It’s ok to hate them for who they are. It’s ok to vandalize their
property, taunt them, seize their assets, deny them government benefits,
make them register and buy a license to practice their alternative
lifestyle.
You can hound them at their workplace, you can bully them in schools, you can picket their homes, you can send them death threats with impunity, and you can occupy public buildings for months on end chanting bad things about them.
Rich is the new gay.
It is no longer permissible in our civil society to hate based on skin color, gender, ethnicity, religion, disability, or sexual preference. But wealth – that’s a free-fire zone. Wealth is evil. Capitalism is sodomy. Free enterprise is lewd and lascivious conduct. Wall Street is the new Castro Street, only it’s ok to light it on fire. Even Tiffany Newt feels free to tee off on Mitt Romney for being (gasp) too rich – think Ellen reefing on Elton John to win George Michael’s vote.
You can say the most hateful things imaginable about rich people - even the President does it, cheered on by a wealth-o-phobic media. Imagine how the fur would fly if a President blamed all his failures on homosexuals, or if he expressed support for violent mobs rioting in the streets if it were the 3.6% instead of the 1% whose heads are demanded on a pole.
The left/right paradigms for wealth and sexual preference are pretty much the same: liberals insist that material preference is assigned at birth; conservatives believe it is a choice. Closet richos like Michael Moore or the Obamas possess the same self-loathing false piety as Ted Haggert or Larry Craig. Their response to being outed is loud, angry denial; wide stance or baseball cap, the disguise doesn’t fool anyone.
The rich even have their transgendered equivalents – trans-wealthered, I suppose - who have crossed over from the poor side to the rich side. I don’t think the abuse hurled against Herman Cain was because he was black; it was because he is black and refused to stay poor. To the haters, that is one sick puppy. Tim Tebow is even worse – openly rich, openly humble, and openly Christian. Unforgivable.
I can’t explain the liberals’ reflexive hatred of wealthy people. Perhaps they are guilty about the way their own leaders have enriched themselves – Obama, Corzine, Soros, Pelosi, Kennedy, Gore, Trumka, Jackson, Hillary the pork belly whisperer. If all you know is swindling and influence peddling, then maybe that’s all you can imagine.
Whenever I say something nice about rich people in a column, I can count on a deluge of angry comments and personal attacks. The number of things haters guess wrong about me reveals a prejudice so deep-seated that it can’t be tempered by reason. The last acceptable negative stereotype is the rich white guy – presumptively unethical, presumptively privileged, presumptively unaccomplished and undeserving.
People who hate rich people don’t like it when I credit rich businesspeople for improving our living standards. They say that the only reason that rich people ever improve products, workplace rules, and the environment is because unions or government force them. Rich people are inherently evil and greedy and left to their own devices would poison us and starve us to death – they can’t help themselves.
But let’s think about that. The government only forces them to pay their workers a wage of $7.25 per hour, and yet private employers pay a median wage of $21.10 per hour. Why? Who makes them do that? Not unions - only 7% of private sector employees choose to be represented by unions. How is it possible that rich people would voluntarily pay poorer people triple what the law requires? Hmmm.
And government does not force any employer to provide benefits, either; yet the average private sector employee receives $17,000 worth from his evil rich employer. Health insurance, holidays, and how about vacation days - nobody forces rich people to pay you to take time off with your family, but they do. How un-greedy is that?
Want more? Tuition reimbursement, retirement savings matches, private loans, contributions to charities, service on community boards, partnering with schools and government agencies, funding recreation, the arts, museums – show me the law that was passed by the progressives that makes rich people do any of that.
Or tell me what union went out on strike until the employer agreed to build a soccer field for inner city kids or fund scholarships for girls in non-traditional careers? Which one traded a wage increase for increased funding of Boys and Girls clubs or Junior Achievement? That’s what owners do all the time, into the billions.
Some employers’ subsidized cafeterias are the only decent meals their employees will eat during the week. Nobody made them do that; and they want to starve the poor, remember? Poison their water, take away their health care, shut down schools for their kids, hate women – stuff like that. Not offer free mammograms.
Do you think that executives must sit on civic boards under some court-ordered community service sentence? Is it like the Huber law – we get a pass to get out of work to do it? Why would rich people give so much of their time and money to the poor, the sick, and the disadvantaged if they really hated them as much as liberals say we do?
Most of the rich people I know used to be a lot poorer than most of the people I know calling them names. Now that I think about it, most people I know calling them names have never been poor a day in their life – not really poor, not like the poverty I have seen.
The average American worker earns 29 times as much as the average worker in the world’s bottom quintile – that is a lot bigger guilt-gap than between our worker and his CEO. What does that prove – that the American workers are even more greedy and selfish than the dreaded CEO? No, it proves we are very productive top to bottom in the working class, and yes, business owners work their tails off.
Rich is the new gay, so go ahead and hate if you must. But remember this: gay people can’t make you gay, but rich people can make you rich. That is, if you quit screaming at them long enough to ask them how they did it. That is how most of us trans-wealthered people started our rise on the updraft.; we shut up and listened.
I bet you Romney’s $10,000 that any one of them would be glad to tell you if you asked nicely. Try it.
“Moment Of Clarity” is a weekly commentary by Libertarian writer and speaker Tim Nerenz, Ph.D. Visit Tim’s website www.timnerenz.com to find your moment.
You can hound them at their workplace, you can bully them in schools, you can picket their homes, you can send them death threats with impunity, and you can occupy public buildings for months on end chanting bad things about them.
Rich is the new gay.
It is no longer permissible in our civil society to hate based on skin color, gender, ethnicity, religion, disability, or sexual preference. But wealth – that’s a free-fire zone. Wealth is evil. Capitalism is sodomy. Free enterprise is lewd and lascivious conduct. Wall Street is the new Castro Street, only it’s ok to light it on fire. Even Tiffany Newt feels free to tee off on Mitt Romney for being (gasp) too rich – think Ellen reefing on Elton John to win George Michael’s vote.
You can say the most hateful things imaginable about rich people - even the President does it, cheered on by a wealth-o-phobic media. Imagine how the fur would fly if a President blamed all his failures on homosexuals, or if he expressed support for violent mobs rioting in the streets if it were the 3.6% instead of the 1% whose heads are demanded on a pole.
The left/right paradigms for wealth and sexual preference are pretty much the same: liberals insist that material preference is assigned at birth; conservatives believe it is a choice. Closet richos like Michael Moore or the Obamas possess the same self-loathing false piety as Ted Haggert or Larry Craig. Their response to being outed is loud, angry denial; wide stance or baseball cap, the disguise doesn’t fool anyone.
The rich even have their transgendered equivalents – trans-wealthered, I suppose - who have crossed over from the poor side to the rich side. I don’t think the abuse hurled against Herman Cain was because he was black; it was because he is black and refused to stay poor. To the haters, that is one sick puppy. Tim Tebow is even worse – openly rich, openly humble, and openly Christian. Unforgivable.
I can’t explain the liberals’ reflexive hatred of wealthy people. Perhaps they are guilty about the way their own leaders have enriched themselves – Obama, Corzine, Soros, Pelosi, Kennedy, Gore, Trumka, Jackson, Hillary the pork belly whisperer. If all you know is swindling and influence peddling, then maybe that’s all you can imagine.
Whenever I say something nice about rich people in a column, I can count on a deluge of angry comments and personal attacks. The number of things haters guess wrong about me reveals a prejudice so deep-seated that it can’t be tempered by reason. The last acceptable negative stereotype is the rich white guy – presumptively unethical, presumptively privileged, presumptively unaccomplished and undeserving.
People who hate rich people don’t like it when I credit rich businesspeople for improving our living standards. They say that the only reason that rich people ever improve products, workplace rules, and the environment is because unions or government force them. Rich people are inherently evil and greedy and left to their own devices would poison us and starve us to death – they can’t help themselves.
But let’s think about that. The government only forces them to pay their workers a wage of $7.25 per hour, and yet private employers pay a median wage of $21.10 per hour. Why? Who makes them do that? Not unions - only 7% of private sector employees choose to be represented by unions. How is it possible that rich people would voluntarily pay poorer people triple what the law requires? Hmmm.
And government does not force any employer to provide benefits, either; yet the average private sector employee receives $17,000 worth from his evil rich employer. Health insurance, holidays, and how about vacation days - nobody forces rich people to pay you to take time off with your family, but they do. How un-greedy is that?
Want more? Tuition reimbursement, retirement savings matches, private loans, contributions to charities, service on community boards, partnering with schools and government agencies, funding recreation, the arts, museums – show me the law that was passed by the progressives that makes rich people do any of that.
Or tell me what union went out on strike until the employer agreed to build a soccer field for inner city kids or fund scholarships for girls in non-traditional careers? Which one traded a wage increase for increased funding of Boys and Girls clubs or Junior Achievement? That’s what owners do all the time, into the billions.
Some employers’ subsidized cafeterias are the only decent meals their employees will eat during the week. Nobody made them do that; and they want to starve the poor, remember? Poison their water, take away their health care, shut down schools for their kids, hate women – stuff like that. Not offer free mammograms.
Do you think that executives must sit on civic boards under some court-ordered community service sentence? Is it like the Huber law – we get a pass to get out of work to do it? Why would rich people give so much of their time and money to the poor, the sick, and the disadvantaged if they really hated them as much as liberals say we do?
Most of the rich people I know used to be a lot poorer than most of the people I know calling them names. Now that I think about it, most people I know calling them names have never been poor a day in their life – not really poor, not like the poverty I have seen.
The average American worker earns 29 times as much as the average worker in the world’s bottom quintile – that is a lot bigger guilt-gap than between our worker and his CEO. What does that prove – that the American workers are even more greedy and selfish than the dreaded CEO? No, it proves we are very productive top to bottom in the working class, and yes, business owners work their tails off.
Rich is the new gay, so go ahead and hate if you must. But remember this: gay people can’t make you gay, but rich people can make you rich. That is, if you quit screaming at them long enough to ask them how they did it. That is how most of us trans-wealthered people started our rise on the updraft.; we shut up and listened.
I bet you Romney’s $10,000 that any one of them would be glad to tell you if you asked nicely. Try it.
“Moment Of Clarity” is a weekly commentary by Libertarian writer and speaker Tim Nerenz, Ph.D. Visit Tim’s website www.timnerenz.com to find your moment.
21 comments:
Ugghhh, I can no longer post your comments to my facebook page as it says the link bp.blogspot.com has been flagged for spam.
Yehp,, they have your number Dr. Tim... I filled out their form telling the lay off,, there was nothing here but reasoned and insighful political commentary... told them to lay off... now I suppose I'm next?
Not only can I not post the link to my FB, I can't comment here using my Wordpress ID.
I was able to post this link to a comment on a friends FB page....I hope it stays there.
Great job, Tim. Hope to see you on the 21st.
copy and past to your browser to see how some of the rich roll:
http://www.wausaudailyherald.com/article/20111226/WDH0101/112260411/Illinois-couple-gift-3-200-acres-recreational-use-Minocqua
Amen!
This is your most brilliant column yet, and that's saying a lot!
Dr. Tim,
I will share this piece, thank you for your insight. Keep fighting the good fight.
It's not wealth per se that is the problem, which you would recognize if you weren't so disingenuous.
It's the way that wealthy people abuse their positions of privilege and status to rig the economy in their favor, to purchase favors from government, to influence elections in their favor, and to manipulate government policy in their favor.
It's the way they fund PR front groups and think tanks to muddy the waters of public discourse with propaganda and junk science. These groups are responsible for people acting against their own best interests by selling nonsense ideologies that have been proven wrong by history time and time again.
If the wealthy didn't abuse their position to enrich themselves at the expense of everyone else, then nobody would care.
Case-in-point: Steve Jobs. Nobody bemoaned his astronomical wealth because he obviously made something of value. Nobody resents people getting rich from the sweat of their brow, through honest work. People who amass wealth through financial chicanery and gambling, who then get bailed out when the casino implodes, arouse the public's ire.
Surely you must know all this - but like all right-wingers, playing victim is your specialty.
Wealth is a choice, race is not. Your entire argument is so ridiculous it hurts.
To that one anonymous person, I didn't know gay was a race?! and to the one that believes that the right side plays the "victim", let us look back at all of the left side presidents out there that raised their hands in the air and said "i'm not a crook", or how about the pres who could not keep his pants on.... atleast our conclusion to fixing things is NOT to throw money that we don't have on it! So the idea that the right side plays victim to every problem is wrong. it goes both ways.
Great post. I put it up on my blog.
Http://www.badmayo.com
Thanks.
@anon - I am not right wing, I am libertarian, unless you consider that to be right wing. If you think the problem is influence peddling, then I am sure you support FairTax, like I do. That takes the money out of politics and levels the playing field for all businesses.
"The government only forces them to pay their workers a wage of $7.25 per hour, and yet private employers pay a median wage of $21.10 per hour."
You don't really mean "median" here, do you? To know what the median hourly salary is, you would have to know every individual hourly salary in the private sector and plot them to discover the midpoint.
Also, devil's advocate, median values are (or can be) very distorted: let's remember that the median value of the number string 1, 2, 3, 40, 500 is still 3, simply because it falls in the middle of the string, not because it's in any way a representative figure of the string.
All "median wage of $21.10" means is that for every 1 person making LESS than $21.10 an hour, there is 1 person making MORE than $21.10 an hour.
To Unknown...Tim has called you out in his "moment of clarity", and your bitterness and misunderstanding of "how the world turns" shows. To bad those of the "recipient class" can own up to their own words, because folks like Tim could help folks like you.
to unknown...Dr. Tim has called you out in his article, and your bitterness, and misunderstanding of why we became such a great nation are on display. It is just too bad that those in the "recipient" class don't try to better their lot in life by some hard work rather than trying to get their share of my money that for some reason they feel is their by right.
Unknown, show us one example of the wealthy doing something your union pukes haven't! Matter of fact show me one thing your unions did in the last 60 years than what business owners did in the last 10!
Business owners create jobs and help donate to local communities libraries, museums, and other services you pukes sure use with little gratitude.
Unions didn't do crap in the last 60 years except chase our jobs away to China. The little good they did 5 hour work week etc, was in the early 1900s. Now with Orsha, there is no need of unions or their job killing policies.
Are you high? The comparisons being made here have no basis in fact, or even in common sense. There is a problem with income distribution in these united states, where laws and codes of common conduct leave loopholes in and fall-backs for a proportionally insignificant part of the population. The vehement renouncement of such dis-proportionality can be easily attributed to the mounting evidence that this dis-proportionality is spreading from the economic sector to politics. American senate and congress seats can now be effectively purchased by corporate interest. The primary opponent to corporations to donations and funding to politicians were unions, but they are being systematically disassembled, most notoriously in the state of wisconsin. The majority of Americans have shrinking voices, and are being marginalized. As a 'trans-wealthered' person myself, I can tell you this. The people don't hate the wealthy for the same reason there is so much rampant fear and repulsion for homosexuals. That distrust is mostly caused by a societal perpetuation of ignorance. The people distrust the rich, not so much because they don't understand how they became rich. It is the system that perpetuates and protects them unequally. This nation was not made great due to an aristocratic upper class, divining through the free market the best products and items. It was made by ideas, and the opportunities to enact them. You sir, must have had some bad ganja. But I suppose your dealer probably was discriminating against you to then eh?
Anonymous, there is a lack of income to different groups because of the upbringing and entitlement philosophy people have. It is becoming a lot harder for a person like Bill Gates creating a software from his garage an idea yes and then turning it into a billion $$$ business. The taxes and regulations imposed by the corrupt politicians and the unions create a system of failure and no chance for growth. If the unions were truly working for their teachers they would have compromised with former gov. Doyle and been willing to meet the state halfway. Instead they walked out after a year bargaining thinking Burrett was going to win and the unions wouldn't have to give in to anything. Explain how that is bargaining? Unions are getting what they deserved and they have been deserving it for over 60 years. No one is trying to get rid of the unions but giving the worker their god given right to decide for themselves if they want to be in a union and pay union dues. Just like Obamacare is illegal because it is unconstitutional to be forced to pay for a service one may not want or can or cannot afford, it is unconstitutional for the unions to force membership on their workers. People have a right to a job and a right to keep it if they choose not to pay membership to any organization they feel their not representing them. How about you start putting your ideas into a product and find a way to see if there is a market for it. You will be amazed what the internet can do for getting your product noticed and there is free internet at tbe Racine Library and others around the state. If people are serious about starting a business and has a great idea money is the least of your limitations. It is your lack of ambition and work ethic to make it happen. That is one thing that seperates the people who are now wealthy and us who work paycheck to paycheck. They have the work ethic, ambition and always found a way to get past the red tape.
Post a Comment