One of the most discouraging aspects of what is happening in Wisconsin and other states taking aim at public sector unions is the way private sector workers resent the benefits those unions have negotiated in the past. Rather than hold up such contracts as a standard to which the private sector should aspire, they want to drag down their fellow workers to their own level. It’s the obverse of the lack of shared sacrifice that has made this era so different from that of the so-called Greatest Generation. The lack of belief in shared rights (consider the way “entitlements” are now targeted as a major budgetary problem is yet another example of how successfully the rich and powerful have been able to employ the strategy of “divide and conquer.”
Jesus said there would be times like this.
Consider his Parable of the Workers in the Vineyard, known also as the Parable of the Eleventh Hour. The owner of a vineyard needs workers to help harvest his crops. He goes to the marketplace in search of laborers, finds men in need of work, agrees to pay them each a denarius for a day’s labor, and the harvest starts. But as time goes on, he sees he needs to hire more help. He goes to the marketplace in the third hour, the sixth hour, and the ninth hour, each time hiring more men.
Though the Bible does not say this explicitly, it seems to be the case that the 12 hour day was normal back then.
Finally, in the 11th hour, the vineyard owner hires still more workers, their pay also to be one denarius. When the workers he hired first learn of this, they are indignant.
I will let the words of the Bible tell the rest.
“"These men who were hired last worked only one hour," they said, "and you have made them equal to us who have borne the burden of the work and the heat of the day."
But he answered one of them, "Friend, I am not being unfair to you. Didn't you agree to work for a denarius? Take your pay and go. I want to give the man who was hired last the same as I gave you. Don't I have the right to do what I want with my own money? Or are you envious because I am generous?"
This story gets interpreted in various ways; for instance, some say it refers to the way newcomers to the church are considered to be just as much a part of that group’s spiritual life as those who have kept the faith for years. I bring it forward in this context to show that the problems of sufficiency, justice and fair treatment are perennially difficult, and unlikely to find a solution that can be safely applied in the long run. But I believe we can agree, once and for all, that envy and resentment should not be part of the debate; rather, we need to work toward a sustainable, steady state way of life that will keep people satisfied at the same time that it avoids problems of excess, waste, and accumulating secondary consequences such as climate change.
take peaceful living people and makes their RV's a maximum security prison with restrictions, stipulations and rules-rules-and more rules
Posted by: Timberland Store | November 20, 2011 at 03:07 PM