Fresh from Sunday’s assertion that “we” find it incomprehensible that anyone would be motivated by theology and that “We have chosen to keep our politics unilluminated by divine revelation,” (Please see our editorial of Monday, “‘We’?“) the New York Times was at it again on Tuesday with the first person plural. The place was a column by the newspaper’s former editorial page editor, Gail Collins, in which she considered the differences between the rich of today and of the 1980s. “True, our current crop of rich people is much more discreet,” Ms. Collins wrote. “But if they avoid flaunting their money it is probably because they know that if we got a whiff of how much some of them are making for how little work, we would all march on the palace waving burning torches.”

Ms. Collins seems to be assuming, first, that there aren’t any rich people among her readers. Her second assumption is that the current crop of rich people avoid flaunting their money, an assumption that is also suspect; witness the arms-race under way in construction of luxury yachts and Hamptons estates. One of the things that helped set off the current national spate of bashing the rich was Stephen Schwarzman’s 60th birthday party, an event so lacking in discretion that even the Wall Street Journal editorial page characterized it as “garish.”

The third flawed assumption is that “we,” the non-rich of today, are in an angry, pre-revolutionary state, simmering with resentment against America’s wealthy and just a few pieces of information away from charging to the barricades. Our own sense is that most Americans don’t hate the rich, they want to become rich themselves, and appreciate that much American wealth comes from creating innovations or providing services that make life better for everyone. And that many of today’s rich weren’t rich a decade or two ago. Maybe Ms. Collins was kidding, but it sure looks like just the latest example of the Times misunderestimating its readers.