As the good book says

So I got some more feedback on my last column, a column where I asked you, the reader, why we aren’t working less hours with better healthcare and more time for leisure despite massive improvements in technology and productivity… and some folks seemed to think that meant I wished I was rich instead, even trying to pull out the Bible to shame me into accepting that nothing should change, we should just work until we die, and it’s our own fault that Jeff Bezos has 150 billion dollars and we don’t. Call me crazy, but I think this logic is a little…goofy.

First of all, I was accused of “coveting” whatever ridiculous lifestyle billionaires have, so let me shout this from the rooftops: I don’t want the dang yacht, I want cars that pollute less. I don’t want a mansion, I want everyone to have safe shelter. I don’t want a billion dollars, I just want people to be able to go to the doctor if they hurt. I want people to be able to spend time with their families and maybe have more time for hobbies instead of working three jobs to make ends meet. Most importantly, I don’t suffer for anything, but I want to be able to make life is better for everyone. If you think that’s a form of coveting, I suggest you do a five second search for “Bible verses about the rich.”

My personal favorite, by the way, is a story my wife told me from the New Testament where a guy tries to skim a little off the top of a house he sold to “donate” to the church. Upon being called out for lying, he immediately drops dead. Makes you wonder why the Lord wasn’t working among us when all of those Wall Street grifters were willfully cheating people with garbage loans they knew were going to go bust. If I’m “coveting” what the billionaires have, then it’s safe to say the multitudes were “coveting” the loaves and fishes, too.

As long as we’re talking about religion, there’s this strangely church-like devotion some folks have for billionaires or just the concept of money in particular, which I’m pretty sure is directly in conflict with the idea like “Sell your possessions, and give to the needy” in the Bible. It is like an obsession with getting money, having money and, most importantly, talking down to the people who don’t have as much as you. (And before anyone can accuse me of mocking Jewish people with that comment, I’d like to note that it appears my mother’s mother’s mother was an Ashkenazi Jew from what is now Poland, which is something I have been enjoying learning more and more about.)

Now, last I checked, there’s something in the Bible about it being easier for a camel to fit through the eye of a needle than a rich man to get into heaven, but I’m sure there’s a start-up manufacturing giant needles just so no one has to give to the needy… like it says you’re supposed to do in the books of Luke, Deuteronomy, Hebrews,  and so on, or my new personal favorite in Ecclesiastes: “Hoarding riches harms the saver.”

So the next time anyone wants to clutch their pearls and tell me that it’s unethical to want to get your money back from the rich (which yes, they took through buying congressman, securing sweetheart tax deals, wage theft, and other privileges while you work harder and harder for less and less) I’ll suggest that maybe the idea of a single human being having a thousand million dollars, or one hundred and fifty thousand million dollars, is unethical. Also, if you’re going to try to use third grade CCD theology to try to shame me into accepting this broken system, I suggest you either get your behind back into Sunday School or take some time to read your holy book. Turns out that the ideas of sharing and compassion actually go back a little earlier than Bernie Sanders.

There, I’ve talked about both religion AND politics, just in time for the holidays. My work here is done.