There's much conversation these days about the injustice in New Orleans. On the far end (just past the line of lunacy) is the opinion that somehow, all conservatives and Republicans and primarily the Bush administration conspired to kill a few hundred black people by not letting them leave, blowing up the levee and controlling the weather. On the more rational end of the scale are the poeple who say that decades of injustice and racial discrimination led to the awful conditions that now face the primarily black and poor residents of New Orleans. Somewhere in the middle (as usual) is the truth.
I wonder what would happen if we found all those poor folks whose houses were destroyed and who have nothing and we gave them $100,000. I think that the lottery winners have taught us clearly that poor people have poor ways. Give a man a million dollars and he's no better equipped to deal with it than he was equipped to deal with his $15,000 annual income. Given 24 months, most lottery winners are right back where they started, richer only for the experience of having once owned a really expensive car or truck and maybe a nicer home.
My struggle is this: What is justice? What opportunities can we provide that we don't already provide? Throwing money at it has been the federal government's response for years and it's clearly not working. What would work? Or, are we to accept that there will always be Warren Buffets and there will always be folks who live day to day? Are the poor simple victims of fate? Are the rich subject to that same fate? Buffett accidentally got a fantastic education and in the luckiest mistake ever started up Berkshire Hathaway? (Ooops, I accidentally made $40 billion!) What opportunities did Lee Iaccoca have that the poor today don't have? What is the difference between the people who beat poverty and those who don't? Is it something that the government can provide?
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It is amazing when one considers how unpopular the truth is. Your views are hateful speech only to those who don't want to accept the truth. History is replete with examples of people who have risen above their surroundings to accomplish great things. Nevertheless, our society continues to reward those who choose instead to wallow in laziness and self-pity by merely giving them the spoils of someone else's effort. Left unchecked, this system will result in a great levelling out at the lowest common denominator- for what will be the impetus to work hard? Then ultimately, what spoils will there be to share? The notion of a "distribution of wealth" in the sense in which it is encouraged by liberals forced faith and economic suicide.
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