“We’ve never begrudged success in
America. We aspire to it. We admire folks who start new businesses,
create jobs, and invent the products that enrich our lives. And we expect them to be rewarded handsomely
for it. In fact, we've often accepted
more income inequality than many other nations for one big reason -- because we
were convinced that America is a place where even if you’re born with nothing,
with a little hard work you can improve your own situation over time and build
something better to leave your kids. As
Lincoln once said, “While we do not propose any war upon capital, we do wish to
allow the humblest man an equal chance to get rich with everybody else.”
The problem is that alongside increased
inequality, we’ve seen diminished levels of upward mobility in recent
years. A child born in the top 20
percent has about a 66% chance of staying at or near the top. A child born into the bottom 20 percent has a
less than 5% shot at making it to the top. The idea that a child may never be
able to escape that poverty because she lacks a decent education or health
care, or a community that views her future as their own, that should offend all
of us and it should compel us to action.
We are a better country than this.”
-- Barack Obama
Yes Mr. President, we are a better country than this, but only because
of the original American dream, our work ethic, and our dogged determination
and persistence. Calvin Coolidge is credited with saying “Nothing in this world
can take the place of persistence. Talent will not: nothing is more common than
unsuccessful men with talent. Genius will not; unrewarded genius is almost a
proverb. Education will not: the world is full of educated derelicts.
Persistence and determination alone are omnipotent.”
So when you say that “a child may never escape poverty because she
lacks a decent education or healthcare,” I don’t buy it. People who want to
succeed, do succeed, because it’s in their DNA and upbringing; they ALWAYS find
a way. If you and your party continue to tell them they can’t, they won’t. Your
message to them should be “get out there and make it happen for yourself. Dig
in and never, never quit.” Your statement that you can be “born with nothing...but
with a little hard work you can improve your own situation over time,” is
incorrect. It takes a lot of hard work sir, a lot.
My paternal grandparents were immigrants, making my father the first
generation of his family born in the U.S. My grandfather knew that many doors
to opportunity were closed to him because he was an immigrant, but he knew that
his hard work and sacrifice would open many, if not all, of those doors for his
children. The American dream has been perverted from “I want to insure my
children have opportunities to succeed that were not available to me” to “I
want my children to have it easier that I had it.”
It’s not about income inequality, it’s about civic irresponsibility. It’s
about a political party telling poor people that it’s not their fault and
making them into victims to win elective office. The rationale is to vote
Democrat because they are the party that will take from those who make more and
give to those who make less. It is a philosophy that deviates from American
values and common sense because it ends up benefiting the people who support
it, but don’t contribute to it. You have not empowered your followers and
supporters; you have enslaved them in a culture of dependence and entitlement,
of victim-hood and anger instead of ability and hope.
Your premise on income seeks to deny the successful the consequences of
their choices and spare the unsuccessful the consequences of theirs. Because, by and large, income
variations in society are the result of different choices leading to different
consequences. Those who choose wisely
and responsibility have a far greater likelihood of success, while those who
choose foolishly and irresponsibly have a far greater likelihood of
failure. Success and failure usually
manifest themselves in personal and family income.
If you choose to drop out of high school or to skip college then you
are apt to have a different outcome than someone who gets a diploma and pushes
on with purposeful education and/or employment. If you have your children when
you are too young to support them, your life, and the lives of your children,
are apt to take one course; if you wait until you have the financial stability
to have children, your life is apt to take another course. Most often in life
our destination is determined by the choices we make which determines the course
we take.
My oldest son and his wife are both doctors, and both of them make far
more than I do so there is significant income inequality between us. Our lives have had an inequality of outcome,
but, our lives also have had an inequality of effort. While my son and daughter-in-law both invested
12 years of their lives to undergraduate studies, medical school and
internships and waited to have children. I joined the military at 18, and had
my children very young. Neither choice was “right” or “wrong”, they were simply
choices with different paths and outcomes.
They made a choice, I made a choice, and our choices led us to
different outcomes. And, while I am doing well financially, their outcome still
pays a lot better than mine. Does that mean they cheated and it is your job to
take away their wealth? No, it means we
are all free people in a free society where free choices lead to different
outcomes.
The motivation to work hard is being bred out of our society because
you either a) work hard and enjoy success, but face the punitive hand of
government if your pursuit brings you more happiness than others, or b) do
little or nothing and make a lifetime of shortsighted decisions, in which case
the government will take from others to give you what you need.
Equality of outcome is not a right, because it completely ignores
inequality of effort. The simple Law of
the Harvest – as ye sow, so shall ye reap – is sometimes applied as, “The
harder you work, the more you get.” You
and your party would turn that upside down; those who achieve are to be
punished as enemies of society and those who fail are to be rewarded as wards
of society.
You are seeking to replace effort as the key to upward mobility in
American society by treating the symptoms, but not dealing with the root cause
of the illness. You are continuing down the path of your predecessors, both
Democrat and Republican, in creating government programs that address the
exceptions, or squeaky wheels, rather than the majority. In doing so, you are
killing off their desire to work as hard as needed, for as long as needed, to
join the rest of us in the meaty portion of the bell curve.
America is not divided by the differences in our outcomes, it is
divided by the differences in our efforts.
It is a false philosophy to say one man’s success comes about
unavoidably as the result of another man’s victimization. The Democrats do not offer
a fair solution, only separatism. They foment division and strife, pitting one
set of Americans against another for their own political benefit.
Two Americas, coming closer each day to proving the truth to Lincoln’s
maxim that a house divided against itself cannot stand.
