Redistribution of Wealth

My friend would get terribly excited when the Publisher's Clearing House Sweepstakes information would come in the mail.  She'd lick every sticker and fill out each blank on every page of advertising that was sent and mail it back speedily.  She would then pray to the Lord, asking if he would let her win, she would give this much to one charity and that much to another. I don't fault her for her sentiments, because I've bargained with God before on many occasions.  But what I would ask her, cheekily, at that time was, "How much are you giving to these concerns now?" I was, of course, being a little smug, but my point was that we should be sharing the wealth that we have now rather than waiting for God to make us richer.  


What makes us think that we will feel more charitable when we have more money?  If we aren't faithful with the little we have, how can we be faithful with more (or be trusted with more, as the Bible so aptly reminds us?) We are just fooling ourselves.


We also deceive ourselves when we think that we only want to make the world a more equitable place by taxing the rich and giving it to the poor. What we are saying, despite all of our pious cries for social justice, is this: "you have more than me and that's not fair." The truth is, "taking" (i.e., taxing) something from someone simply because they have more is not fair, whether practiced by highway robbers or the federal government.  If the problem were only the need for social equity!  Some are calling for retributive justice, seeking to punish the crimes of the past by taxing the present. 


My concern is with a government take-over of the justice business.  Laws do a terrible job of policing behavior. Take highway travel speeds, for instance. We know that excessive speed is dangerous. The government regulates the safety of highway travel by enacting speed limits.  Do these laws deter people from speeding? Hmmmm, perhaps somewhat. However, one usually reacts only to the police car on the side of the road or in the rear view mirror.  What we really need is internal conviction that driving too fast is selfish and dangerous and potentially deadly to oneself and others. In the case of social justice, we need the conviction that caring for the poor (feeding, clothing, teaching, and elevating from poverty) is the business of mankind. What we need is a response to the goodness and generosity we've been shown by sharing it with others.  "What do you have that you did not receive?" 


All who read this are incredibly wealthy.  You are, after all, reading this on a computer.  What have you or I to share and how much better are we able to do this than the federal government?  If we are not faithful with the "little" we have, how can we expect ourselves to be faithful with more?

Political Anorexia

I was wondering how former Illinois governor Rob Blegoyevich could say he had done nothing wrong while the Illinois senate was listening to the actual recordings of him wheeling and dealing favors from his office. And now his appointee to the US Senate, Senator Burris, is doing the exact same thing. He claims he has done absolutely nothing wrong and that he's sure he will be vindicated.

It makes me wonder if there isn't a mental condition called, for lack of a better word, Political Anorexia. I do not mean any disrespect to people who suffer from the awful, wasting disease of anorexia. If I offend, please-please forgive me. But one of the puzzling symptoms of that disease is a distorted body image. People with this disorder actually view themselves as overweight when they may be extremely emaciated. Do these big city politicians suffer from a similar delusion? Do they look at their lifestyle and see virtue? Do they look at their political shenanigans and see service? Do they really and honestly think of themselves as being faithful servants to their constituents? Don't they see the greed and corruption, self service and aggrandizement that is so plain for everyone else?

Those of us who have never had political power have never experienced the heady exhilaration of controlling other people, dictating and manipulating them. It must be just like a disease or a disorder, in that it infects the mind and perverts the thought processes. Does that make me feel sorry for the people afflicted? To a degree, it does. But not to excuse their behavior. Not to permit them to continue. I fear submitting to people with mental disorders.

That explains a lot of what comes out of Washington, DC.