High status of birth = prep school education = standing out in applying to top colleges (plus tons of international travel) = (great contacts + prestige + better recruitment opportunities) = better experience = high status
Rinse, lather, repeat generationally.
Even a mongoloid like GWB can be on top in this rigged game.
No one ran around asking the various European nobility about their personal qualifications before removing their titles and privileges precisely for this reason. Of course they would be more qualified on paper (and maybe even in reality)...they were the only people in the game.
It's precisely the attitude you are giving that is leading to the slow death of social mobility in the U.S. (that's not my opinion...the Conservative British journal "The Economist" had a magazine devoted to the subject).
If you're looking for a politician who came from dirt poor without any connections, then, Bill Clinton is your man.
Not Howard Dean, Not John Kerry, Not Al Gore.
Let me remind you that we live in the United States of America. Why in the world would you penalize a high achieving person who happens to be born out of a Highly Successful Family?
We are all here to be the best we can be. To go for your full potential. Any responsible & loving parent would encourage their children to reach for the stars & even provide them with all the tools to prepare their child. That's any parent regardless if they were Democrat or Republican, Liberal or Conservative.
Either you're a person with NO KIDS & would NEVER understand or you're one of those people who have this attitude of " I HATE SUCCESSFUL PEOPLE", " I HATE ALL RICH PEOPLE".
Yes, you provide all the "tools"...congrats. At the same time this makes sure that a brighter and more capable kid unlucky enough to be born to lesser parents loses out.
Let me put it to you this way. If your kids are so great...why do they need your status to get them ahead? Isn't their innate ability and merit going to make them "high achievers" or "successful"? Aren't you insulting them by not trusting their brilliance?
Or is it that you know there are better, smarter, or more capable people out there and you need to make sure those bastards don't have a level playing field?
If the level of the field is such that everyone gets medical care, housing, food, a chance at a decent job etc. then yes I should feel guilty giving my kids extra advantages. If on the otherhand it's a field reduced to a social darwinist heaven then I am not going to feel guilty giving my kids a leg up.
But in both cases I need to support and work for a cooperative rather than a competitive winner take all reality. In both cases I need to work for that level field where all are protected and where all abilities are used for moving society forward in harmony with the planet, etc. etc.
Yeap, it implies that we within the blogosphere are partisan. You know what I think of that? Good. Being a partisan Democrat is a step up from being a typical Democrat because the latter will always be castigated and pidgeonholed by the right (e.g. "you don't know where they stand on the issues") and as a result, the typical Dem will compromise their values in order to appease perception amongst the elitists within the media and rightwing punditry circles in a vain attempt to "grab the center" for votes. That's the DLC strategy and Hilary Clinton milks it for everything it's worth. Thus, she's not very popular with us in the blogosphere because of her penchant for sanctimony and demagoguery -- she'll use any "old school" crutch such as "Deadbeat Dads" and "Mortal Kombat Creates Child-Killers" just to get elected even if facts surrounding those crutches are wrong. She and Joe Lieberman share the same cerebrum (as well as membership cards with L. Brent Bozell's PTC organization).
On the other hand, you won't ever hear that "you don't know where they stand on the issues" line when the media and the rightwing attack dogs discuss partisan because partisans won't waste time telling you where they stand on the issues (commonly laced with a liberal supply of choice expletives) and certainly won't apologize for them either. Unlike Dick Durbin who'd gladly pluck out his spinal collumn and hand it over to the Republicans as if it were contraband, partisan Democrats will pluck out their spinal collumns only to wave it proudly in the air as if it were a flag and say, "Ooooh, look what I have here - it's a spine! And I don't need a permission slip to brandish it!" In reponse, the media and the rightwing attack dogs approach partisans by sliming and castigating them (e.g. "This guy is off the chart left!") because they know they can't defeat them in a heated issues debate (as evidenced by Wolf Blitzer's recent exasperated sigh after getting schooled by Howard Dean).
How did that success come? I'm not going to fall for the usual excuses trucked out on AM Radio by the likes of Rush Limbaugh and Neil Boorts such as "They worked hard", "pulled themselves up by their bootstraps", and the like. I won't fall for them because they're bullshit. They don't tell the whole story. Their success has more to do with either good fortune, luck, and/or text-book exploitation of the masses by prostating themselves at the feet of Mammon - the Great Balaam of Capitalism - than it does with actual work. Although Capitalism has been the engine of our nation for some time now, it is also the very engine that can not survive unless it divides, conquers, and exploits the people. It must divide the people into camps (Compact Cars Vs. SUVs; $20 Vs. $120 tennis shoes; "haves" Vs. "have-nots") in order to maintain it's own relevence and distract people from noticing the values it espouses: cronyism, corruption, greed, selfishness, rougery, tyranny.
And why not loath them? How is it that in a country of 300 Million people, the upper 1-7% get more stroke, more privlege, more access, etc. than the remainder? How is it that such a minority can systematically run roughshod or the majority time and time again? Where would the rich be at if they didn't have an underclass to exploit?!? Simple -- they'd be in the same place the Religious Right would be if it weren't for their ACLU meal ticket: scratching their asses while standing in a welfare/unemployment line! Forget the fully loaded Lexuses, SUVs, Rolls Royces, and multi-million vacation homes. They would be living in a van down by the river. Considering the ever widening gap between the "haves" and "have-nots" in this country, I've got very bad news for the Rich: history shows us via the Roman empiracism and European colonialism that it's a very, very, dangerous thing to be surrounded by a bunch of poor people with nothing left to lose. A gun is a poor man's lawyer. A lawyer is a rich man's gun.
I would agree and, interestingly enough, comedian George Carlin was a guest on Don Imus recently and he was asked about how he felt regarding how starkly divided the nation is. Carlin said that the corruption of the GOP, the incompetence of Bush regarding Katrina, and the borderline complicit/complacent nature of the Democrats have created a virulent melting pot at the individual/citizen level where there's simply way too much competition and not enough cooperation. The scales need to tip over in the latter area soon to balance everything out or we're in for an upheaval that'll make the 1960s look tame.
But electing people who got there by connections and a family name is insipid. The only reason Evan Bayh is where he is is because Daddy was where he was.
I would note that we regularly, as a country laugh at supposed "democracies" like Pakistan (or the Perons of Argentina) where the Presidency shuffles between a couple of dynastic clans who utilize connections and wealth to be placed on the ballot.
Yet here we are in the US, with literally two decades where the Presidency has bounced back and forth between to immediate families, and you're demanding we all enjoy making it three.
So who are we to call Pakistan a joke anymore?
I suppose you are also one of those who feel affirmative action was vile because it discriminated against white people? Or that eliminating inherited nobility was a vile intrusion on private property and tradition?
I also love how you munge "rich" with birth and/or connections. I already noted the difference, which you pretended to not see and kept arguing the strawman.
We have a society which is moving more and more into a de-facto aristocracy, with de jure structures which pretend everyone has opportunity. Just like when technically a minority was equal under the law, except that numerous social and economic structures made that untrue in reality. We instituted affirmative action understanding that nothing short some reverse discrimination would break those de facto structures. Same here.
She is nothing more than a rather dirty political animal with expensive makeup.
But I also said:
I would vote for her if she was running against Bush
Believe me, I could say far worse things about a politician. There was just no excuse for Democratsin06 08 to give me a one for that. I give people a lot of leeway when they say things I don't like. That's why I can honestly call myself a liberal.
