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Jesus in the Beatitudes says “Happy are those…” who live from essentially a stance of humility and gratitude. The other day Connie and I asked our doctor if he could make a general observation about how HE is treated by patients. He said that those at the top and those at the bottom of the social pyramid are generally the most difficult to counsel. When all bark is removed, the common element of both groups is their proud belief in their sheer entitlement. Like the doctor, I have seen that those entitled by government funding at the bottom lose sight of the fact that the source of government funding comes sooner or later in one way or another from working families struggling to pay taxes while supporting their own families. In essence, the entitled can view the source of their funding coming not from other people (essentially what is social in nature) but painlessly from a type of disembodied SYSTEM. I see no difference in this than those wealthy at the top who never give it a thought that much of their wealth ultimately derives from the labor of others. The wealthy top executive feels totally entitled to millions in compensation from a capitalistic SYSTEM safely detached from any suffering of real people. No doubt there were slave owners who never once questioned the total justification of slave compensation and lack thereof. Likewise I’ve heard totally complacent present-day executives purr regarding the idyllic contentment of their employees subjected to the stress of chronic under-compensation and dead-end jobs.
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