The end is near but the game isn’t over

Monopoly is fun growing up. Our kids liked Monopoly, or at least they thought they did. It starts out with equity, endless possibilities and a colorful stash of paper money. As the dice are rolled and deals are made, the tone changes. Eventually, the accumulated wealth of one or two dooms the rest to a slow demise. Hard feelings mount, sometimes tears are shed, and once one person has it all, the game is over. That's the way the rules were written.

A visiting cousin amended the rules. Seeing a fellow player suffering disastrous losses, she willingly sold some of her assets to balance the holdings more equitably. Soon, the other players followed the example of looking out for others' interests as well as their own. They delightedly discovered that with assets and power in balance and a level playing board, the Monopoly game could go on forever.

My kids and their friends discovered in Monopoly what our nation's founders already knew. A game that coddles the rich with insider privilege, benefiting from the work of the rest of us, gradually dwindles resources for the working class and will not last. The game soon ends.

America started out with immigrants fleeing the monarchies in Europe. They uniformly opted for a land with a level playing field. Our revolution and our constitution were fought and formulated to keep it that way. Inherited wealth was anathema to our founders because they knew from Europe it kept concentrating power and corruption. Hard work, ingenuity and neighborliness were respected far above royalty or inherited privilege. It's still that way, especially here in Big Horn County. We have a tradition of insisting on transparency of our leaders and a more balanced economy, so we the people retain the right to keep it that way.

But guess what? We've lost it. We now have the greatest disparity ever in accumulated wealth between a small group of families at the top and the rest of the families of this great nation. They are accountable to themselves and their stockholders, not the people. The resultant suffering is all around us in Big Horn County; all we have to do is look at the economic game played in Washington. Yet, there is no talk about changing back to our founding principles with firm government and public oversight. Instead, we endlessly and uselessly debate the national debt ceiling.

Our game board has gone under the table. There's a broader than ever marriage between Washington and Wall Street to amass wealth in a small group. We have had corporate executives sitting down with our elected congressmen as members of the Allied Legislative Executive Council (ALEC) to secretly write new rules for our economy so our government will monitor wealth and power even less. We have a huge military industrial complex that sucks more money out of our nation's economy than the world's next 50 military powers combined. A significant part of our nation's media is owned and controlled by a single powerful corporation headed by one family – hardly "fair and balanced." Secrecy abounds.

Our Bible, the most fundamental and important document shaping our American culture, speaks of one sin more often and with more emphasis than any other: the sin of greed. It's the sin of a few acquiring more at the expense of the many. The few have more than they need and the many don't have enough. Salvation stories in scripture are swept time after time into provision for living, in plenty and without fear. Most importantly, salvation passages highlight healing and deliverance from this sin. It also confirms our teenagers' amendments to the rules of their game of Monopoly.

Which way will we follow? In our heating-up political atmosphere right now, this issue fields the most useful discussions. How we handle the horrific imbalance between the have-too-much's and the deprived-of-enough's in this nation should be the central issue of the election. In fact, if the Bible is right at all, our nation's existence rests on the outcome of this issue in our domestic and international policies. There is no more important issue and it just happens to be central to the formation of our nation's democratic tradition as well our Judeo-Christian faith.

Let's talk it up. Let's not just sit by and watch the end of the game. Let's vote for those rich folks who run for political office only if they have the courage to take on this issue. That way, the American Dream, instead of ending, will renew our families and give real hope to all of us.

Check out the nytimes.com article by billionaire Warren Buffet, August 14, 2011: "Stop Coddling the Super Rich," at nytimes.com/2011/08/15/opinion/stop-coddling-the-super-rich.html

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