Posted on 06/05/2003 7:35:20 PM PDT by ComtedeMaistre
I have been listening to the Martha Stewart stories over the last couple of days, and there seems to be a lot of glee out there over her being indictment, both from liberal and conservative commentators. I am not one of those PC people who believes Martha Stewart is being persecuted because she is a woman or a celebrity. I am sure that if female celebrities with messed up lives, like Rosie O'Donnell, Roseanne Barr, or Ellen Degeneres, were in similar trouble, they would get much more sympathy than Martha is getting. Why do you think tabloids like the National Enquirer are so popular among the brain-dead uncultured masses? Also, does anyone remember Bill Clinton's approval ratings of 60% during his impeachment? Clinton received such support because he is a backward hillbilly trailer-trash hick, and ordinary people were able to feel (justifiably) that they were better than him.
For those familiar with European history, you will recall that the world's first communist revolution took place in France in 1789. The French Royal couple were subsequently executed in 1793. When the beautiful French Queen, Marie Antoinette, was being taken to the gallows, crowds of uncultured peasants cheered, out of sheer hatred and jealousy at her elegance. I fear that the glee over Martha Stewart's problems is similar to that Marie Antoinette.
Let's face facts. Insider trading happens every single day on Wall Street, but is rarely prosecuted. The few past incidents where high profile figures have been prosecuted for insider trading, have almost always involved additionally more serious finacial crimes, and amounts involved have often been in the tens of millions (or hundreds of millions) of dollars. Martha Stewart sold stock worth $228,000, and her excess profit as a result of her insider tip was $42,000. If it happened to any other powerful person, male or female, they would probably have paid a fine, and surrendered their profit margin, and nothing more would have been heard on the matter. But Martha was unable to get a plea deal this week, because the prosecutors are absolutely determined that she should do jail time. It is a case of wanting to rub her beautiful face in the mud.
Let's face it. Martha is not being targetted and hated because she is a woman, but because she represents highest symbolic elements of Western Civilization - culture, refinement, success, beauty, capitalism, hard work, efficiency, elegance, intelligence, organization, near-perfection, etc. Martha makes most people feel inferior. The semi-civilized peasant masses, who are largely descended from the barbarians who over-run the Roman empire in the 5th Century AD, and who are also descended from the brigands who pillaged and plundered Europe in the Middle Ages, cannot stand the fragrance of a beautiful flower of high culture like Martha Stewart, and want to trample her under their feet.
Martha is hated because she occuppies the highest plane of civilized standards known to man today. And that ticks many levellers off, whether they are Marxists of the left, or populists of the right.
I suppose some will argue that the Aristocracy is a European anachronism, and that America was founded on egalitarian ideals. But although the founding fathers opposed the rule of King George III, they were not egalitarians by any stretch of the imagination. That is why they limited the right to vote to those who had property.
Thomas Jefferson opposed a hereditary aristocracy, but believed in a natural aristocracy, in which people rose to the top based on their "virtues" and "talents". Jefferson was America's Renaissance Man, and he is the most refined and cultured man this nation has ever produced. When Jefferson served as American ambassador to France, he was revered in the Royal Court of King Louis XVI. That was back in the days when France was a highly civilized nation, and not the trashy country it is today.
And I'll bet that Jefferson would have been thrilled to have Martha decorate Monticello, at the time it was built.
Absolutely!
Any woman who makes a Christmas wreath from egg shells is hardly on the "highest plane of civilized standards".
There is NOTHING wrong with what she did, only with how she dealth with it. She should have been honest and asked: "should I have just taken the loss despite the info? Would anyone have done so"? It is absurd to charge a recipient of information with insider trading.
Yes, and my, doesn't she know it.
Martha makes most people feel inferior.
I suspect she makes most people feel irritated; there are many ways to be excellent, not just Martha's Way.
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