policy.
I did so because I believe that when politics is at the service of people is one of the most noble and most necessary for a society.
And because history has shown that when these terms are reversed, the consequences can be dire.
What is dignity has no price because there nothing that can replace: with that is what we call value.
What is dignity can not be used as a means for any purpose, no currency can not be part of any deal.
People have dignity.
Their liberty, fundamental rights, especially his own life are not negotiable.
This is the fundamental belief that encouraging good policy, which seeks to serve it with dignity.
To protect what you have dignity no assumptions need to invent rights without real content, lists almost always talk about the groups and rarely of people.
What we need, quite simply, is that power is exercised within the limits and compliance with its obligations that justify their existence.
In 1936 the Soviet Union adopted a Constitution that supposedly meant to protect all rights, including freedom of conscience, press, association and assembly.
The list was huge.
But in subsequent years, millions of Soviet citizens were arbitrarily arrested and many were executed.
Soon, the Soviet Constitution of 1936 was known as the Stalin Constitution.
Surely none of us would feel safe in that terrible regime even carry a copy of the 1936 Constitution to show who came to arrest him.
On the contrary, I do not think anybody feels that threat in a country like the United Kingdom has no written constitution but enjoys the benefits of the rule of law.
To a power that ignores its limits and bills of rights obligations are not worth anything, are just an alibi, and worthy things are lost.
To start, you lose the freedom that can not be a political program but something prior and more important.
Freedom is not negotiable.
Freedom is not requested or vote, simply exercised.
This is the first condition to merit: to be willing to exercise it.
This is the reason why good politics is fundamentally incompatible with a political negotiation with terrorists.
But "freedom" is a word whose political management practice is not easy.
It is not because the fraudulent appeal to freedom has become too often the refuge of bad policy.
In order to be of all, freedom can not be absolutely anyone, so it must be the right balance between liberty and order, and that balance is provided by the rule of law.
Only through their institutions of freedom acquires its true meaning of civilization.
When acting on the rules of good politics is not difficult to differentiate when we are dealing with true freedom and when not.
But when it does so, the dignity of freedom can be lost easily.
It is also easy to lose equity in their good sense, equality, understood as submission to the same standards under the same conditions.
When this occurs, the power becomes arbitrary and overwhelming.
And also the peace may be lost dignity, which is the only morally acceptable.
All these effects can be bad policy.
Effects of denying dignity to what the have and have a power that knows no boundaries and accept liability.
Dear friends, dear young people:
The Government maintains a relationship with the business ethics of its citizens is often a good indicator of how deep to understand the exercise of power.
The ethics of a society activity is always a limit to the excesses of power and, therefore, the reaction shows that governments before it can be seen as an early warning system for good or bad intentions of power.
Good politics is always an ethical policy.
Bad policy neglects ethical boundaries.
We must be alert to it.
Be alert when a government puts alleged rights of the territories to the people;
And he prefers that citizens depend on the State to dispose of personal autonomy that would give them have a job.
Be alert when from politics detracts from the honesty, and tolerated or minimizing corruption.
We must be very alert when a government disregards the educational system and ignores all reports that they ask for a change, if only intend to use the education system to indoctrinate children, parents stealing their right to education.
And be aware when the Government decides to establish, from a political, scientific truth or moral criteria.
Worry and stay alert when in power acted to obscure the view of children.
Because any significant decision of our life should actually be ours, and that as such we feel it is necessary that we could join it to all persons or institutions whose criteria which we care and appreciate teachers.
What is familiar to us must be in the fundamental decisions of our lives.
Who would not prevent us free but it takes us away from true freedom to condemn us to live with the consequences of acts that are not entirely our if we have ours.
Totalitarianism strive to substitute names for numbers, or any term that would separate people from their humanity.
The deliberate failure of family ties is not equivalent to deletion of names, but it certainly is very close to deleting names.
As Joseph Ratzinger said, "is impossible to fully formed man from the zero point of their freedom.
The man not starting from scratch, and can only make one's own specific and new if you connect with the humanity that precedes it, the conditions and models. "
Of what it is that connection with what precedes us not take the form of an easement but the form of learning that enriches us and gives real meaning to our freedom.
For this reason, this is one of the biggest mistakes of the new abortion law promoted by the Government: encouraging the loneliness of the children when they need the company of their parents.
And along with this error, another expressed as worse than just the effects of bad policy: to claim the existence of a right to abortion is a capital assault on the dignity of people and their right to life.
Clearly the existence of a legal right that is none at all, contrary to the doctrine requires protection of life that once established the Constitutional Court.
When the child makes to his instrument, when he assumes the principle that it is preferable that the institutions are inconsistent against life and not pro-life, when considered as part of its jurisdiction, the erosion of family ties, when all that happens is that the power has reneged on ethics, has chosen the wrong policy and has lost its place in a society of free citizens they serve should be.
Dear friends, dear young people:
Freedom is the condition of many legitimate personal choices.
What is the Christian life, which can only be true if it is born of freedom.
And any other non-Christian religious choice, or non-denominational.
But pluralism is not to uncritically accept any system of ideas, but to recognize the essential dignity of the person who says that is not the same.
And that goes for Christians, Muslims, Jews and any others, believers or not, who want to be part of an open society and enjoy its protection.
Pluralism is a value associated with intellectual or moral relativism, but a value associated with the absolute condition of the dignity of all people regardless of their creed.
Pluralism, open society that bases is not the result of proclaiming the impossibility of distinguishing the true from the false or the good from the bad.
Because contrary to what the postmodernists claim, there is truth and falsehood.
There are good and evil.
It is true the value of human life, and is good commitment to their defense.
These should be, in my opinion, the core values of the current policy.
They are built on open and prosperous societies, demanding of their institutions and are able to distinguish the good government of the bad governments.
Without them, the hierarchy of political principles is reversed, the policy instruments become the aim of policy, and policy ends become mere instruments.
A democratic society confident values do not give up but always encouraged.
They are the best guarantee of continuity and the greatest threat to bad governments.
Dear Young:
The policy not only made of values and ideas, but when the policy has no value degenerates into corruption, and when it does not degenerate into sectarian ideas.
A sectarian politics citizen deserves rejection.
And a corrupt political citizen deserves the rejection and punishment of Justice.
Political corruption moves dishonesty and indecency from individuals to institutions and severely damaged the public image of a country.
But above all, corruption undermines the very heart of good policy.
It is not only what is but what is left to do, what is left to protect because it uses the power for personal gain.
We must demand that those in positions of responsibility to prove more than his presumption of innocence.
Who requested the sought-vote, and in return must give much.
Who calls a special trust must be delivered in a special way and answer for their actions in a special way.
I have always defended and will defend the existence of a political liability more stringent than mere criminal liability.
No code of ethics, any supervision or control can completely prevent corruption.
But the prestige of public service is essential to induce corruption scandal deserves.
Never in all my political life, I thought otherwise, nor have I acted differently.
Never.
Good policy requires sacrifice, service capacity, personal sacrifices in favor of something larger than oneself.
Can not be based on factions or personal ambitions.
This is what distinguishes games factions: a project for the whole country, an idea of the common good, a strong commitment to service.
Never forget that good policy needs to work hard, consistently, with effort, perseverance, never losing direction or encouragement.
The policy also requires good will to unite and integrate, and always act with justice and exemplary.
Only then does this under the Romans called 'auctoritas', a virtue that is earned and not imposed, and it is essential to ensure adherence to a project suggestive of free and responsible individuals.
Professional politics can not be an alternative to studies or apprenticeship.
There can be a way of life.
Politics should not be the job of those who have no more motion than politics.
It is essential that political parties put their best efforts to protect and encourage genuine political vocations, and it is also put its utmost to detect and overrule the policy spivs that we are all ashamed and disgusted us.
I know that today the Spanish policy does not provide an attractive setting for her play in a role worthy.
We all suffer for it.
But we must always remember something about it: at least deserves the best is when they most need.
No eludáis the effort, sacrifice, good work.
Be bold and accept the risk when risk is the way to overcome obstacles.
Remember that only in the dictionary the word success appears before the word work.
Suspicion of success that results from work.
Be among the best ever and do not reject the call of your country when you believe that you need.
Spain is neither accidental nor an imposition.
We are Spanish: share the fate and the responsibility of Spain.
Source: FAES
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