RUSH: From MSNBC: “Why We Hate Taxes.” Oh, really? Let me read this. “Americans are growing increasingly frustrated with our countryÂ’s Byzantine federal tax system, but not because we feel overtaxed.” No. “Most Americans believe the biggest problem with taxes is that wealthy people donÂ’t pay their fair share –” right out of the Obama playbook. “– according to poll results published Tuesday by the nonpartisan Pew Research Center. The feeling of outrage over the privileged classes is growing, according to the poll results, which only confirm the widespread anger that has helped fuel this fall’s Occupy protests –” This is bogus as anything I have ever seen. The timing is too perfect.
I have spent 20-plus years telling people how to detect liberal bias in news stories. I have explained how polls are used to make news, polls and studies done by totally biased news media, studies are paid for by the government to give liberals on college campus something to do. And here’s another example of a poll that is used to trash the rich, a poll that is converted to a news story at the very beginning of Obama’s reelection campaign. “Why We Hate Taxes.” ‘Cause the rich aren’t paying their fair share. Well, shazam. What a miracle. “Look at this, Ethel. Obama has been out there for six months and he’s been telling people the rich aren’t paying their fair share and then MSNBC, his network, has got a poll and it says the same thing, Ethel. Why, that’s amazing.” It certainly is. It certainly is. How timely and how bogus. How transparently bogus.
And now moving on to TIME Magazine. And before I get to this, let me remind you of some things. I want to give you some headlines from other articles about the rich from TIME Magazine over the last few months. Ready? “Study: The Rich Really Are More Selfish.” Another: “Six-Figure Parking Spots. The rich pay $125,000 to park their cars.” Want another one? “Most Millionaires Support Higher Taxes on the Rich.” “Why the Rich Shoplift More than the Poor.” That’s in the money section of TIME Magazine. “Why the Rich Shoplift More than the Poor.” TIME Magazine’s universe.
The next one: “Guess WhoÂ’s Most Likely to Strategically Default on Mortgages? The Rich.” There are just five recent stories over the last few months from TIME Magazine about the rich. Snerdley, your favorite is why the rich shoplift more than the poor? The rich really are more selfish. Now, here’s the story. This is from TIME: “Got Money? Then You Might Lack Compassion — Pity the poor plutocrat. Politicians want to tax them, Occupy Wall Streeters mock them, 99% of their fellow citizens are mad at them (even if they secretly want to be one of them). Now comes word from the University of California, Berkeley, that is not likely to send their approval ratings any higher: a new study has confirmed that the richer you are the less compassionate you are — and don’t gloat, you upper-middle classers, that includes you, too.
“In a study just published in the straightforwardly named journal Emotion, psychologist Jennifer Stellar sought to determine the empathic capacities of a sample group of 300 college students, who had been hand-selected for maximum economic diversity. As a rule, of course, college students have just one income level: poor — which is why they spend so much time writing home for money. Stellar thus chose her subjects based on the income of the people who respond to the requests and write the checks: the parents.” That whole paragraph to set up the fact that the survey sample here is parents of kids in college.
“In the first of three experiments, she had 148 of her subjects fill out a detailed questionnaire reporting how often and how intensely they experience emotions such as joy, love, compassion and awe. She also had them agree or disagree with statements like ‘I often notice people who need help.’ Such self-reported data ought to be notoriously unreliable, since not many of us are likely to respond honestly if our answers make us look like a louse. But personality inventories are a long-standing staple of psychological testing — especially since the scoring is designed to correct for self-flattering grade inflation.”
So she goes on to describe the methodology and all of this, and she basically found that during compassion the heart rate lowers, as if the body is calming itself to take care of another person, and the rich experience less lowering of their heart rate. The heart rate of the rich is pretty constant. “In the final part of the study, 106 of the participants were paired off and told to interview each other as if they were applying for a make-believe position as lab manager,” and basically she concluded that the rich are different, more money, less empathy. More money, less compassion. That’s the rich. TIME Magazine.
Now, isn’t this timely? So here you have the MSNBC poll from the Pew Research Center that there’s widespread disgust with the tax system, because the rich aren’t paying their fair share. Who’s been saying that the last six months? And now the rich, the evil 1%, actually have smaller hearts. They have no compassion. The richer they are, the less sorrow they feel. Really, who wants to be rich with all this? Okay, so to review, TIME Magazine in recent months, study: The rich really are more selfish; six-figure parking spots, the rich pay $125 to park their cars; most millionaires support higher taxes on the rich; why the rich shoplift more than the poor; guess who’s most likely to strategically default on mortgages? The rich. And, the richer you are, the smaller your heart.
You got money, you have no compassion. I told you yesterday, did I not, get ready for this onslaught. It’s gonna be relentless and unstopping. It’s going to be ceaseless, and it will be ratcheted up week after week after week. The whole point of every one of these polls, the whole point of all these studies is to make you think that public opinion largely is identical to what Barack Obama is saying. That’s the express purpose. That’s the whole point of all of this.
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