Democrats Holding Obama Hostage

Well now that it appears the Senate will approve the Obama-GOP Tax Bill, it will soon be back on the House under the fearless and able leadership of Mrs. Pelosi to make things right. As I think about how Nancy Pelosi might handle the evolving challenge reading this article makes me chuckle. I wonder if she knows there are two kinds of envy and which kind fills her thought's?

Envy is a good thing in class warfare
By Gregory Rodriguez
Los Angeles Times

But in recent years, social psychologists have begun to make a distinction between malicious and benign envy. According to an upcoming study in the Journal of Consumer Research, "maliciously envious people feel frustrated and try to level the difference with the superior others by pulling those others down."

Benignly envious people, on the other hand, "also feel frustrated, but they try to level the difference by moving themselves up."

http://www.denverpost.com/opinion/ci_16 ... source=pop

Now given the definition of both malicious and benign envy by social psychologists above, which form of envy might you attribute to the average liberal American versus the average conservative American? Do maliciously envious liberals feel frustrated and try to level the difference with the superior others by pulling those others down through the involuntary redistribution of wealth? Do benignly envious conservatives feel frustrated but attempt to level the difference by moving themselves up through hard work, education, smart investment and patience?

I know there are NO absolutes in life, but given the arguements I have heard lately in the press and in this forum about not extending the Bush Tax Cuts for the wealthiest in our society makes me believe most liberals ARE maliciously envious of Americas most successful and would rather pull the wealthy down than move themselves up. But that's just my opinion.

What do YOU think and how do you manage your envy? Tell me which way you lean both politically and socially and I will make a bold guess.

I know when I type his name, many will automatically discredit him but I think Mike Rosen does a good job of explaining what I believe the conservative stand on this tax fight and economic theory is.

Rosen: Revolting against reality
By Mike Rosen

But the heart of the problem is the unsustainable level of government spending and indebtedness driven by a cornucopia of entitlement, health care and welfare programs, along with overly generous government employee payrolls and lavish pension plans that have dwarfed growth in private- sector compensation in recent years.

Our current spending levels exceed our practical tax capacity. No nation can tax itself rich. It can only produce itself rich. Excessive tax rates are the enemy of production and a barrier to the creation of societal wealth. You can soak the rich, spin-dry them and run them through a ringer, and you still won't come up with nearly enough revenue to close this runaway spending gap. And then who's left to soak?

The economic solution is obvious: Government must spend less — much less — on all kinds of things at the federal and state levels. The political solution is problematic.

http://www.denverpost.com/opinion/ci_16810133

I think Mike Rosen is spot on and therefore the arguement for not extending the tax cuts for the wealthiest in our society is flawed. They are the ONLY ones who can help us get out of this mess. God knows the idiots in Washington D. C. sure can't. Nancy Pelosi and her band of knuckleheads are, indeed, revolting against reality. I know my liberal friend here won't be swayed in their relentless pursuit of malicious envy...but I wanted to reassure my conservative friends that benign envy is still the way to go.

Rush Limbaugh says it best again:

http://www.rushlimbaugh.com/home/daily/ ... guest.html

RUSH: ...Bottom line, folks, it's this simple. If they want to steal our money, if they want to tax us -- you know, this whole notion of greed, Bill McGurn has a great column today in the Wall Street Journal about greed and tax cuts for the rich. The conventional wisdom is that the rich are a bunch of greedy SOBs and that the government, who wants to raise taxes on these people, they are fair, they understand the great inequities in our society and they seek to level them out. It's these greedy rich people who are steadfastly opposing giving up any more of their money. They don't need the money they've got, they'll never miss a tax increase, they don't need this -- blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. And the notion gets put out there that they are the greedy ones. But who are they? Whether they're rich or not, they're people who want to keep what they've earned. Who is the government? Who are the Democrats? The Democrats are the people who want to take what they have earned. They want to take from the people who have earned it and use it as their own to spend to their own benefit.

…It's so convoluted to have people who earn their money being called greedy simply because they think they should be able to keep a little bit more of it, that they'll do better with it than the government will. And that's greed. ….But the real greed exists in Washington. It is there that people who haven't earned your money want to take it from you and spend it as though it was theirs, for their own benefit, as in buying votes, continually being elected, what have you. And he's absolutely right about this. So, you know, whether they want to steal our money, have high taxes or what have you, Democrats, liberals, progressives, socialists, doesn't matter what they call themselves. We know who they are. They are people who feel entitled to everybody else's earnings while having not earned any of it themselves.