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In what context would his comparison of the rich 1% and the persecution of the Jews in Nazi Germany make sense? You're making my point for me. If you take tha

In what context would his comparison of the rich 1% and the persecution of the Jews in Nazi Germany make sense? You're making my point for me. If you take that statement literally, it is clearly over-the-top. There are other over-the-top statements in common use today that when taken literally would evoke extremely emotional reactions. Example: "I just went in there to talk to her and she bit my head off". If you took that literally, you might respond with horror or outrage that someone had bitten your friend's head off, and confusion over how they had their head bitten off just moments ago and yet somehow had it sewed back on in time to relay their horrific experience to you. When it came to light that your friend was referring to being yelled at and did not actually have their head bitten off, family members of individuals that have died from decapitation might organize protests against your friend for comparing being yelled at to the terrible deaths that their loved ones experienced. There would be calls for him to be fired from whatever job he had. How far should we carry this? Tom Perkins didn't literally mean that rich people are being rounded up and killed. The PC crowd, however, apparently had nothing else to be outraged about that week, and jumped all over it, saying that he somehow considered his plight to be similar to that of Jews in Nazi Germany. His point was that the general public has an irrational hatred of the rich, just as the Nazi hatred of Jews was irrational.

the_af 10y ago
I'm not making a point for anyone, I'm asking a question (and please, stop it with "the PC crowd". It's simply a way of dismissing criticism). I get he didn't mean the rich 1% are being rounded up and gassed, I'm not that literal. This is not an emotional reaction. What I'm asking is in which context does the comparison make sense? Forget about the holocaust... in what sense is persecution of a powerless class comparable to being angry at the rich and powerful? In what sense is criticism of the marginalized comparable to criticism of the entitled? If the only ground for comparison is "well, they were both about people being angry at other people" I'd say the comparison is so weak as to be stupid. People were right to find it offensive.
CaptainZapp 10y ago
Tom Perkins didn't literally mean that rich people are being rounded up and killed. How on earth do you know what he meant, or didn't mean? For the sake of discussion: How could an apparently intelligent man pull such an insanely stupid and offensive analogy? Being Jewish I thought his remark was extremely offensive and an insult to the millions of people killed by the nazis. It is totally and uttely inexcusable. My rage has nothing, whatsoever, to do with the "pc crowd", which seems to be employed whenever some rich or important person talks shit and then tries to justify it in his or her non-apology (I'm sorry that you're offended about my statement kind of apology).

the_af 10y ago

I'm not making a point for anyone, I'm asking a question (and please, stop it with "the PC crowd". It's simply a way of dismissing criticism). I get he didn't mean the rich 1% are being rounded up and gassed, I'm not that literal. This is not an emotional reaction. What I'm asking is in which context does the comparison make sense? Forget about the holocaust... in what sense is persecution of a powerless class comparable to being angry at the rich and powerful? In what sense is criticism of the marginalized comparable to criticism of the entitled? If the only ground for comparison is "well, they were both about people being angry at other people" I'd say the comparison is so weak as to be stupid. People were right to find it offensive.

CaptainZapp 10y ago

Tom Perkins didn't literally mean that rich people are being rounded up and killed. How on earth do you know what he meant, or didn't mean? For the sake of discussion: How could an apparently intelligent man pull such an insanely stupid and offensive analogy? Being Jewish I thought his remark was extremely offensive and an insult to the millions of people killed by the nazis. It is totally and uttely inexcusable. My rage has nothing, whatsoever, to do with the "pc crowd", which seems to be employed whenever some rich or important person talks shit and then tries to justify it in his or her non-apology (I'm sorry that you're offended about my statement kind of apology).