From The Other McCain:
The guy behind the counter at Burger King is not necessarily less "greedy" than the millionaire Wall Street tycoon. Both want to make big bucks; the difference between them is that the Wall Street tycoon has been more successful in finding and exploiting the opportunity to make big bucks. It is an error of logic to assume that the guy making $9 an hour at Burger King is less "greedy" -- i.e., more virtuous -- than the Wall Street tycoon, and yet liberalism assumes just that: The poor are virtuous merely because they are poor.
I'm not sure only liberals think this; as a society, we constantly extoll the virtues of the less fortunate and champion the little guy. This isn't a bad thing. Humility is good. But greed, whether you think it is a vice or not, is simply a fact of the human condition and that has nothing to do with how much or little one makes.
A twin vice that should be addressed in any discussion of greed is envy. Politically, Democrats are constantly stoking the fires of envy by complaining that, for example, the banks got theirs, now it's time you got yours, without any consideration about why, exactly, we gave the banks billions (it was to avoid a financial catastrophe, regardless of how the banks used the money). Sure, giving John and Jane Doe an extra 20 bucks a week may make Dems excited, but how is that creating jobs or stimulating the economy enough to justify the expense? And why, exactly, should we be tossing money around like there's no tomorrow just because someone else has more?
Dems are masters at playing this game, and Republicans are left playing the straight guy, the bad cop, the guy trying to explain why $50 billion for the NEA is different than continuing to fund the F-22. Dems have the fun job: telling everyone that life is unfair and, through no fault of your own, you're not a corporate CEO. But, hey! We can make it up to you by redistributing somebody else's money.
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