From: ZEITLIN@SLACVM.SLAC.STANFORD.EDU (Cary Zeitlin)
Newsgroups: alt.politics.clinton,alt.politics.elections
Subject: Re: Wealth (was: Re: My thoughts on Clinton's character)
Date: 22 Jul 92 20:09:27 GMT
 <1992Jul20.203500.21908@anasazi.com> <1992Jul21.191124.1515@news.columbia.edu>
Organization: Stanford Linear Accelerator Center

Folks,

  I've been lurking on this group for a week or so now, unmoved
to write until I saw the post from Derek Abbott. I just had to
respond. Please forgive me if I've breached netequitte by flaming
this turkey, but it had to be done.

>>Pfft.  For my part I don't believe that people of equal abilities
>>should be constrained by the environment they're brought up in.

>They're not. It's a country with a free enterprise system.

*Everyone* is influenced by the environment in which they are raised;
Mr. Abbott seems to think that the existence of a "free enterprise
system" eliminates all environmental constraints within said country.
This is either naive or hopelessly out of touch with reality.

>>Yes,
>>people are born with different attributes, but people who are born
>>wealthy have an opportunity to develop these attributes whereas the
>>poor do not.

>We are all born with the same potential to succeed and we all have
>many opportunities for success in our lives.

Huh??!!! Ever hear of pre-natal care? Ever hear about how one's
environment as an infant (something over which the infant has
*no* control, regardless of its "attitude") has a profound effect
on the child's later development and ability to succeed in school
and socialization. We do NOT all have the same potential at birth
and we do NOT all have many opportunities for success. This crap
can only have been written by someone born to wealth and privelege,
who has no idea what life is like for the vast majority of humanity.

>We all have an equal opportunity to be as unequal as we like.

Hogwash. See above.

>It's actually a disadvantage if you are already born rich, because then
>you aren't so motivated to improve.

I take this to prove that Mr. Abbott was born into wealth. Only a
whining, snivelling "poor little rich boy" could come up with such
transparently self-serving tripe. Try telling the billions of people
who live on our planet in poverty that being born rich is a
"disadvantage." Gag.

>>Consider education, which I think we all agree is
>>important to economic success.

>No we don't all agree. How do you explain the zillions of rags-to-riches
>type stories of uneducated imigrants who come to America, with nothing but
>2 cents in their back pocket, work their behinds off, don't even speak the
>language and then become millionaires?

>Why can't a non-immigrant do the same? It's all to do with ATTITUDE not
>education.

As at least one other post has pointed out, if you believe all those
Horation Alger stories, it's time to wake up and smell the coffee.
That's *NOT* reality for the vast majority of immigrants. Sure, some
of them do quite well and are rewarded for hard work and industry.
Many make it a point to seek out education; they understand its
value, even if Mr. Abbot doesn't.

>>Do the wealthy have an environment in
>>which they have to content daily violence and misery while they study?
>>Do the poor have private tutors to fall back on?  Small classroom
>>sizes and well equipped schools?

>Education has nothing to do with it. How come Economics Professors
>drive beaten up old Volkswagens?

Huh? What does this have to do with anything? And which Economics
professors are you referring to? More claptrap.

>>Do they wealthy have to worry about
>>their health, about where they'll get their next meal?

>No. But when they were working to become wealthy they did.

Those who worked to become wealthy, that is. Ever hear of
inherited wealth, Mr. Abbott? I bet you have.

>>It is NOT
>>about income redistribution, not in this day and age, after we've seen
>>the failure and successes of the Great Society.

>Agreed. If you divided the worlds wealth equally amongst everybody, it would
>end up back into the hands of those who "think rich" 2-5 years later.

>>It is about providing
>>equal opportunity early in life.

>Yea. Agreed. But it's not education that does it, it's attitude.

>If you're saying that we should teach attitude in schools, then I agree with
>you.

The point Abbott is trying to make is that attitude is vitally important.
I don't disagree with that point, but there are surely better ways to
make the argument a persuasive one instead of the nauseating rant
to which he has subjected us.

--------------------------------------------------
Cary Zeitlin (zeitlin@slacvm.slac.stanford.edu)
--------------------------------------------------
standard disclaimers apply
Newsgroups: alt.politics.clinton,talk.politics.guns