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Editorial

Questions to ask the Wall Street protesters—and ourselves

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Others ask whether the Wall Street protesters have identified the right enemies. But I have some deeper questions, for them and for ourselves.

When did achieving financial success become something to be despised in America?

Intersection of Broadway and Wall Street

Intersection of Broadway and Wall Street. Photo: User Matze_Ott (Flickr), CC BY 2.0

When did we accept that it is “Christianly” to covet the possessions of another? When exactly did we throw out the Commandment that says: “You shall not covet”?

When did we decide to throw out the verse from 2 Thessalonians 3:10b that says: “If a man will not work, he shall not eat”?

When did we swap the idea of charity with social justice?

When did we stop appreciating our right to pursue happiness and replace it with our “right” to be entitled to the possessions of others?

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When, indeed, did we decide that financial success was a criminal, or even capital, offense?

When did we replace the Commandment that says, “Thou shall not kill” with “a woman’s right to chose”?

When did we become our own gods, thinking that we could determine what was right and what was wrong?

Was it when we took prayer out of school?

Was it when we struck the Ten Commandments from all public buildings and edifices?

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Was it when we made Science our god, and trusted it to find “value-free” answers to all questions of public policy?

Will someone please tell me when we stopped being a God-fearing country that regarded the liberty of conscience and the right to pursue our own happiness as worthy of respect? And when we instead regarded them as destructive of all hopes of a Utopian world?

When exactly did We the People abdicate our constitutional rights to govern ourselves, in favor of career politicians and new world order elitists?

Will someone please answer these questions for me? Because I don’t understand what has happened to us and why so many remain silent.

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RoseAnn Salanitri is a published author and Acquisition Editor for the New Jersey Family Policy Council. She is a community activist who has founded the Sussex County Tea Party in her home state and launched a recall movement against Senator Robert Menendez. RoseAnn is also the founder of Veritas Christian Academy, as well as co-founder of Creation Science Alive, and a national creation science speaker.

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Alex Jones

The protesters aren’t demanding to “eat without paying. They want jobs which pay a living wage, and are not dependent on the greed of giant financial institutions. Is that too much to ask?

Eric in Sac

“Is that too much to ask?” Of whom and for what price? These people are protesting for jobs, then? Ever since I was able to get a job, I never thought to protest either private corporations or the government. Did you? How would that get somebody a job anyway (unless of course one’s getting paid to protest)? Please explain what a “job which pays a living wage and is not dependent on the greed of giant financial institutions” is to me because I can’t make heads or tails of that statement. Would they prefer the greed of smaller financial institutions, or are they protesting greed in corporations in general? Perhaps the protesters do have a coherent statement, but I don’t see how it could be related to protesting a business district. That’s like protesting at the bakery because my dog got killed by a delivery truck.

Camille

I think these Wall Street protests are kind of silly. Maybe if they had a clear unified goal, I could get behind the idea.

But as to the question, I think we need to also ask “Why are the rich rich?”
After all, it’s the laborers that do all of the work. The scientists too. So why aren’t they the ones reaping the profits?

Camille

Nothing. The great minds generally work for and with the people.
Scientists work for fun, knowledge, and altruism.

As to Marx’s theory of labor, when it’s not the owner that built the factory, when it’s not the owner that built the machines, and when it’s not the owner who works the factory, then of what use is the owner?

(you’ve actually asked me that before, but I didn’t answer. Sorry about that, I was sorta busy, but not busy enough that I couldn’t have taken a minute to answer you)

Eric in Sac

Why are the scientists and laborers not equally wealthy as the business owner? Well why aren’t the laborers as rich as the scientists? Because the monetary value of the labor provided by each is different. As for the owner having more (sometimes less) than the scientists and laborers, well let me put it to you this way: why does the guy down the street who owns a landscaping business make more than the guys he hires to push his mowers? The owner takes a risk every time he lets an employee take possession of that mower. If the employee breaks the mower, the business owner is not allowed to bill the employee for the breakage. Owner risks everything every day while employee risks…getting their clothes dirty or damaged. In addition, should employee decide to do something stupid like look inside a running mower, owner is responsible for medical bills incurred, not employee. Owner takes constant risk with his equipment, vehicles, etc. Should an employee driving one of the trucks hit a pedestrian, owner’s insurance is on the hook. All risk to business owner, therefore he should not split profit equally.

Constitutional Progressive

you know, progressives and the tea party movement really aren’t that dissimilar from one another. we’re being played against each other so we can’t focus our full attention on the real people destroying the country. i’m NOT saying tax the rich to death, nor do i support cutting unprecedented amounts of the federal budget, but this issue over our spending, debt and deficit must be balanced.

i’ll ask YOU a question. when did the issue of balancing our budget come down to either on the middle class’s back, or the wealthiest 2%….. ? that’s the real question. instead of raising taxes on corporate jet owners, we should cut heating for low income families. i see the logic in that.

Bill

Really Terry. When did Jesus’s teachings that we should feed the hungry and clothe the poor–a Christian idea that we, as a society, have accepted and practice through our government–because coveting goods?

When did charging usurious rates for lending become something Christians like yourself defend?

If you look at the society that is shaping up that you think is Christian, nobody really wants that society except for a fringe. 20% of the population owning 85% of the wealth (look it up!) is not what Jesus had in mind. You can whip out any part of the Bible you want, but the lessons that are most important are the ones of Jesus.

Bill

The Bible doesn’t say, “Only people as individuals can care for the poor and infirm.” In the Declaration of Independence it defines a government as “instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed” for the purposes of protecting humanity’s God-given rights of “Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.”

Governments are made of the people; they aren’t a separate entity. That’s why you vote – to put in the people you want. If you don’t get your way, you have the courts. If you don’t get your way in the courts, too bad. Shut up or keep trying to persuade people or take to the streets.

Charging 29% interest rates on credit cards is usury, Terry, but I don’t hear you decrying this unChristian practice.

“If thou lend money to any of my people that is poor by thee, thou shalt not be to him as an usurer, neither shalt thou lay upon him usury “(Exodus 22:25). .

Ryan

The bible might not have intended to outline the ‘principles for a socialist government’, but I definitely think it’s pushing it a bit to justify a ‘free market capitalism’ reading.

Jesus would have been hard to pin down politically. But he’d think it insane that so few people could attain so much capital because of how our concept of property ownership expanded and evolved the way it did.

To suggest that Jesus would want to cut the poor’s heating instead of raising the taxes of corporate jet owners is offensive.

Eric Levinson

I fully agree with everything written here, except the part about school prayer. I believe the United States were created for freedom of thought and religion. I mean, who decides which prayer must be given?

I am a conservative, a registered republican and father of 3, but also I am Jewish. My grandfather died in Poland during WWII because of his race and faith. And I don’t think I must tell my sons to leave the classroom during a Christian prayer or endure the fact other kids will consider them wrong for not being Christian.

Would it be different for a Catholic? For anyone who has a different Bible and not King James?

Just my two cents.

Eric Levinson

I do appreciate the strong support this website has always shown for my people and the land of Israel. yes. However, I have to disagree with the abolishment of public schools. While that solution may work for some it won’t work for others. I am lucky to own a successful family business but I am well aware not everyone has the funds to send their children to a private school.

For now, I believe the best option is for religion to stay at the temple and normal education to stay at school, and as parents we must make sure our children have enough of both.

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