On Tuesday, Mike Pence gave the deciding vote in the Senate to repeal consumer protection against the banking industry. The whole point of the rule was to allow customers to come together in class action lawsuits, pooling their resources together so they could have a better chance at a fair trial against those who have much greater resources than any one individual suing them would have. When a bank does wrong, it has the money and power to hinder any one individual to oppose them; using that unfair advantage, it forces others to accept a less than just settlement if they want anything at all.
It is amazing to see this being defended as helping the free market when it opposes the freedom of the customers, of those affected by injustice, to act in their own best interest. This is the kind of deregulation which creates its own regulation that helps and promotes injustice and allows for the capitalist end-game which destroys the free market. For the more money is collected together and pooled together, the more it is able to be used to take the rest of the resources from those who do not have such wealth.
Certainly, this decision creates an undue burden on those who suffer at the expense of the banks. There is no way this can be seen as promoting Christian values, for Christian values seek to defend the rights of the poor over the rich and powerful. Let no one be fooled by those who pretend to follow Jesus with their words, but do everything against the moral values found in the Gospels, for they are wolves, seeking for more sheep to slaughter and eat up for their own pleasure. “The rich rules over the poor, and the borrower is the slave of the lender. He who sows injustice will reap calamity, and the rod of his fury will fail” (Prov. 22:7-8 RSV).
Avarice which seeks the collection of wealth to the harm and detriment of the poor will suffer grave punishment, for as the love of money is the root of all evil, so it will require the most work to be overcome; thus, St. Salvian warned, “The greatest and most dreadful crimes of fornication, or murder, or sacrilege are not punished with the greatest torments. Only avarice and inhumanity, the disclaimers of mercy, are so punished.”[1]
We must remember when Jesus said woe to the rich and blessed are the poor in spirit, he meant it, which is why, in the Apocalypse, John had the following choice words to say to those who held themselves in esteem due to their wealth:
For you say, I am rich, I have prospered, and I need nothing; not knowing that you are wretched, pitiable, poor, blind, and naked. Therefore I counsel you to buy from me gold refined by fire, that you may be rich, and white garments to clothe you and to keep the shame of your nakedness from being seen, and salve to anoint your eyes, that you may see (Rev. 3:17-18 RSV)
Truly, a Christian President and a Christian Vice-President would take Jesus’ words at heart and follow them, working for the poor instead of serving as willful slaves to the rich. When will we truly see a return to Judeo-Christian values in the White House?
[1] St. Salvian the Presbyter, “The Four Books to the Church” in The Writings of Salvian the Presbyter. Trans. Jeremiah F. O’Sullivan, PhD (Washington. DC: CUA Press, 1962), 311.
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