NBC framed socialism as a tool toward achieving happiness in a Monday-aired segment during its morning show Today.
“Few have that extra happiness figured out like the Danes,” said NBC’s Cynthia McFadden during the segment’s introduction, proceeding to celebrate Copenhagen’s widespread use of bicycles.
“Here, no job is less than any other,” narrated McFadden prior to a profile of a waste collector. “Allen Christensen [the profiled waste collector] works just five hours a day, and earns the same as a school teacher.”
McFadden’s segment featured National Geographic’s Dan Buettner, who described Denmark as eschewing positive perceptions of ambition: “Ambition is not celebrated. No matter what you do, you’re not better than anybody else.”
Americans are framed as overworked, with a contrast between the claimed American worker’s average of 50 hours of weekly work and the claimed 37-hour average in Denmark.
Another profile included a Danish woman alleged to work once per month as a cook for large events.
Redistributive socialistic mandates for “paid” maternity leave and “free” services are described by Buettner as “rights”:
Every Dane is born with the right to free health care, free education through college, comfortable retirement. They’re free to pursue a job that meets their passion and their interests.
McFadden implictly contrasted broad American distrust of centralized power relative to their Danish counterparts: “The Danes trust their government. They pay enormously high taxes.”
Watch the Today segment below:
H/T Mark Levin Show and News Busters.
Follow Robert Kraychik on Twitter.