Brockadia
09-08-2005, 23:56
I'm beginning to wonder if left and right-wing economics - or at least the ideals toward which they strive - aren't really just the same thing. Here's what I think that ideal is:
Complete fairness to and equal opportunity to everybody, at every point in their lives. This means that how far a person gets in life should only ever depend on two things: How smart and intelligent that person is, and how hard they work. Whether the person is white or black, male or female, was born in a ghetto or in a mansion should make no difference whatsoever. What this also means is that at every stage in a person's life, they should be able to start from scratch and work their way up: If someone makes bad decisions as a teenager or in their early adulthood, they shouldn't have to pay for them for the entire rest of their lives.
The debate is on how to achieve that ideal, but the problem is, both sides are going off on these huge tangents and have forgotten the base ideal completely. The right is hung up on dishing out money to corporations in hopes that they will create more jobs, while the left is hung up on dishing it out to unemployed people in hopes that they will get jobs. Both sides have completely lost sight of this "equal opportunity" ideal. As it stands right now, the United States is farther from this ideal, which is supposed to be the backbone of capitalism, than any socialist country is. The vast majority of the money in the United States is held in the hands of rich white men whose fathers were rich white men and whose grandfathers were rich white men, etc. A disproportionate amount of unemployed people are black and hispanic, while a dispropotionate amount of money is in the hands of caucasians. This racial disparity isn't the worst part of it, though: American culture not only condones, but encourages unfairness and inequality of opportunity! The country's public schools are among the worst of any industrialized nation, while the private schools are among the best. In order to have equal opportunity, every single person should have the right to the exact same education regardless of how much money their parents made. It is an undeniable fact that the people who graduate from private schools get better jobs on average than those who don't, and it is an undeniable fact that there are students - a lot of students who are smart enough, intelligent enough, and work hard enough to go to these schools, but cannot because their parents don't have the money, and they just aren't quite smart enough to get a scholarship, so they have to go to community college instead, or no college at all, and become a blue-collar worker while other students in well-to-do families who don't work as hard and aren't as intelligent take their places at these private schools and get good jobs. No, that may not be true in every single case, but it cannot be denied that where you end up in life depends at least as much on how much money your parents made as it does on how smart and hardworking you are. It should not be that way.
Another problem with both sides is the entire idea of welfare, and tied into that, oddly enough, is worker's unions. Because of unions, the country is filled with lazy assholes who do the minimum possible amount of work, contributing virtually nothing to the company they work for, when they could easily be fired and replaced by someone more deserving of the job who doesn't have one and is on welfare. That being said, welfare itself needs to be redesigned. If these people are making money, there must be something they can do in exchange for it. Some people (single moms, disabled people) would be exempt, but the government spends enough money on civil servants, why not simply employ the people who are on welfare? It's nothing but win-win: the people get valuable job experience, they get enough money to live at least somewhat comfortably, and they are given a decent opportunity to get back on their feet. In addition, I think that any people who are on welfare and not well educated should be given the opportunity to finish high school or community college on the government's dime as a part of the civil servant/welfare plan. This would help them even more, allowing them to become even more productive members of society.
Yet another problem with the current system is health care. On this one, however, I have to side with the left. Privatized health care again is doing nothing but removing all sense of balance and fairness. If a person is smarter and works harder than another person, then yes, that person is entitled to a better lifestyle, but that doesn't mean the other person shouldn't be able to get free prescriptions and health care: why should a person be worse off financially just because he contracted some disease or infection? A person or family can easily be ruined financially by having to pay for health care, and that shouldn't have to happen to them just because they were unlucky enough to get whatever disease afflicted them. Someone else who works just as hard now has more money just because he was lucky enough not to have to pay for an operation or medications - that isn't right. It also isn't right that someone who works a little bit harder should be treated first or should have any better chance of having his life saved.
Complete fairness to and equal opportunity to everybody, at every point in their lives. This means that how far a person gets in life should only ever depend on two things: How smart and intelligent that person is, and how hard they work. Whether the person is white or black, male or female, was born in a ghetto or in a mansion should make no difference whatsoever. What this also means is that at every stage in a person's life, they should be able to start from scratch and work their way up: If someone makes bad decisions as a teenager or in their early adulthood, they shouldn't have to pay for them for the entire rest of their lives.
The debate is on how to achieve that ideal, but the problem is, both sides are going off on these huge tangents and have forgotten the base ideal completely. The right is hung up on dishing out money to corporations in hopes that they will create more jobs, while the left is hung up on dishing it out to unemployed people in hopes that they will get jobs. Both sides have completely lost sight of this "equal opportunity" ideal. As it stands right now, the United States is farther from this ideal, which is supposed to be the backbone of capitalism, than any socialist country is. The vast majority of the money in the United States is held in the hands of rich white men whose fathers were rich white men and whose grandfathers were rich white men, etc. A disproportionate amount of unemployed people are black and hispanic, while a dispropotionate amount of money is in the hands of caucasians. This racial disparity isn't the worst part of it, though: American culture not only condones, but encourages unfairness and inequality of opportunity! The country's public schools are among the worst of any industrialized nation, while the private schools are among the best. In order to have equal opportunity, every single person should have the right to the exact same education regardless of how much money their parents made. It is an undeniable fact that the people who graduate from private schools get better jobs on average than those who don't, and it is an undeniable fact that there are students - a lot of students who are smart enough, intelligent enough, and work hard enough to go to these schools, but cannot because their parents don't have the money, and they just aren't quite smart enough to get a scholarship, so they have to go to community college instead, or no college at all, and become a blue-collar worker while other students in well-to-do families who don't work as hard and aren't as intelligent take their places at these private schools and get good jobs. No, that may not be true in every single case, but it cannot be denied that where you end up in life depends at least as much on how much money your parents made as it does on how smart and hardworking you are. It should not be that way.
Another problem with both sides is the entire idea of welfare, and tied into that, oddly enough, is worker's unions. Because of unions, the country is filled with lazy assholes who do the minimum possible amount of work, contributing virtually nothing to the company they work for, when they could easily be fired and replaced by someone more deserving of the job who doesn't have one and is on welfare. That being said, welfare itself needs to be redesigned. If these people are making money, there must be something they can do in exchange for it. Some people (single moms, disabled people) would be exempt, but the government spends enough money on civil servants, why not simply employ the people who are on welfare? It's nothing but win-win: the people get valuable job experience, they get enough money to live at least somewhat comfortably, and they are given a decent opportunity to get back on their feet. In addition, I think that any people who are on welfare and not well educated should be given the opportunity to finish high school or community college on the government's dime as a part of the civil servant/welfare plan. This would help them even more, allowing them to become even more productive members of society.
Yet another problem with the current system is health care. On this one, however, I have to side with the left. Privatized health care again is doing nothing but removing all sense of balance and fairness. If a person is smarter and works harder than another person, then yes, that person is entitled to a better lifestyle, but that doesn't mean the other person shouldn't be able to get free prescriptions and health care: why should a person be worse off financially just because he contracted some disease or infection? A person or family can easily be ruined financially by having to pay for health care, and that shouldn't have to happen to them just because they were unlucky enough to get whatever disease afflicted them. Someone else who works just as hard now has more money just because he was lucky enough not to have to pay for an operation or medications - that isn't right. It also isn't right that someone who works a little bit harder should be treated first or should have any better chance of having his life saved.