Manure From a Silver Spoon

I wrote the following letter to the editor to the Wall Street Journal concerning a sympathetic story in its 2-23-08 edition on a 28-year-old son of a wealthy retired exec from Johnson & Johnson. The son has produced two films blasting the rich for their "extravagant lifestyles" and the so-called wealth gap. The rich son has harassed his father and other wealthy people to go on camera about their lives and how much they haven't "given back." This letter was published by the WSJ on 2-28-08.

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Robert Frank’s piece on “The Rich Man’s Michael Moore” was appalling in its neutrality toward a Silver Spoon feeding us his socialist manure.
Jamie Johnson should not be an outcast only among his rich brethren; he should be an outcast at the WSJ and around the United States. He is of a breed of apologists for the abominable “give back” mentality in modern America – the ilk that does not understand that their rich mothers and fathers were visionaries whose businesses provided incomparable products and wealth to tens of millions of American like me. More important, these visionaries had a work ethic and inventiveness that should be an inspiration to tens of millions.
But no, Little Boy Blue Johnson sees only socialist red and notes work on apartheid as a major accomplishment of his father, elevating social awareness to a stature that was once held by hard work in 19th century America. He, like other “progressives,” think only of so-called gaps in wealth without attempting to understand that wealth is directly measured by productivity in a free country: the richer you are (in almost all cases), the more you’ve provided in investment, services or products to the most people, enhancing their lives. Jamie Johnson’s film sewage reeks of guilt from living la vida rica without having earned his own way.
Frank’s piece accomplished only one thing: It made me feel sorry for Silver Spoon’s father, who is being subjected to a scion gadfly in the twilight of his life, instead of being praised and honored for doing what he loved, doing it well, and exultantly living the life of luxury he so duly deserves – without even one thought for others’ self-imposed miseries, if he so decides.