Ridenbaugh Press/Northwest

The point tends not to be made this bluntly – and for good reason. It seems worthy of quote here because, we suspect, quite a few people out there are like-minded.

It comes in a letter to the editor of the Tri-City Herald from Jerry Czebotar of Pasco, who starts out mentioning (inaccurately) statistics on tax rates, and winds up with this:

“The rich are rich because they are smarter and more ambitious than the average person. There are three reasons why an otherwise healthy American won’t be successful. They are either lazy, stupid or have substance abuse issues or some combination of the three. Those who are feeling wealth envy should examine their own lives. Are they stupid, lazy or drink or drug too much?”

There being, of course, no people laid off because of no fault of their own, or people working three jobs at minimum wage to survive. And there being, of course, absolutely no rich people who are “stupid, lazy or drink or drug too much”? And of course all of the rich having earned it all by the honest sweat of their brow, rather than inheriting or marrying into it. (Has he so much as visited a supermarket checkout counter lately?)

There are reasons Czebotar’s line of reasoning has spread in recent years. Inadvertence is not one of them. Nor is anything resembling a reality check.