Greed ...

Okay, so I’m wayyyyyyyyyyy behind on Kay’s Seven Deadly Sins Meme. Hell, I don’t even know which ones I’ve missed and which ones are left. But, I decided to jump back in there this week and play. This week’s sin is GREED.

You would think that "Greed" would be an easy topic given that the world is full of some of the greediest people. Well, it turns out that it isn't all that easy actually. Mostly because we don't all agree on who really is being greedy.

A lot of people are outraged at the salaries of pro athletes.

A lot of people are outraged at the salaries of movie stars and other celebrities.

A lot of people are outraged at the salaries of a lot of corporate CEO's and top officers.

They may all be right, but they don't all agree with each other's views. Many people who think that sports figures are way over paid will vehemently disagree that movie stars are overpaid. And many of the people who think that movie stars are over paid will defend corporate pay. And so on. Seems as though one person's overpaid greed-head is someone that another person just thinks is getting paid what the market will pay.

Personally I’m not particularly bothered by any of them. Although I do consider some of each of those three to be very overpaid given their level of production, but so what. There are a lot of blue collar types out there that I have worked with over the years who got paid pretty decent hourly wages for doing the bare minimum they could get away with.

But athletes, celebrities and CEOs are really easy targets. So are blow-dried TV ministers who are all about preaching the good word to the masses as long as it makes them a celebrity and turns them into multi-millionaires.

So how bout we talk about our America-loving public servants? You know, those people who run for office because they want to protect the people from government and other bad things and make our lives better. What selfless, thoughtful people they are.

I’m sure there are lots of great examples of people using public service as a way to feed their greed, but I found one this weekend that I think really exemplifies just how bad this problem is. It comes to us from the state of Maryland and it actually centers around a law against strips clubs.

Me? Finding some obscure story about strip clubs? Shocking, I know.

Anyhoodle, Seems that the state bosses decided that a way to try to get rid of strip clubs – and why ANYONE would want to get rid of strip clubs is beyond me – would be to outlaw the sale of alcohol at these establishments. But, there was a slight problem. A former state senator owned one of those strip clubs.

Well, that wasn’t really a problem for the creative crooks defenders of the people in the state legislature. They simply put a clause in the bill that created an exception for their former colleague. See, no problem at all! The nanny state gets to remind women that the government has control over their bodies and their lives protect the people of Maryland from girls who are working their way through college by stripping, and their former colleague gets his special exemption and a competitive advantage over the competition by being allowed to serve alcohol. Allowing him to rake in the big bucks.

And you want to know the real kicker in all this? This line right here is the absolutely best part of the whole story …

“Broadwater relinquished his Senate seat after a federal fraud conviction about 25 years ago.”

(Broadwater is the man who owns the club that got the special exemption.)

So, not only is the guy who got the special treatment from his buddies a former state senator, he was convicted of fraud. I guess once you’re in the club, you’re in for life, huh?

What’s really bothersome is that stories like this special deal that this Broadwater guy got. Or even the Blagojavich story. It’s that this is the way business is done in every single state legislature and in every single statehouse in this country. Pay to play is the norm, not the exception. The people that we are sending to Washington and to our state legislatures and to the city and county councils are all using those offices not to protect us from the government or from corporations or whoever, but to make themselves and their buddies rich.

And entirely too many of us are too busy worrying about iPods, royal hugs, sleeveless dresses and other trivial, silly crap to be bothered to notice.