Batali on Bankers

Celebrity chef Mario Batali likens bankers to Hitler and Stalin and doesn't apologize, while Brett Ratner makes a joke about homosexuals and issues an abject, groveling apology. No defense of Mr. Ratner, but it does highlight how there are some groups that it's clearly off limits to label, target, or insult, while there are other groups upon which it is open season. Smokers and bankers are some of the few groups out there on which it is clearly open season. Some people may distinguish that it is a choice to go into banking or to start smoking, while it's not a choice to be gay, or black, or a woman, or other groups that it is less socially acceptable to insult or stereotype. Maybe so, but others of us would aspire to treat all individuals as individual human beings rather than as group-members to be insulted, stereotyped, smeared, and generalized about. I may be guilty of this too on this site sometimes when I write about left wingers or the Obama administration. But I don't think I've ever likened them to mass murderers. If I have, I hereby do what Mr. Batali hasn't done, which is apologize.