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The Dead-End Politics of Envy
The American Thinker ^ | March 26, 2009 | Todd Dittmann

Posted on 03/26/2009 2:29:44 AM PDT by Scanian

Remember the word "covet", as in "shall not"? Envy is a deadly sin. It is a deliberate decision to ignore our shared humanity and favor, instead, things we can't take with us. Inducing someone else to commit a deadly sin is an even worse act.

Class envy, albeit one of the two foundations of the modern Democratic Party's soul (identity politics being the other), is very divisive and fuels mob rule. It is a tool that exploits happy people who were previously neither aware of their forced group membership nor of their antipathy toward other groups. It is a tool used in previous tyrannies but one that should remain on the historical scrap heap. The dead end philosophy behind the hubris of this administration and Congress recognizes no such truths, perceives no historical warnings, sees all means as justified by ends and is trapped in its own dictatorship of moral relativism.

Consider the following from Plato's Republic, Book 8, as Socrates describes the transition from democracy to tyranny:

And it is clear that when a tyrant arises, the position of popular leader is the sole root from which he springs....Once he takes over a docile mob

(Excerpt) Read more at americanthinker.com ...


TOPICS: Culture/Society; Government; News/Current Events; Politics/Elections
KEYWORDS: 111th; bho44; classwarfare; democrats; envy; gagdad; marxism; populism

1 posted on 03/26/2009 2:29:44 AM PDT by Scanian
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To: Scanian

We should hope that all the administration succeeds in doing through its non-profit prophet is running morale into the ground and then getting voted out for some saner voices.


2 posted on 03/26/2009 3:04:48 AM PDT by HiTech RedNeck (Beat a better path, and the world will build a mousetrap at your door.)
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To: Scanian

Well that pretty much says it all.

And still about 50% of the public approves.

This how great civilazations come to an end.

Are we going to allow it?


3 posted on 03/26/2009 3:06:13 AM PDT by DB
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To: DB

If the same number of people (per capita) had turned out for McCain as they did for Bush, we wouldn’t be in this pickle. The GOP needs candidates that are not underwhelming.


4 posted on 03/26/2009 3:16:45 AM PDT by HiTech RedNeck (Beat a better path, and the world will build a mousetrap at your door.)
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To: Scanian

People should remember that what we post here leads back to our families, homes and businesses.

Just food for thought...


5 posted on 03/26/2009 3:57:26 AM PDT by DB
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To: Scanian

“....if we could somehow eliminate envy from the human genome, there would be almost no reason for the left to exist. They would instantly lose that which animates them, for example, envy masquerading as justice or economic theory. In order to be happy, we must all keep our envy in check, because envy is the opposite of gratitude. Envy does not appreciate what one has, only what one doesn’t have. And our capacity to imagine what we do not have—and that someone else is enjoying it—is literally infinite, as is envy. ..” Gagdad Bob Friday, April 28, 2006 http://tinyurl.com/jhwlp


6 posted on 03/26/2009 4:51:13 AM PDT by Matchett-PI (The brush fire's lit - the revolution has begun! Lead, follow, or get the hell outta the way!)
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You Shall Have No Gods Before Envy
http://onecosmos.blogspot.com/2007/04/you-shall-have-no-gods-before-envy.html

Socialism is a philosophy of failure, the creed of ignorance, and the gospel of envy; its inherent virtue is the equal sharing of misery. —Winston Churchill

If you are a true leftist, then you shall covet. Your life is built around a chronic feeling of lack for which you imagine that others are responsible. Unlike some of the other commandments, which at least rouse the person into action — however evil the action — envy is entirely passive and internal, and can be done from the discomfort of your own head. While it can become active, it is generally powerless unless it embodies a pathological cultural value system or is translated into a collective political movement. Absent the collective will of envy, it can only ruin your own life.

Why is the commandment to envy so central to the nihilistic left? Lying, stealing, murdering and adultery all harm others, but envy seems only to affect oneself. True, it is absolutely corrosive to the self, but why should it be among the five horizontal commandments governing man-to-man relations?

Because envy is not just an emotion, or mental state. Rather, it is a relationship. It is a relationship with an other whom one feels possesses something lacking in oneself. It is actually first an internal object relationship, only projected outward. In other words, there is an envious mind parasite in dynamic rapport with a frustrating object it feels is “withholding” that to which it feels entitled — ultimately it is a frustrated infant imagining a bountiful breast that is selfishly keeping its infinite supply of milk and other goodies to itself. Therefore, it will either seize the breast or attack it so that no one else can have it. At various times leftists can adopt either strategy toward the breast, which they call their “economic policy.”

Now importantly, the leftist necessarily operates in an “insight free” zone, so he naturally focuses on the object of envy, and in fact, builds his entire worldview around feeling enviously entitled to the object he lacks.

But a mature person realizes that the absence is within, and that it is infinite. ...”

Robert W.Godwin [Gagdad Bob] , Ph.D is a clinical psychologist whose interdisciplinary work has focused on the relationship between contemporary psychoanalysis, chaos theory, and quantum physics.

bttt


7 posted on 03/26/2009 5:37:04 AM PDT by Matchett-PI (The brush fire's lit - the revolution has begun! Lead, follow, or get the hell outta the way!)
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