My friend Jerry just died. He suddenly fell prey to a very rare
disease a few days ago; in less than a week, a vibrant, honorable,
loving man was gone.
He was a man who loved God and who gave of himself selflessly to
everyone around him. He will be sorely missed by many, many people but
his life will stand as a tribute to what one man can accomplish in his
home, his church and his community with God’s grace operating in his
life.
But, Jerry’s life stands in stark contrast to the lives of many of
the people in our nation. And, yet, like Jerry, we are acquiescing to
an ugly infection; the name of this infection is Greed.
The Bible addressed this problem a long time ago: “For the love of
money is a root of all sorts of evil …” (1 Timothy 6:10). The
love of money. Greed. Evil.
Now, just so you know: I enjoy earning money. I like working hard
and smart and seeing rewards for my efforts. And I take pleasure in
spending money on the sorts of things that money can buy. But, I also
know that money is not God; it is not the ultimate value in life and it
is most definitely not what makes my world go around. To
rephrase a popular saying, “He who dies with the most toys is a fool who
has missed the point of life entirely.”
Apparently, however, I am part of an increasingly small minority of
people who see things this way.
Many of you may recall Michael Douglas’s character from the movie,
“Wall Street”, in the mid 80’s. “Greed is good,” he told us.
Oh, really?
Robbery has long been thought of as a crime. We would be outraged
were someone to pick our pockets and we would be horribly upset were
someone to hold us up at gunpoint. Yet, we keep electing leaders who
continuously pick our pockets: they put their greedy hands into our
wallets and pocketbooks by raising our taxes and then fund new programs
with our money that enrich their benefactors and solidify
their power base. And Gore’s recent hypocrisy of selling-off our
national oil reserves while selling-out our national security is but the
latest in a long reign of greed-inspired crime in the Clinton-Gore
syndicate.
But, the reason why we elect these people is that we’re no different
— we’re just as greedy. More and more constituency groups — victims,
we call ourselves — have our hands held out to our greedy leaders and
our snouts buried deep within the public trough. But — we tell
ourselves — it’s okay; after all, Clinton told us he feels our pain so
we really must be in need of any government assistance we can get our
hands on. And, we all know we can believe our trustworthy, honest,
morally upstanding president, right?
But perhaps the most startling example of the profound effect that
greed has had on our nation can be seen in the relationship between
corporations and unions.
To be clear, I have no love of unions; in many cases, they have
devolved from a noble cause into little more than fronts for corruption.
Union leaders have a record of using union dues for personal enrichment
and political gain. And, even when engaging in legitimate union
activity, unions have selfishly brought entire segments of our nation to
a grinding halt in order to force corporate management into total
submission rather than finding middle ground. Often, they don’t care
who they hurt as long as they get their way.
But, that is not the whole story. Unions arose because corporations
were just as greedy. Poverty wages, unsafe working conditions and a
general disregard for the sanity of their employees (and their families)
have pushed millions of people into the arms of union organizers. No
wonder union workers sport bumper stickers with slogans like, “United,
we bargain. Divided, we beg.”
Mutual greed at its finest. Ain’t it grand?
Whatever happened to the Golden Rule? You know, “Do unto others as
you would have them do unto you.” These days, the rule seems to be, “He
who has the gold makes the rules,” or, “Do unto others before they undo
you.”
What a contrast, indeed, to the life of my friend. Yet, there is
also that similarity I mentioned.
This pervasive disease called Greed is, like Jerry’s disease,
threatening to kill its host. Long forgotten is John Kennedy’s
admonition of doing for our country instead of depending upon whatever
we can squeeze out of our country. Instead, our elected leaders are
holding a firesale, lining their own pockets while dazzling us with
comforting words, raping our nation and our people while smiling
sincerely. And we keep enabling them by voting for them!
Wake up America! You are dying! You are electing greedy, corrupt,
diseased leaders to validate your own personal corruption. You are
forcing your children and their children to inherit the results of your
selfishness. Wake up! Turn your hearts back to the God who gave us our
nation before it is too late. Call and write letters to demand that our
elected leaders follow the laws they were sworn to uphold. And insist
they prosecute to the fullest extent of the law those who would destroy
our nation for their own gain.
Do it now!
