On 2/24/2012 4:44 PM, Hawke wrote:
On 2/23/2012 12:09 PM, George Plimpton wrote:
On 2/23/2012 11:12 AM, Hawke wrote:
On 2/22/2012 2:50 PM, George Plimpton wrote:


What did I say that would make you think that I don't think that
people
who do more or work harder don't deserve to get more in return for
putting out more than others do? I call that fair.

I call it "fair" if they don't work as hard, but work smarter, and get
much higher rewards.

No one is entitled to any particular level of success.


No one is entitled to anything.

People are entitled to their lives, of course. That's considered a
universal human right, and it is *NOT* a right "given" by anyone or any
group of people. It is a fundamental condition of being human.

Says who?

Thomas Jefferson. John Locke. Immanuel Kant.


Who gave you that right?

No one. You are endowed with it at birth.


No one is entitled to any material goods and services - there are no
positive rights to anything you would like in life.

If men so deem it to be so then they will.

Nope. They can't - not without violating the first right.


We make the system that we want. We can
make a fair one or we can make an unfair one.

In terms of people's opportunities to succeed in life, we have a fair
system.

I have yet to meet a rich person who doesn't believe that.

I'm not rich, and I believe it.


Throughout history we've mainly made unfair ones.

Except in the United States. In the US, ours has been a preeminently
fair system, except in its treatment of blacks, and that was corrected
more than a century ago.

Blacks, native Americans, Hispanics, Asians, Irish, poor whites, all
were treated unfairly.

No, not all, but all the unfairness built into the system has been removed.


Granted we can't make anything perfectly but by
now humans do know enough to make a system that is mainly fair to most
of the people.

And ours is.

still not even remotely close.

Our is fair.