A light came on for me this morning, while watching ...

[DirkGently]

52. It's what people do, not who they are.

Being "in the 1%" is a cultural identifier, like race, religion, or gender. It may make it hard for someone to empathize with people who encounter a different set of problems, but it's irrational to judge someone just on the basis of their wealth.

It's a good theme, though, because it threatens an implied conservative argument to the opposite: that wealth is a sign of competence and hard work and moral uprightness. They don't like any stigmatizing of the wealthy, because what they'd really like to scream from the rooftops is that rich people are the rightful owners and rulers of the world, and everyone else should just be greatful they don't swim off to their solid gold Ayn Rand islands and leave us all bereft of hedge fund managers and real estate speculators.

It's why conservatives ASSUME we're saying wealth itself is a bad thing. That's why they think they can undermine, say, OWS by pointing out that protesters own computers or cellphones. They think the argument is that having or owning anything is bad, when in actuality the argument has always been that wealth does not entitle people to disproportionate power, particular given that power is frequently abused to make the rich richer and the poor poorer.

Because they're stupid that way.