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Quote of the Day – Envy
The envious man seeks not his own gain, But the fall of another, And in his malice, loses his soul, For the gods despise such hearts. – Euripides
There are massive wildfires running out of control in the Los Angeles Basin. They have been burning all week and will likely continue until they burn themselves out. The local and state governments have failed utterly at stopping them and will likely continue failing until the fires run out of fuel.
The California Legislature is taking action, though. They are holding a special session to enable legislation to be passed to (checks notes) stop Donald Trump. Nothing about mitigating the fire or providing relief from regulation or taxes to those burned out by the fire. That is apparently less important than stopping Trump’s agenda.
Is there a better illustration of the corrosive nature of envy? The session is focused on attempting a fall of another rather than the gain of the state for which the legislature holds responsibility: California. To them, it is more important to hurt Donald Trump than to fix the problems their own state has. So they literally let their state burn down around them rather than allow the state’s woes to serve as a distraction from what they view as really important: bringing down Donald Trump.
It illustrates yet again that progressivism is the politics of envy, of bringing everyone—except the elites running things—down to the level of equal misery. They have truly lost their souls. No wonder progressives play “Imagine” at a funeral. If heaven exists, they have much to fear.
Published in Group Writing
I didn’t know about this special session. I don’t pay much attention to California politics generally, but here is a link from the Governor’s website if anyone is interested.
https://www.gov.ca.gov/2024/11/07/special-session-ca-values/
California values. Wasn’t there some hubbub back in 2016 during the Republican primary about Trump having “New York Values”? My memory could be inaccurate.
Oh, here it is: https://www.usnews.com/opinion/articles/2016-01-15/donald-trump-responds-to-ted-cruzs-criticism-of-new-york-values
You can quote Euripides to the California legislature. You can quote Euripides to a dog.
The dog will tilt his head and wonder “Am I about to get a treat?”
You rippa deese, you menda deese.
Don’t we have some Ricochet members who follow this line all the way?
Come to think . . .
Speaking of “Imagine”, someone on Twitter had a suggestion that was a little mean spirited but made me laugh. How about if some of us ordinary citizens made a recording of that wretched song and send it out to the celebrities who sang it to us from their mansions during the Pandemic?
That is mean-spirited. Deserved, but still mean-spirited.
Mostly, these people just need to do something praiseworthy, just one thing to start. Senator Fetterman is interesting.
I was thinking of using Rich Mullins’ “Creed”, but I take your point.
Great song!