What’s galling is the double standard. Perkins can say any old freakish thing, but his critics have to be policed, policed, policed.
Turning and turning in the widening gyre
The falcon cannot hear the falconer;
Things fall apart; the centre cannot hold;
Mere anarchy is loosed upon the world,
The blood-dimmed tide is loosed, and everywhere
The ceremony of innocence is drowned;
The best lack all conviction, while the worst
Are full of passionate intensity.
from “The Second Coming” -W. B. Yeats
The boys at Bloomberg View—we read them since no one else does…
The “boys” must have really hit a nerve. If they were as unread as the Wall Street Journal claims they wouldn’t warrant any response, even one dripping with sarcasm.
Maybe, if they’re boys, that means they can be thrown over the balcony and broken in half.
This is the Wall Street Journal, their editorial board is slightly to the right of Attila the Hun. This really shouldn’t be a surprise.
A certain Tom Perkins related Twitter feed may be of some amusement.
Perkins is merely parroting childish, selfish attitudes heard around the country club lounge. The WSJ ed board, unsurprisingly, attempts to raise such banal mewling to a level of empirical credibility. There is nothing new in either. Both are ethically hollow…and quite worthy of the scorn being heaped on them.
I think it’s really pretty simple. Some ultra-rich people are fear driven. However they are ultra-rich, so they really don’t have much to fear. They have insulated themselves from a lot of dangers to their bodies or lifestyles, they buy one of those survivalist cabinets for each of their homes, etc. Some of them only see one way they can “lose it all”, a popular uprising. They look out at the world and really think there ought to be a popular uprising. They, secretly, think things like: “if I was a poor it would be guillotine time for people like me”. So they say stupid things out of this fear.
Daddy, what did YOU do in Perkinsnacht?
Just part of the new interpretation of the First Amendment: I can say whatever horrible thing I want, but if you criticize me or call me out on it, then OMG UNCONSTITUTIONAL VIOLATION OF RIGHTS HATECRIME!!1!!
Perhaps they rich fear a popular uprising simply because they are aware that their greed is immoral.
The whole thing speaks of an awareness of the pendulum swinging against them - and it’s just human nature to want to paint themselves as the victims. Plus pre-emptive framing of the debate has worked out quite well for them for several decades now. They will keep returning to that trough until its dry.
I was reading Mary Karr’s memoir not an hour ago and she quotes exactly that! And it seems just a appropriate now!
Which pendulum are you referring to specifically?
Popehat has a great free speech angle on it:
http://www.popehat.com/2014/01/30/your-criticism-of-my-holocaust-analogy-is-like-yet-another-holocaust/?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+Popehat+(Popehat)
From January 20, 2001 to January 19, 2009—those would be the Bush years—the left was awash with celebrities comparing President George W. Bush to Hitler.
How casually Democrats make Hitler-Nazi-fascist references to demean their political opponents is astonishing. By calling political opponents “fascists” because of policy disagreements, Democrats trivialize a regime responsible for exterminating 6 million Jews in a war that resulted in the deaths of over 50 million people.
Its generally good idea to reference where you get poems from…
The second coming by WB Yeats for the record!
I like it though and very appropriate.
Touche. (And fixed.)
Originally, I had it attributed to “Ode to a Comment Section” or “Note on American Politics” by W. B. Yeats
What’s your point? None of what you just said seems to actually be relevant. Does this mean you think the original comment is ok? That the WSJ was correct to defend it? Do you have anything to add about the actual issue being discussed, or is this just a piss-poor attempt at muddying the waters?
