GOP Exploits Covid-19 in Attempt to Smash State Pension Systems: A Christian Response (Part 2)

Just recently I was talking with one of the wealthier ladies in the area. She was a little baffled over the panic regarding lost wages and the shut-down. After all one of the neighbouring county executives said on television – everyone should have three months of wages set aside for emergencies and that way they can weather such storms. I pointed out that the woman who said this – someone whose family is known to be quite wealthy – is rich and thus doesn't understand how most people live. The latest statistics are startling as apparently about half the country can barely come up with $500 or $1000 in the case of an emergency. Why are things this way? It's complicated. People overextend themselves in many cases. But in many more cases the cost of housing is so high that people work like dogs just to keep a roof over their heads. People are foolish in many cases – trying to keep up with the Joneses – but in many more there are people who have given up on the American dream but still can't seem to get ahead or even break even and as such just barely survive – one disaster from collapse and the threat of homelessness. And in the process their families are destroyed. It's a wicked cycle and a wicked system that breeds evil both at home and abroad.

But the lady I was talking to (as well as the county executive she cited) doesn't understand this. They don't understand what people are wrestling with and thus they make lame uninformed arguments. And when McConnell or Paul Ryan stand up and insist that these inefficient and wasteful safety nets need to be dismantled, the arguments make sense to them. From their standpoint, the programmes aren't that great – even though Ryan actually benefitted from them while growing up.

Should we support these safety net programmes? I neither support them nor oppose them. We pray for the peace of the city and I will only say this – removing them will lead to further inequity, instability and the resulting concentration of wealth will turn our society into a Brazil or South Africa, where the wealthy live in compounds and drive around in tinted SUV's with security teams. Such societies are inherently unstable. The truth is – these safety net programmes are a bargain. They keep the plebeians from rioting and giving up. Is the system moral? Of course not. Such questions are frankly absurd.

But of course there's another aspect to this question that is ignored and even (for the most part) by the lower classes – and that is the question of military pensions. There are those on the Right that would like to reform the system and yet it's almost a sacred cow, a question that cannot be touched. Usually you have to be sixty or so to start collecting a pension and of course if the whole system was nationalised that would be the case. There are instances though when state employees or those few who are still part of large union contracts can retire in their fifties – but the US military is unique. You can join at eighteen, hypothetically retire at thirty-eight and start receiving a pension. If you live to eighty-eight then you receive a fifty year pension for twenty years of active duty. Again, with life expectancies as they are, that's not a sustainable system. And yet no one wants to tackle it as it remains a popular system and one that largely benefits the lower classes. For many of them a military career is a ticket to the good life. There are multitudes of people that are collecting a military pension and then work a side job for $15hr or something like that. The job doesn't pay enough for them to live on but when coupled with their pension they do well.

The Right has tried to go after military pensions – Bush if I recall was the last president to start addressing veteran benefits and yet it's a touchy issue and yet (to me) remains the elephant in the room – as is military spending in general.

If we divorce ourselves from the system and its concerns – as indeed we must if we're going to bear witness against it, then these questions which consume many people are not really issues to us. If McConnell gets his way, he'll impoverish many, smash many dreams and generate a political backlash. Others will view him as a hero. The market would love to see more people reliant on 401k-type plans but at the same time the pension funds are huge and are woven into the fabric of the economy.

Let the Babylonians argue about their Babylonian system. I'm not invested in it and my feelings are mixed. There are moral outrages on both sides. The system is obscene in many ways - as are the leaders on all sides of the equation. It's the lost world fighting over its treasure – the profits of a system that's corrupt, exploitative and evil. It hurts its own members and hurts people around the world. That's how it is.

And yet we should understand what's happening and something of the machinations of these leaders and what they're doing and why people would oppose them. In the meantime as the arguments escalate politicians and their cronies (including those in the pulpits) will seek to manipulate the thinking of their base – and that's something that needs to be guarded against. I have no love for public school teachers and pampered state employees but at the same time I know what the McConnell's of the world are all about and they're are neither moral nor wise. And as far as their pretended ethic of fiscal responsibility (which is presented as 'stewardship' in Evangelical pulpits) it too is a lie. These folks are happy to spend exorbitant amounts on military expenditures and in pursuit of perks and programmes which aid the (frankly rather entitlement minded) upper echelons of society.

This has resulted in some conflict with the growing libertarian sectors in society and the churches. The 'taxation is theft' types are losing patience with the McConnell's of the world and yet when pressed they continue to support them because their interests overlap at key points. The dismantling of the pension system is something they too would support.

The world cannot produce a system which will work nor one that is fair. It's not possible and yet you can't blame them for trying. Some will be better than others – and yet they're all doomed to fail and all require (to some degree) an allegiance and suspension of ethics that I as a Christian cannot give. I won't buy into their system but at the same time I know that the Church is heavily invested (literally, I'm sorry to say) in this system and thus the false teachers who dominate the churches and teach mammon worship have a literal stake in the game. And please understand I'm not only speaking of the over-the-top prosperity types – I'm speaking of conservative professed Bible-believing Evangelicals and Confessionalists who have largely sold out to the world system and represent (at best) a toned version of the prosperity gospel. Dominion theology opens the door to this way of thinking about money and power – the two are inseparable.

This is something we need to guard against as their smooth words and deceitful speeches (heard from pulpits and airwaves) will lead Christians to invest their time and energy in causes that are not for the Kingdom at all and in other cases will only hurt others and society as a whole.

I will not weep if soldiers lose their pensions or if the state education system collapses – and yet if society as a whole collapses then we will all suffer to some degree. Would it better for the rest of the world? Yes and no. If the Wall Street-CIA types were kept out of Third World countries then the people there would be better off. However, the resulting chaos would probably only exacerbate the suffering. There are no good solutions.

The system is disgusting and yet it could just as easily be replaced by one even worse. The best tactic for Christians is to maintain integrity and the ability to bear witness against it – something we cannot do if we are stained with its blood and soiled with its filth.