“At thy right hand there are pleasures for evermore” (Ps. 16: 11)
Growing Dominion, Part 140
“Rob not the poor, because he is poor: neither oppress the afflicted in the gate: For the Lord will plead their cause, and spoil the soul of those that spoiled them” (Prov. 22:22-23).
The poor, because they are poor, are frequently vulnerable. They don’t have the money for attorneys. They frequently are in the position they are in because of certain limitations that also limit their ability to anticipate and ward off the predations of the rich and powerful. If someone is shrewd and aggressive, the poor often present a tempting target. Do not rob the poor because he is poor, Solomon says. And in the same way, those who are powerful must not oppress the afflicted in the gate. Although the power differential is wide between fat cats and the poor, it is even greater between the Lord and the fat cats. The Lord will arise and plead the cause of the poor in such cases. The Lord will spoil the souls of those who spoiled others.
The fat cats are too clever by half. The poor, as someone once observed, are a gold mine. This applies on a small scale to loan sharks, on a medium scale to credit card companies, and on a grand scale to our federal government. Applications are everywhere. But looking at the last example, if we simply took all the money we are going to spend on the poor over the next ten years (never mind all the money since LBJ’s War on Poverty started) and simply gave it all to the poor now, it would be as though each of them had won the lottery. So where does all that money go? The two wealthiest counties in the United States are Montgomery Country in Maryland and Fairfax County in Virginia, on either side of D.C. There’s your war on poverty. Lots of nice houses.