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So my dad eventually gave me one of his cigarettes, told me if I inhaled he'd kick my butt. Who knows, maybe the cloud of smoke saved me from malaria. /sarc
Proof that nothing is 100% bad. Except Obama...
the call on that. Opinion on observation doesn't make me a racist! I also don't hate anyone. I'm just sick of the Black 'one trick pony'.
I couldn’t find statistics on which group fished more. :)
People are not equal. Period.
" Suppose two individuals, Tom and Dick, are given equal opportunity to develop their individual abilities. Tom winds up a millionaire, and dick winds up on a skimpy retirement pay. The objective evidence clearly shows that Tom and Dick did not have equal opportunities, doesn't it?
Yes, it does. Tom had superior opportunities, he had the gift of learning very rapidly, so that, exposed to the same information sources, and the same situations Dick was, Tom learned fifteen times as much. Tom, going to the same school Dick did, learned that Columbus discovered America... and that Leif Ericson probably landed in Labrador five or six centuries earlier. That various French and Spanish pioneers explored the area of the western United States, but the Lewis and Clarke expedition was more important.
And Dick, having answered the school examinations properly, knew that he had learned what the proper citizen was supposed to learn.
But Tom, having answered the school examinations the same way Dick did, learned something quite different. “It doesn't do much good to open a pathway if people don't want to go there. There's no point in discovering a continent until people need a new continent. There's no use exploring a new territory until people are present to move in, and want a new territory to move into.” That was a great help to Tom in later life, when he was organizing the companies and enterprises that made his millions."
- John W. Campbell, "Hyperdemocracy"
opportunities, while their internal preparedness was
different. I was lucky;; I was prepared by nature to
learn engineering, and I chose to take that choice.
if Dick's "take" on learning did not match the
external opportunities in his life, he may not have
been as lucky as Tom. -- j
Excellent writer
"Equality" is a big container-word into which people stuff a lot of things that are important to them...but you can never be sure which one they mean when they use the word. As Publius is intending the word, I think his statement is both succinct and correct.
I doubt that anyone on this list thinks that a baby is a tabla rasa upon which environment writes and that, as such, if every one had an identical environment, everyone would be equally intelligent and capable - but that argument has been made in the past and I think that bringing it up is pertinent to the discussion.
Jan
(I have up-pointed you, which brought you up to 0.)
http://www.straightlinelogic.com/straigh...
Gulchers: goal is equal opportunity.
Moochers: goal is equal results.
Jan
the U.S. is/was unique in providing to humanity
for the first time. isn't it interesting that exploitation
of one of the ten commandments -- the one which
I learned as "covet" -- can make such a huge
difference! Thou Shalt Admire anything which
belongs to your neighbor, and seek to earn it
for yourself!!! -- j
I believe that income inequality is a reality of life and that those who are fixated on someone else's wealth should be spending that energy improving their own life. Instead of picketing with the 99%-ers, why not be studying for a degree in Finance? Instead of kneeling in the streets of St. Louis, why not be learning a trade?
Plenty of things one can do other than complain about their lot in life.
---
While the above statement is likely true, it should be noted that it may simply be due to the fact that there is less wealth in red states in general. If you've got universal poverty across all states, but most wealthy people live in blue states, then naturally blue states will display a greater gap between the rich and poor than red states. In other words, all states have the same floor, but red states have a lower ceiling, which does obviously lessen financial inequality, but only by reducing the total amount of wealth that the state is capable of generating.
Also, there's this statement:
---
"When politicians get fixated on closing income gaps rather than creating an overall climate conducive to prosperity, middle- and lower-income groups suffer most and income inequality rises."
---
Personally, that sounds too generalized to me. I think the exact tactics used matter more than the goal. Without a careful examination of the tactics used in each state, it's difficult to draw any sweeping conclusions about which policies which are having the effects described in the article.
I don't discount either. To me, BOTH matter. To have a goal of income inequality to me is abhorrent and illogical because it ignores the very basic truth that we aren't created equal in intellect, capacity, physical endowment, etc. It is equally repulsive to me to buy into the notion that these differences infer a responsibility by the "haves" to subsidize the "have nots" - a method.
___________________________________
"Though the earth, and all inferior creatures, be common to all men, yet every man has a property in his own person: this no body has any right to but himself. The labour of his body, and the work of his hands, we may say, are properly his. Whatsoever then he removes out of the state that nature hath provided, and left it in, he hath mixed his labour with, and joined to it something that is his own, and thereby makes it his property. It being by him removed from the common state nature hath placed it in, it hath by this labour something annexed to it, that excludes the common right of other men: for this labour being the unquestionable property of the labourer, no man but he can have a right to what that is once joined to, at least where there is enough, and as good, left in common for others."
~ John Locke, "Second Treatise of Civil Government," Chapter 5
http://desmailesviews.com/col112.htm
http://www.constitution.org/jl/2ndtr05.h...
You mix a truth with a lie. Can people cooperating together accomplish more than a single person alone? When each have a strength or focus of value to offer the other, yes. The lie you mix in there is to imply that those without a strength to offer should be able to ride the coattails of those who do. If they don't bring anything of value to the exchange, they are interlopers - not participants. Moochers.
Profits are NOT produced by collective effort. They are produced by individual contributors EACH doing what they do BETTER than the others on the team, making the aggregate or sum of all the BESTS greater than if a single person had done everything.
You're succumbing to the same outrageous lies told by our President and parroted by left-wing cronies that "you didn't build that". These statements attempt to marginalize the contributions of the individual by saying they wouldn't have the same value without everyone else. The other implicit lie in there is that all contributions are equal - another ridiculous notion.
As for Obama's infamous "you didn't build that" quote, what he said was actually true, albeit very poorly worded. What Obama SHOULD have said was, "You didn't build that alone. You had the help of mentors, coworkers, and employees, all of whom helped contribute to the success of your company." Mitt Romney said essentially the same thing in a speech during the 2002 Winter Olympics in Salt Lake City, Utah:
____________
"You Olympians, however, know you didn't get here solely on your own power. For most of you, loving parents, sisters or brothers encouraged your hopes … Coaches guided, communities built venues in order to organize competitions. All Olympians stand on the shoulders of those who lifted them. We've already cheered the Olympians, let's also cheer the parents, coaches, and communities…"
— Mitt Romney, 2002 Winter Olympics
http://www.usnews.com/opinion/blogs/susa...
If we get that "misconception", it's from listening to leftists abuse the concept of "equality".
" Lopsided superiority, with compensating hopeless deficiencies, would be tolerable, of course. A Steinmetz, a brilliant cripple, wouldn't be anti-democratic, because, of course, his physical deformity makes him average out not-superior. The genius must be crippled, one way or another, either physically or mentally, or he is unacceptable in a hyperdemocratic concept. The brilliant scientist must be an oddball of some sort, or he's unacceptable. To suggest that individuals exist who are genuinely, innately superior, is, in the hyperdemocratic concept, intolerable.
And I'm defying every rule of our present hyperdemocracy by bringing these propositions into the open. I'm suggesting that there are human beings who have innate, unmatchable-by-education talents of genuine superiority that you haven't got a prayer of achieving – things that neither training, practice, education or anything else can ever give you or me."
- John W. Campbell, "Hyperdemocracy"
Maybe someone should tackle a sequel to "Atlas Shrugged". They could title it, "The Gods Walk Among Us".
"there are human beings who have innate, unmatchable-by-education talents of genuine superiority that you haven't got a prayer of achieving – things that neither training, practice, education or anything else can ever give you or me."
????? If you can't see the overwhelming evidence and examples all around you, I am definitely NOT the person to try to provide examples...
https://www.khanacademy.org/youcanlearna...