FGF OP-ED
The Robert Knight Column
June 14, 2016
Envy and the Road to Ruin
by Robert Knight
fitzgerald griffin foundation
WASHINGTON, D.C. — There’s a dark cloud hanging over the progressive push to turn America into a
collectivist paradise. …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. …
Joe Sobran distinguishes between envy and covetousness.
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.”
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