First, Matt Yglesias shamelessly wrote a how-to for those looking to defraud a company of the benefits meant for budget-conscious moms:

Amazon has a program called Amazon Mom that’s a pretty neat way to save some money on common household items. But here’s the thing. It turns out you don’t need to be a mom to sign up. You don’t need to be a dad, either. You just need to be a liar. Enrolling in Amazon Mom requires you to offer up some information about your baby, but there’s no verification involved whatsoever. You just type in some made-up stuff and suddenly your fake baby is getting you some sweet discounts.

I, having recently given birth to a real baby after 12 hours of labor, am actually eligible for the 20 percent discount Amazon is offering. Targeting price-conscious moms allows the company to cultivate a long-term relationship with the person in the household most likely to do shopping and plan finances. They can then serve said moms ads and deals pertinent to their purchases, probably earning more business along the way. In my case, they’ll probably send me pictures of tiny, baby boots near my kid’s birthday and, boom, sale made.

An MSNBC panel discussed this nifty plan for saving money by lying. Conclusion: It’s not really lying if you’re lying to a corporation. Click to watch:

Credit where it’s due to Krystal Ball for bringing this to the table, countering the two dudes saying this is “noble” and not “ethically murky”: “I still say even if it is a corporation that you’re lying to, it’s still a lie,” Krystal Ball said.

Our moral and intellectual betters, folks. When the MSNBC crew goes out for fast food, they order water but then fill that little clear cup up with Sprite. There’s something so rankling, not just about the dishonesty, but its pettiness. Josh Barro concedes at least that he wouldn’t scam veterans benefits from companies by saying he’s a veteran, so there’s that.

But whatever happened to owning your privilege, guys? We’re lectured constantly by the Left about how white people, particularly white men, cannot possibly understand all the benefits that accrue to them by virtue of simply being white men in our society. They must therefore contemplate this institutional advantage and repent of it by assuming an ostentatious pose of white guilt, “owning their privilege,” and lecturing others who have not yet recognized and repented of their privilege.

And, yet, here are two affluent white men of the Left, who instead of owning their privilege and contemplating how not to oppress women and minorities by virtue of existing, pose as women to stack our 20-percent discount on top of their white dude privileges. Now, if a bunch of other white men take their advice, defraud Amazon, and Amazon Moms becomes no more, what of the middle-class moms who were using it to help their families?

I feel microaggressed.

Update:

https://twitter.com/KevinWGlass/status/413510119628877824

I feel less microaggressed now, but still object to the lying and hope it doesn’t mean the program becomes less helpful to real moms and dads using it.