Quote:
Originally Posted by Jim in CT
Scott and detbuch, you keep stating that I'm advocating for equality of outcome. Not even close.
A made-up, hypothetical scenario. Lat's say it costs $500,000 to open a McDonalds. Let's say my friends were able to save that much. But all of a sudden, that $500k is wiped out to pay for catastrophic medical expenses. In that case, because of the specific event which they had no control over, let's assume there was a federal program that picked up that tab.
Now he has the $500k to open a McDonalds. I am not suggesting, in any way, that his success should be guaranteed. If the business fails because he is incompetent, or lazy, or because he blows the money betting on college football, or because a better businessman opens up a Burger King across the street, I would never say that society has a responsibility to provide him the wealth he could not acquire.
Say there are 2 identical famillies who want to open a McDonalds. Each family has squirreled away the $500k to pay the fees. Family A has an unforseen medical situation that wipes out their savings. I don't think that Family B 'deserves' the opportunity to open a McDonalds any more than family A does. I'd like to see them both have the same chance to succeed.
Opportunity. Not outcome.
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See, your overlooking the pre-existing condition that people have, as you say, "zero control" over. The most obvious one in the case of your hypothetical scenario is that there are no two "identical" families. Unless by some rare twist identical twin brothers married identical twin sisters. But even in that event differences would occur through nature and nurture. So if it takes equal identity to create equal opportunity ... well, you get the picture.
But, if in your scenario what makes the families identical is that they both saved up $500k so that they both had the same financial opportunity to open a McDonalds, but one lost the money due to uncontrollable circumstances, it would only be "fair" for the rest of society to make the losing family whole by giving them a $500K gift from the rest of us . . . umm, that is problematic. Are you assuming that the rest of us have the "opportunity" to save $500K? What about the many somebodies that are born into families that lack such attitudes of thrift or potential to even earn that amount? What about the individual that didn't have the "opportunity" to earn the $500K due to family background, negative inherited capabilities, and so on that he had no control over? If he/she wanted to open a McDonalds should the rest of us give him/her the $500K gift? Are you saying that if we all put in a few extra bucks into some anti-catastrophic fund it would cover the massive potential of payouts to "deserving" recipients to do what they wish but are not capable because of things they had no control over.
And if the federal gvt. owns this insurance fund, will it even restrict itself to whatever minimal enumerations you limit it to which you think would make this fund fair and operable? The evidence is, as you might say, "irrefutable" that it wouldn't. This sort of "fairness," of so-called "equal opportunity" is what gives the federal leviathan the legitimacy to totally control our lives.