It is a Sin. So What

I have a friend who posted the observation that "Class Warfare is rooted in envy, and envy is one of the seven classic sins." I am not sure exactly why that observation was made except that it was made in response to all of the Occupy Movements that are being called part of a class warfare that Obama is supposed to be starting.

Somehow it seems rather unproductive to call those engaged in the Occupy Movement sinners. So what? We are all sinners. The discussion has not made any progress to call those demonstrators sins. I have no way of knowing if their reasons for being at Wall Street is envy or not, but I understand that they are sinners. That is the first statement one can make about everybody according to the Christian faith.

The second part of a debate about the existence of sin in this debate is that my friend tried to down play the existence of sin in the free market capitalistic system. One does not engage in that discussion of free market capitalism very long before one hits greed, selfishness, gluttony, lust, and envy itself as one hedge fund operator is envious of the success of another. The problem is that there is no such thing in this country as "free market." Every law and every decision of government promotes one side and prohibits another. So to attempt to make those waging the Occupy movement the bad guys because their movement is based on envy does not seem to me to be productive. At best all you have is sinners on both sides of the war.

There are a number of issues which seem to me to make the statement that the class warfare is based on envy an oversimplification. There are recent articles which report that the wealth of the richest 1% in the country has risen at three times faster than the wealth of the middle class and the poor. That suggests to me that the whole system is rigged. That any suggestion that there is a level playing field is simply a lie. The field is tilted towards the wealth. That is not envy that is a demand for fairness.

There is the issue that still smolders in the hearts of many is that those bankers and finance people who did not do their duty and were negligent in rating and research that helped to create the subprime mortgage crisis have not had to suffer any penalty or punishment. That those companies were bailed out by the government and then those bankers and financial officers still wanted their bonuses provides another incentive to demand some kind of justice.

When the Republicans keep saying the taxes are too high on the rich, that business needs more tax cuts, when the Republicans refuse to raise the tax rate on this 1% that is getting fatter and fatter every year so that these 1%ers do not even pay taxes at the same rate as their secretaries that does not generate envy, that generates hostility and anger at the absurdity of it all. Those people at Wall Street don't envy what the rich have. Those people only want a decent life for themselves and their family and they see it being stolen by the rich by the system in which the tilted in favor of the 1%.

To say that class warfare is based on envy is a cheap shot at those protesting the reality in which they live.

Lessons from this Seasons

With all of the discussion every year about the lessons people learn from sports, this year's season of baseball is a good teacher. While colleges talk about all of the good things that can be learned from playing sports, and then turn around and show us all the bad things that can be learned from too much money and too little concern about education, professional baseball this year has provide, I think, at least two clear lessons.

The stories coming out of the Boston Red Sox's locker room tell us one very clear lesson. You can pay players too much. When they get so much money and so many years guaranteed they stop performing and they become complacence. The Oakland Raiders had a quarterback from LSU that they paid too much money to and he never saw the need to work hard or to take seriously the organization's advice. Yes, you can pay a player too much and he will lose the passion to perform well.

Along the same lines is the lesson from the teams in the Division play offs and the World Series. Money will not buy you a championship. The payroll of the teams in the League championship series and the World Series have pay rolls that rank between the 10th to the 17th on the list of highest payrolls in the major leagues. Obviously you need to pay your players fairly, but just because you go out and hire and pay the largest payroll in the sport does not insure that you will win the championship. The LA Lakers also discovered the same thing. Most expensive payrolls do not insure a championship.

You can play a player too much. No matter how much you pay for your line up, it does not guarantee you a winner.

Same Old Same Old

One of the very first people I visited in my very first job in 1968 was an elderly woman who said she could not ever vote for Richard Nixon. She remembered his hateful actions as a congressman. She jokingly said that was the trouble with old age, you remember too much.

I thought of that when I started hearing all the concern about the Mormon religion of two of the candidates for the Republican nomination for President. I don't claim to remember too much, but I do remember all of the worry, fears, and bigotry that was expressed over John Kennedy's Roman Catholic faith. A minister named Herb Meza in Houston, Texas was Chair of the Houston Ministerial Association and had Senator Kennedy address that issue and the issue seemed to diminish.

John Kennedy became President and his Roman Catholic religion did not seem to bother him as President. At least not according to the rumors of all his romantic affairs. In fact, as I think back, there are very few Presidents who seem to give any evidence that their religious faith has made much difference in what they did. Jimmy Carter is about the only President I remember who seemed to take very seriously his religious convictions and if truth be told, he had a very difficult time being President.

It does not take a long memory to remember that religion was a major aspect of the Obama struggle to be President. He keeps claiming to be Christian and his enemies keep claiming he is a Muslim. There was a lot of discussion about the "brand" of Christianity he followed if he was a Jeremiah Wright follower. But the nation elected Obama and one can hardly say that his religious convictions have "ruined" the country.

Now there is just as much ignorance and fear over two Mormons who are running for President. The great "we can't have a President who is a Mormon. They believe all kinds of strange things and are not Christian. They are a cult." cry has gone up. The reality is that those men have been elected to various leadership roles and those states, companies, and offices have not been destroyed by having Mormon leaders.

Why do we keep having the same debate over and over? A long time ago an organizer told a group of us the only legitimate standard to judge a politician was by whether or not he has kept his promises to the public. Look to the record. What did he say. What did he do. The Politician who promises one thing and does not attempt to do what he says should not be trusted. The Politician who promises the public something and tries to do them deserves to be trusted. To their credit many of the Republicans elected in 2010 have been trying to keep the promises they made when they ran. Thus it is easier to decide if they should be reelected because we know they will try to do what they said. The only other question is whether we like what they promise.

I would much rather have a devout, faithful Hindu who speaks quietly, makes one or two promises and tries to keep them, than to have a Bible Thumping Christian who says he wants to impose his religious convictions on the whole society and yet does nothing. But we do not need to have a religious orthodoxy standard for our Presidential candidates. We have been through that too many times before.