The Utter Contradiction Of The Conservative Religion Exemplified:-

They'll have failed themselves as well, in that regardless of their achievements they will still demand more equality.

Rather than equality, maybe instead liberals should pursue self esteem.

 

yes. If he can get it and the people paying him are using their money. Why is it of any of my concern? i also think the surgeon should make more then the cashier, something you have an issue with I am guessing? What is your solution to help these investors? Big tax when they hit it rich?

agreed.

at a speed that brings glory to the US and inspires others to go further in their own lives. He didnt get paid for that though, he got paid for commercials and brought revenue to a company. He should be paid for that whatever they both think is fair. It is none of my - or your - business. Would Ali get punched all day to make the wages of your average person? does he and phelps not enrich our lives?

Why don't you pay people what you think they deserve?

i dont follow the leftist dogma of dictating to people what i am not willing to do myself. I don't take the insult personally, the soft headed always try to make themselves feel superior to others.

define exploited as it applies here. You meam getting paid for work at an agreed wage? is all work not done by government exploitation to leftists? is the only way to prevent exploitation to stay home and live off of others and exploit them?

oh i know. I pointed that out earlier.

What is wrong with Nike products and advertising? What are the only approved brands and methods of advertising allowed by the left? When Oprah lies about Barack Obama being competent why don't you get up in arms?

 

No, and I'm having a really hard time not getting a warning here because that statement is so retarded. It was because 25% of our sales went to Canada and Mexico. Another 10% went to Europe and Asia.

And manufacturing hasn't been labor intensive for 20 years. 2 men now do what 20 used to and do it faster and better. We've lost far more jobs to automation that to outsourcing over the last forty years and that trend is going to continue for the foreseable future.

 

We worship the idea of making some few people excessively wealthy.

This nation will ultimately not prosper, exalting such values; it is self-destructive.

 

Amen. It doesn't mean that I don't play the lottery. But if I won, I'd probably give it away to things and people that need it more. I'd certainly keep a little for myself. But it doesn't take much to keep me happy with my life. It'd be nice not to worry about bills, but that's not how life works in the real world, and reality is more important to me.

 

Frankly, I haven't met anybody that advocates for equal income. I'm the most liberal person I know, and I don't believe in that. People should be paid according to what their talents will bring them, and careers should be open to talents. There should be formal equality of opportunity regardless of the accident of birth. If everything is open then the results are just. If everybody can run the race, everybody can enter the race, but some people start at different starting points and the race isn’t fair. The injustice of this system is that it permits distributive shares to be improperly influenced by factors arbitrary from a moral point of view such as whether you got a good or not, or grew up in a family that supported you and developed a work ethic and gave you opportunities.

What about Meritocracy? A Merit based system. Equal education opportunities. Head Start programs. Support for schools in impoverished neighborhoods, so that everyone regardless of family background has the same starting point. It falls short. It doesn’t address the moral arbitrariness of the “natural lottery”. If you bring everyone to the same starting point, and begin the race, who’s going to win the race? The fastest runners would win. But is it their doing that they happen to be blessed with the athletic prowess to run fast? Meritocracy still permits the distribution of wealth and income to be determined by natural distribution of talents and abilities. You don’t have to go to a “leveling” equality (egalitarian). You permit, even encourage those who may be gifted to exercise their talent , but you change the terms on which people are entitled to the fruits of the exercises of those talents. . People may benefit from their good fortune, or luck in the genetic lottery, but only on terms that work to the advantage of the least well off.

Looking at the Meritocratic conception; Effort as the basis of moral desert. People who work hard to develop their talents, deserve the benefits that come from them. Even the work ethic, the willingness to strive depends on family circumstances and social and cultural contingencies that we can claim no credit for. You can’t claim credit for the fact that you were first born, or born into wealth which seem to be associated with striving, achieving, effort. Or grew up in a wealthy community and attended the best schools.

Those who invoke effort, don’t really believe that moral desert attaches to effort. Take two construction workers. One is strong and can raise four walls in an hour without even breaking a sweat. Another is small and scrawny, and has to spend 3 days to do the same work. No defender of meritocracy is going to look at the weaker person and say he deserves to make more. So it isn’t really effort at all that makes the argument for meritocracy. Effort isn’t really what the defender of meritocracy believes is the moral basis for distributive shares. It’s contribution. How much do you contribute? But that takes us straight back to our natural talents and abilities…not just effort. It’s not our doing how we came into possession of those talents. If you accept that effort really doesn’t matter, and it’s about contribution, then what?

Consider two different games. A game of Skill and a game of chance. In a game of pure chance, I play the lottery and win. I’m entitled to my winnings. But there is no sense in which I morally deserve it in the first place. In a game of skill lets imagine the Red Sox win the Series. They’re entitled to a trophy. But it can always be asked in a game of skill…did they deserve to win? It’s always possible in principle, to distinguish what someone's entitled to and what they deserve.

Take David Letterman for example. The fact that David Letterman lives in a society that puts a great premium or value on smirky jokes is not his doing. He’s lucky that he does. It’s a second contingency. We can’t claim credit for it. Michael Jordon made enormous amounts of money, because he was the most talented player. But was he responsible for being born that talented? Did LeBron James have anything to do with growing to 6'8" and 270lbs? I'm sure both of them worked hard at being great, but did they actually work harder then other players that weren't as blessed genetically?

Even if I had sole unproblematic claim to my talents and effort, it would still be the case that the benefits I get from exercising those talents depends on factors that are arbitrary from a moral point of view. What will my talents reap in a market based economy? What does that depend on? It depends on what other people happen to like or want in this society. It depends on the law of supply and demand. That’s not my doing. It’s certainly not a basis for moral deserts. What counts as contributing depends on the qualities that this or that society happens to prize. Most of us possess the qualities that society happens to prize. The qualities that enable us to provide what society wants. In a capitalist society it helps to have entrepreneurial drive. In a bureaucratic society it helps to get on easily and smoothly with superiors. In a mass democratic society it helps to look good on TV and speak in short superficial soundbites. In a litigious society it helps to go to law school, and have the talents to do well on the SAT’s. But none of this is our doing. Suppose we, with our talents inhabited not our society, but a hunting society or a warrior society? What becomes of our talents then? They wouldn’t get us very far. We’d have to develop other talents or skills. But would we be less worthy? Less virtuous? Would we be less meritorious if we lived in that society.

We might make less money, and rightly so. But while we’d be entitled to less, we’d be no less worthy, no less deserving than we are now. The same can be said for those living in our society with fewer talents than our society happens to reward. Here is the moral import of the distinction between moral desert and entitlement to legitimate expectations. We ARE entitled to the benefits to the rules of the game promise for the exercise of our talents. But it’s a mistake and a conceit to suppose that we deserve in the first place a society that values the qualities we happen to have in abundance.

 

And I'm telling you that won't help, the adverse effects created by the minimum wage is only corrected by inflation. Thomas Sowell has noted this several times, reflecting on his own experience as an underemployed black teenager both before and after the minimum wage was raised. It was in fact on the issue of the minimum wage that moved him away from Marxism.

Most money overseas is there for a purpose, chasing after those few violators has just lead to putting the squeeze on Americans abroad, and acting like despotic gangsters to nations whom are supposed to be our friends.

It is not a crime to put money overseas, this must be understood.

And I said, you are mislead in speculating that it's taxes these companies or people are trying to avoid, rather than a search for a meaningful interest rate.

 

So you are for school vouchers and against AA?

Head start doesn't have measurable results. Is is mostly a day care service. If
We can get vouchers though go crazy with it.

 

Thank you. What an incredibly accurate and thoughtful post! I be damned- intelligent/wise too!

 

I wouldn't agree with that. I don't worship the idea of anything that concerns anyone else. Maybe the media does, maybe you do. But really, neither of you speaks for the entire country.

And as far as the nation not prospering due to some exalting values of success, well you could have said that 200 years ago, or 100 years, or 50 years. The country is still here and as far as its ability to prosper... the only throttle to that is government interference, whether liberal or conservative.

Why do people continually attack the success of the U.S. simply because some people have stuck their butts out there and achieved some remarkable success? No one has taken a bigger piece of an equality pie. They've only exercised a better application of a healthy self esteem. They've trusted themselves. Those who reject that success have no right to deny it to another.

 

Talent, sir, only takes you so far. Jordan was not only incredibly talented but one of the hardest workers in the NBA as well. The true key to success at anything be it digging ditches, building computer networks or playing basketball is your own willingness to exploit your own God given talents. Jordan wore out half a dozen backboards before he ever got to college. Talent only provides you an opportunity. It is through hard work, practice, and dedication to one's craft whatever it may be that one truly becomes great.

 

No. I can't imagine how you drew that conclusion. Nothing that I said would indicate that.

Yes it does.

That's an opinion. Not a fact.

 

Yeah, we do.

I understand people becoming and being wealthy... but I have a strong aversion to elevating the influence and rights of the wealthy to such a level that those same things in other citizens are relatively diminished.

Being rich, should not make one a 'ruler' or 'king'; not in "America" anyway.

 

Did he work harder than everyone else? How would you measure that? The man with lessor physical talent may actually be working harder to match up to the other that was "blessed" with talents that he didn't receive at birth. Your own "God given talents" have nothing to do with you. You didn't have anything to do with receiving them. You were a winner in the genetic lottery. Every player in the NBA could make the same claim about "wearing out backboards". If each player in the NBA had some degree of talent that allowed him to "make it" into the league, then how can you make the claim that somebody is working harder than somebody else when it's their innate talent that is putting them over the top. If two players are working just as hard to make an impact, then the reason that one excels over the other, has nothing to do with the amount of work they've put in. It has to do with something they had no control over. One was the beneficiary of the genetic lottery. He wasn't responsible for that. His parents didn't order a set of physical traits that would make him 7' tall. He was born with physical attributes that others didn't have.

 

There are sir several studies by everyone from Heritage foundation to Cato To brookings that show that any gains from head start and other early intervention progams have largely disappeared by the time children exit 3rd grade. The environment in which they live seems to be the primary problem.

 

I thought you said you were for equal opportunity? Certainly that would include education, something critical to earning power later in life. Vouchers do that.

Kids that went through head start are among the poorest performing in school. But I hear they ace finger painting.

 

So? Equality of opportunity doesn't mean who works hardest gets the greatest rewards. That is akin to equality of outcome. Equality of opportunity means the short kid is allowed to try to compete with Jordan.

 

It isn't a strawman. You liberals claim that all you wish is equal opportunity, but you wail that it isn't happening because the outcomes are different. You look at hardships and adversity as obstacles that shouldn't be overcome by the individual, but overcome as a collective.

You can claim whatever you want, but we all know what the truth is. You think that being wealthy is an illegitimate advantage, and we should all work to punish such an advantage to the lowest common denominator.

The individual, and how rugged they are or become, is what matters most in this country. The integrity of each one's individuality is what must be groomed.

That person who created billions and wishes to give it to their progeny should not be punished - fiscally or otherwise - by a system run by ideologies such as yours which only measure the injustices of inequality by the evidences of the unequal result itself.

In so doing, you illustrate that your focus is not on what content is contained in one's character, but by what content is contained in one's accounts.

 

Too many liberals conflate the notion of a country which Constitutionally protects equality of opportunity with the addled notion of Fairness.

We can have a country with equal opportunity, but life's lottery should not be legislated against to adjust for the inequalities of life's lottery.

There are those who will have an advantage, and it shouldn't even be discussed whether such a thing is fair or not, because to do so leads to the inevitable traps which cause liberals to wish to legislate their notions of fairness. Plenty of people have squandered opportunities; have experienced bad luck, and have failed. Plenty of people have made of themselves incredible successes - by their own judgement of what success actually is - and did it in the face of circumstances with many would consider terribly unfair.

Any attempt to legislate 'fairness' simply leads to perpetual misery and mediocrity - and harshly increases unhappiness.

Stop worrying about what others have, and start working to improve yourself by every means available to you.

 

What an interesting way of saying that money is holy and the poor are dogs or swine. I think it's pretty well established that Jesus was most interested in the poor, the sick, the destitute. St. Thomas Aquinas said this; "Man should not consider his material possession his own, but as common to all, so as to share them without hesitation when others are in need. I guess Jesus and the Saints were radical socialists after all. But it's pointless to discuss the Bible with a self-serving fanatic.

 

You're equating the minimum wage with Marxism??

Of course these companies and individuals aren't looking to avoid paying taxes. Who would think of such a thing?

 

You're citing the conservative Heritage Foundation, and the Libertarian Cato Institute. I don't know what Brookings has to say. I'm not inclined to accept the findings of a Conservative think tank with a conservative agenda to promote. They have a bias that is well known. The Heritage Foundation also came up with the Healthcare plan that is now the law which Conservatives hate and want to repeal. So, assuming that you're a follower of the Heritage Foundation, are you cherry picking what you like and blasting what you don't? If that's the case, then what makes the Heritage Foundation an authority on anything?

 

The wealthy don't think that far ahead. There business is for today,not tomorrow.

 

Vouchers also permit discrimination, and we don't fund discrimination with taxpayer dollars. End of story.

Not true. And your characterization is self-styled nonsense.

 

Not the way most people want them. We should have vouchers issued to pay tuition in private schools which do not discriminate. In New Orleans the private schools were the first to desegregate, and the quality of education was far superior to the public schools.

I agree with you that head start was a good program and helped poor kids learn to socialize which helped them in kindergarten and later.