The Benefits of Egalitarianism

Not acting really means not acting. Now, if I see someone who is suffering, and I can help, I do, not because I desire equality, but out of compassion for that person. Being born into a family without a great deal of money is not punishment, regardless of how much money some other families have.

 

Punishment? Who said it was? It is simply a handicap, which myself and Anikdote believe should not be imposed because of the actions of your parents.

 

Relative poverty is a big deal. It means that children of poor families are less likely to be in quality school because of how housing correlates to the school you attend. House near good schools are bid up by parents interested in enrolling their children, prices of homes rise and poor families are outbid.

 

No, circumstances are not moral agents. If the other men have done something unjust then what they did was immoral. Having children and being poor is just a set of circumstances. You're not giving me any reason to believe that I should pursue equality for it own sake.

 

Not by embracing it. We would have to take action to promote equality of opportunity. Those actions would need to be successful, and that success would need to outweigh whatever unintended negative effects the actions would have. Why should I just blindly believe that the desired effect would result?

 

Are your deffinitions of equal oppurtunity what most conservatives think liberals mean by equal oppurtunity. No wonder you guys are so dead set against equal oppurtunity. What you described isn't equal oppurtunity.

"Someone who has a strong desire to gain possessions is likely to gain more possessions than someone who does not."

That has nothing to do with oppurtunity, this is personal choice. I don't know anyone who wants someone who works hard for something to not be rewarded for it. From your post you are suggesting equal outcome, not equal oppurtunity. There is a big difference. Equal oppurtunity means that people regardless of their class are given that same oppurtunity to prove themselves and have the ability to become successful. The work to become successful is still that own persons responsibility. As a liberal, I just want to remove the barriers that are out of that persons control. It is not their fault they were born into a poor family. Some of the most intellegent people may be too poor to attend college, may have to drop out of school to help support their family. As a liberal, I just want to make sure that those people are not lost due to circumstances beyond their own control.

 

The comment I replied to says it is. I believe that we should all be immortal. Have you read your signature lately?

 

Please, if you will, list and expound on all the systemic barriers "society" places in front of "victims of circumstances beyond their control" in regards to opportunity, and collectively available and accessible infrastructure.

Be thorough.......and very careful.

 

Barriers like being born into a poor family? And you would remove them by doing what, sterilizing poor people, giving them money? I'll assume you would give them money. Would it be your money? No, you're a self described liberal, and this is the 21st century, so you must be talking about giving them other peoples money. Now we're talking about stealing, an action which requires justification. And the only justification you have to offer is that you want them to have equal opportunity which is what I asked you to justify in the first place. Now, Why should people have equal opportunity?

 

I don't know why you assume that you'd be the one running me out of business. But we have competition in business now. You don't think that's a bad thing, do you. I don't see any value in pursuing equality as an end. That doesn't mean I'm devoid of compassion, or that I don't think it is a virtue.

 

A society that actively restricts certain occupations to certain casts would be pursuing inequality, which seems even more absurd than the pursuit of equality. I'm trying to imagine ways in which equality of opportunity would deter people from voting themselves, or lobbying for themselves largess from the public treasury, but I just can't think of anything. What did you have in mind?

 

No need to blindly believe anything (there's research aplenty), also the actions we choose to take don't necessarily need to make anyone else worse off.

The problem, here in the US at least, is poverty is becoming a trap. Where, if you're born into it, as a result of several factors your very likely to remain there. It creates a low-wage equilibrium, driving down wage across the board and making us less competitive in the global market.

 

Health is the most obvious one. You can control the quality of your health to an extent, but a lot of things come out of left field.

For example, anyone can get cancer. You can eat right, exercise regularly, and avoid any unhealthy habits like drinking and smoking and still get it.

If someone ends up getting cancer, even someone with a sizable health savings account can blow through their funds quickly with the cost of treatment.

 

The only societies to 'benefit' from outcomes based on how beautiful or physically strong or presumably intelligent someone is are high school cliques. Dismissing the ugly, the weak and the presumed unintelligent wastes valuable resources. Bill Gates did not earn a degree, he is not the winner of the Tom Cruise look-alike contest and I doubt he could bench press more than 150 pounds.

But he had an opportunity.

 

I guess that's just where we philosophically differ. I consider a certain amount of equality promoted by society as a basis for civilization itself.

As frodly posted, I support equality of opportunity, not equality of outcome. They're 2 different things. Evening the playing field at the beginning isn't a bad thing in terms of the overall productivity of the population.

 

How do you propose doing that? I would love to see equality of opportunity (as someone who grew up dirt poor in the ghetto), but I don't see any way to implement that without handing over more freedom to the state.

And you know I hate that.

 

Health care costs didn't begin their meteoric rise until government intervened. (incestuous, crony capitalist relationship between Big Insurance and Big Fed...and mandated coverage requirements, etc)

To now expect...and advocate... the same government to "fix" what it largely caused is precisely why we're irrereversibly circling the drain

 

^^^^^YES. That is my problem with all of this need to legislate. You're asking the same entity, filled with the same (*)(*)(*)(*)-poor type of greedy, bought-and-paid-for politicians to be the guys to fix it, too.

They have no stake in a long, term, fair and equitable solution. Most (not all) regulations were bought and paid for by some large business attempting to shut smaller businesses out.

We have crony capitalism embedded in our system creating a monotony of evil...and yet, we still turn blithely to these passionless (*)(*)(*)(*)s and ask them to solve our problems.

 

What right do I have to stay in business if someone else provides better for customers than I can?

Thank God for computers. I can do a lot of work without legs.

 

All children should be taken from their parents as soon as they are done breast feeding and indoctrinated into a homogenized form of thinking that does not allow for any variations. It'll be a brave new world full of equal opportunities for every child. How could you not want that?

 

well, I think it's a virtue when it's the result of removing artificial barriers that are erected against certain classes of people from competing. Jim Crow for example prevented people from equal opportunity and thus is an unjust law. It would be like having a basketball game, but making one team play with an arm tied behind their backs -- it's not a contest, and even if you win, you haven't won fairly. On the other hand, I disagree with the government doing specific things to try to get equal results. Even if I feel bad that the Nigerian hockey team has never won olympic gold, it's unfair, and frankly insulting to them to "spot them" 5 goals in an attempt to get them to win the match. So it's a matter of what you mean by the question. I'm in favor of removing artificial barriers. I don't want you kept out of a school because you're black or poor, but I don't want you to get into Harvard with grades that ordinarily would not get you admitted just because you're black or poor. O

 

I think we halfway accomplish it through public education and scholarships. There's certainly room for improvement, but we do alright in most cases.

I do find it odd that it seems like the right views equality of opportunity as a liberal thing though. Milton Friedman supported this notion, and he was a pretty capitalistic guy.

 

What about without arms?

 

We're irreversibly circling the drain due to a combination of Wall Street having taken over the government and the raiding of SS funds continuously.

As far as healthcare goes though, our system is pretty dysfunctional. The ACA doesn't help things, but it was about the same beforehand.

It seems odd to blame it all on government though, when you consider how much more affordable healthcare is in France as compared to here.

 

To a degree, I can see where you're coming from.

It may just be an American thing. Our government is pretty corrupt in certain respects, and it appears that several European nations manage to have a more functional healthcare system, despite other problems in government.