This is an interesting comment to me. Why would not being wealthy move you in any way? Why is wealthy a reason to every change core values? Why is wealth that important?
I'm not wealthy and figured out years ago that I'm either not capable of being wealthy or not willing to make the sacrifices it takes. But I did figure out how to live inside my means AND enjoy life at the same time. Not pointing specifically at you here THS but I do think this is the problem with our current society and it bleeds over into every social and political aspect. I'm not going to own a business, be in the top 1% or even be able to do everything I'd like to do before I die. That's ok. What I do own is mine and I've either already paid for it or am currently paying for it.
I wish we as a society could focus more on obtaining a higher quality WITHOUT having to be wealthy.
This is a really interesting point.
You want to see an ardent Republican? Take somebody from a poor background and let them get rich, particularly if they make it on their own.
It's easy to talk about redistributing the wealth when it's not your wealth that's being redistributed. When you have money all of a sudden it's easy to see the inherent unfairness in taking away what you worked and slaved and sacrificed to earn to give it to someone who had the same opportunity and by bad luck or poor choices didn't achieve what you did.
The entire concept of "leveling the field" is socialist at its core. It's Animal Farm and it will never, ever, ever, ever work. What does work and has been proven time after time is seeing someone make their way out as an example.
The problems we have now? We've developed a culture of expectation. Even within the last generation. When I turned 16 I hoped I'd have a car to drive when my parents weren't using it. That was less than optimal. I wanted my own car so I got a job, got a loan (with dad's help) and bought my own. Used 65 Mustang that took some work to get to where I wanted it to be. My kids? They started looking when they were 15 to see what kind of car they might want to be given. And I gave them cars. All of their friends were given cars, many of them new. One of my best friends got a second job so he could pay for his son's car. At no point did it cross his mind to make his son work to pay for it -- even though he, like me, had gotten a job at 16 in order to be able to have his own car.
It's no longer enough for so many to have opportunity. They want immediate results. Nice apartment, nice car, new furniture... right out of the gate.
When I tried college the first time, I lived in a filthy rathole because it was all I could afford. My kids? Swank gated apartment complex with two pools, a rec room, a gym, a spa, volleyball courts, grilling areas...
The idea of sacrifice and saving has been rendered moot. Doing without is for the other suckers. And if that means Prowler thinks I should give up 40% of the money I WORK for? Well, that's just too bad for me. It doesn't matter that for the first three or four years after I started my business I worked 18-20 hours a day, maxed out all my credit cards to keep things going, missed time with my girls, and couldn't always get them the things we needed because I was sacrificing those things in order to build the business. He doesn't care that there was a point about three years in where the economy struggled, some of the states with which we had contracts froze their spending and I was literally two or three weeks at most from not being able to make it through. That doesn't matter. Some people don't make as much as I do, so I should give up the money I earned so we can all be closer to even.
I say FUCK that. I've contributed to it. I've raised kids who haven't learned the hard lessons of survival. I'm ashamed of that. But at least I've raised them to try to solve their own problems and not look to government to do it.
Unfortunately we've devolved as a society. When I was a kid and I saw people who lived in big houses and had nice things I thought to myself "what do I have to do so I can have those things too?" Today, the Prowlers of the world look at people who have more and think "what can I do to take away from them so we all have the same things..." It's a diseased mindset. Penalizing people who achieve more is backward thinking.
I agree with Token. Far too many people these days are obsessed with and jealous of what others have when they should instead be grateful for their own lives. "The poor" in this country would be considered fat and wealthy in 90% of the rest of the world.
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