‘Life’s Lottery’
13th August 2011
That famous trope of Democrat Congressman Dick Gephardt is one of the fixed myths of the ‘progressive’ movement in America. According to the myth, rich people are rich people because they got lucky, and it’s society’s job to make sure that those who didn’t pull a winning ticket in ‘life’s lottery’ should nevertheless get a leg up — at taxpayer expense, of course.
But if you look at real lottery winners (such as this one), you find out that most of those who started out in the, shall we say, lower ranks economically tend to blow their money fairly quickly and wind up worse than they started. This suggests that there is something about the character of those who, acquiring great wealth, manage to keep it that goes beyond luck, and reflects … dare we say it? … intrinsic worth.
Just sayin’.
August 13th, 2011 at 20:27
Well, everybody knows that rich people get rich because they deserve to be rich. It’s God’s reward to the righteous as a sign of His favor. Poor people are poor, on the other hand, because God doesn’t like them or consider them worthy, so He creates them stupid, lazy, or both.
All of you who are not poor may now congratulate yourselves.
August 14th, 2011 at 12:47
I’m curious about this idea of “intrinsic worth”. Is there a continuum? Or discrete pockets of worthiness? Is it indicated by the total of one’s net worth, e.g., are Bill Gates and Warren Buffett the most intrinsically worthy of us all? Are those of us who are “middle-class” (whatever that means anymore) sort-of-worthy-but-not-enough-to-make-the-next-grade?
Some amplification would be helpful.
August 14th, 2011 at 22:01
“Well, everybody knows that rich people get rich because they deserve to be rich. It’s God’s reward to the righteous as a sign of His favor. Poor people are poor, on the other hand, because God doesn’t like them or consider them worthy, so He creates them stupid, lazy, or both.”
Yep that’s all here is to it. Some deserve and some well… no got deserve. Getting rich is easy when you deserve it.
COME ON MAN!