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The American Disease: I Deserve To Get Away With Anything & Everything
Submitted by Charles Hugh-Smith of OfTwoMinds blog,
The only thing as grandiose as this sense of entitlement is the hubris it engenders.
Here's the American Disease in a nutshell: entitlement and power means you never have to apologize for anything. Public relations might require a grudging, insincere quasi-apology, but the person with power can't evince humility or shame--he or she doesn't have any.
What the American with power does have in nearly limitless abundance is a grandiose yet unacknowledged sense of entitlement and a volcanic sense of indignation. For the powerful feel entitled not to be questioned, and entitled to the supreme arrogance of never apologizing for anything.
Their indignation at being pressed to account for their decisions knows no bounds--how dare anyone question my actions? It's outrageous! I don't deserve this!
The most entitled and indignant couple in America might well be Bill and Hillary Clinton, famously crying poor while assembling a net worth in excess of $100 million.
Their resentment at being challenged to account for their actions is palpable. When questioned about his sordid encounters in the White House, Bill Clinton's body language and tortured, seething responses spoke of a grandiose entitlement to get away with anything and everything. We could almost hear his inner dialog: "Nobody questioned Jack Kennedy's multiple affairs--I deserve to get away with it, too."
Hillary is expressing the same seething resentment at being questioned about her private email server. Her phony, resentful half-apology reminds us of nothing more than a spoiled, entitled teenager shouting, "OK, so I wrecked the car! So what? It's just a lump of steel and plastic. What about me? I don't deserve this! So what if I ran over that old guy. I didn't mean to. Why should my life be ruined because somebody found out?" And so on.
In America, supposedly a land built on merit and accountability, being entitled and powerful means you never have to apologize for anything or be accountable for your actions. Take a look at entertainment/sports "heroes" grudging, phony PR-apologies, carefully scripted to sound sincere yet fake to the core, as the "heroes" arrogance and sense of entitlement is so obviously grandiose.
After all, the "hero" was showered with sports cars, bling, "dates" with attractive women and all the other benefits of stardom. Just because he 1) beat a woman senseless 2) date-raped a woman, etc. etc. etc., well, "I should get away with anything and everything because I'm rich and famous."
How about our financial and political titans? Their mantra when challenged, "I don't recall," is another spoiled-teen dodge tailored for the courtroom. One wishes that their cross-examination featured the same techniques used to interrogate "high value subjects" in the Global War on Terror in some remote, cold cell.
What might they confess to when waterboarded and subjected to sleep deprivation for a few days? Would we finally get the truth? or would they blubber more lies in the hopes their inquisitors would actually believe them?
The more a society glorifies its virtues, the emptier those virtues are in the real world. Merit means little in a society of political dynasties and inherited wealth, a society where wealth and elite membership trumps virtually everything else.
Accountability has been reduced to a meaningless buzzword spewed by the chattering class, much like the hollow slogan "middle class." Neither accountability nor the middle class exists except as founding myths or convenient PR fantasies for those seeking to exploit the myths and the fantasies for personal gain.
The powerful feel entitled to get away with anything and everything because they've been getting away with anything and everything for decades while the American economy, society and culture all rotted from within.
No parody of spoiled-teen entitlement and the limitless arrogance of power could possibly top the Clintons. Were someone to write a satire in which a political power couple loudly touted their abject poverty while amassing a personal fortune of $100+ million, the fable would be roundly dismissed as exaggerated, absurd, cartoonish.
Yet the Clintons exist, as do hundreds of other entitled, arrogant, wealthy powerful people in America who never apologize for anything because humility is for the little people.
The only thing as grandiose as this sense of entitlement is the hubris it engenders. Bring it on, as G.W. Bush famously said. By all means, bring it on.
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This is an elite disease, not an American one.
No. It is not an elite disease as I experience it daily in my two jobs with the customers I have to deal with. Entitlement runs through our culture, all classes, all sexes, all races.
caused no doubt in large part by:
-our education system - a combination of bubble boy, statist nannying and an everyone's a winner mentality
-our entertainment industry - with stars parading as polititians, philanthropists, and businessmen, and theinstant overnight fame of people with zero intellect or talent
-our advertising - convincing everyone that fame and luxury are their rights
Charles Hugh (and clearly some ZHers) should to get out more. The “disease” is not unique to America.
The two in the picture..
a cancer.. er, maybe more like Ebola.
$100M? The Clinton Library Slush Fund alone blew by that number long ago- these asswipes see next stop $1B, every dime of it taxpayer funded....
How dare this article even suggest such a thing. HOW DARE IT!!!
Err...dont hear any other 'nation' claiming to be 'exceptional' like the US does, whilst destroying the lives of millions around the world in direct contradiction to the intentions of the Founding Fathers (after they declared they had more of a right to the land than the Indiginous, irrespective of how long they'd held the land sacred, and THEIR children's inheritance). Was a great experiment, but looking more and more like the slomo train wreck that is speeding up. So sorry to see the narrative implode under the guidance of Central Banksters, Statists, CIA and Pentagon. Goodbye Constitution. Goodbye Bill of Rights. Hello Executive Order, Hello NSA/DHS/FEMA. Hello Crisis Actor PsyOps BS. THOSE are the institutions and values that now define the US. And you good American people are letting it happen...
"You're either with us, or you're with the Terrrrursts" Really? I don't LIKE or AGREE with what YOU define as a 'Terrrrurst'. Who the FCK are you to declare war on me, your cousin and establised ally, because I can't stomach your war-mongery?
Great ideals, but very very poor execution and outcome for the the majority of and on the planet...The US has some big big Kharma to deal with...
Why doesn't anyone ever blame horrible parenting? Can two parents working actually raise children EFFECTIVELY? Actually I would say but only 1 out of 1000. Priorities have changed and not for the betterment of our civilization.
Anyone who voted less than a 5 on this either is feeling guilty or has accepted this total bullshit.
No. You are making a blanket generalization. It is not even a majority who feel entitled. Some surely, but definitely not all. And seek is right, the elites obviously feel the planet is theirs.
I disagree. It is a majority who feel entitled, in the US.
A lack of enforcement of white collar crimes causes it.
It is an elite disease and a highly contagious one. The younger people especially, watch our political leaders get away with graft and corruption and think they can get away with it too, and this is where their sense of entitlement comes from as well.
THOSE DAMN KIDS TODAY
YOU KIDS GET OFF MY LAWN
WHEN I WAS YOUR AGE I WALKED UPHILL TO SCHOOL BOTH WAYS
But they aren't getting away with it: just check those prison numbers. The highest per capita in the WORLD. Even greater than China. The 'free shitters' are spending their days visiting relatives in jail. Only those with banker/political/elite connections are getting away with it.
Well, if we the people put up with it and keep voting for a lesser of evils, then the disease spreads. Many Americans sitll believe that we are the best country in the world etc. However, through my traveling internationally for a number of years, I can tell you that it is ONLY Americans that believe this. The rest of the world watches our self righteous excuses for war, which are for the interests of corporations, watch our rioting, looting minorities with disgust. Oh I forget the typical question "Why are Americans so fat?" So yeah, we the people have to take the blame for allowing it to happen.
We don't want them to apologize ... we want them to do hard time !
Bill and Hillary hanging side-by-side on a lamp post would be a good start.
That would probably be the most romantic they've been with each other in 40 years.
What does Bill say to Hillery after sex? 'Hi, Honey. Everything is fine here, how about there?'
even worse face to face...I want Bill to be in pain!
I say chain them to each other, then to a steel post - and give them a saw.
My money is on Hitlary.
Where did his idea of apology come from? Toddlers apologize... Because they are taught that apoplgy is something you do to escape consequence. I am sorry I took the cookie mommy... tell your brother your sorry... I am sick to death of apologies...
The process is confession and repentance.
Confession... Coming clean with everything you've done...
Repentance... turn and go the righteous path...
Imagine if one of these Hades pets tried that... that would be something...
"Go fuck yourself!"
Dick Cheney
"Go fuck yourself"
John Boehner to Harry Reid
"Fuck the EU"
Vicki Nuland
"Fuck me!"
Barry first time reaching in Mooch's pants
"You have got to be fucking kidding me"
Knuks relating to Mrs K, a conversaiton with one of his Progressive delusional buds
you wanna know why they call it USURY.............
cause FUCK was aready taken
The rich have always been like this.
The only difference is that the smart once keep a low profile and hide themselves from the world.
Everybody knows stories from rich people in their city that did horrible things that never made the papers.
But these days, people are famous because they are famous without any reason.
In America, these types become governors or even president.
It's constantly LOOK AT ME, SEE ME!! And they are so addicted to it that even a scandal will do to get them in the spotlight and nobody really cares what they did but the fact that they are in the spotlight is enough to admire them.
S H A L L O W SOCIETY!
Sorry but that is an excuse...do you beget Bill Gate, Henry Ford, Gordon Moore?? No it is the crook polies and their enablers... The crooked Mega banks do very little economic activity...take WAY TOO MUCH CREDIT...and have taxpayer backing them the whole way. The actions of the FED are just plain corrupt at this point and it needs to be gutted! We need more competition and a less corrupt smaller central government. It can happen, but the voters need to get their act together!
Lamp posts and rope?
There is no worse punishment than sudden loss of status, influence and power. The destiny of the US will be a story from riches to rags.
Tic-toc assholes.
The Ugly American is an example of a novel that met with only modest commercial success until an effort was made to ban it.
The United States Information Service tried to ban the book’s sale overseas—especially in Asia—until adverse publicity forced it to rescind its ban.
The book then gained further notoriety when the U.S. Department of State and Senator J. William Fulbright attacked the truthfulness of the authors, hinting they were traitors.
Thanks to the ensuing publicity, the book jumped onto the bestseller lists for seventy-eight weeks and sold more than four million copies.
Traitors. Hillary for Prison 2016!!!!
Yeah and what is with Bill always has his mouth hanging open in most stock photos. Pining for a big dick to be jammed in there?
Fucking cunts deserve to be taken out 100 miles to sea, hung upside down and let hammerheads snack on their bodies....
..................if the hammerheads even want to snack on these pieces of shit.
Sharks wouldn't eat the Clintons out of professional courtesy.
...but crabs would. Same reason.
That's a great bumper sticker.
Their suicide would be the best apology these ass holes could ever give us.
Better if they just went away and we never heard from them or about them again. Ever.
Feed them down the memory hole.
It's the " CAN DO ATTITUDE"
Can do WTF I want with no remorse at all.....sick psycopaths
the clintons have won...get over it. they have lived a long life of luxury and are 'old' now. if they get strung up now...so fucking what. they have lived a long life and lived it well.
That is no reason to not punish them with maximum sentences.
no jury would ever put an old woman or old man in jail...isnt going to happen. what would be funny is to take away the foundation and then their daughter gets nada....!
Super snatch needs a Federal prison colonic.
Bankers should be punished by being locked up with her!
It isn't going to change either.
The best one can hope for is a Kenneth Lay result.
He was guilty as shit, but the conviction didn't matter.
That was a hit.
He was developing a conscience at the end.
Probably felt mortality creeping up on him.
Many of you commenting have a different 'sickness' than Billery-- but along same lines as thiers. Still sickeo's. They might hang from the light post in this life. You'll be with them later.
Find the nearest Esso station ASAP !!
That is a slap in the face to Americans who play by all the rules.
On their behalf, fuck you.
If you're stupid enough to play by the rules of a sick, twisted death cult of a culture than fuck you.
http://www.ibtimes.com/best-universities-world-2015-singapore-schools-ju...
Those far left-wing liberals at Yale are going to be pissed.
It's what Hillary refers to as US exceptionalism; the sort of grotesque lack of responsibility that inspired the founding fathers to rebel.
I thought it was Kunstler from the hyperbolic, breathless come-on.
When CHS is great he is spot on and a joy to read. When he does his cut-rate Kunstler articles, he's even worse the Kunstler. At least the K has honed his faux indignant prose over years of complaining for THOSE DAMN KIDS TO GET OFF HIS LAWN!
First off, this is European Exceptionalism, not the American variety. It has been imported into the Great Republic by, among others, that fabulous Rhodes scholar William J Clinton and clumsily copied by his execrable, envious spouse.
Secondly, America is not so far gone that such conduct gets completely shrugged off as would happen in Europe. In Establishment circles, sure, but not out in the Heartland where America still lives.
Third, what do you expect from a country that abandons a fixed moral standard in favor of define-it-yourself situational ethics.
Solution: return to the American Way and kick all the terminally-diseased Euro-worshippers back to Gay Paree where they belong.
Sigghhh... the American way is, was, and had always been a lie. If the founding fathers saw what America has become they would not be disappointed. They would probably get erections.
An old joke I'm sure, but this is my favorite for Bill and Hillary. "How did they meet? They were dating the same girl ?
And a recycled bumper sticker...
If Hillary Clinton is the answer, it must have been a really stupid question.
That would apply to any of them. If there's any hope left it's not in politics.
They model the political good cop/bad cop con man routine off mirroring these surface differences in the people, i.e. impulsive versus controlling... but what they hand to us either of those which they've trained us to think we want/need is something that benefits the elite every time. Part of why they play to both is because it makes the look convicted to something and allows a simplistic level of identification. Also, since may people are actually impulsive, increasingly so, there is an opportunity there but you also have to temper that so it doesn't blow back in your face (too many impulsive people)..
Play upon their guilt by enabling secretly and then make them feel guilt and then subtle allow them to shrug it away / escape it... this is the playboy behind things like abortion and Marijuana and even debt.
This is how they debauch society. ... when there are two parties on each side of telling you to do it and that you are wrong/wrong but it's ok.. is a lot different when in the shadows it's the same person (the politicians/elites).
It's called "PSYCHOPATHY".