Take Ben Stein's Money

Why is Ben Stein still talking? Who is unironically listening to Ben Stein? Who hears anything but "Bueller? Bueller?" come out of the man's facehole every time he talks? These are the questions we ask ourselves late at night. So, what is Big Ben on about today? The poors, of course! The poors who are lazy and drunken and slovenly and ungodly and there was probably something in there about bootstraps but we stopped listening.

First up, how awesome are rich people? The awesomest, right?? Sure are, says Ben.

“They fund symphonies and ballets and schools for inner city kids,” he argued, while recovering from an illness and listening to Big Band music. “They are a bulwark against tyranny because they can afford lawyers to fight overweening government.”

Man, we thought that the Second Amendment and unlimited guns for all forevermore was the bulwark against tyranny, but now we know we could just stack some rich people up, sandbag-style, and no tyranny can get through. See? Rich people ARE awesome.

As great as how rich people are is exactly how much poor people suck. That's just simple math.

“My humble observation is that most long-term poverty is caused by self-sabotage by individuals,” he argued. “Drug use. Drunkenness. Having children without a family structure. Gambling. Poor work habits. Disastrously unfortunate appearance. Above all, and counted in the preceding list, psychological problems (very much including basic laziness) cause people to be unemployed, have poor or no work habits, and enter and stay in poverty.”

We like that he threw "disastrously unfortunate appearance" in there as a poverty cause. Ben, old boy, you are not a Hottie McHotterson, and if wealth did indeed correlate to attractiveness, you would not be sitting on the unwarranted pile of money you likely possess. Also, have you SEEN the Koch Brothers? Seriously, Ben. Your empirical reasoning sucks.

Ben is also pretty certain that poor people, aside from being ugly and lazy and drunk, actually have it pretty good because they have indoor plumbing.

“Yes, the government designates many tens of millions as poor, but they almost always have indoor plumbing (which my mother did not have in her small town in the Catskills) and they are super nourished as opposed to mal-nourished,” he said. “They get food stamps. They get free medical care. They get vouchers for many of the needs of life.” […] “In olden times, poverty was the common human condition,” Stein said. “In the USA, as recently as the Great Depression, poverty was commonplace. FDR might have exaggerated when he described one-third of the nation as ‘ill housed, ill fed and ill clad…’ But surely he was not far off.”

You know, we don’t often hear people speak with quite such an amount of unvarnished longing about the Great Depression, so kudos to Ben for that bit of boldness. Way to stake out your territory as one of the most craven douchebags ever. Ben has a solution to all this poverty, though, even though he seems to actually kinda dig the whole people dying in the streets thing. Did you guess his solution was God? You are super smart!

“What will make the genuinely poor stop sabotaging themselves? Maybe, just maybe, if we let God back into the public forum it would help. I have seen spiritual solutions work miracles.”

Here's hoping that God comes down to earth and makes the poors less lazy and ugly, and then they will not offend Ben Stein's red watery eyes anymore.

[ Raw Story / Right Wing Watch ]