Quote
TJ says:
May 7, 2019 at 6:29 am
I have lately been thinking a lot about how economic disparities and pride are destroying our common values and shared community. I have seen it personally destroy friendships and canker wards as people turn every ward party into another occasion to brag about the inflated value of their home. I read an opinion piece in the Washington Post that tried to shame older people who own homes into giving those homes up because younger people think they have a right to a large house with a big yard and then saw this piece reprinted in the Deseret News. In the comments below was a demand that the writer's ward has a right to have more Primary children but cannot because of the selfishness of these older people who will not move. I am watching friends and family have to leave their homes in Utah because their senior apartments are raising rents 15% a year and fixed incomes do not increase 15% a year. Or go back to work in their 70's to pay the space rent in their senior trailer park, which doubled in six years and will soon consume their entire Social Security check. I have read stories in the press demanding older people retire so the Millenials can have their jobs, then watched these new Millenial managers treat the older workers as if they are too stupid to do their jobs.
The poor may be vulnerable to false promises of rewards in Heaven but the middle and upper classes are our main problem. Greed and pride and a sense of entitlement are the real sins.
Do not think I do not understand the dangers of terrorism. I visited Kashmir in India in 1996 and rented from a young man who was attending meetings where would be terrorists were lecturing. I met some of these terrorists, had them explain to me what they were trying to accomplish and heard first hand what garbage they were being taught. The gunfire I heard was live, as was the tracer fire that lit the night sky as I traveled in by bus. I do not write from reported stories but from personal experience.
But terrorism is a distraction that affects very few. It is Satan's handwaving to distract us while greed and dishonesty and a total loss of values of respect and decency and common purpose are the real enemies.
Label it self-reliance and every middle class Mormon is on board for policies that would have shamed their grandparents. I have heard a Relief Society president in Utah explain why it is acceptable for a young man in medical school to let the state's Medicaid program pay his famiy's medical bills, but that poor working class people are exploiting the system if they do the same.
We consider ourselves charitable if we favor building a new homeless shelter. Why not instead pay people a decent wage so they can pay their rent. We so proudly provide toys for the poor at Christmas while we outsource their jobs to Asia.
Our hands are clean, we tithe on mint, we proclaim. God warned us that the world lies in sin because one possesses above another. I guess that part of the scriptures can be ignored. It is inconvenient and we could not visit Europe this year or buy the new I-phone if we had to take it seriously.— TJ
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