Gene Nichol, a law professor at UNC-Chapel Hill has a long history of economically-illiterate rants on poverty and income inequality, all in an effort to expand the welfare state and state control of certain populations.
But the “law” professor took it a step further in his latest screed in Tuesday’s N&O.
I was shocked that we elected Donald Trump. I’m guessing Philip Alston wasn’t. Any prodigiously wealthy nation that treats its poorest members like we do knows no bottom. If being the cruelest doesn’t give us pause, what will? Perhaps it’s time to dismantle the Statue of Liberty and shred the Declaration of Independence.
Nichol’s arguments supporting welfare state expansion have been so unpersuasive that his frustration at his own intellectual inadequacies has lead him to such extreme proclamations.
Perhaps Nichol’s frustration grew by the fact that his expanded role over the years to “advocate for proposals, policies and services to mitigate poverty in North Carolina” actually correlated with NC’s poverty rates getting worse.
Or maybe his conscience is troubled by his hypocritical stance against private schools, when he himself attended a private high school in Texas.
Even an unhinged, rich hypocrite like Nichol may be experiencing subconscious guilt about denying low-income families the same educational opportunities that he had, which propels him to ever more extremes to squash what little conscience he may have.
Of course, for all his fake concern about income inequality, Nichol makes darn sure to enjoy luxurious trappings of the one-percent off the backs of taxpayers. Last we checked, Nichol and his wife raked in more than $600,000 per year; and Nichol could furiously virtue signal about poverty from his million dollar Chapel Hill home. But don’t worry, when the stress of ginning up class resentment gets too stressful for Nichol, he can escape to his half million dollar beach house on Emerald Isle.
I imagine the proceeds from selling his beach house would help fund a nice homeless shelter or soup kitchen for the poor, but that would mean Nichol actually cared about those in need. Instead, Nichol opts to enrich himself at taxpayer expense while taking the painless path of just paying lip service to reducing poverty.
The only poverty Nichol is concerned about reducing is his own.