We commonly think of a prejudice as “unreasonable feelings, opinions, or attitudes, especially of a hostile nature, regarding a racial, religious, or national group” but it can also mean “an unfavorable opinion or feeling formed beforehand or without knowledge, thought, or reason.”

While the relatively wealthy are not specifically racial, religious or national by definition, the thought process behind the statements made belies a very similar rationale to other forms of prejudice.

The first step is the definition of a group- the wealthy- without clarity.  How much does one need to make to be considered wealthy? Do we refer to assets or income or both?  Does the income have to be consistent or can it be a singular event like the sale of a business or  the winning of the lottery?  Exactly how much does one need to have to be considered “wealthy”?

We hear talk of millionaires and billionaires but the policies that are enacted in the name of fairness usually end up impacting those making much, much less.  When the fairness fascists speak of the wealthy they commonly squirm when you ask them to clearly define the term.

Similarly to other forms of prejudice the class warriors like to use the most egregious examples of certain members of the group to generalize behavior of the entire group.  This is a classic strategy used to demonize the target.

They also select the behaviors that reflect the worst on the group while ignoring the behavior that reflects well. Statistics are carefully manipulated to distort a true picture.  A piece of the truth can be more misleading than all of a lie.

From Scott Grannis’s Calafia Beach Pundit, Let’s End Discrimination:

It’s wrong to discriminate on the basis of race, color, ethnicity, or religion, and it’s just as wrong to discriminate on the basis of one’s income or capital gains. It’s wrong to discriminate on the basis of whether a couple is married or not, or whether they have children or not, or whether they rent or own their home, or whether they make more than $250,000 or not. We need to greatly simplify our tax code by not discriminating on the basis of anything. We need to make sure that everyone has an equal opportunity to succeed, but we need to stop punishing those that do and stop rewarding those who don’t.

If the tax code distributes favors to every favored interest group, at the expense of any minority group, we only end up being a nation of special interests pitted against each other.

The more we discriminate on the basis of anything, the more incentive our politicians have to pander to special interest groups, and the more divided we become. This will be the death of us if we don’t stop it.

print