Alito recalled seeing one television commentator assert that Alito had previously worked for the Chamber of Commerce. "I wondered if I was suffering from amnesia and thought I'd better check my resumé,” Alito said. “The only employers I've ever had have been the Department of Justice and the Supreme Court. I've never earned an honest living."
May 20, 2011
Justice Alito: "I've never earned an honest living."
He was responding to the charge that he's pro-business:
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I'm not sure what the point is here. That's a sentence commonly used by people with jobs they enjoy, consider easy, secure, etc. Heard more commonly in reference to government jobs in my experience.
Private says to SGT: "Yes Sir!"
SGT to Private: "Sir? I'm no F'ing Officer, I have to work for a living!!"
Alito is funny. In a geeky way.
So that's what happens to an honest lawyer.
Alito has a position, not a job.
Wit too.
Self-deprecating humor. Obama should take lessons.
I'm not sure what the point is here. That's a sentence commonly used by people with jobs they enjoy, consider easy, secure, etc.
I'm fond of saying I'm heading to my office "for what we laughingly call a day's work."
I'm not saying I don't work for a living - it's just that I enjoy the job enough that it doesn't really feel like work, which to me always implied untold suffering, boiling resentment, burning ulcers, etc.
WV: dederst.
My lovely bride and I have 15 dogs to look after. When people ask me where I work I reply, "I work at home. I go to the office to get some rest."
I absoutely laughed.
I always associated that line with "real work" -- starting with the physical (8-10 hours a day 5-6 days a week), but including everything from scut work (rinsing out the garbage cans in a restaurant), to reporting in to someone who required you produce either service or product for your wages.
You know -- the jobs where, theoretically anyway, you don't get paid to *know* stuff as much as *do* stuff (though often with what you know.)
I think Alito is much more in touch with real Americans who do earn an honest living than our current POTUS is. The quip illustrates that nicely.
Alito is funny. In a geeky way.
Yep. That's classic geek humor.
How did we reach the point where "chamber of commerce" has gone from a stamp of respectability to a smear that requires a defense?
From one commenter at the article:
"Never earned an Honest living"? So he admits his tenure as a Justice is criminal. Very interesting confession.[...]
My heart bleeds for that poor soul. He or she suffers from a bad case of Humor Impairment. Must be hard to live with that terrible affliction.
He's a lawyer and he always worked for the Feds. Nope, no honest work there.
Well, maybe he can redeem his soul playing piano in a house of ill repute.
edutcher said...
He's a lawyer and he always worked for the Feds. Nope, no honest work there.
My Lovely Bride is a Fed Lawyer. a double Fed Lawyer. Contracts attorney for several civil agencies, and for the past 29 years and 10+ months a National Guard Contracts JAG (she retires from that job in 40 days as a Colonel)
I'm a contractor pond scum these days, but still recognize that federal contracts attorney's serve a useful function in regularizing the bi-lateral agreements for goods and services between two parties. Without them, buying things would be riskier.
On the other hand the Feds have no personal injury attorney's, so they are one up on the private sector.
To every rule, there is an exception.
Justice Alito, and plenty of other 'civil servants' for that matter.
That is, they haven't ever had to worry about training employees, meeting payroll, and the myriad of issues present in running a business. Not to mention waking in the middle of the night thinking about what needs to be accomplished the next day, week. month, etc.
It is the disconnect present between DC types/academia and the rest of the country, no doubt.
@edutcher
News flash: raining in Buffalo today.
I was going to say that Alito's quote was the best thing I've read all morning, but then I read Greg Hlatky's comment.
LOL.
lol e.
Deirdre gets to the take-away lesson here. Hard to imagine such a reaction in the 30s, 40s, 50s, early 60s..ah, "progress"...
Yes, Don't Tread 2012, nothing like having a $50,00 payroll to meet on Friday w. $30k, in the bank on Thurs night hoping a) the remaining vendors come thru on Fri and b) everyone doesn't cash their checks on Friday--that the maj will deposit in their own banks and the float will come thru for you. No, no pressure there..
I get it, but one of my favorite exit lines to my co-workers is "I've done enough damage for today".
@virgil
Yes. Related to this, the business/profit is 'evil' meme is inconsistent at best.
Individual employees (note I did not say 'workers') naturally expect to be compensated for the time they exchange for a wage - but a 'business owner' has been painted as a baron concerned only with profit, as if screwing over customers and trashing the environment is a lasting/workable business model.
Logic is not a strength of the left.
I've heard similar things said by a lot of people who worked in the non-profit sector when I was doing the same in DC. We all knew it wasn't "real" work, that it was work created by the swirl of politics in DC, not the work created by meeting the real needs of real people. We pushed words and ideas around, and knew there was something artificial about it even if we also believed the work was necessary and worthwhile. Most of us could joke about it, but a lot of people couldn't: mostly the same people who had incredibly negative opinions about non-college graduates doing blue-collar jobs. And yes, most of those people I knew holding those opinions were liberals. But that might have been a function of the line of work I was in.
Most of us could joke about it, but a lot of people couldn't: mostly the same people who had incredibly negative opinions about non-college graduates doing blue-collar jobs. And yes, most of those people I knew holding those opinions were liberals. But that might have been a function of the line of work I was in.
Periodically there's a dust-up about why there are so few conservatives in academia: is it discrimination or self-selection?
Perhaps it would be better to ask why liberals are attracted to academia, the arts, journalism and government. I think it's because liberals are naturally drawn to parasitic institutions which do not create any wealth themselves but live off wealth created by others.
Furthermore these places have no metrics and no accountability for success or failure. How many times, for example, have you heard that some government program is a horrible failure because it's underfunded, not because its premises were wrong and its results catastrophic.
Liberals like places where they have influence without responsibility and/or money without accountability.
Logic is not a strength of the left."
Yes, Don't Tread 2012, especially as some of the most devastatingly polluted places on planet earth are to be found inside the political boundaries of the old Soviet Union and the formerly Communist Warsaw Pact countries. So much for the "evils" of capitalism and the "rape of the planet in the name of profits."
Every employee of government is a leech.
Every dollar in their paychecks came only by taking it from someone else who earned that money.
Am I the only one wondering what the other nine myths are?
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