On 2/24/2012 7:50 PM, George Plimpton wrote:

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.

So they are just some men aren't they? They had their opinions on many
different topics. There is no immutable fact because they thought
something or other.



Who gave you that right?

No one. You are endowed with it at birth.

You're making that up. Somebody said it and all you are doing is
repeating it because you like the way it sounds. There isn't a shred of
proof it's true. Just like there is no proof of a human soul.

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.

Then that's what they will do. Men are the final judge. They are the
decider. That's all we have. Say different if you want but you know it's
true.

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.

So what? Who said that there are no poor people that believe it too.
Gummer thinks just like you. He has nothing and it's fair. Maybe in his
case it is. But all the people who are the winners in our system think
it's a super fair system. Whey wouldn't they? You think they are so dumb
to think a system that they failed in is a good and fair one?


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.

There is a new book out that says that claim is wrong. I saw the author
being interviewed on CNN a few days ago. He was saying that they still
had slavery in the south decades after the Civil War ended. That blacks
got shafted until quite recently. I was at the gym at the time and
couldn't hear the interview, I had to read subtitles and I can't
remember the name. I do remember that this book says you're wrong again.



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.

Just what? 98%. That's as close to all for me, and like I just said the
book that just came out says otherwise too.


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.

So says a white man. That doesn't make it true because here's another
white man, me, saying it's still not near fair yet. And my word is worth
much more than yours.

Hawke