…protestors rounding the corner of Zuccotti Park encountered dozens of white-robed worshipers singing spirituals and blessing the demonstrators while holding signs reading “Blessed are the poor” and brandishing handmade Christian crosses.
The group, calling themselves the “Protest Chaplains,” traveled from Boston to join the “Occupy Wall Street” movement, which claims to advocate for “the 99 percent” of Americans against the “1 percent” who control much of the country’s wealth.
The Protest Chaplains, a loose group of mostly Christian students, seminarians and laypeople organized though Facebook, expressed support for the movement the best they knew how: through their faith.
These so-called “Protest Chaplains” are breaking the 10th Commandment.
And for those who don’t remember, that commandment is
“Thou shalt not covet….”
#1 — Explain that one. It doesn’t make sense.
I don’t think they’re coveting anyone’s goods — they’re saying that those without the most goods should still have a voice and significance. In other words, the richest shouldn’t control everything (including our government) simply because they’re rich.
Socialism is all about coveting what others have instead of looking into one’s self for the way out of what one perceives as one’s poverty or situation of inequity.
Socialism begets laziness and along with that laziness, it begets violence based on envious anger toward those persons who who have EARNED the wealth that they possess.
When a person starts ‘fine tuning’ the word EARNED, one begins to find ratuionalizations for one’s envy.
When socialism ‘wins out,’ the only people who seem to improve their material wealth are the elitist socialist leadership.
It was this dichotomy between the promises made to the general population and the privleges enjoyed by the Communist Party elite that contributed greatly to the fall of the Soviet Union.
Socialism is and always has been a Trojan Horse that has been used by a small ideological elite to gain control of what they call the “masses.”
Stalin used it, Hitler used it, Mussolini used it, Mao used it, Castro used it, Ho Chi Minh used it, etc. And all of these leaders turned the “masses” into automatons and murders.
And I am convinced it was just because of the great danger of the original sin of ‘covetousness’ to stimulate mankind to harm one another, whether on a micro or macro scale, that God gave His commandment against coveting.
What’s so wrong with saying that something is seriously broken here? Why should we all be working so much harder than our parents did, for less payoff and much less security? What does it mean when a presidential candidate can raise $200 million from just a handful of people, without anyone else knowing who they are? How does that fit with our ideals of democracy? Why can’t we ask these questions without being branded socialists?
There has to be something between socialism and having 400 people own as much as the bottom half of the entire population. That’s not a recipe for long-term stability, either. Hungry people sometimes don’t make great choices, and we’re going to have a lot of hungry people if some voices get their way.
As an aside, the “you’re just jealous” line is something people use to avoid hearing someone else’s point of view, or to avoid hearing criticism in a spirit of humility. I don’t think most of the protests are about, “I wish I could be one of those 400 Rich Guys!” so much as “Why do 400 people get to own everything, including the government? Is this the country we want?” The first is easier to dismiss, the second isn’t. It’s the conversation we should be having.