Ezra Klein: Arrrrrr!

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May 23, 2007

Arrrrrr!

by Nicholas Beaudrot of Electoral Math

The headline says it all: "John Edwards Stakes Claim to Pirate Booty". Hopefully he'll realize the best thing to do with his newfound fortune is donate it to a nonprofit Society for the Preservation of historical artifacts from the era of ... erm ... privateering.

(via Transform Houston)

May 23, 2007 | Permalink

Comments

John didn't get rich by giving his money away.

Posted by: Fred Jones | May 23, 2007 4:55:44 PM

I think he just won the pirate vote but he'll have to put some of the money into grog for the post-election party.

Posted by: Hawise | May 23, 2007 5:01:47 PM

As somebody who has a privateer (licensed by the Continental Congress) in his ancestry, I'm proud to see them join me from beyond their watery grave in supporting Edwards.

--Jacel (Proud Privateer-American)

Posted by: Jacel | May 23, 2007 5:07:00 PM

Doesn't the whole notion of "found priate booty" kind of answer the question of whether you can profit from what you find? I think the real subtext here is that professional booty hunters (HA!) have taken some of the anarchic joy of haphazard hippie divers of yesteryear. Seems like a wise investment - why should he have to part with the profits?

Posted by: weboy | May 23, 2007 5:32:42 PM

That's some nice booty. Sorry.

There's nothing wrong with John Edwards profiting from his investments. As long as he is willing to pay the suitably high taxes that should occur at these income levels, which I think he would agree with happily, then good luck to him.

Posted by: Klein's Tiny Left Nut | May 23, 2007 5:45:13 PM

You, sir, are a dork.

Posted by: Urs | May 23, 2007 7:40:06 PM

Guilty as charged. But I'm not Fred, so I've got that going for me. Somedays, it's enough.

Posted by: Klein's tiny left nut | May 23, 2007 8:06:01 PM

From what I understand, the pirate vote is anticipated to favor BARRRRack Obama.

Posted by: ChristianPinko | May 23, 2007 10:13:23 PM

There's nothing wrong with John Edwards profiting from his investments. As long as he is willing to pay the suitably high taxes that should occur at these income levels...

Yeah, it OK for John to profit handsomely, but if he were not a Democrat, yee would be signin' a different tune!!

Posted by: Fred Jones | May 24, 2007 12:02:43 AM

Indeed, it doesn't matter whether you're rich or poor. As long as you're liberal all is forgiven.

Posted by: Korha | May 24, 2007 12:38:49 AM

Yes, how dare he act like a regular American with his pirate booty. I'm sick of all these lllliberal elitists and their incessant parading of pirate treasure.

Posted by: Jon O. | May 24, 2007 8:19:00 AM

Is Fred Jones real? He seems to believe that he knows what people who he's never met think. All of these frighwingers do that. Shows just how bone deep ignorance goes I guess.
I know what fred is thinking, Mommy, I'm scared!!!

Posted by: merlallen | May 24, 2007 8:43:47 AM

And he coms along just to prove my point.

Posted by: Klein's Tiny Left Nut | May 24, 2007 9:27:50 AM

Shorter John Edwards: "Do as I say, not as I do"

Posted by: Fred Jones | May 24, 2007 9:33:23 AM

Did Edwards ever taking a stand against the retrieval of treasure from the deep? I don't recall that part of the platform. Arrgh.

Posted by: Klein's Tiny Left Nut | May 24, 2007 10:30:25 AM

Now, does this make Edwards pro-pirate because he's profiting from their nasty enterprise or anti-pirate because he's taking their ill-gotten loot? Also, I'm prepared now to make his official nickname "Scalawag Edwards".

Oh, and Fred's trotting out the "He's a hypocrite!" angle again. As has been said many times before, it's the structure that's the problem, not whether an individual is generous enough. It's fine to be financially successful, regardless of political party.

Posted by: Ben | May 24, 2007 10:59:41 AM

It's fine to be financially successful, regardless of political party.

I'm not so sure that's true for Democrats. If you inherit money like Ted Kennedy or Marry money like John Kerry (twice), it seems to be more accepted. It's much harder for a self-made man to gain that same acceptance. I believe this is because Kennedy and Kerry's method of wealth accumulation promote the "luck" meme of success in this country and self-made men each demonstrate that success is available to those who seriously persue it.
Edwards is being given a pass because he is the far left's best hope of having their agenda served. If he were a rich, doctor-suing multimillionaire of the other party, no one here would be defending him.

Posted by: Fred Jones | May 24, 2007 11:09:54 AM

Fred, you've offered no basis for the statement that people would be all over him for his wealth if he were a conservative. Furthermore, you state that Democrats favor people of inherited wealth while I'm pretty sure Edwards didn't inherit his money. For that matter, did Clinton and Obama inherit fortunes? Ned Lamont certainly got plenty of support despite being rich, and, I'm pretty sure, not having inherited same. There may be some crazies out there that only support blue blood liberal candidates, but there are also people out there that doubt the moon landing was authentic. Every liberal I've ever encountered disliked conservative candidates not because they were wealthy, but because they're policies don't benefit the people we think need the benefit. I'm plenty happy that Bill Gates is liberal and wealthier than God. I just want a social structure in place that taxes him appropriately.

Posted by: Ben | May 24, 2007 11:48:39 AM

Ugh, a confusion of a form of "they're/there/their"? What do they teach in schools today?!

Posted by: Ben | May 24, 2007 12:25:58 PM

Yeah, Fred, that's why all we liberals hate Jon Corzine, Robert Rubin, Ned LaMont, Howard Metzenbaum, Herb Kohl, Frank Lautenberg, Mark Warner, etc. Not to mention Bill Gates, Warren Buffett, and all of our wealthy show biz friends.

Posted by: Klein's Tiny Left Nut | May 24, 2007 12:58:11 PM

Fred, you've offered no basis for the statement that people would be all over him for his wealth if he were a conservative.

Here' what I said: "If he were a rich, doctor-suing multimillionaire of the other party, no one here would be defending him."

Big difference....Your ADD is getting the best of you, Benny.

Posted by: Fred Jones | May 24, 2007 1:39:38 PM

Well, Fred I think the difference is ever so slight that it's almost just semantic, but fine, I'll accept that. So you're saying if Edwards were a Republican *someone* would be attacking him for being rich or a hypocrite or something and the people here wouldn't defend him from said attacks by pointing out that his personal wealth is not in conflict with his stated positions. I still see no basis for that. Is there a Republican embattled merely for being wealthy that I'm not aware of? Is this person being attacked for allegedly having some sort of hypocritical contradiction between their positions and their personal life which are not, in fact, contradictory? I'm certainly familiar with Republicans being called hypocritical for pushing a particular brand of family values while not living up to those personally, but as we've said here, Edwards isn't advocating the position that people shouldn't be rich. He's simply not a hypocrite, at least that I'm aware of based on the proposals that I've heard.

If you think liberals have called a conservative hypocritical when they are in fact not hypocritical, I'd like to see you make that case. Until then you're just making generalized statements without support. If you're going to say we don't treat people fairly you should back that up.

Posted by: Ben | May 24, 2007 2:28:02 PM

This is pirate booty that we are discussing here- you can neither inherit nor earn such wealth. You can grab it, purloin it, make off with it and any number of other variants on swipe but it cannot be earned or inherited. Such is the nature of pirate booty. Until it is transformed into something other than pieces of eight we cannot accuse Edwards of non-illicit methods of garnering it. As long as the location of the pirate loot is still floating about on a parchment in a bottle, its acquisition is pure.

Such is the law of the sea ;)

Posted by: Hawise | May 24, 2007 5:30:14 PM

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