Envy: The Roadmap to Ruin

There’s a dark cloud hanging over the progressive push to turn America into a collectivist paradise.

Things are so bad in socialist Venezuela, whose economy is cratering, that even the liberal news media have taken notice.

Day after day, stories emerge from the oil-rich South American nation about power outages, bankruptcies, long lines for toilet paper, urban unrest, and now even food shortages.

Millions of Venezuelans, no longer smitten by the kind of envy-laden appeals that Bernie Sanders and Hillary Clinton dish up on a daily basis, are having big-time buyers’ remorse since approving Hugo Chavez’s socialist uprising back in 1998. Revolution is in the air, which is why the government of Mr. Chavez’s successor, Nicolas Maduro, is in crackdown mode. It’s what you do when you’ve lost the people after systematically looting them.

The beating heart of socialism, as well as one of America’s two major political parties, is the sin of envy -- wanting something that someone else has. On a personal level, it can breed resentment and bitterness. On a societal level it breeds monstrosities like socialism, fascism, Nazism and communism.

In the United States, we’re witnessing mass delusion, in which millions of ostensibly college-educated people are applauding the siren song of socialism while ignoring news reports about the kind of hell socialists deliver when ensconced in power.

It’s easy to understand why many students are “feeling the Bern.” Most have yet to experience the real world of paychecks eviscerated by federal and state taxes. I confess to falling for liberal politicians while in the extended womb known as college and before I started working 40-hour workweeks. If you don’t earn an income, redistribution is no threat to you and might even be to your benefit. Did someone mention a “Get Out of Yale Free” card?

Accompanying the hope for a free lunch is anger toward “the rich,” who deserve to be punished for their success.

The late writer Joseph Sobran drew an important distinction that might help explain the bitterness with which the legions of the Left pursue their redistributionist agenda:

“Envy is now widely confused with covetousness. But to covet another’s good is to want to possess it yourself; to envy it is to seek the darker satisfaction of destroying his happiness in it.”

Another accomplished man of letters, the late Thomas Landess, arrived at the same conclusion:

“Despite protests to the contrary, deep in their soiled hearts, American leftists hate a winner and desperately want to see him toppled. … You sometimes get a glimpse of their green-skinned malice in their political rhetoric and actions.”

In his 2015 book, “Life, Literature and Lincoln,” Dr. Landess provided a wonderful example. It seems that back in 1962, Leonard Sherman, a New Jersey stamp collector, bought three sheets of U.S. four-cent stamps honoring the United Nations’ Dag Hammarskjold. One of the sheets had its yellow background printed upside down, making it worth an estimated $500,000.

Mr. Sherman unfortunately told the media about it, and his good fortune got back to Washington, D.C. John F. Kennedy’s postmaster general promptly ordered an additional 400,000 upside-down sheets printed. “With the snap of a bureaucrat’s finger, a rarity became commonplace,” thus destroying any value beyond the stamps’ worth of four cents each. A good day’s work in Washington.

I don’t think the word “killjoy” quite does justice to this little act of official vandalism, which benefited no one and stopped an interesting, harmless and lucrative venture in its tracks.

The top postal bureaucrat was fairly rich himself, so his torching of Mr. Sherman’s instant wealth was not garden variety envy but perhaps something more insidious, “a pinched vision of the world as consisting of wicked exploiter and powerless victim,” wrote Dr. Landess.

“Be assured that [the postmaster general] – who’d never met Leonard Sherman – knew precisely what evil lurked in the heart of a stamp collector worth $500,000. … Underlying the apotheosis of envy are the unspoken assumptions that the ills of society are the result of economic exploitation.”

Which brings us back to the spectacle of Bernie Sanders and Hillary Clinton desperately trying to out-promise socialist redistribution schemes, while some of Mr. Sanders’ followers sow violence at Donald Trump rallies.

Mr. Trump is a perfect foil – a billionaire who doesn’t give a rip about political correctness or conventional manners. He’s a rude, crude, spectacularly successful capitalist, the enemy of the people.

The more that Mr. Trump’s detractors on the Left act out their displeasure, however, the more that the #NeverTrump movement loses once-staunch adherents.

In sanitized media, the Left is well meaning and cuddly, all about tolerance and equality. Up close, it’s a different picture as ginned-up envy spills over into violence, confiscatory economics, political correctness run amok, and eventual ruin. That’s what’s turning once-prosperous Venezuela into an economic basket case.

We have it on the highest authority that envy is not to be taken lightly. The apostle James wrote that envy leads to “disorder and every evil practice.” And Solomon advised in Proverbs that “a heart at peace gives life, but envy rots the bones.”

Perhaps America’s colleges should consider offering a working semester in Caracas. It would be a good education in what works – and doesn’t -- in the real world.

A broken dispirited populace is more easily enslaved than a content, prosperous, and happy populace. And the real business of the Left is the enslavement of masses in their quest for power — the larger the better. So this whole drama about Obama ‘foolishly’ or ‘naively’ ignoring 2500 years of historical experience of mankind is a naive assertion on the part any reasonable average observer of history, and truly perplexing when coming from bona fide scholars of history.

There is a fundamental premise at work here: the Left has actively been engaged in behavior, ideas and policies destructive to our Republic for some time now. It’s a pedigree of ideas and an axis of thought that can be followed from Machiavelli through Antonio Gramsci, Herbert Marcuse, Georges Sorel, Saul Alinsky and the Cloward-Piven duo. That is, you cannot rule a free and prosperous people. The operating principle is as Machiavelli laid out so long ago:

“When cities or provinces have been accustomed to live under a prince… they do not know how to live in freedom… and a prince can win them over with greater faculty and establish himself securely. But in republics, there is greater life…they do not and cannot cast aside the memory of their ancient liberty, so that the surest way to conquer them is to lay them waste.”

–This, from Machiavelli’s most famous work, and the bedside reading of our ruling elites, The Prince

This is precisely what is happening and what has been happening for some time now. We are being laid waste, and it’s happening to the approval and the applause of many of our own countrymen. By every measure of reason, this regime is working to destroy our republic for their own ends. And what is that end? The answer to that question is simple, and all else follows from it: it is the acquisition and the exercise of absolute power. Pure, murderous power. Power for its own sake. The power to control and to harm others without consequence. George Orwell, who understood this side of the Left all too well, laid it out for us in his classic 1984:

‘…The Party seeks power entirely for its own sake. We are not interested in the good of others; we are interested solely in power. Not wealth or luxury or long life or happiness: only power, pure power… We are different from all the oligarchies of the past, in that we know what we are doing. All the others, even those who resembled ourselves, were cowards and hypocrites.’
‘The German Nazis and the Russian Communists came very close to us in their methods, but they never had the courage to recognize their own motives. They pretended, perhaps they even believed, that they had seized power unwillingly and for a limited time, and that just round the corner there lay a paradise where human beings would be free and equal. We are not like that. We know that no one ever seizes power with the intention of relinquishing it.’ ‘Power is not a means, it is an end. One does not establish a dictatorship in order to safeguard a revolution; one makes the revolution in order to establish the dictatorship.’
The object of persecution is persecution.
The object of torture is torture.
The object of power is power.’

And there you have it. But why the curious blindness given to this undeniable aspect of human nature? Why do so many scholars – above all, those who should damn well know better – such as Victor Davis Hanson, Lee Harris (for both of whom I have the utmost and profound respect) and even Chantal Delsol, whose landmark The Unlearned Lessons of the Twentieth Century comes so close to the truth, either ignore or dance around this subject? Is it because it is too monstrous to contemplate? Is it because it reveals an aspect of human nature that we’d all prefer not to recognize?

If that premise is true, it’s not hard to understand the reluctance: look at the slaughter, atrocity and abomination perpetrated by totalitarian monsters over the last 200 years. How can one make sense of so much killing, such utter, profound, sadistic and ultimately psychopathic cruelty? How can one acknowledge that that reality is an undeniable part of our history and that it is also intrinsically and inextricably linked to our human nature, our human condition? Human beings did these things. Human beings treated other human beings as objects, as machines, as things, as targets for their own monstrosity, savagery and murderous cruelty – and in the end, as animals for slaughter.

Perhaps there’s another reason behind the reluctance to acknowledge this historical truth and its corollary: the realization that monstrous acts are sometimes required in order to deal with monsters. And that is precisely what we must face if we wish to preserve Western civilization from our internal enemies – mindless utopians and will-to-power driven serial nihilists – and from the threat that the abomination that Islam poses today.

None of us have a Get Out of History Free card. We ignore the lessons of history at our peril. 2000 years or so ago, Titus Livy, in the introduction to his monumental history of Rome remarked that his purpose in writing was “to trace the progress of our moral decline, to watch, first, the sinking of the foundations of morality as the old teaching was allowed to lapse, then the rapidly increasing disintegration, then the final collapse of the whole edifice, and the dark dawning of our modern day when we can neither endure our vices nor face the remedies needed to cure them.”

I have to say that I believe this is a one-sided piece, and that it is misusing the Bible. That’s serious no matter who does it.

The passages the article quotes from are indeed there in God’s Word, but there are certainly other passages that should also be mentioned on this topic, which the article chooses not to quote.

There are many passages in the Bible warning about wealth, the desire to get and be wealthy, and against greed. There are also many passages speaking of God’s anger against those who exploit the poor. The left misuses Scripture, including these passages, taking them out of context and twisting them - but not entirely, because the passages truly DO speak against the nature of wealth to be destructive, and the injustice of wronging and taking advantage of the poor.

This article also seems to presume that “envy” is something that only happens one way - a poorer person envies a wealthier one. The Bible, God’s Word, is far more truthful on that subject.

David, king of Israel and by no means poor, took a poor man’s wife. Ahab, again king of Israel and by no means poor, had a common man killed for the ancestral vineyard the man possessed.

A poor person can envy the $5 million held by a rich man, but if 5 million poor people each only have a dollar, a rich man might envy the dollar each poor person has.

Make no mistake about it, God’s Word speaks about justice in every way, including about not oppressing the poor because he’s poor.

God is also not a communist or a socialist, and no one should dare to accuse Him of being so. But that is what people are doing when they seek to suppress part of God’s Word because part of a philosophy of man sounds something like God’s Word. Should GOD’S WORD be silenced for the sake of man?!

An honest reading of God’s Word shows people how they should regard money and possessions. There shouldn’t be injustice done either way, to wealthy or poor, but God also warns against greed, and against not showing mercy to the poor, and not having feeling for their suffering. These are unmistakeable commands repeated over and over in the Word of God.

One of the very reasons why America is turning from God is the allure of riches, and people setting their hearts on the things of this world. There are many secular humanists among the rich, and they live for the experiences of this world, and modern technology can offer more and more of them. In times past there might have been more of a natural growing tired of the same old riches, so that people realized life wasn’t all about them, but today technology promises ever more thrills. What is missing is preaching from God’s Word that warns against setting one’s hearts on riches.

I’m aware that some people here might not know the Bible all that well. If anyone is thinking what I’m writing isn’t Bible-based, I can assure you, it is.

“Ye shall do no unrighteousness in judgment: thou shalt not respect the person of the poor, nor honor the person of the mighty: but in righteousness shalt thou judge thy neighbour.” (Leviticus 19:15)

“Whoso stoppeth his ears at the cry of the poor, he also shall cry himself, but shall not be heard.” (Proverbs 21:13)

“The getting of treasures by a lying tongue is a vanity tossed to and fro of them that seek death.” (Proverbs 21:6)

“Whoso mocketh the poor reproacheth his Maker: and he that is glad at calamities shall not be unpunished.” (Proverbs 17:5)

“He that oppresseth the poor to increase his riches, and he that giveth to the rich, shall surely come to want.” (Proverbs 22:16)

“Rob not the poor, because he is poor: neither oppress the afflicted in the gate: For the Lord will plead their cause, and spoil the soul of those that spoiled them.” (Proverbs 22:22-23)

“And when ye reap the harvest of your land, thou shalt not wholly reap the corners of thy field, neither shalt thou gather the gleanings of thy harvest. And thou shalt not glean thy vineyard, neither shalt thou gather every grape of thy vineyard; thou shalt leave them for the poor and stranger: I am the Lord your God.” (Leviticus 19:9-10)

“And if the man be poor, thou shalt not sleep with his pledge: In any case thou shalt deliver him the pledge again when the sun goeth down, that he may sleep in his own raiment, and bless thee: and it shall be righteousness unto thee before the Lord thy God. Thou shalt not oppress an hired servant that is poor and needy, whether he be of thy brethren, or of thy strangers that are in thy land within thy gates: At his day thou shalt give him his hire, neither shall the sun go down upon it; for he is poor, and setteth his heart upon it: lest he cry against thee unto the Lord, and it be sin unto thee.” (Deuteronomy 24:12-15)

“Go to now, ye rich men, weep and howl for your miseries that shall come upon you. Your riches are corrupted, and your garments are motheaten. Your gold and silver is cankered; and the rust of them shall be a witness against you, and shall eat your flesh as it were fire. Ye have heaped treasure together for the last days. Behold, the hire of the labourers who have reaped down your fields, which is of you kept back by fraud, crieth: and the cries of them which have reaped are entered into the ears of the Lord of sabaoth. Ye have lived in pleasure on the earth, and been wanton; ye have nourished your hearts, as in a day of slaughter.” (James 5:1-5)

“My brethren, have not the faith of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Lord of glory, with respect of persons. For if there come unto your assembly a man with a gold ring, in goodly apparel, and there come in also a poor man in vile raiment; And ye have respect to him that weareth the gay clothing, and say unto him, Sit thou here in a good place; and say to the poor, Stand thou there, or sit here under my footstool: Are ye not then partial in yourselves, and are become judges of evil thoughts?” (James 2:1-4)

“The Lord will enter into judgment with the ancients of his people, and the princes thereof: for ye have eaten up the vineyard; the spoil of the poor is in your houses. What mean ye that ye beat my people to pieces, and grind the faces of the poor? saith the Lord God of hosts.” (Isaiah 3:14-15)

“He also that received seed among the thorns is he that heareth the word; and the care of this world, and the deceitfulness of riches, choke the word, and he becometh unfruitful.” (Matthew 13:22)

“There was a certain rich man, which was clothed in purple and fine linen, and fared sumptuously every day: And there was a certain beggar named Lazarus, which was laid at his gate, full of sores, And desiring to be fed with the crumbs which fell from the rich man’s table: moreover the dogs came and licked his sores. And it came to pass, that the beggar died, and was carried by the angels into Abraham’s bosom: the rich man also died, and was buried; And in hell he lift up his eyes, being in torments, and seeth Abraham afar off, and Lazarus in his bosom. And he cried and said, Father Abraham, have mercy on me, and send Lazarus, that he may dip the tip of his finger in water, and cool my tongue; for I am tormented in this flame. But Abraham said, Son, remember that thou in thy lifetime receivedst thy good things, and likewise Lazarus evil things: but now he is comforted, and thou art tormented...” (Luke 16:19-25)

“No servant can serve two masters: for either he will hate the one, and love the other; or else he will hold to the one, and despise the other. Ye cannot serve God and mammon.” (Luke 16:13)

And from Gotquestions.org:

“Not only do riches not get one into heaven, but they have the power to separate a person from God in a way that few other things can. Riches are deceitful (Mark 4:19). It is certainly not impossible for the very rich to enter heaven (many heroes of the Bible were wealthy), but Scripture is clear that it is very hard (Matthew 19:23-24; Mark 10:23-25; Luke 18:24-25).

“True followers of Christ will not be indifferent to the plight of the poor like the rich man in this story was. God loves the poor and is offended when His children neglect them (Proverbs 17:5; 22:9, 22-23; 29:7; 31:8-9). In fact, those who show mercy to the poor are in effect ministering to Christ personally (Matthew 25:35-40). Christians are known by the fruit they bear. The Holy Spirit’s residence in our hearts will most certainly impact how we live and what we do.”

http://www.gotquestions.org/rich-man-and-Lazarus.html

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