bucs90
Gold Member
- Feb 25, 2010
- 26,545
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Saw the following quote in another thread:
"Your apparent definition of leftism isn't remotely accurate. To go for as uncontroversial and official a defintion as possible, we turn to the dictionary where a leftist is described as: "someone who seeks radical social and economic change in the direction of greater equality. "
Leftist | Define Leftist at Dictionary.com"
I thought about it, and pondered a wonderful debate. The left, it seems, wants a large government to guarantee social equality, while the right, it seems, would rather have the freedom to succeed above what others may attain. Very general, but for debate and the above definition, it seems the farther left we get, the more "equality" becomes a catch phrase, and to the right we get more "freedom" used as a term.
So, this question is mostly for lefties. Can we have equality?
What if we could construct a government that guaranteed equal income for all citizens? Every citizen in the USA would make $60,000 a year. I'm sure we have enough $$ in the USA to make that happen. No more, no less.
Every citizen would get free, gov't provided healthcare. No costs, ever, for any treatment.
Every citizen would get free school. College and high school. And housing.
But would we not then bicker about other "inequalities"? Some would have to live in apartments, while others in houses. Not fair? Lets say we somehow made that fair. Others would whine about their school not being as nice, which we already have in public education.
But lets say by some miracle, all public schools were made equal. Somehow we accomplish that ultimate educational dream.
Would folks then not complain that their comfort levels are not equal? That why do they have to live in Akron, OH, and not San Diego, CA?? Because remember, with equal pay, home prices would be nearly equal, so everyone would want to live in the nicer areas. With no rich people, and no poor people, we'd all be middle class. Who gets to live in the ocean front homes, and who gets stuck in Southwest Atlanta?????
But lets say somehow, some miraculous way, we made all 300,000,000 US citizens equal in pay, education, employment, housing, healthcare. We delivered the total utopian dream!!!
Would we not then have folks crying inequality in stuff like attractiveness of wives? Sounds silly, but imagine everyone is equal, in all aspects of life except physical appearance. Wouldn't the fat single people claim discrimination by the thin people who won't date them? We damn near have that going on now.
Can't we just face a fact: Envy is human nature. We cannot provide total equality. But we can provide equal opportunity. We cannot provide an equal starting point. But we can provide an unlimited stopping point. Somewhere out there are 2 kids born today, 1 kid is born into wealth, another into poverty, and in 40 years, the poor kid will be rich and the rich kid will be poor, because of personal decisions.
So, can we provide total equality?
"Your apparent definition of leftism isn't remotely accurate. To go for as uncontroversial and official a defintion as possible, we turn to the dictionary where a leftist is described as: "someone who seeks radical social and economic change in the direction of greater equality. "
Leftist | Define Leftist at Dictionary.com"
I thought about it, and pondered a wonderful debate. The left, it seems, wants a large government to guarantee social equality, while the right, it seems, would rather have the freedom to succeed above what others may attain. Very general, but for debate and the above definition, it seems the farther left we get, the more "equality" becomes a catch phrase, and to the right we get more "freedom" used as a term.
So, this question is mostly for lefties. Can we have equality?
What if we could construct a government that guaranteed equal income for all citizens? Every citizen in the USA would make $60,000 a year. I'm sure we have enough $$ in the USA to make that happen. No more, no less.
Every citizen would get free, gov't provided healthcare. No costs, ever, for any treatment.
Every citizen would get free school. College and high school. And housing.
But would we not then bicker about other "inequalities"? Some would have to live in apartments, while others in houses. Not fair? Lets say we somehow made that fair. Others would whine about their school not being as nice, which we already have in public education.
But lets say by some miracle, all public schools were made equal. Somehow we accomplish that ultimate educational dream.
Would folks then not complain that their comfort levels are not equal? That why do they have to live in Akron, OH, and not San Diego, CA?? Because remember, with equal pay, home prices would be nearly equal, so everyone would want to live in the nicer areas. With no rich people, and no poor people, we'd all be middle class. Who gets to live in the ocean front homes, and who gets stuck in Southwest Atlanta?????
But lets say somehow, some miraculous way, we made all 300,000,000 US citizens equal in pay, education, employment, housing, healthcare. We delivered the total utopian dream!!!
Would we not then have folks crying inequality in stuff like attractiveness of wives? Sounds silly, but imagine everyone is equal, in all aspects of life except physical appearance. Wouldn't the fat single people claim discrimination by the thin people who won't date them? We damn near have that going on now.
Can't we just face a fact: Envy is human nature. We cannot provide total equality. But we can provide equal opportunity. We cannot provide an equal starting point. But we can provide an unlimited stopping point. Somewhere out there are 2 kids born today, 1 kid is born into wealth, another into poverty, and in 40 years, the poor kid will be rich and the rich kid will be poor, because of personal decisions.
So, can we provide total equality?