[ForGod'sSake]

Very interesting if somewhat dated article. I had gone Googling for some insights into the "entitlement mentality" to get a better understanding of the mental illness known as liberalism, that eventually led to this article - somehow.

Enlightening, but it does raise the obvious question, and that is, where does the need to deflect envy spring from? There was a time in this country when success was tolerated, if not celebrated to a large degree. What went wrong?

[ForGod'sSake]

I apologize once again for abusing the 10th Amendment ping list. But, since I posted this in general/chat I don't expect it to garner many eyeballs and I would like to get as much feedback on the article as possible. And of course I hope it will shed additional light on the mental illness of our domestic enemies.

Once again, anyone not wanting to be pinged to these off-topic articles, please speak up.

[flash2368]

“What went wrong?”

Who came up with that business about “Now eat all the food on your plate because there are children starving all over the world”

Kind of a dumb statement to make (probably originated out of some Hollywood movie) but what a way to lay on a guilt complex.

[Jet Jaguar]

Bump for exposure.

[GiovannaNicoletta]

for later

[andy58-in-nh]

I think the article explains it quite well in terms of “atavism”: a tendency or predisposition toward behavioral recurrence occasioned by a deep-seated need. In the case of modern liberals, it is a need to create a sense of self-worth (validation) in the absence of a culture in which the individual is valued. Western culture used to supply such a support system, but liberals have labored mightily to destroy it in favor of a collectivist ethos. What results is a felt need to assuage the sense of guilt that follows from one’s achievement, or, alternatively, to find a external demon to excuse one’s failures.

[TigersEye]

Articles that explain how modern liberals suffer from a mental disorder.

• Regurgitating the Apple: How Modern Liberals "Think"
• Idiot Compassion
• The Secret to the Suicidal Liberal Mind
• Democratic Realism
• Swedish Moonbats Suppress Knowledge of Communist Genocide
• Is Liberalism Political Madness?
• Liberals clinically mad, concludes top psychiatrist
• Liberalism and the two roads to nihilism
• Liberalism is a Psychology

[EBH]

Funny, but I've been contemplating a similar thing. The “entitlement mentality” for which you are seeking a resolution to I believe rests with the removal of God from our culture.

Here is how I've been thinking about it. Way back when I was in school the late 1970’s they were only then starting to take God out of the schools. By the time I graduated He was pretty well permanently suspended from the psyche of most highschool graduates.

Your linked article points out Envy. Envy is considered one of the 7 Deadly sins. Lump in a few of the other deadlies like greed, slothfullness, anger, lust and pride you suddenly see the liberal standing in front of you.

They exhibit all of these sins as part of their lifestyle. Why? Because they have no God. They have no Guiding morality. The lack of this God factor causes them unknowingly to place others in the role of God.

The government to redistribute wealth because they themselves cannot overcome their own sin of greed and they assume we are all like them with no God.

The government to sanction their promiscuous ways. Gay marriage, abortion.

Do we really need to chat about liberal anger?

Gluttony, again they seek to regulate that which they won't control themselves and it stems from a lack of God in their lives.

Sloth, there was a time people were ashamed to be on welfare...because it was a sin. “was a sin” now generations live there.

The “entitlement mentality” or “envy” deal is really nothing more than a lack of God and His teaching. Or in many cases the outright rejection of Him and turning to a new god, the government for approval of their sins. The reading of, The 5,000 Year Leap, was instrumental in my coming to these conclusions. The founders knew we could not have a free nation with an immoral people.

[TADSLOS]

The fundamental reason why certain cultures remain static and never evolve (e.g., present-day villages in Egypt and India that have stayed pretty much the same for millennia) is the overwhelming extent to which the lives of the people within them are dominated by envy and envy avoidance: as anthropologists call it, the envy barrier.

For the Mambwe in Zambia, for example, "successful men are regarded as sinister, supernatural and dangerous." In Mexican villages, "fear of other people's envy determines every detail of life, every proposed action."

Members of a Hispanic "ghetto" in a community in Colorado "equate success with betrayal of the group; whoever works his way up socially and economically is regarded as a 'man who has sold himself to the Anglos,' someone 'who climbs on the backs of his own people.' "

It is an ultimate irony of modern times that left-wing Marxist-type intellectuals consider themselves to be in the progressive vanguard of sophisticated contemporary thought -- when in reality their thinking is nothing but an atavism, a regression to a primitive tribal mentality. What the Left calls "exploitation" is what anthropologists call "black magic."

Who could have predicted the extent that Obama Inc. played on these myths in such a devastating way 6 years later? He took tribal community organizing to the national level, and guilty white people swallowed the bait with abandon.

[the invisib1e hand]

What do Harvard president Larry Summers, Taliban John Walker, Delta Airlines officials and the editors of the New York Times have in common with Yanomamo tribeswomen in the Amazon jungle?

If you really want to know, read "Spirit of the Rainforest" by Mark A. Ritchie, who exposes how elite anthropoligists have been pimping the Yanomamo for generations.

[TenthAmendmentChampion]

Great post. Lots to think about here. Jack Wheeler is a good guy.

[Nam Vet]

I was raised that success was to be celebrated and emulated. It usually came to those who were hard working and persistent. Success isn't gained by a simple and easy path.

Nam Vet

[wastedyears]

New tagline sort of unrelated to here.

[2 Kool 2 Be 4-Gotten]

Liberals are liberals because they are too stupid to see the second order effects.

In an environment in which capital is allowed to seek it’s most rewarding use (without government mucking up the works) if I go out and buy a boat that means that somebody got a job building the boat, selling the boat, servicing the boat, mooring the boat etc. Liberals are too stupid to see that - they just see my boat.

Similarly, if government gives someone a handout that helps that person temporarily. Possibly. But you’ve now trained that person to come looking for a handout the next time, like a fed bear. Liberals are too stupid to see that, as well. They just see that someone got a bag of groceries.

All this is, of course, aided and abetted by the willing media who can fuel the idiocy with soundbites and knowing nods and raised eyebrows.

[Tolik]

Nailed It!

This ping list is not author-specific for articles I'd like to share. Some for the perfect moral clarity, some for provocative thoughts; or simply interesting articles I'd hate to miss myself. (I don't have to agree with the author all 100% to feel the need to share an article.)

I will try not to abuse the ping list and not to annoy you too much, but on some days there is more of the good stuff that is worthy of attention.

You are welcome to browse the list of truly exceptional articles I pinged to lately. Updated on August 24, 2009.  on  my page.
You are welcome in or out, just freepmail me (and note which PING list you are talking about).

Besides this one, I keep 2 separate PING lists for my favorite authors Victor Davis Hanson and Orson Scott Card.  

 

[ChessExpert]

I read this article several years ago. I'm more impressed rereading it today. I think I'm more impressed because I've lived a few more years and had a few more experiences. I think it is a very profound article.

“There was a time in this country when success was tolerated, if not celebrated to a large degree. What went wrong?”

I blame it primarily on the schools. More teachers provided a negative message than a positive message. Negative messages come from Marxism and Marxist inspired arguments. Marx and Engels argued (falsely) that capitalism was exploitive. As a presumably “capitalist” society, we were exploitive. Then the left piled on. We were racist, sexist, homophobic, destroying the environment, and any other self-directed criticism you can imagine.

What would be a positive message? We could emphasize God. Our equality in the eyes of God. The use of our God given talents in satisfying the needs of customers. The prosperity that comes from free enterprise. The good we can do others in spreading freedom and prosperity.

Too few positive messages, too many negative messages, year after year, decade after decade, more young people turned left, a younger more left leaning generation entering academia, news reporting, politics. So now we have a populace who elect Pelosi, Reid, and Obama and think nothing of it. Many don't know what they are doing. Some do. Either way, why should we be surprised at the result?

[Tares]

bttt

[spodefly]

BTTT