I’m torn between a joke about jumbo shrimp and noting that Titans don’t do well in most mythologies.
This is all about how some people think they should be lording it over everyone else, from Mark Sumner on Daily Kos:
Now, in what may be one of the most egregious case of someone using their power and wealth to bully both local residents and officials, drug company executive Fredric Eshelman—net worth $380 million—is trying to make the situation even worse. He’s trying to block off huge areas of land even when he doesn’t surround them, by pressing a case that would make it much easier to prevent the public from reaching public land.
In the process, Eshelman is trying to financially destroy four hunters for “trespassing,” even though they literally never set one foot on his property. The outcome of this case will affect not just hunters and fishermen, but hikers, bird watchers, artists, photographers, and anyone who simply wants to access land that belongs to all of us.
What? After the State lost a criminal case….
Eshelman piled on to the hunters with a civil suit “for causing millions of dollars in damage” which seeks not only compensation for this supposed damage, but for the hunters to pay all legal fees in both the criminal and civil cases. He is seeking an incredible $7 million in damages for disturbing a few inches of air over his land.
Unbelievable. Go read Sumner’s article, it’s a gob-smacker.
I know that, during the Eisenhower Administration, taxes on the high earners were, themselves, high, compared to today. I cannot help but wonder if those taxes helped suppress the self-regarding narcissists from running around like lunatics, which made for a calmer society.
Such taxation used to seem deeply unfair to me, but having a pack of Emperor Nero-wannabes running around like Eshelman seems a lot worse.
